Clean freshwater is essential to sustain life, enable development, and support a healthy environment. Due to population and economic growth, water demand for household, industrial, and agricultural uses is increasing, while watersheds and irrigated land are deteriorating, and ground and surface water pollution is increasing. In much of the developing world, growing urban and industrial water demand will require transfers of water from agricultural uses, threatening food production and rural livelihoods.

Policymakers need to work toward making existing irrigation and water supply systems more efficient, equitable, and environmentally benign in order to mitigate growing pressures on water resources and enhance access by the poor to the increasingly valuable resource. Policymakers also need to address water pollution through improved water quality management as poor water quality limits the availability of water for some uses and affects the health of poor populations in developing countries. Water policy analysis under this project is carried out at four levels through which water scarcity (both quantity and quality) can fundamentally influence food production, rural livelihoods, and the environment: the global and regional level; the river-basin level; the local or irrigation-system level; and the national level.

Goals and Objectives

In the face of growing water scarcity, the primary goal of this project is to reduce poverty by improving overall water use efficiency in developing countries, while at the same time improving water quality, reducing the degradation of irrigated land, maintaining food security, and improving access to water by the poor. This project will provide policymakers with options for redressing growing water scarcity and water quality challenges through more efficient allocation of water and improved water management among sectors and within the agricultural sector, under global change.

Specific objectives for this project are:

• to develop policies and investment options for improving water allocation mechanisms at the local system, and river-basin level that contribute to productivity, equity, and environmental goals;
• to develop practical modeling tools that can be used by water planning agencies to estimate the economic value of water and analyze the consequences of different water allocation and management policies on water and food outcomes; and
• to enhance national capacity to analyze the consequences of water policy options.

Contribution to Challenge and Systemwide Programs

This project links to “Global Drivers and Processes of Change”--Topic 4 of the Challenge Program on Water and Food Phase II research program. Part of this project also relates to Sub-theme 1: Global Food and Natural Resources: Strategies and Policies for Adapting to Global Change. This project also includes the coordinator of CAPRi and links to and builds on IFPRI’s leadership of CAPRi, particularly in addressing issues related to water use rights systems, collective action; and, more generally, water governance systems.