Collective Action for Integrated Community Watershed Management in Semi-Arid India: Analysis of Multiple Livelihood Impacts and the Drivers of Change

Spatial and temporal attributes of watersheds and associated market failures require institutional arrangements for coordinating use and management of natural resources. Effective collective action (CA) for watershed management has the potential to provide multiple economic and environmental benefits - tangible and non-tangible - to rural communities. This allows smallholder farmers to jointly invest in management practices that provide collective benefits to community members. The functions of the group can also extend to include provision of new services like collective marketing of products and essential inputs. While watershed management contributes to resource productivity and sustainability, increased commercialization and market access open opportunities to diversify into high-value crops, creating incentives for agricultural intensification. However, evaluating the multi-faceted impacts of integrated watershed management interventions is complicated by problems of measurement, valuation and attribution. While, more rigorous methods for evaluating such impacts in the context of developing countries are beginning to emerge, this study employs a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods for evaluating these multi-faceted impacts from a case study of a watershed project in semi-arid India. Results from qualitative insights are confirmed through econometric analyses and empirical measurements using proper count erfactuals. The study analyses the drought mitigation, economic and environmental gains along with linked benefits for commercialization of production and increased farmer participation in markets.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Circular Economy Pathways for Municipal Wastewater Management in India: A Practitioner’s Guide

The 2030 Water Resources Group is a unique publicprivate- civil society partnership that helps governments to accelerate reforms that will ensure sustainable water resource management for the long term development and economic growth of their country. It does so by helping to change the “political economy” for water reform in the country through convening a wide range of actors and providing water resource analysis in ways that are digestible for politicians and business leaders. The 2030 WRG was launched in 2008 at the World Economic Forum and has been hosted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) since 2012

New paradigm for transforming Indian agriculture to climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture is a must

Indian agriculture is the backbone of India’s food, nutrition, and income security as well as sustainable growth. Indian agriculture is unique with 20 agro-eco regions, and 80 agro-eco sub-regions growing more than 100 crops in 1000,000 villages by 145 million farm-holders. India moved from ship to mouth situation in the late 1960s to food self-sufficiency and has become Atmanirbhar and an exporter of food by producing 316.06 million tonnes in 2020-2021. However, rural India needs urgent attention as there is a great divide between the urban and rural family incomes, and the primary sector’s contribution to national GDP is hovering around 17-18% although the Indian economy is largely agrarian with 950 million rural population driving the economy. However, there is a large untapped potential in Indian agriculture to become the growth engine for the sustainable development of India as large yield gaps are existing. However, the challenges of growing water scarcity, increasing land degradation, growing population, urbanization, and most importantly impacts of climate change. Due to climate change with increasing temperatures, aridity is increasing in the country, and rainfall variability with a reduced number of rainy days and increasing intensity in different parts is a major concern. There is an urgent need to develop and adopt large-scale climate resilient management practices at a local level through empowering the small farm-holders with strengthened science of delivery using new science tools such as remote sensing (RS), global information system (GIS), internet of things (IoT), information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), etc. Business as usual will not work and a new paradigm through building partnerships, enhancing collective action, market-led agro-eco region-based diversification and scaling-up through the empowerment of small farm-holders using new science tools is proposed. The government of India’s action plan with 11 national missions is in place and all stakeholders need to contribute by enabling policies and sincere implementation for building resilience against the impacts of climate change

Surprises in the urinary bladder

Bhushan Wani1, Suhas Jajoo1, Navinchandra Wani2, Anil Bhole11Department of Surgery, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Sawangi (Meghe), Wardha, India; 2Department of Surgery, Annasaheb Chudaman Patil Memorial Medical College, Dhule, IndiaAbstract: Foreign bodies of the urinary bladder may occur by self insertion, iatrogenic means or migration from the neighbouring organs. The variety of objects found self-inserted is impressive. The patient usually presents with dysuria, poor urinary stream or retention, bloody or purulent urethral discharge, ascending urinary tract infection, urgency, and/or pelvic pain. Management should be tailored according to the nature and dimensions of the foreign body. In the following paper, we report three cases with different presentations that were managed successfully.Keywords: urinary, bladder, foreign bodie

Developing climate change agro-adaptation strategies through field experiments and simulation analyses for sustainable sorghum production in semi-arid tropics of India

