|
 he challenges in the dry areas are many and varied in their intensity to constrain agriculture for the resource-poor farmer.
Underlying these challenges is, however, a common factor--water, or at least scarcity of this precious commodity. It is now generally accepted that allocation of water for agricultural production will come under increasing pressure from competing industrial and domestic demand in all countries.
And the impact of this will nowhere be greater than in the dry areas of the developing world, which are witnessing increasing population growth and urbanization. The freshwater currently available per capita in the West Asia and North Africa region is only 1045 cubic meters as against 3568 cu m in Western Europe and 9529 cu m in North America. Expanding populations in WANA will cause extra pressure on available supplies.
ICARDA has devoted considerable attention to developing improved water-harvesting systems. There were many ancient systems that well served the needs of days gone by. Modern techniques, including GIS, satellite positioning systems, computerized mapping and modeling techniques, allow today's hydrologists to plan water catchment schemes close to a peak of efficiency undreamed of by the original designers of such systems.
Technical specialists at ICARDA are working to safeguard supplies of water for both domestic and agricultural uses through better collection or 'harvesting' and conservation. The importance of water in the dry areas means this issue of Caravan is almost entirely devoted to water issues. It reports on a new ICARDA project in a resource-poor village where the only water supply comes via a 1500-year-old qanat, now in danger of drying up due to lack of maintenance. This project will show how low-cost, proven methods of water collection and distribution can be used effectively to enhance quality of life, provided local people are fully involved as stakeholders in projects.
Non-conventional sources of water will have to be tapped to meet the needs of agriculture in dry areas.
|
|
