Drivers of groundwater use and technical efficiency of groundwater, canal water, and conjunctive use in Pakistan’s Indus Basin Irrigation System

This paper explores the major determinants of heavy reliance on groundwater and the extent to which conjunctive use of ground and surface water affects the production efficiency of Pakistan’s irrigators. The results show that the major drivers of groundwater use in Pakistan’s agriculture are the variability and uncertainty associated with surface water delivery and that any effort to address the groundwater–energy nexus challenge should first consider fixing the problems associated with surface water supplies. The findings also suggest that having access to groundwater does not directly translate into improvements in technical efficiency of production

EC193 Revised 1952 Anhydrous Ammonia, A Good Nitrogen Fetilizer

Extension Circular 193 Revised 1952 Anhydrous Ammonia as a good nitrogen fertilizer

Modeling water resources management at the basin level: review and future directions

Water quality / Water resources development / Agricultural production / River basin development / Mathematical models / Simulation models / Water allocation / Policy / Economic aspects / Hydrology / Reservoir operation / Groundwater management / Drainage / Conjunctive use / Surface water / GIS / Decision support systems / Optimization methods / Water supply

Teachers’ Perceptions of their Preparation for Teaching Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Learners in Rural Eastern North Carolina

The number of English language learners (ELL) students in the US is increasing dramatically. The growth is even more evident in rural areas of the United States such as North Carolina where teachers are facing classrooms with a majority of second language learners. The authors conducted a study interviewing 24 teachers at a rural elementary school in eastern North Carolina. Teachers were interviewed regarding their perceptions of their preparedness to teach English language learners in the mainstream classrooms. Findings revealed that teacher training programs have not prepared these individuals for the student population they face today regardless of the year in which they received their teaching licenses. All teachers showed a strong desire to learn more at this time in their careers, but emphasized their lack of prior training. The study found that even though teachers lacked confidence, they were effectively educating this growing population. The authors discuss the responsibility of Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) to provide formal education in teaching students from diverse language backgrounds

Sustainable land management, gender, and agricultural productivity

Land degradation is a pressing global challenge, with three billion people residing in degraded landscapes. The global cost of land degradation is estimated to be about $300 billion per year, with Africa south of the Sahara accounting for 26 percent of the total global costs due to land-use and land-cover changes. In Ethiopia, it is estimated that more than 85 percent of land is moderately to severely degraded due to changes in land use and cover, costing the country an estimated US$4.3 billion annually. In order to halt further degradation and support essential restoration through sustainable land management (SLM) and related investments, the Water and Land Resource Center (WLRC) and its consortium of development partners established six learning watersheds in Central and North-Western Ethiopia with the ultimate goal of improving water security and crop and livestock productivity. REACH and WLRC began collaborating in 2016 to explore the impact of the learning watersheds’ SLM activities on reducing water insecurity for crop and livestock production and domestic use. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provided technical assistance in collecting and analyzing data on these watersheds, including on the gendered differences in the adoption of and investment in SLM practices. This policy note summarizes the results of the data collection and analysis

The role of land and water for trade and food production in Latin America: Environmental trade-offs of agricultural intensification versus extensification

One of humanity’s major challenges of the 21st century will be meeting future food demands on an increasingly resource constrained-planet. Global food production will have to rise by 70 percent between 2000 and 2050 to meet effective demand which poses major challenges to food production systems. Doing so without compromising environmental integrity is an even greater challenge. This study looks at the interdependencies between land and water resources, agricultural production and environmental outcomes in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), an area of growing importance in international agricultural markets. Special emphasis is given to the role of LAC’s agriculture for (a) global food security and (b) environmental sustainability. We use the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT)—a global dynamic partial equilibrium model of the agricultural sector—to run different future production scenarios, and agricultural trade regimes out to 2050, and assess changes in related environmental indicators. Results indicate that further trade liberalization is crucial for improving food security globally, but that it would also lead to more environmental pressures in some regions across Latin America. Contrasting land expansion versus more intensified agriculture shows that productivity improvements are generally superior to agricultural land expansion, from an economic and environmental point of view. Finally, our analysis shows that there are trade-offs between environmental and food security goals for all agricultural development paths

Can Sub-Saharan Africa feed itself? The role of irrigation development in the region’s drylands for food security

This paper was given at the workshop on Virtual Water in Agricultural Products: Quantification, Limitations and Trade Policy (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA, 14-16 September 2016), which was sponsored by the OECD Co-operative Research Programme: Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems whose financial support made it possible for the author to participate in the workshop

Projected Future Changes in Vegetation in Western North America in the Twenty-First Century

Rapid and broad-scale forest mortality associated with recent droughts, rising temperature, and insect outbreaks has been observed over western North America (NA). Climate models project additional future warming and increasing drought and water stress for this region. To assess future potential changes in vegetation distributions in western NA, the Community Earth System Model (CESM) coupled with its Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) was used under the future A2 emissions scenario. To better span uncertainties in future climate, eight sea surface temperature (SST) projections provided by phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) were employed as boundary conditions. There is a broad consensus among the simulations, despite differences in the simulated climate trajectories across the ensemble, that about half of the needleleaf evergreen tree coverage (from 24% to 11%) will disappear, coincident with a 14% (from 11% to 25%) increase in shrubs and grasses by the end of the twenty-first century in western NA, with most of the change occurring over the latter half of the twenty-first century. The net impact is a ~6 GtC or about 50% decrease in projected ecosystem carbon storage in this region. The findings suggest a potential for a widespread shift from tree-dominated landscapes to shrub and grass-dominated landscapes in western NA because of future warming and consequent increases in water deficits. These results highlight the need for improved process-based understanding of vegetation dynamics, particularly including mortality and the subsequent incorporation of these mechanisms into earth system models to better quantify the vulnerability of western NA forests under climate change