Interbasin Water Transfers and Water Scarcity in a Changing World: A Solution or a Pipedream?

The world is increasingly forced to face the challenge of how to ensure access to adequate water resources for expanding populations and economies, whilst maintaining healthy freshwater ecosystems and the vital services they provide. Now the growing impacts of climate change are exacerbating the problem of water scarcity in key regions of the world. One popular way for governments to distribute water more evenly across the landscape is to transfer it from areas with perceived surpluses, to those with shortages.While there is a long history of water transfers from ancient times, as many societies reach the limits of locally renewable water supplies increasingly large quantities of water are being moved over long distances, from one river basin to another. Since the beginning of dam building that marked the last half of the 1900s more that 364 large-scale interbasin water transfer schemes (IBTs) have been established that transfer around 400 km³ of water per year (Shiklomanov 1999). IBTs are now widely touted as the quick fix solution to meeting escalating water demands. One estimate suggests that the total number of largescale water transfer schemes may rise to between 760 and 1 240 by 2020 to transfer up to 800 km³ of water per year (Shiklomanov 1999).The wide range of IBT projects in place, or proposed, has provoked the preparation of this review, including seven case studies from around the globe. It builds on previous assessments and examines the costs and benefits of large scale IBTs. This report assesses related, emerging issues in sustaining water resources and ecosystems, namely the virtual water trade, expanding use of desalination, and climate change adaptation. It is based on WWF's 2007 publication "Pipedreams? Interbasin water transfers and water shortages".The report concludes that while IBTs can potentially solve water supply issues in regions of water shortage - they come with significant costs. Large scale IBTs are typically very high cost, and thus economically risky, and they usually also come with significant social and environmental costs; usually for both the river basin providing and the river basin receiving the water

Modeling the Hydropower–Food Nexus in Large River Basins: A Mekong Case Study

An increasing global population and growing wealth are raising demand for energy and food, impacting on the environment and people living in river basins. Sectoral decision-making may not optimize socio-economic benefits because of perverse impacts in other sectors for people and ecosystems. The hydropower–food supply nexus in the Mekong River basins is assessed here in an influence model. This shows how altering one variable has consequent effects throughout the basin system. Options for strategic interventions to maximize benefits while minimizing negative impacts are identified that would enable national and sub-national policy makers to take more informed decisions across the hydropower, water and food supply sectors. This approach should be further tested to see if it may aid policy making in other large river systems around the world.The authors’ research was supported by the Luc Hoffmann Institute for conservation research through its Navigating the Nexus program

Exploring the productivity and profitability of small-scale communal irrigation systems in Sub-Saharan Africa

This special issue explores the challenges associated with increasing the productivity and profitability of small-scale communal irrigation systems in a world with growing demand for food and scarce water supplies. Case studies from Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in south-eastern Africa are used to detail the challenges, opportunities and possible solutions.This work was supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under grant number FSC/2013/006

China: A New Trajectory Prioritizing Rural Rather Than UrbanDevelopment?

The adverse effects of rapid urbanization are of global concern. Careful planning for and accommodation of accelerating urbanization and citizenization (i.e., migrants gaining official urban residency) may be the best approach to limit some of the worst impacts. However, we find that another trajectory may be possible: one linked to the rural development plan adopted in the latest Chinese national development strategy. This plan aims to build rural areas as attractive areas for settlement by 2050 rather than to further urbanize with more people in cities. We assess the political motivations and challenges behind this choice to develop rural areas based on a literature review and empirical case analysis. After assessing the rural and urban policy subsystem, we find five socio-political drivers behind China’s rural development strategy, namely ensuring food security, promoting culture and heritage, addressing overcapacity, emphasizing environmental protection and eradicating poverty. To develop rural areas, China needs to effectively resolve three dilemmas: (1) implementing decentralized policies under central supervision; (2) deploying limited resources efficiently to achieve targets; and (3) addressing competing narratives in current policies. Involving more rural community voices, adopting multiple forms of local governance, and identifying and mitigating negative project impacts can be the starting points to manage these dilemmas.This work was supported by the Australian National University under Grant No. 5998099 and China Scholarship Council (CSC) under Grant No. 201808190012

