FAO boosts Iranian experts’ knowledge of agricultural water saving and water productivity
FAO boosts Iranian experts’ knowledge of agricultural water
saving and water productivity
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), as part of its multilateral project to support Iran in reducing the
agriculture water consumption in the Lake Urmia basin, equips Iranian experts
with the requisite knowledge and skills to implement the advanced approach
of Real Water Savings (REWAS) in the agriculture sector.
Like many other Asian nations, and due to projected
population growth, economic development and associated water demands, the
country is expecting to experience growing water scarcity over the following
years.
In these circumstances, and considering a growing body of
evidence revealing that many of the traditional water saving technologies are
ineffective, FAO and the Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) link arms,
providing an eLearning opportunity for Iranian officers and researchers from
the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad, the Ministry of Energy, ULRP and a number of
academic institutions, on using REWAS. This training enables Iranian experts to
estimate real water savings and water productivity in the Urmia Lake basin, and
evaluate the impact of field-scale crop-water interventions on basin-scale
water savings, more accurately.
The eLearning program is provided by FutureWater
research and consulting organisation under the FAO Water Scarcity
Initiative for Asia and the Pacific.
“REWAS provides the decision-makers with an insight of water
flows at the farm, irrigation system, and basin scale. It leads to a higher
awareness of the factors involved in achieving real water savings and improving
the water productivity of the agricultural sector,” said Jonna van Opstal, Water
Productivity Expert at FutureWater, who also led this virtual training.
“REWAS is using the concept of ‘following the water.’ In
this approach, drainage, runoff and percolation to the groundwater are no
longer considered as ‘losses,’ because downstream users often use these
recoverable waters. This concept resolves a paradox in the water sector where
more efficient technologies are expected to reduce water demands, but in
reality, lead to higher water consumption and exacerbating the water scarcity problems,”
added van Opstal.
As per this expert, adopting such an approach can stop the
false belief that high-tech irrigation methods (e.g. drip irrigation) save high
amounts of water. It likewise supports the development of better water
governance, which can regulate the expansion of unsustainable irrigated areas
by evaluating real water savings.
FAO, being the lead UN agency in promoting climate-smart
agricultural and sustainable rural development, supports its Member Countries
in developing and implementing policies, measures and practices that facilitate
addressing the risks and threats posed to the agriculture sector and rural
communities.
