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Land and Water Resources Research Program Strategy
Global context/trends
Water scarcity and land degradation are increasingly prevalent in many areas of the
developing world. As much as 60% of the global population are predicted to face different
forms of water scarcity by 2025. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) estimates that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions
with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress
conditions.
Land degradation is also accelerating. An estimated 1.5 billion people, or a quarter of the
world’s population, depend directly on land that is degrading. The FAO’s Land Degradation
Assessment in Drylands report identifies 22% of degrading land is in very arid to drysubhumid areas, while 78% of it is in humid regions.
International 'fit'
The common factor driving accelerating trends in water scarcity and land degradation is
unsustainable management practices, driven by competing demands for both resources.
Climate change is placing further pressures on existing practices. Most of the world’s hungry
and poor people live where water and land degradation directly impedes food production. In
the semi-arid and arid tropics 840 million people are malnourished. Feeding this population,
and catering to the food demands of a growing global population require improved
management of rain-fed and irrigated systems and mitigation and prevention of land
degradation.
Research themes
The program operates at multiple scales; farm, watershed and basin, to improve the
sustainable management of land and water resources for food security, livelihoods and the
environment. Four themes underpin this goal.
Research themes
Ensuring access and equity
to land and water resources:
Enhancing the productivity of
land and water resources:
Improving land and water
quality:
Restoring degraded
production systems to
ensure the provision of
goods and ecosystem
services:
Research priority areas
Provisioning water for the poor in basin scale allocations.
Smart incentives and benefit sharing to ensure the supply of
ecosystem services.
Rethinking irrigated agriculture in medium- and large-scale
rice-based systems of Asia.
Enhancing the production of rainfed agriculture through
small-scale individualistic irrigation.
Making an asset out of waste water from cities and
processing to close the nutrient gap.
Managing saline drainage water in water-scarce
environments.
Using degraded land based systems as carbon sinks.
Addressing salinity and sodicity.
Land and Water Resources Research Program Strategy
Countries
Country
% of program budget:
active projects
Bangladesh
Cambodia
India
Iraq
Lao People’s Democratic Republic
Pakistan
Delivery on corporate goals
ACIAR goal, to
improve:
Food and nutrition
security.
Contributions of projects in the Land and Water Resources
program (examples)
 Potential incentives for sustainable farming for food and
water security, and poverty reduction in southern Africa.
 Developing capacity in cropping systems modelling to
promote food security and the sustainable use of water
resources in South Asia.
Productivity and

resilience of crop,
livestock, forestry and
fisheries systems.

Addressing constraints to pulses in cereals-based cropping
systems, with particular reference to poverty alleviation in
north-western Bangladesh.
Improved irrigation water management to increase rice
productivity in Cambodia.
Smallholder and
community
livelihoods.

Improving farmer livelihoods through efficient use of
resources in crop–livestock farming systems in western
China.
Sustainable
interactions between
agricultural and
ecosystem services.
Individual and
institutional R&D
capacity.

Water harvesting and better cropping systems for the
benefit of small farmers in watersheds of the East India
Plateau.

Individual and organisational capacity building is a
component of all projects.
Future focus
The main challenge accelerating the impacts of water scarcity and land degradation is
climate change. Addressing this challenge, through projects aimed at mitigating climate
impacts, and building resilience within affected systems, is the main aim of the program.
Geographically the program will continue to focus on South Asia and will explore options in
Africa, while maintaining a presence in the Mekong region.
Research Program Manager: Dr Evan Christen
Phone: + 61 2 6217 0561
Facsimile: + 61 2 6217 0501
Email:
[email protected]