Study region: Upper Blue Nile Basin (UBNB), Ethiopia.

Study focus: We explored the potential of using the globally available actual evapotranspiration (ETa) dataset in the model calibration processes to enhance hydrological model plausibility for the large UBNB. We compared three calibration strategies: conventional single-point calibration based on streamflow data, spatially explicit ETa-based calibration, and a multi-variable approach incorporating both streamflow and ETa data.

New hydrological insights for the region: Our results underscore the limitations of single-variable calibration in capturing the heterogeneity of the UBNB, particularly in the estimation of ETa. By integrating ETa into the calibration process, multi-variable calibration offers improved performance across both streamflow and ETa simulations, providing valuable insights into basin dynamics and internal processes. This approach, leveraging ETa as a signature of basin heterogeneity in the calibration, demonstrates significant promise for enhancing the plausibility of hydrological models in the complex, and large UBNB while maintaining computational simplicity. We used SWAT+, which is the most recent version of the most used hydrological model in the UBNB, SWAT. Thus, this study provides a benchmark for the employment and calibration of the SWAT+ model.

The construction of dams threatens the health of watershed ecosystems. The purpose of this study is to show how multiple dams in a basin can impact hydrological flow regimes and subsequently aquatic ecosystems that depend on river flows. The approach assesses the ecosystem services (ESs), including the tradeoffs between economic and ecological services due to altered flow regimes. It uses a previously developed model that integrates a landscape-based hydrological model with a reservoir operations model on a basin scale. The approach is novel because not only does it offer the analysis of alterations in ecosystem services on a daily scale when pre-dam data are unavailable but also allows for dams to be synthetically placed anywhere in the river network and the corresponding alterations in flow regimes to be simulated in a flexible manner. As a proof of concept, we analyse the economic and ecological performances of different spatial configuration of existing reservoirs instead of synthetically placed reservoirs in the upper Cauvery River basin in India. Such a study is timely and conducted for the first time, especially in light of calls to assess the cascade of reservoirs in India and regions elsewhere where pre-dam data are unavailable. The hydrological impact of different configurations of reservoirs is quantified using indicators of hydrologic alteration (IHAs). Additionally, the production of two major ecosystem services that depend on the flow regime of the river, as indicated by irrigated agricultural production and the normalized fish diversity index (NFDI), is estimated, and a tradeoff curve, i.e. a production possibility frontier, for the two services is established. Through the lens of the indices chosen for the ecosystem services, the results show that smaller reservoirs on lower-order streams are better for the basin economy and the environment than larger reservoirs. Cultivating irrigated crops of higher value can maximize the value of stored water and, with lower storage, generate a better economic value than cultivating lower-value crops while reducing hydrological alterations. The proposed approach, especially when simulating synthetic spatial configurations of reservoirs, can help water and river basin managers to understand the provision of ecosystem services in hydrologically altered basins, optimize dam operations, or even prioritize dam removals with a goal of achieving a balanced provision of ecosystem services.

Problems manifested within social-ecological systems (SES) exhibit dynamic complexity and hold implications for current and future human well-being and environmental sustainability. The complexity of these issues, the ever-present uncertainty inherent to SES, and the multi-stakeholder settings in which they are discussed call for participatory modelling to support decision-making on socio-environmental issues. Yet, this challenging endeavour requires a structured approach — a modelling cycle — to facilitate engagement with the implications of participation and uncertainty as focal points for Good Modelling Practice (GMP). Here we propose an integrated policy analysis framework for SES modelling using System Dynamics (SD). This framework stems from integrating two existing modelling cycles that individually consider participation and uncertainty in SD modelling. Three global modelling phases and a set of tools to address the participation and uncertainty features in SES modelling are distinguished. The framework contributes to mainstreaming GMP, offering a structured model-based approach to enhance the robustness and social acceptance of policies on critical socio-environmental issues.

