Constraints of improving crop water productivity in rainfed and irrigated systems in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

2022 ◽  
pp. 197-218
Author(s):  
Morita

In the chapter, Haq gives a snapshot of the human progress of South Asia, comparing it with other regions. He was worried about the region beginning to lag behind all other regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa. He highlights the role of the two largest economies in the region, India and Pakistan, in financing the major investment in education, health and nutrition for the people. Haq advocates some fiscal and monetary reforms are suggested to invest in human development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Gary W. Marek ◽  
Thomas H. Marek ◽  
Steven R. Evett ◽  
Yong Chen ◽  
Kevin R. Heflin ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sándor Szabó ◽  
Irene Pinedo Pascua ◽  
Daniel Puig ◽  
Magda Moner-Girona ◽  
Mario Negre ◽  
...  

AbstractLack of access to modern forms of energy hampers efforts to reduce poverty. The provision of electricity to off-grid communities is therefore a long-standing developmental goal. Yet, many off-grid electrification projects neglect mid- and long-term operation and maintenance costs. When this is the case, electricity services are unlikely to be affordable to the communities that are the project’s primary target. Here we show that, compared with diesel-powered electricity generation systems, solar photovoltaic systems are more affordable to no less than 36% of the unelectrified populations in East Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. We do so by developing geo-referenced estimates of affordability at a high level of resolution (1 km2). The analysis illustrates the differences in affordability that may be found at the subnational level, which underscores that electrification investments should be informed by subnational data.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 756
Author(s):  
AbdAllah M. El-Sanatawy ◽  
Ahmed S. M. El-Kholy ◽  
Mohamed M. A. Ali ◽  
Mohamed F. Awad ◽  
Elsayed Mansour

Water shortage is a major environmental stress that destructively impacts maize production, particularly in arid regions. Therefore, improving irrigation management and increasing productivity per unit of water applied are needed, especially under the rising temperature and precipitation fluctuations induced by climate change. Laboratory and field trials were carried out in the present study, which were aimed at assessing the possibility of promoting maize germination, growth, grain yield and crop water productivity (CWP) using seed priming under different irrigation regimes. Two seed priming treatments, i.e., hydro-priming and hardening versus unprimed seeds, were applied under four irrigation regimes, i.e., 120, 100, 80 and 60% of estimated crop evapotranspiration (ETc). The obtained results indicated that increasing irrigation water from 100% up to 120% ETc did not significantly increase grain yield or contributing traits, while it decreased CWP. Deficit irrigation of 80 and 60% ETc gradually decreased grain yield and all attributed traits. Seed priming significantly ameliorated seedlings’ vigor as indicated by earlier germination, higher germination percentage, longer roots and shoots, and heavier fresh and dry weight than unprimed seeds with the superiority of hardening treatment. Additionally, under field conditions, seed priming significantly increased grain yield, yield contributing traits and CWP compared with unprimed treatment. Interestingly, the results reflect the role of seed priming, particularly hardening, in mitigating negative impacts of drought stress and enhancing maize growth, grain yield and attributed traits as well as CWP under deficit irrigation conditions. This was demonstrated by a significant increase in grain yield and CWP under moderate drought and severe drought conditions compared with unprimed treatment. These results highlight that efficient irrigation management and seed priming can increase maize yield and water productivity in arid environments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poolad Karimi ◽  
Bhembe Bongani ◽  
Megan Blatchford ◽  
Charlotte de Fraiture

Remote sensing techniques have been shown, in several studies, to be an extremely effective tool for assessing the performance of irrigated areas at various scales and diverse climatic regions across the world. Open access, ready-made, global ET products were utilized in this first-ever-countrywide irrigation performance assessment study. The study aimed at identifying ‘bright spots’, the highest performing sugarcane growers, and ‘hot spots’, or low performing sugarcane growers. Four remote sensing-derived irrigation performance indicators were applied to over 302 sugarcane growers; equity, adequacy, reliability and crop water productivity. The growers were segmented according to: (i) land holding size or grower scale (ii) management regime, (iii) location of the irrigation schemes and (iv) irrigation method. Five growing seasons, from June 2005 to October 2009, were investigated. The results show while the equity of water distribution is high across all management regimes and locations, adequacy and reliability of water needs improvement in several locations. Given the fact that, in general, water supply was not constrained during the study period, the observed issues with adequacy and reliability of irrigation in some of the schemes were mostly due to poor scheme and farm level water management practices. Sugarcane crop water productivity showed the highest variation among all the indicators, with Estate managed schemes having the highest CWP at 1.57 kg/m3 and the individual growers recording the lowest CWP at 1.14 kg/m3, nearly 30% less. Similarly center pivot systems showed to have the highest CWP at 1.63 kg/m3, which was 30% higher than the CWP in furrow systems. This study showcases the applicability of publicly available global remote sensing products for assessing performance of the irrigated crops at the local level in several aspects.


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