Underground Taming of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI), an IWMI/WLE/CCAFS project, involves diverting water flows from rivers or canals at times when these flows pose a flood risk to recharge the groundwater via village ponds or small dams, which are modified for this purpose.
Almost 300 researchers and practitioners attended Seeds of Change, an interdisciplinary conference on gender equality in agricultural research for development. WLE/IWMI and affiliated researchers contribute to sessions and discussions of three day event.
WLE, through its lead partner IWMI, contributed to joint FAO-WHO initiatives to reduce foodborne antimicrobial resistance and improve the safety of wastewater reuse.
More than 300 actors, including technicians and decision makers from six departments in western Honduras have benefited from the Honduras Water platform [Agua de Honduras], co-developed by CIAT’s Agroecosystems and Sustainable Landscapes (ASL) and Decision and Policy Analysis (DAPA) research areas, with WLE support.
The Early Carrier Hydrogeologists’ Network has developed a video on the global issues of water scarcity, specifically calling for protecting groundwater and promoting proper exploitation in order to provide a safe living space for our children and the most vulnerable people.
Much of the developing world, including Sri Lanka, is facing an organic waste challenge, but the right economic incentives and business models can help turn waste into food and energy, WLE/IWMI told a recent business forum in Colombo.
A delegation from Makueni County, Kenya went on an exchange visit to Tigray, Ethiopia to see integrated landscape restoration approaches in action and learn some lessons for restoring watersheds in their own county.
There is a growing global consensus about the critical importance of groundwater for sustainable development and climate change adaptation. The World Economic Forum, in its Global Risks Report 2019, stresses for the first time that depletion of this critical resource is causing megacities to sink, with significant risks to water security and resilience, while also threatening food production systems.
Following the successful debut of index-based flood insurance (IBFI) in India’s Bihar State during 2017, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and its partners have continued their search for ways to make this tool more effective in helping farm families manage disaster risk. Bihar is the country’s most flood-prone state, with about 40 million hectares subject to periodic flooding.
IWMI/WLE contributed to and ran sessions at the 13th International Conference on Dryland Development, brought together national and international stakeholders to discuss sustainable dryland development under the theme “Converting Dryland Areas from Grey into Green.”
IWMI director general Claudia Sadoff was a guest of honor, addressing the inaugural session and also making a plenary presentation titled ”Water security and sustainable growth in the drylands.”
IWMI and ICAR organized a mini symposium during the conference to foster knowledge exchange among researchers on the present status and future prospects of water productivity in the drylands. The symposium aimed at framing a strategy to boost water productivity and mainstream it in drylands at scale through appropriate institutional frameworks and policies
Alok Sikka co-chaired a technical session on “Soil Health Management, Carbon Sequestration and Conservation Agriculture.”
Tushaar Shah presented on groundwater governance challenges in arid areas. Alok and Tushaar also presented at sessions related to water harvesting and water productivity.
