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Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetObservations and key messages on Nature-Based Solutions for agricultural water management and food security 2018
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No results found.Food and agricultural systems are under a set of pressures to feed an increasingly hungry population and to cope with an intensifying competition over natural, human and financial resources, all subject to impacts of climate change. The natural resource base is already degraded to significant levels, and ‘’business as usual’’ is no longer an option. FAO has been emphasizing the need to accelerate a global transition to sustainable food and agriculture systems, advocating an integrated approach to ensure sustainability in production and subsequent value chains processes, taking into account the sustainable management of natural resources, and water resources in particular. This document focuses on the management of water for agricultural use, which holds the largest share of total water demand for many countries as illustrated by Figure 1. Moreover, for many countries, the prospects of improving water availability under changing climatic conditions remain a challenge, as both droughts and flood hazards are expected to increase. Conventional interventions founded on ‘hard’ water engineering and infrastructural development provided valuable lessons but often showed that they compromise the very ecosystem services that are required for stable water flows. Hence, calls for a paradigm shift in water management are justified and should be a priority on the political agendas. -
Book (series)Nature-Based Solutions for Agricultural Water Management and Food Security 2018
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No results found.Accessibility to clean and sufficient water resources for agriculture is key in feeding the steadily increasing world population in a sustainable manner. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) offer a promising contribution to enhance availability and quality of water for productive purposes and human consumption, while simultaneously striving to preserve the integrity and intrinsic value of the ecosystems. Implementing successful NBS for water management, however, is not an easy task since many ecosystems are already severely degraded, and exploited beyond their regenerative capacity. Furthermore, ecosystems are large and complex and the many stakeholders involved might have conflicting interests. Hence, implementation of NBS requires a structured and comprehensive approach that starts with the valuation of the services provided by the ecosystem. The whole set of use and non-use values, in monetary terms, provides a factual basis to guide the implementation of NBS, which ideally is done according to transdisciplinary principles, i.e. complemented with scientific and case-specific knowledge of the eco-system in an adaptive decision-making process that involves the relevant stakeholders. This discussion paper evaluated twenty-one NBS case studies using a non-representative sample, to learn from successful and failed experiences and to identify possible causalities among factors that characterize the implementation of NBS. The case studies give a minor role to valuation of ecosystem services, an area for which the literature is still developing guidance. Less successful water management projects tend to suffer from inadequate factual and scientific basis and uncoordinated or insufficient stakeholder involvement and lack of long term planning. Successful case studies point to satisfactory understanding of the functioning of ecosystems and importance of multi-stakeholder platforms, well-identified funding schemes, realistic monitoring and evaluation systems and endurance of its promoters. -
PresentationNature-based Solutions for Agricultural Water Management – Key-findings of the UN World Water Development Report
Webinar 5: Nature-based solutions for agricultural water management and food security
2018Also available in:
No results found.The 2018 edition of the World Water Development Report seeks to inform policy and decision makers, inside and outside the water community, about the potential of nature-based solutions (NBS) to address contemporary water resource management challenges across all sectors, and particularly regarding water for agriculture, sustainable cities, disaster risk reduction and water quality. Water resource management remains heavily dominated by traditional, human-built (i.e. ‘grey’) infrastructure and the enormous potential for NBS remains under-utilized. NBS include green infrastructure that can substitute, augment or work in parallel with grey infrastructure in a cost-effective manner. The goal is to find the most appropriate blend of green and grey investments to maximize benefits and system efficiency while minimizing costs and trade-offs.
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