Flow to nowhere: the disconnect between environmental watering and the conservation of threatened species in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

The Murray–Darling Basin Plan was established with the objective of restoring water from irrigation to the environment, thereby conserving wetlands and biodiversity. We examined whether the Plan is achieving this objective by assessing whether environmental watering has helped conserve threatened flow-dependent fauna. Two frog species, two waterbirds and four fishes, were assessed for their conservation status in relation to (1) whether they were targeted in environmental watering plans, (2) whether population monitoring had occurred and (3) evidence of population recovery. We determined indicators of abundance and occurrence of species between 2012–13 and 2018–19 and found widespread inconsistencies in the targeting of environmental watering for these species, including their being overlooked in watering plans and actions in several catchments. Environmental watering had some positive outcomes for some threatened species in some locations on some occasions, but benefits, and their monitoring and reporting, are patchy and inconsistent. Monitoring of temporal trends in distribution, occurrence and abundance of species is inadequate to evaluate success. If the Plan is to achieve its objective and uphold Australia’s international environmental treaty obligations, more needs to be done to target and deliver environmental water for threatened species and improve the monitoring and reporting of outcomes

Managing rather than Avoiding “Difficulties” in Building Landscape Resilience

Building landscape resilience inspires the cultivation of the landscape’s capacity to recover from disruption and live with changes and uncertainties. However, integrating ecosystem and society within such a unified lens—that is, socio–ecological system (SES) resilience—clashes with many cornerstone concepts in social science, such as power, democracy, rights, and culture. In short, a landscape cannot provide the same values to everyone. However, can building landscape resilience be an effective and just environmental management strategy? Research on this question is limited. A scoping literature review was conducted first to synthesise and map landscape management change based on 111,653 records. Then, we used the Nuozhadu (NZD) catchment as a case study to validate our findings from the literature. We summarised current critiques and created a framework including seven normative categories, or common difficulties, namely resilience for “whom”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why”, as well as “can” and “how” we apply resilience normatively. We found that these difficulties are overlooked and avoided despite their instructive roles to achieve just landscape management more transparently. Without clear targets and boundaries in building resilience, we found that some groups consume resources and services at the expense of others. The NZD case demonstrates that a strategy of building the NZD’s resilience has improved the conservation of the NZD’s forest ecosystems but overlooked trade-offs between sustaining people and the environment, and between sustainable development for people at different scales. Future researchers, managers, and decision-makers are thereby needed to think resilience more normatively and address the questions in the “seven difficulties” framework before intervening to build landscape resilience.This work was supported by the Key Foundation of China Academy of Engineering Physics, China (Grant No. 2019-ZD-012); the China Postdoctoral Innovative Talents Program (Grant No. BX201907170); and the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (Grant No. 201808190012)

Watering of wetlands on Indigenous Country in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Context: Water managers in the Murray-Darling Basin increasingly recognise the cultural and environmental benefits generated by Indigenous co-management of environmental water. However, traditional knowledge and values are subsidiary to western technical and scientific perceptions when prioritising environmental water use. Aims and methods: We mapped the locations and volumes of Commonwealth Environmental Water Office environmental watering events onto the wetlands within the land area represented by different state-determined Indigenous organisations and discuss how this relates to the varied nature and extent of Indigenous engagement in environmental watering decisions. Key results: Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, one organisation had nearly 13% of the area of wetlands watered, but the average was less than 3%. In all, 18 of the 26 organisations received no environmental water. Conclusions: The distribution of environmental flows does not meet the cultural needs of Indigenous nations due to physical restrictions and policy limitations. Yet, there are clear environmental and cultural co-benefits where Indigenous peoples have developed partnerships with environmental water managers. Developing stronger partnerships and increasing Indigenous water entitlements from the current 0.17% of issued entitlements would maximise these benefits in catchments where environmental water is prioritised. Implications: The reviews of the Water Act and the Basin Plan scheduled for 2024-26 present opportunities to implement reforms.</p