Water resources management (WRM) models have traditionally distributing water based on system capacities, economic efficiency, and demand (Loucks and Van Beek 2017). However, these efficiency-oriented models often fail to address water distribution inequities (Savenije and Van Der Zaag 2002, Hanemann 2005, Garrick et al 2020). As challenges around water scarcity and distribution inequity intensify, the need for models integrating justice principles to ensure fair and equitable resource allocation is evident.

Ideas of morality have long been central to human thought, shaping essential debates about equity and justice in modern political philosophy. Prominent philosophers like John Rawls and Amartya Sen have significantly contributed to these discussions, offering influential frameworks for understanding these concepts (Rawls 1958, Sen 2008). They argue for the inseparability of justice and fairness, that individuals should have not only equal opportunities (justice) but also equal chances to utilize those opportunities (fairness). Equity is thus achieved when justice and fairness are consistently applied to all.

Justice considerations in WRM broadly encompass distributive justice, focusing on fair resource allocation, and procedural justice, emphasizing transparency in decision-making. Water resources equity may concern distribution between upstream and downstream states in a transboundary basin (Zeitoun et al 2014, Yalew et al 2021), rights and access to clean water in communities (Syme et al 1999) or governance issues addressing multi-sectoral water demands, such as irrigation water demands in the agriculture sector (Gross 2014, Neal et al 2014).

Distributive justice addresses the questions of 'what' (what to distribute), 'to whom' (to whom to distribute), and 'how' (how to distribute) of allocation of common pool resources. This aligns with the principle of 'equitable and reasonable use' of water resources outlined in the United Nations Watercourses Convention (United Nations 1997). It is also reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), which aims to 'Ensure access to water and sanitation for all' (United Nations 2015). Despite some attempts to incorporate equity aspects in water resources assessments (Dore et al 2012), a significant gap remains in effectively integrating justice principles into WRM models. Addressing these challenges requires the operationalization of specific fairness and justice principles within WRM models. By incorporating insights from socio-economic and philosophical theories, such as welfare economics and Rawlsian justice, into water resource assessments, hydro-economic models could be significantly improved to deliver operational and policy alternatives that balance efficiency and equity.

Water conflicts open windows of opportunity for grassroots movements to transform water systems. However, academic fields studying social movements in socio-environmental conflicts are not well equipped to deal with complexity, non-linear dynamics, and emergent properties. Therefore, these fields rarely engage with long-term complex social processes and dynamics leading to systemic socio-technical changes. Researching water conflicts driven by grassroots movements, we ask whether and how the latter can influence a socio-technical transition of a water management regime. Through an emblematic water conflict in Mexico, we analyse the grassroots movement's trajectory since the conflict´s inception by following the dynamic process of developing agency. Our findings show that throughout the conflict, the grassroots movement accumulated and mobilized diverse capitals to initiate water management strategies and practices that catalysed change in the water management regime by stalling the implementation of large infrastructures. Eventually, this led to the inception of a sustainable and just transition.

Conventional approaches to irrigation development involve large lumpsum investments in big infrastructure that cannot adapt to changing climate and socio-economic conditions. There is an urgent need for alternative ways of investing in smallholder irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that are adaptive and avoid capital lock-in. Adaptive Investment Pathways (AdIP), inspired by the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) concept, proposes stepwise investments to support smallholder irrigation development. AdIP builds resilience to future shocks through dynamic and flexible investment plans instead of investing in single static solutions. To develop an empirical grounding for operationalizing AdIP, we draw lessons from three case studies representing different stages of irrigation development along shallow sand river aquifers in Kenya and Zimbabwe. We retrospectively analyse the nature of investments at farm and landscape scales, and the type of risks and opportunities that farmers respond to. We find that in face of risks, farmers diversify their livelihoods, make small investments incrementally especially in response to opportunities and risks created by external triggers, and pause or reorient activity when they reach saturation points, i.e., biophysical or socio-political limits to their development objective, here irrigation development. Governments and external agencies can support smallholder irrigation development in SSA through targeted landscape scale investments that address saturation points faced by smallholders. This requires a robust participatory monitoring framework to identify and respond to saturation points, and a re-thinking of financing mechanisms which do not measure progress against a fixed schedule of investments, but instead measure continuous progress towards the development objective.

