Water scarcity and abundance, water productivity and their relation to poverty - Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security - page 28

provides a productive capture fishery used by smallholders in the Tonle Sap in
Cambodia (PN58, MK5 and MK2) (Kirby et al., 2010b; Mainuddin et al.,
2011; Kura, 2012; Pukinskis and Geheb, 2012). The lower Mekong Basin
yields about 4.5 mt/yr of fish and aquatic products worth US$3.9-7 billion/yr,
with fisheries contributing to the diversification of livelihoods of the poor. The
annual flood-ebb pulse opens up new feeding areas for fish to feed and triggers
migration in some fish species (Pukinskis and Geheb, 2012).
The Yellow River and the Niger have similar seasonally flooded fisheries
(PN69) (Kam, 2010; Béné et al., 2009). Seasonal flooding of the Nile was
important to cropping in Egypt, especially in the delta, but no longer occurs
downstream of the Aswan high dam.
Access
Our definition of farm-level water scarcity includes who has access to the
water resources. Because of conflicting interests among water users, it can be
difficult to define who the right people are. Conflict over access to water can
occur at the community, landscape, catchment, basin and regional levels, or
even internationally. Here we only give a few examples as Chapter 6 on the
contributions of research to understanding and strengthening institutions for
equitable water resource management discusses water access at greater length.
In the Limpopo Basin, access to water resources is inequitable with larger
commercial farmers having preference over smallholders (PN62) (Alemaw et
al., 2010). In the Mekong Basin, conflicts in the use of water to generate
hydropower to the detriment of agriculture and fisheries have been researched
in both CPWF phases (PN67, MK5, MK4, MK3 and others) (Dore et al.,
2010; Joffre et al, 2011; Pukinskis and Geheb, 2012; Sajor, 2012). The
challenge has been to find ways to protect farming, fisheries and ecosystem
services even as planning, construction and operation of hydropower dams go
ahead (Ziv et al., 2012).
Improvements in productivity can sometimes intrude on access to water.
Improved community-managed aquaculture during the wet season in season-
ally flooded areas in Bangladesh precedes a dry-season crop. As the economic
success of aquaculture became apparent, private investors began to compete to
lease the fishing rights, threatening community access (PN35) (Sheriff et al.,
2010; Ratner et al., 2012).
Water access is linked to seasonality and water quality, often in complex
ways. In coastal Vietnam, some farmers wanted freshwater to grow rice while
others wanted saline water to grow shrimp at different times during the year
and at different places. Researchers analyzed land- and water-use options using
modeling. They defined suitable areas both for rice and for shrimp, which
effectively resolved conflict and fostered intensification and diversification of
the farming system (PN10) (Tuong and Hoanh, 2009).
Self-supply and informal arrangements flexible enough to cope with the
harsh climate governed traditional access to rural water in South Africa (and