This book presents a state of the art review of the limits and opportunities for improving water productivity in crop production, focusing on both irrigated and rain-fed agriculture. It provides concepts, methodologies, constraints and examples drawn from a wealth of experience from developing and...

Improving water productivity is urgently needed in water-scarce dry areas. This chapter discusses crop-water production functions, i.e. the relationships between yield and water supply and water productivity. Using data from Syria, the North China Plain and Oregon, USA, crop-water production...

This paper discusses some of the concepts and complexities in economic analyses related to increasing water productivity, provides some examples and determines what it implies regarding the potential for increasing water productivity. The chapter is divided into three main sections. The first...

This study was conducted to analyse variations in wheat yields and to assess the range of factors affecting wheat yields and the profitability of wheat production in selected irrigation systems in India and Pakistan. The constraints and opportunities for closing the existing yield gap were...

Substantially increasing the productivity of water used in agriculture is essential to meet goals of food and environmental security. Achieving these increases requires research that spans scales of analysis and disciplines. In spite of its importance, we do not have a common conceptual framework...

This paper focuses on the opportunities for increasing crop water productivity through breeding. The first section takes a general look at water use by plants and by farmers and the implications of these uses for water productivity at the crop level. The second section discusses the opportunities...

This chapter provides a review of a study conducted at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Quito, Ecuador, on improving water productivity in potato. Generally, potato is shallow-rooted and sensitive to even mild water deficits. Most of CIP's work related to water productivity was done in the...

Most major water basins in Thailand, especially the Chao Phraya River basin, are now nearing closure. An increasing amount of water is being diverted out of agriculture, and intrabasin allocation generates tensions. Water productivity can be potentially raised by two economic measures with three...

Reliable information on water depletion for agricultural production is much needed when freshwater resources are getting scarcer. This is the case in the irrigated Indus basin in Pakistan. Despite their importance, data required to monitor the productivity of the land and water resources over vast...

In this paper, the evolution of the concept of efficiency mainly in the field of irrigation is traced. Irrigation is chosen as the focus because: (i) over 70% of the world's developed water supplies are diverted for irrigation and, therefore, it is especially important to get these concepts right...