Watershed conservation

This Technology Transfer Advances Thailand's

• Nationally Determined Contribution to 
  • Strengthen disaster risk reduction and reduce population’s vulnerability to climate risk and extreme weather events through enhanced awareness, coordination and adaptive capacity of local communities, especially in the disaster risk-prone areas

Practical Action Consulting (PAC) is the consulting arm of Practical Action, an international non-governmental organisation that uses technology to challenge poverty in developing countries. Through technology PAC enables poor communities to build on their skills and knowledge to produce sustainable and practical solutions - transforming their lives forever and protecting the world around them. Every year PAC uses technology to help over 1 million people out of poverty.

AQUALAND analyzes the contribution of upstream aquatic and terrestrial systems to aquatic habitats. It is a grid-based watershed model. The software has two main components, the Watershed Delineator Tool and the Threats Assessment Tool. The watershed delineator identifies a watershed for each input aquatic core. The tool can delineate a circular buffer around each core, the entire watershed, a constrained watershed determined by following a flow grid upstream from a starting point and using a resistant surface classified by stream order and landuse or a user-defined watershed.

How can gender-sensitive approaches to natural resource management be implemented, particularly in contexts were women do not traditionally participate in such activities? In Nigeria, the construction of a tourist resort on the Obudu plateau led to deforestation and exacerbated pre-existing pressures on water resources and the environment. Local Becheve women spoke out about extra time taken in water collection, poor quality and quantity of water and consequently poor family health.

This paper explores how watershed development, an ecosystem-based approach for development of rain-fed regions in India, is gaining traction and political support, and its potential contribution to poverty reduction, food security, and climate change adaptation. It examines how economic valuation can improve our understanding of watershed development and how to overcome challenges related to data collection, valuing direct and indirect benefits, and climate change adaptation.

In the face of climatic and other socioeconomic changes, most South Asian countries having large and growing population, limited land resources, and increasing water stress face a common challenge of how to grow more food with the same or less land, less water, and increased energy prices. This concept paper seeks deeper understanding of the interlinkages among water, energy, and food, which is crucial to formulate cross-sectoral policies for more resilient and adaptable societies. In South Asia, such a nexus approach inevitably needs to take Himalayan ecosystem services into account.

Long-term changes in climate are likely to increase a range of risks to human security, including the risk of violent conflict. The city of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, and Chinde district in the Zambezia province of Mozambique have been identified as areas that are highly susceptible to future climate-induced conflicts.

Glacier-dominated mountains play a major role in providing water to large numbers of people. These glacier-dominated areas also pose unique challenges to downstream communities as they adapt to recent and continuing global climate change. Two of the more serious problems in high mountain regions include decreased water supply reliability and increased threats from glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), or moraine-dammed lakes left behind receding glaciers that can cause enormous downstream devastation if suddenly released by triggers such as an earthquake or overhanging ice.

This paper focuses on the conceptual evolution of watershed management within the context of an action research program operating in the highlands of eastern Africa, as informed by both theory and practice. Following a review of the watershed management literature, and brief program and methodological overviews, the paper explores in detail the concepts of "participation" and "integration" in watershed management. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for agricultural research and development in the eastern African region.

The Third Environment Program Support Project aims at improving the protection, and sustainable management of critical biodiversity resources at the field level,mainstreaming conservation into macroeconomic management and sector programs, and establishing sustainable financing mechanisms.