Africa is urbanizing rapidly, and many unemployed or poor people are trying to produce food in urban and peri-urban areas. Many local authorities see this as high-risk food production, mainly because of the risk of use of contaminated water. However, with good planning, urban gardens can supply...

This chapter discusses the emerging challenges of declining water resources and climate change in crop agriculture as well as the crop management options available to increase water productivity, i.e. through increasing water-use efficiency or through crop improvement. Also discussed are farm...

This chapter provides detailed information about irrigation methods commonly used on small farms, including: irrigation decisions, water application methods, and irrigation efficiency.

This chapter discusses the goals of irrigation scheduling, irrigation water requirement, deficit irrigation, and drainage.

This chapter highlights the importance of integrating the indigenous knowledge of rice farmers into the development and extension of agricultural technologies to facilitate widespread farmer adoption and achievement of multidimensional impacts. It illustrates a few case studies where indigenous...

This book with 12 chapters provides an introduction to the theoretical foundations of agricultural water management, and presents a range of basic techniques for promoting efficient water use on farms. Subjects covered include crop water requirements, soil and water conservation, rainwater...

This chapter discusses the following key concepts used in this book: water cycle, water distribution, water in agriculture, and water management planning. It is suggested that in this book, where the focus is improving water productivity on primarily rainfed smallholdings, efficiency terms are used ...

This chapter describes some common rainwater harvesting techniques and provides the information necessary to choose an appropriate approach for a given context. It covers topics spanning: (1) in-field rainwater harvesting; (2) off-field rainwater harvesting; and (3) water storage structures and...

This chapter addresses the character and quality of water sources commonly used to supply irrigation projects. It also introduces some water contaminants of special concern, and provides a brief overview of water-lifting devices traditionally employed on small farms.

This book provides experiences from studies on agricultural water management under climate change as references for agriculture and irrigation planners, decision makers, researchers and students. Chapters 2 and 3 provide an overview of global assessment of climate change impacts and water...