The social-ecological systems (SES) approach elicits a broad understanding of some of the most pressing socionatural challenges (e.g. resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and climate change) and the responsibility that humans have in addressing them. System dynamics has proven a powerful paradigm for dealing with complex SES-related issues. Here we discuss some ethical considerations of using system dynamics (SD) to model SES, something that is often either overlooked or discussed as an isolated issue. Sustainable development and human rights are used as ethical standpoints across the modelling cycle, opening the discussion around guiding principles that need to be considered when modelling SES. Based on these, a set of guiding ethical questions are identified and classified across a participatory SD modelling cycle. This structured approach is a simple yet potentially useful tool for SD practitioners to examine the ethical implications of their modelling endeavours in the context of grand societal challenges.

There is an urgent need in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to enhance irrigation access to meet the challenges of growing population and climate risk. To achieve this, big investments are currently planned in large irrigation infrastructure. We believe there is danger in following this conventional approach, which requires big lumpsum investments, locking large capital into projects that do not adapt to deep uncertainties from climatic or socio-political factors. Instead, in this Perspective article, we propose an alternate “adaptive investment pathways” (AdIP) approach for planning step-wise investments towards desired objectives, implemented progressively depending on how the future unfolds, in order to gain flexibility. AdIP extends the adaptation pathways concept, which refers to a sequence of actions to be taken in response to a changing reality, and applies it to the context of development under uncertainty. Monitoring and learning is at the heart of this approach, which ensures that the plan adapts as new knowledge becomes available. Thus, AdIP internalizes risk and reduces chances of failures. For financial institutions backing development projects, following a pathway of smaller de-centralized investments lowers risk and incorporates a learning approach that allows re-thinking and adapting along the path. We illustrate the AdIP approach using the case of ephemeral sand river based small-scale irrigation in the drylands of SSA. We conclude that in face of deep uncertainties, the path to successful irrigation development in SSA requires a shift from making few large upfront investments in large-scale projects to making large numbers of smaller investments that assure flexibility.

In Zimbabwe, farmer-led irrigation is far more widespread than planners and policy makers realise. Along the Shashani sand river, in the arid to semi-arid lands of south-western Zimbabwe, diverse farmer-initiated irrigation ventures exist. This qualitative case study focuses on bucket irrigation, in which very small vegetable fields of up to 450 m² are fenced by tree branches, and irrigated with water from scoop holes in sandy river beds. Farmers initiate and operate their fields with no external assistance. This study presents the benefits of bucket irrigation as an often-overlooked form of farmer-led irrigation development. Through this qualitative and strongly observational study, 26 bucket irrigation farmers and 4 non-irrigators were interviewed using semi-structured interviews where farmers’ perceptions and experiences were captured. We investigate what drives and sustains bucket irrigation, its significance to rural livelihoods under harsh economic and climatic conditions, and the barriers towards scaling this type of farmer-led irrigation development. The results show that drivers for bucket irrigation stem from economic hardship and are gendered. Women are motivated to irrigate mainly by the need to produce vegetables for household consumption, whereas men pursue irrigation due to a lack of employment. Bucket irrigators experience enhanced food security, and have more secure income, contributing to improved wellbeing. Furthermore, despite the desire to scale, the farm size is mainly constrained by fencing and energy for transporting water, which is a result of a persistent lack of financial capital to invest in irrigation technologies. We conclude that bucket irrigation acts as an important livelihood strategy, and that it significantly enhances farmers’ resilience to economic and climatic shocks. Bucket irrigation should not be overlooked in policies that advocate scaling of irrigation. Bucket irrigators have the potential to expand and benefit significantly if supported with innovative financial mechanisms that enable investments in the required technology and knowledge.

