Xueliang Cai

Producing more food with less water in a changing world: assessment of water productivity in 10 major river basins

This article summarizes the results of water productivity assessment in 10 river basins across Asia, Africa and South America, representing a range of agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Intensive farming in the Asian basins gives much greater agricultural outputs and higher water productivity. Largely subsistence agriculture in Africa has significantly lower water productivity. There is very high intra-basin variability, which is attributed mainly to lack of inputs, and poor water and crop management. Closing gaps between “bright spots” and the poorly performing areas are the major tasks for better food security and improved livelihoods, which have to be balanced with environmental sustainability.

An assessment of crop water productivity in the Indus and Ganges River Basins: current status and scope for improvement

The Indus and Ganges River Basin, being the most populous in the world, is under extreme pressure to sustain food security. Production resources including water are being exploited to various levels from underdevelopment to heavy overexploitation. This report provides a bird’s eye view of the basin and focuses on the nexus between agricultural production and water consumption, making it possible to pinpoint the areas with high/low water productivity and identify the factors behind this, which helps to promote informed decision making in light of environmental sustainability.

Local storages: the impact on hydrology and implications for policy making in irrigation systems

OASIS, an irrigation diagnosis model, is applied to the Zhanghe Irrigation System in central China to investigate the contribution of smaller local storages (in “melons on the vine” configuration) as compared with the main reservoir. Results show that local storages are more important in normal-to-wet years, while the main reservoir is critical in dry years, which implies a strong policy correction relevant to many parts of the world. Balanced investment in various storage infrastructures with associated management practices is a cost-effective strategy for irrigation development.

Water accounting to assess use and productivity of water: evolution of a concept and new frontiers

In Godfrey, J. M.; Chalmers, K. (Eds.). Water accounting: international approaches to policy and decision-making. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar

A Python Implementation Of The Harmonic Analysis Of Time Series (Hants) Algorithm For Geospatial Data

This is the first release of the python implementation for the Harmonic ANalysis of Time Series (HANTS) using geospatial data (https://github.com/gespinoza/hants).