Mapping agricultural responses to water supply shocks in large irrigation systems, southern India

Irrigated agriculture experienced a water supply shock during a drought in southern India in 2002-2003. In this paper, hotspots of agricultural change were mapped and put in the context of hydrology and water management. Time series of MODIS imagery taken every eight days before (2001-2002) and during (2002-2003) the supply shock were combined with agricultural census data to document changes in cropping patterns in four large irrigation projects in the downstream sections of the Krishna and Godavari River basins (total command area 18,287 km²). The area cropped in rice in the four irrigated command areas decreased by 32% during the drought year, and rice production in the two districts that experienced the largest flow reductions fell below production levels of 1980. The irrigation project that showed the largest change in double cropped area (−90%) was upstream of the Krishna Delta. In the Krishna Delta, large areas changed from rice-rice to rice-gram double cropping. Historical water management contributed to the vulnerability of rice production to drought: the main reservoir in the system was drained to dead storage levels by the end of each growing season over 1968-2000, with little carryover storage. The land cover change maps suggested that the lower Krishna Basin has experienced a “hard landing” during basin closure, and revised management strategies that account for the new flow regime will be required to maintain agricultural production during droughts.     

Carbon sequestration from common property resources: Lessons from community-based sustainable pasture management in north-central Mali

Carbon sequestration in soils has been presented as a potential mechanism to enhance productivity in semi-arid lands in Africa while contributing to the mitigation of greenhouse emissions. Most of the literature, however, focuses on assessing the capacity of existing technology to sequester carbon in soils. There is much less discussion in the literature on the social and institutional elements that need to be in place to realize the potential benefits of carbon sequestration. This paper contributes insights in this direction by analyzing a case of community-based pasture management in north-central Mali. The case study challenges common assumptions in carbon sequestration efforts, namely that land resources are devoted to a single use by resident users; have distinct boundaries and fall within identifiable territorial and administrative jurisdictions, and are subject to widely recognized claims and free of conflict. We suggest that this is not always the case. Findings indicate that carbon sequestration projects centered on rangelands need to allow for flexibility in livestock movements and resource availability and to account for the diverging interest of multiple stakeholders, including different types of pastoralists and farmers. We conclude that social capital formation and conflict management are key elements of a carbon sequestration strategy in supports of sustainable and equitable development in the Sahelian region.