The construction of the Akosombo and Kpong dams in the Lower Volta River basin in Ghana changed the downstream riverine ecosystem and affected the lives of downstream communities, particularly those who lost their traditional livelihoods. In contrast to the costs borne by those in the vicinity of the river, Ghana has enjoyed vast economic benefits from the affordable hydropower, irrigation schemes and lake tourism that developed after construction of the dams. Herein lies the challenge; there exists a trade-off between water for river ecosystems and related services on the one hand and anthropogenic water demands such as hydropower or irrigation on the other. In this study, an Evolutionary Multi-Objective Direct Policy Search (EMODPS) is used to explore the multi-sectoral trade-offs that exist in the Lower Volta River basin. Three environmental flows, previously determined for the Lower Volta, are incorporated separately as environmental objectives. The results highlight the dominance of hydropower production in the Lower Volta but show that there is room for providing environmental flows under current climatic and water use conditions if the firm energy requirement from Akosombo Dam reduces by 12% to 38% depending on the environmental flow regime that is implemented. There is uncertainty in climate change effects on runoff in this region; however multiple scenarios are investigated. It is found that climate change leading to increased annual inflows to the Akosombo Dam reduces the trade-off between hydropower and the environment as this scenario makes more water available for users. Furthermore, climate change resulting in decreased annual inflows provides the opportunity to strategically provide dry-season environmental flows, that is, reduce flows sufficiently to meet low flow requirements for key ecosystem services such as the clam fishery. This study not only highlights the challenges in balancing anthropogenic water demands and environmental considerations in managing existing dams but also identifies opportunities for compromise in the Lower Volta River.

Farmer-led irrigation is valued for its resilience and ability to cope with shocks and benefit from opportunities. Yet, typologies of farmer-led irrigation are mostly static categorisations without analysing farmers’ decision-making over time, and without studying ‘failed’ cases. We therefore analysed temporal changes in farmers’ irrigation strategies to expand, downscale or cease practices as part of wider livelihood decisions and aspirations. This longitudinal study presents irrigation trajectories of 32 farmers in the arid lands of two contrasting socioeconomic settings in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Data were collected through multiple rounds of surveys and in-depth interviews. Results show that farmers frequently alternated strategies or ceased or restarted operations over the years, both by force and choice. Although many farmers were able to start, expand or sustain irrigation, not all managed or aspired to remain engaged in irrigated farming, even if the enabling environment was conducive for market-oriented irrigation development. We therefore conclude that farmers’ needs cannot always be expressed in general terms of growth or commercial farming, nor can they always be satisfied by improving the enabling environment, which may be based on static ontologies of diverse types of farmers.

Water enables health, education, and economic well-being opportunities for humanity. Access to basic water and sanitation services, freshwater variability, and water storage are some of the dimensions that may impact on human development worldwide. Yet few studies quantitatively explore the relationship between water and human development. This study uses a statistical approach to quantify the Water-Human Development relation in a global sample, both in terms of correlation and causality between variables. Correlation is established using a multiple linear regression approach, while causality is explored by implementing the multi-spatial convergent cross mapping technique. Our study finds strong interdependence between water-related variables and human development globally. Access to water services positively influences the Human Development Index (HDI), seasonal variability of freshwater resources restricts it, and large water storage is not significant. The analysis is robust between 2000 and 2017, and implies that a 1% increment in a country's HDI is associated with a 1.3%–3.2% increment in water and sanitation access. Causal analyses show strong coupling, suggesting positive feedback between access to water services and HDI that could be exploited. Reaching Sustainable Development Goal 6 requires closing the water and sanitation access gaps while addressing freshwater variability challenges. This will result in global human development benefits.

