Emerging insights from the Nile Basin Focal Project

A main hypothesis of the project is that water access for agricultural use (or lack of it), and not water availability, is strongly related to poverty.  We expect that those who have reasonable access to water for agricultural use will be less poor than those who have poor access to water.  Water productivity, following water access, will be a key driver in improving livelihoods either through better nutrition, or wealth generation.  Water risks such as droughts and short term dry spells, and lack of capacity to deal with them, add to the vulnerability of rural poor in the region, and interventions to address these risks will build resilience.  These assertions are keys to identifying interventions that will reduce poverty. Testing these assertions is particularly challenging, but we are finding evidence that supports or refutes them during the course of the project.

In total about 98% of the Nile Basin water supply is already consumed. The majority of the consumptive use is attributed to natural land cover classes (85%), such as equatorial forests, savannah, and shrub lands. Only 11% is consumed by managed land use (rainfed crops), and 4% of the water resources are consumed by managed water use (e.g. irrigation, reservoirs, domestic, industries). However, the majority of the consumption (75%) is considered beneficial, either economically or to the environment.

Agricultural water is used in irrigated agricultural systems, rain fed agriculture, livestock water use, fisheries and multiple use systems. Excluding several larger irrigated areas in Egypt and Sudan more than 80 % of agricultural areas in the upper reaches and highlands of the Nile Basin are primarily rainfed agriculture. Productivity of these varied production systems is not straight forward and needs some creativity in assessing it. 

At one level, the story of water productivity in the basin is quite simple – in the irrigated areas in Egypt, the values for water productivity in crop, livestock, and aquaculture are quite high in spite of physical water scarcity (high use compared to water availability).  In the rest of the basin, except in spots, productivity and water productivity is quite low across all systems. In Egypt increasing the value obtained per unit of water is important.  In the rest of the basin, productivity is the key issue, and accessing water to fuel productivity the key water issue.  The “per unit water” makes sense because of limited access to supplies.  There is tremendous scope for improvement in water productivity in these countries south of Egypt.  The irrigated areas of the northern parts of Sudan are a different story.  Here water is available and accessible, but apparently productivity is quite low indicating scope for improvement.  As part of the BFP, a special study team is studying the Gezira irrigation scheme to better understand the situation.

At another level, standard water productivity estimates may miss important considerations.  Fisheries and aquaculture add value and increase water productivity.  In many instances the fisheries catch is well below potential, and thus gains in fisheries need to be assessed to compare it with other uses of water.  The area is full of mixed crop and livestock systems, with livestock playing a valuable role and adding to water productivity.  While we may not be able to come up with integrated indicators, analysis of combined fisheries, aquaculture, livestock and crop systems will shed light on interesting opportunities.   As part of the project mapping of the production systems and hydronomic zones across the basin shed light on areas where these are appropriate, and combined with water productivity maps show where there is potential.