The ‘WISE-UP to climate’ project aims to demonstrate the value of natural infrastructure as a ‘nature-based solution’ for climate change adaptation and sustainable development. Within the Tana River Basin, both natural and built infrastructure provide livelihood benefits for people. Understanding the interrelationships between the two types of infrastructure is a prerequisite for sustainable water resources development and management. This is particularly true as pressures on water resources intensify and the impacts of climate change increase. This report provides an overview of the biophysical characteristics, ecosystem services and links to livelihoods within the basin.

Sustainable participatory watershed management is an approach promoted by the Ethiopian government to restore natural resources and agricultural productivity across the country. This comparative study between six watershed programs shows that this approach increases farmers’ food security and incomes (around 50% on average), as well as their resilience to drought and other climate shocks. However, the study also confirms that the nature and scale of impact can vary significantly between watershed programs. The success of watershed management depends on multiple factors from the hydrological profile of the watershed to the local social and economic environment. Tailoring watershed interventions to the local context, associating conservation and livelihoods activities, and providing further financial and technical support to watershed committees are among the recommendations of this paper.

This report summarizes the findings of a collaborative effort to map and assess irrigated areas in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. The study was conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) and the Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (LDARD), as part of the DAFF-supported ‘Revitalization of irrigation in South Africa’ project. Based on a combination of Landsat and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data, previous irrigated area mapping exercises carried out by DAFF and three-field ground truthing (GT) surveys, a total of 1.6 million hectares (Mha) of cropland were identified, with 262,000 ha actually irrigated in the 2015 winter season. The study also found that only 29% of all land equipped with center pivots was actually irrigated.

A survey of 76 public smallholder irrigation schemes in the Limpopo Province was jointly conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), South Africa, and the Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (LDARD), as part of the ‘Revitalization of Smallholder Irrigation in South Africa’ project. About one-third of those schemes was fully utilized; one-third partially utilized; and one-third not utilized in the winter of 2015; however, no single socioeconomic, physical, agronomic and marketing variable could explain these differences in utilization. Sale, mostly for informal markets, appeared the most important goal. Dilapidated infrastructure was the most important constraint cited by the farmers. The study recommends ways to overcome the build-neglect-rebuild syndrome, and to learn lessons from informal irrigation, which covers an area three to four times as large as public irrigation schemes in the province.