Water is essential for all of Earth's ecosystems and the food systems they support. However, as climate change becomes more pronounced, water resources are coming under increasing strain. Higher temperatures, shifting weather patterns and less predictable rainfall are leading to deteriorating water quality, less reliable water availability and rising water scarcity.

As the biggest user of freshwater – responsible for 70% of global freshwater withdrawals – agriculture is uniquely and increasingly exposed to these climate-induced risks. If farming is to mitigate and adapt to climate change, it must adopt sustainable, climate-smart agricultural water management (AWM) practices and technologies.

Selecting AWM interventions that are context and situation specific is essential, and can be done using a stakeholder participatory approach. This provides a framework for local stakeholders to identify location-specific practices based on implementation feasibility, acceptability, adoption barriers, synergy with government plans and schemes, incentive mechanisms and key institutions required.

By integrating local knowledge and experiences, the stakeholder participatory approach provides valuable information for the plan and design of AWM interventions. This was the case in Beed, a district of the Indian state of Maharashtra, where a participatory approach enabled local stakeholders to identify nine 'water-smart' technologies and practices, including irrigation scheduling and raised bed planting for vegetables, which were not only suitable for the local conditions, but could build water resilience and reduce the negative impacts of climate change on crop production.

Read the full article about agriculture water management at CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems.