Time Frame
2001-2005
Goal
and objectives
The
ultimate goal is to promote water-management techniques in rice-based irrigation systems that sustain the environment and allow crop production to be maintained or increased in the face of growing demands for competing uses of water. Specific objectives are to:
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Quantify and compare yield and water balance components of three water-saving irrigation technologies, namely alternate wetting-and-drying (AWD), saturated soil culture (SSC) and aerobic rice, with continuously flooded rice. |
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Improve farmers' production systems by providing high-yielding, profitable options for environments with water shortages. |
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Assess whether on-farm water-saving practices - AWD, SSC, and aerobic rice - lead to real water savings at the irrigation systems level. |
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Identify optimal options for improving river water flows while minimizing adverse economic and environmental impacts.
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Quantify the effects of water costs, water pricing mechanisms, irrigation group size, and mode of group organization on group-level water management, and to identify institutions, infrastructure, and decision-making practices that encourage on-farm and off-farm water saving and reuse.
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To begin to identify those regions where the potential to save water and increase water productivity appears greatest, and to promote water-saving practices and policies in those regions. |
Methodology
The
project is structured around four well-defined subprojects:
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Subproject 1 focuses on farm-level agronomic and financial assessment of AWD, and, through controlled field experiments, compares continuously flooded rice with three different systems of water-saving irrigation technologies: AWD, SSC and aerobic rice. |
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Sub-project 2 assesses the water-saving potential of alternative management practices at farm, irrigation system, and sub-basin levels at the two Chinese sites, and, for the Murrumbidgee area in Australia, identifies optimal options for improving river water flows and minimizing adverse economic and environmental impacts on irrigation areas. |
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Subproject 3 studies the effect of policies, institutions, management practices and infrastructure on the allocation and utilization of water and on the incentive to adopt water-saving practices at farm level and at system levels.
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Subproject 4 focuses on the extension of water-saving practices by: (i) holding frequent dialogues with managers and policy makers, (ii) disseminating research findings, (iii) training researchers in farm and system level water management methodologies and analyses, and (iv) identifying areas suitable areas for the promotion of water-saving technologies. |
Project location(s)
China:
Zanghe Irrigation System (near Wuhan, Hubei) and Liuyuankou Irrigation System (near Kaifeng, Henan) Australia: Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area Partners
(in full)
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