Change in rainfall pattern with longer dry period depletes soil water content (SWC) and incorrect sowing time adversely affects rainfed sorghum production in Semi-Arid Tropics (SATs). The present study was conducted to develop agricultural water management strategies for improving SWC and to evaluate sowing time as climate change agro-adaptations for sorghum production in SATs. The field experiments on two land-water management (flatbed, broad bed furrows (BBF)) and four nutrient management (application of macro-and micronutrients through combination of chemical and organic fertilizers) were conducted in 2014 and 2015 at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, India. The average SWC in ‘BBF’ was higher over ‘flatbed’ by 0.90 cm and 1.06 cm in 0–30 cm soil depth, 0.67 cm and 1.02 cm in 30–60 cm depth, 0.51 cm and 0.84 cm in 60–90 cm depth and, 0.34 cm and 0.67 cm in 90–120 cm during 2014 and 2015, respectively. The SWC in BBF was higher over flatbed by 7.28% throughout 0–120 cm soil depth during longest dry period of 26 days in the year 2014. The simulation analyses using DSSAT Version 4.6 for Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 with RCP 4.5 stated that postponing the normal sowing time (30 June) to 10 July resulted in lower grain yield reduction i.e. 14.75% in 2030 and 19.37% in 2050 as compared to base period (1988–2007) yield with normal sowing in Parbhani location of India. The BBF combined with macro-and micronutrients application through chemical fertilizer and postponing sowing time was found the effective climate change agro-adaptation strategies for improving sorghum production in SATs. This study indicates the need for desired policy orientation by the government to promote integrated land-water-nutrient management as the effective agro-adaptations to climate change in SATs

Food security and climate change in the Asia-Pacific region : evaluating mismatch between crop development and water availability

Phenological development is the single most important attribute of crop adaptation to shifting climates. Climate change may alter the rate of phonological development and the amount and distribution of rainfall during the growing season. These changes may in turn result in mis‐matches between water demand by crops and water availability from rainfall. This paper illustrates how an understanding of the impact of climate shifts on key crops will enable the Asia‐Pacific farmers, community workers and policy agencies to better prepare and adapt to climate change. Strategies include changes to existing policy and practices, for example, timing of planting, managing rainwater resources, use of new varieties, disease management protocols, alternate crops and shift in geographic distribution of crops. An international project is described which combines a new analysis of realized changes in meteorological parameters, and use of estimates from published work on future climates to assess. Temporal shifts in crop phenology, likely shifts in the pattern of rain and water availability, mismatch between crop phenology and water availability, and the expected consequences of this mismatch for food security

Food security and climate change : evaluating mismatch between crop development and water availability

Plant breeding and crop selection involves optimiz¬ing yield for different agro-ecological zones. Soil and climatic parameters are the major matching factors, with temperature, photoperiod and water availability being major climatic factors influencing crop adaption and productivity. Under climate change scenarios, it is proposed that average temperatures will increase while there will be changes in both the amount and distribu¬tion of rainfall. Because of these changes, it is probable that mismatches will arise between crop phenology (the growth stages of the crop) and environmental factors, resulting in yield decreases. This will occur through, for example, water or temperature stresses at critical periods of crop yield determination (Huda et al., 2011; Mei, 2005; Sadras and Monzon, 2006; Goswami et al., 2006 and Wani et al., 2008). A project has been developed with APN ARCP funding to examine mismatches between crop phenol¬ogy and climate (particularly water availability) arising from recently realized climate trends and proposed climate change. Research collaborators are UWS and South Australian Research and Development Institute SARDI), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). The project commenced in September 2010 and major coordination activities have been workshops in China, India and Australia to plan and achieve the desired project research outcomes. Possible mismatches arising from realized warming were the subject of the project planning workshop, held in Beijing in September 2010. The workshop designed case studies in China, India and Australia, and realized a significant input to the project that would be made by young researchers in China and India. Strategies have been developed to enhance capacity building of these researchers during the project, including their involve-ment in the final project workshop in Australia

Assessing different systems for enhancing farm income and resilience in extreme dry region of India

Enhancing resilience among small farm households in dry regions is important to cope with extreme weather conditions and changing climate. This study presents the results of assessment made in Western Rajasthan (Thar) covering 19 million ha area which is the most densely populated desert region in the world. Agriculture which is the important source of livelihood for large number of poor small farm holders in India is very risk prone although, agriculture's contribution to the GDP is decreasing over time. Besides livestock, farmers traditionally diversify their activity mix with forestry and horticulture. It has been well proved by many studies that the introduction of suitable perennial component in arid farming systems not only enhances farm income and family nutrition but also its resilience under water scarcity. But it has not been promoted and adopted in systems perspective as a commercially viable model. Using this case study we analyze the potential economic benefits and suitability of such models under different resource situations. The examined models are integrated horticulture and agro-forestry with suitable species together with rainwater harvesting structures that significantly enhances farm income and resilience. The annual net returns on different farm types in arid region would increase in multiple folds. The results suggest the need for reorientation of the agricultural research for development agenda taking into consideration the existing and emerging abiotic stresses, and the development and dissemination of new impact pathway through integration and convergence to intertwine the technologies with enabling institutions, policies and financial instruments as a win-win proposition through business model