Publication: Sustainable Groundwater Irrigation: Approaches to Reconciling Demand with Resources
Loading...
Published
2010
ISSN
Date
2017-08-15
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to provide a strategic overview of a decade of experience in supporting public administrations in their efforts to confront excessive groundwater resource exploitation for agricultural irrigation. Special emphasis is put on a series of on-the-ground pilot projects mainly in South and East Asia and Latin America, which are profiled through a series of boxes introduced in the paper. In these pilots' appropriate packages of technical, economic, institutional and social measures, in the main selected through use of a 'pragmatic framework' for groundwater resource management, have been introduced with agreement of stakeholders in an attempt to promote more sustainable groundwater use in agricultural irrigation. They have achieved varying degrees of success but do provide hope and orientation for the future in this important aspect of water resource management.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Garduño, Héctor; Foster, Stephen. 2010. Sustainable Groundwater Irrigation: Approaches to Reconciling Demand with Resources. GW-MATE Strategic Overview Series;No. 4. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27818 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Deep Wells and Prudence : Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing Groundwater Overexploitation in India(World Bank, 2010-01-29)India is the largest groundwater user in the world, with an estimated usage of around 230 cubic kilometers per year, more than a quarter of the global total. With more than 60 percent of irrigated agriculture and 85 percent of drinking water supplies dependent on it, groundwater is a vital resource for rural areas in India. Reliance of urban and industrial waste supplies on groundwater is also becoming increasingly significant in India. Through the construction of millions of private wells, there has been a phenomenal growth in the exploitation of groundwater in the last five decades. The potential social and economic consequences of continued weak or nonexistent groundwater management are serious, as aquifer depletion is concentrated in many of the most populated and economically productive areas. The implications are disturbing for attainment of the millennium development goals, for sustaining economic growth and local livelihoods, and for environmental and fiscal sustainability. The consequences will be most severe for the poor. Furthermore, climate change will put additional stress on groundwater resources; while at the same time will have an unpredictable impact on groundwater recharge and availability.Publication Water and Climate Change(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-06)Adaptation to climate impacts on groundwater resources in developed and developing countries has not received adequate attention. This reflects the often poorly understood impacts of climate change, the hidden nature of groundwater and the general neglect of groundwater management. Many developing countries are highly reliant on groundwater. Given expectations of reduced supply in many regions and growing demand, pressure on groundwater resources is set to escalate. This is a crucial problem and demands urgent action. This report addresses the impacts of climate change on groundwater and adaptation options. The Earth's climate is projected to become warmer and more variable. Increased global temperatures are projected to affect the hydrologic cycle, leading to changes in precipitation patterns and increases in the intensity and frequency of extreme events; reduced snow cover and widespread melting of ice; rising sea levels; and changes in soil moisture, runoff and groundwater recharge. Increased evaporation and the risk of flooding and drought could adversely affect security of water supply, particularly surface water. Due to these pressures, as well as global population growth, demand for groundwater is likely to increase.Publication India Groundwater Governance Case Study(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06)Groundwater comprises 97 percent of the worlds readily accessible freshwater and provides the rural, urban, industrial and irrigation water supply needs of 2 billion people around the world. As the more easily accessed surface water resources are already being used, pressure on groundwater is growing. In the last few decades, this pressure has been evident through rapidly increasing pumping of groundwater, accelerated by the availability of cheap drilling and pumping technologies and, in some countries, energy subsidies that distort decisions about exploiting groundwater. This accelerated growth in groundwater exploitation unplanned, unmanaged, and largely invisible has been dubbed by prominent hydro geologists the silent revolution. It is a paradox that such a vast and highly valuable resource which is likely to become even more important as climate change increasingly affects surface water sources has been so neglected by governments and the development community at a time when interest and support for the water sector as a whole is at an all-time high. This case study is a background paper for the World Bank economic and sector analysis (ESW) entitled too big to fail: the paradox of groundwater governance that aims to understand and address the paradox at the heart of the groundwater governance challenge in order to elevate the need for investing in and promoting proactive reforms toward its management. The project examines the impediments to better governance of groundwater, and explores opportunities for using groundwater to help developing countries adapt to climate change. Its recommendations will guide the Bank in its investments on groundwater and provide the Bank's contributions to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded global project groundwater governance: a framework for country action. The case study focused on the national, state and local levels. At the national and state levels, it analyzed the policy, legal, and institutional arrangements to identify the demand and supply management and incentive structures that have been established for groundwater management. At the local level, it assessed the operations, successes, and constraints facing local institutions in the governance of a number of aquifers within peninsula India, on the coast and on the plain of the Ganges river valley.Publication Water Resources Management in the Ganges Basin(Springer, 2014-03)The most difficult water resources management challenge in the Ganges Basin is the imbalance between water demand and seasonal availability. More than 80 % of the annual flow in the Ganges River occurs during the 4-month monsoon, resulting in widespread flooding. During the rest of the year, irrigation, navigation, and ecosystems suffer because of water scarcity. Storage of monsoonal flow for utilization during the dry season is one approach to mitigating these problems. Three conjunctive use management strategies involving subsurface water storage are evaluated in this study: Ganges Water Machine (GWM), Pumping Along Canals (PAC), and Distributed Pumping and Recharge (DPR). Numerical models are used to determine the efficacy of these strategies. Results for the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh (UP) indicate that these strategies create seasonal subsurface storage from 6 to 37 % of the yearly average monsoonal flow in the Ganges exiting UP over the considered range of conditions. This has clear implications for flood reduction, and each strategy has the potential to provide irrigation water and to reduce soil waterlogging. However, GWM and PAC require significant public investment in infrastructure and management, as well as major shifts in existing water use practices; these also involve spatially-concentrated pumping, which may induce land subsidence. DPR also requires investment and management, but the distributed pumping is less costly and can be more easily implemented via adaptation of existing water use practices in the basin.Publication Mongolia(Washington, DC, 2010-04)The report looks critically at the water resources and the current and projected future water demands in the Southern Gobi Region (SGR) using the widely dispersed data and information that are currently available. An important conclusion of the report is that almost all the significant sources of groundwater in the SGR are 'fossil' or 'non-renewable', meaning that they are finite resources which cannot be replenished. Not only will that, but pumping water out of these fosil aquifers tend to cause a drop in the groundwater levels above them. The report proposes practical steps by which water resources development and management could be managed to best serve economic and infrastructure development while giving attention to environmental protection and service to communities in the SGR. The report also highlights the urgent need for more data. A more detailed picture of the distribution and quantity of the groundwater would give planners first, a better idea of both the limits to the growth of the SGR; and, second, of the future water demands, its spatial distribution, quality requirements, and the possibilities to increase water use efficiency and water re-use. Thus there is a need to bring all information and data together to form the basis for rational planning.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.