Communal irrigation systems in South-Eastern Africa: findings on productivity and profitability

Significant expansion of irrigated agriculture is planned in Africa, though existing smallholder schemes perform poorly. Research at six schemes in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe shows that a range of problems are exacerbated by poor management, with limited market linkages leading to underutilization and a lack of profit. Improving sustainability of these complex systems will require: multiple interventions at different scales; investing in people and institutions as much as hardware; clarity in governments’ objectives for their smallholder irrigation schemes; appropriate business models to enable farmers; and better market linkages.This work was supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under [grant number FSC-2013-006]

The dynamics of the relationship between household decision-making and farm household income in small-scale irrigation schemes in southern Africa

Irrigation has been promoted as a strategy to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods in southern Africa. Households’ livelihood strategies within small-scale irrigation schemes have become increasingly complex and diversified. Strategies consist of farm income from rain-fed and irrigated cropping as well as livestock and an increasing dependence on off-farm income. The success of these strategies depends on the household’s ability to make decisions about how to utilize its’ financial, labour, land and water resources. This study explores the dynamics of decision-making in households on-farm household income within six small-scale irrigation schemes, across three southern African countries. Household survey data (n = 402) was analyzed using ordered probit and ordinary least squares regression. Focus group discussions and field observations provided qualitative data on decision-making in the six schemes. We found strong support for the notion that decision-making dynamics strongly influence total household income. Households make trade-offs between irrigation, dryland, livestock and off-farm work when they allocate their labour resources to maximize household income; as opposed to maximizing the income from any individual component of their livelihood strategy, such as irrigation. Combined with the impact of the small plot size of irrigated land, this is likely to result in sub-optimal benefits from expensive investments in irrigation infrastructure. Policy-makers must consider this when developing and implementing new policies

Water reform for all: a national response to a water emergency

Australia’s water reform project is failing to fully deliver for all Australians. With the COVID-19 pandemic, long-accepted approaches are being questioned in many areas of national policy. This also applies to water reform. The Australian bush fires of 2019-20 mean that Australians can no longer ignore the devastating impacts of natural disasters in a dryer and warmer country. The new normal is that it will continue to get hotter and, where most Australians live, it will get drier. Rainfall will become more unpredictable and extreme weather events, such as cyclones, more intense. These conditions will make it even more difficult for water managers who, during repeated and prolonged droughts, are struggling to manage the intensification of Australia’s ‘boom and bust’ water availability. To cope with Australia’s water emergency, we need to extract less water and ensure our rivers, lakes and wetlands have the water they need at the right time to deliver ecosystem functions and services: water supply for people and livestock; habitat for plants and animals; water quality and flood regulation; nutrient cycling; recreation; and, importantly, access and use of water by all Australians. Here, we propose six principles to provide a foundation for Water Reform For All: (1) establish shared visions and goals that are community-based and co-produced; (2) develop clarity of roles and responsibilities, including an ability and willingness to revise adaptation plans, actions and visions; (3) understand adaptation as a means to respond to persistent escalation of stresses, including drought, climate change, bush fires and governance failures; (4) invest in advanced technology to monitor, predict and understand changes in water availability in a transforming Australian landscape and grow our shared knowledge as a basis for adaptive water reform; (5) integrate bottom-up community-based adaptation, including from Indigenous communities, into renewed arrangements for water governance; and (6) implement management actions as experiments for ‘learning to do things differently’. These six water reform principles require national conversations, supported by our collective capacity to imagine alternative futures and apply this to decision-making, along with recognition and inclusion of First Peoples’ values and knowledge of land, water and fire. Without national conversations on water reform and deliberative processes, we expect that Australia’s water emergency will continue and, with climate change, get worse. This is a future that we can, and must, change for the benefit of all Australians.The Australian National Universit