Sentinel-1 observes the whole globe every 12 days (6 days when both satellites were operational) and provides a wealth of data relevant to agriculture. Sugarcane cultivators could potentially benefit from these data by using them to assist operational and management practices. However, first, thorough understanding is needed of Sentinel-1 backscatter and its behavior over sugarcane canopies. In this study, we aimed to improve understanding of how Sentinel-1 backscatter responds to sugarcane yield variability and waterlogging. In order to do so we focused on an irrigated sugarcane plantation in Xinavane, Mozambique. In the analysis presented, we assessed different polarizations, their ratio, and benchmarked them against optical indices and passive microwave observations in different seasons. With the help of a large sugarcane yield dataset, we analyzed how backscatter relates to sucrose yield variability in different seasons. We found VV backscatter related to the stalk development, the most important reservoir for sucrose accumulation. In addition, in a season with reported waterlogging, optical and radar observations showed a delay in sugarcane crop development. Further analysis showed the presence of water underneath the canopy caused an increase in all polarizations and the cross ratio (CR). The results imply that Sentinel-1 backscatter contains information on both waterlogging under the canopy as well as sucrose development in the stalk. By isolating and quantifying the impact of waterlogging on backscatter, it will be possible to further quantify sucrose development with backscatter observations and identify waterlogging simultaneously.

Open-access remote sensing products provide data for transboundary water management. This study presents a comprehensive overview of the applications, uncertainties and implications of these remote sensing data products in the context of transboundary water management. Focusing on different stages within the transboundary cooperation continuum, we delineate the potential role and application of remote sensing data at the various stages of this cooperation. Despite the uncertainties and capacity requirements for data acquisition, processing and interpretation, we argue that remote sensing broadens opportunities to monitor, assess, forecast, track or validate compliance in transboundary basins, thereby challenging traditional notions of water data exclusivity.

Study region: Upper Cauvery river basin, India Study focus: Reservoir construction is one of the major contributors to changes in natural river flow regime characteristics. This study aims to understand the hydrological alterations resulting from the construction of reservoirs and water abstraction in the upper regions of the basin. The impacts of dams on river flow regimes where data is available only for periods after the construction of the dams is assessed. A landscape-based hydrological model, FLEX-Topo, is used to model the flows contributed by the upstream and downstream areas of four major reservoirs in the study area. A separate reservoir operation model is developed for each of the reservoirs. Next, the hydrological model is integrated with the reservoir model and the modelled flow at the downstream streamflow gauging station of each of the corresponding four sub-basins is calibrated. The modelled flow regimes with and without reservoirs are then compared using the indicators of hydrological alterations to understand the degree to which the flows have been altered by the reservoirs. New hydrological insights for the region: The results indicate that flow regimes have been modified from their natural state following reservoir impoundment and water abstractions. Significant impacts are observed in median monthly flow, 1-day minimum flow and low pulses. Such information could provide a reference to water managers to replicate the natural flow regimes, help sustain natural biota and thus contribute toward the sustainable management of river basins in India.

In the semi-arid lands of southern Kenya, a dynamic process of farmer-led irrigation has developed over the past two decades. It is characterised by short-term agreements to access land and water. Resident and migrant farmers, capital providers and local landowners have engaged in diverse partnerships to benefit from water and land along the Olkeriai sand river. This study aims to unravel which actors and motives drive the resulting highly dynamic forms of irrigation. Surveys, in-depth interviews and mapping exercises with farmers, capital providers and landowners were conducted over a period of 1.5-years. The results show that involved actors favour short-term lease and partnership arrangements and farmers frequently change fields along the river or leave the area and return. It is primarily the migrant farmers and capital providers who take decisions on when and where to move. They are informed by their experience with production factors, financial gains and losses, partner relations, or the ability to expand. We conclude that individualisation of land rights, migration, abundance of water, proximate markets, and rural-urban networks are instrumental to the emergence of this dynamic form of agriculture. Farmers have found a degree of security in flexibility, to access land and water in shifting fields and partners, rather than in property rights for specific plots. Yet, the short-term scope of these operations for monetary gains raises concerns about the sustainable use of land and water resources in the region.

The provision of flows for the environment, e-flows, is a means to restore the benefits of naturally flowing rivers. Despite the development of numerous methodologies to determine e-flows and optimize dam releases, actual implementation is relatively limited. Examples of successful e-flows implementation through dam reoperation exist in scientific literature; however, there is a missing narrative on cases where dam reoperation has been attempted but not successfully implemented. This study explores this impasse narrative and presents four hypotheses for further research on this subject: (1) Scientists are important stakeholders in the process of dam reoperation, but should play a supportive role rather than drive the process; (2) In undertaking scientific studies for determination of e-flows, a consensus on the priorities, knowledge gap, and solutions must be reached together with local stakeholders; (3) Local-level legislation and policy on e-flows provide the enabling environment for dam reoperation for e-flows; and (4) Genuine, carefully designed consultations of, and negotiations between, stakeholders can overcome hurdles encountered in the process of dam reoperation for e-flows implementation.

The growing competition for finite land and water resources and the need to feed an ever-growing population require new techniques to monitor the performance of irrigation schemes and improve land and water productivity. Datasets from FAO's portal to monitor Water Productivity through Open access Remotely sensed derived data (WaPOR) are increasingly applied as a cost-effective means to support irrigation performance assessment and identify possible pathways for improvement. This study presents a framework that applies WaPOR data to assess irrigation performance indicators, including uniformity, equity, adequacy, and land and water productivity differentiated by irrigation method (furrow, sprinkler, and centre pivot) at the Xinavane sugarcane estate, Mozambique. The WaPOR data on water, land, and climate are in near-real time and spatially distributed, with the finest spatial resolution in the area of 100gm. The WaPOR data were first validated agronomically by examining the biomass response to water, and then the data were used to systematically analyse seasonal indicators for the period 2015 to 2018 on g1/48000gha. The WaPOR-based yield estimates were found to be comparable to the estate-measured yields with ±20g% difference, a root mean square error of 19±2.5gtgha-1 and a mean absolute error of 15±1.6gtgha-1. A climate normalization factor that enables the spatial and temporal comparison of performance indicators are applied. The assessment highlights that in Xinavane no single irrigation method performs the best across all performance indicators. Centre pivot compared to sprinkler and furrow irrigation shows higher adequacy, equity, and land productivity but lower water productivity. The three irrigation methods have excellent uniformity (g1/494g%) in the four seasons and acceptable adequacy for most periods of the season except in 2016, when a drought was observed. While this study is done for sugarcane in one irrigation scheme, the approach can be broadened to compare other crops across fields or irrigation schemes across Africa with diverse management units in the different agroclimatic zones within FAO WaPOR coverage. We conclude that the framework is useful for assessing irrigation performance using the WaPOR dataset.

Access to accurate and trusted data for transboundary water management is important but not always sufficiently appreciated. Based on the Lake Victoria water levels decline, this technical note demonstrates that when a water crisis unfolds, tensions can arise because of absence of relevant data and uncertainty over data that are available. These may hamper the process towards agreeing on actions to be taken, thus delaying crisis resolution. This technical note demonstrates the importance of reliable data in a sensitive transboundary water situation. Countries therefore should allocate sufficient resources for adequately monitoring the state of transboundary water resources within their territories.

This paper explores the concept of “institutional readiness” (IR) applied to the adoption and mainstreaming of Nature-based solutions (NBS) to deal with climate related risks. We argue that barriers towards up-scaling and mainstreaming of NBS are a manifestation of uncertainty, and are often associated with the ‘readiness’ of the institutional setting rather than with the readiness of the NBS technology itself. We align the concepts of Institutional Readiness (IR) to the more widely used concept of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) to understand drivers and barriers for adoption of NBS and analyse the role of institutional capacity. We illustrate this with the case study of the Urban Water Buffer Spangen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which is an NBS with high TRL. To do so, we constructed a timeline of the design and implementation process of the NBS, identifying and classifying key uncertainties as well as the strategies applied to deal with these uncertainties, particularly in the institutional context. Our results indicate that for mainstreaming of NBS, Institutional Readiness (IR) should be at a degree where strategies to deal with uncertainties in institutional, organizational and governance contexts can be integrated in the design and planning process. We claim that the concept of IR should be considered in its role to deal with uncertainty, in order to close the documented gap of NBS implementation and mainstreaming.