Improving rural livelihoods in India

Three leading institutes in India have collaborated with the Water (WAT) Program to compile harmonized databases and build a common framework for jointly assessing the impact of climate, land use, soil nutrients, and water management on local livelihoods.

Adapted from: © Jandirkhansen | Dreamstime

Adapted from: © Jandirkhansen | Dreamstime

This collaborative project, Sustaining and Improving Rural Livelihoods through Adaptive Approaches to Land, Soil Nutrient and Water Management, covers three geographically distinct but thematically related research projects in India. The specialties and skills of the institutes in each pilot area—the Institute of Rural Management in Anand, the National Institute of Hydrology in Roorkee, and the Center for Water Resources Development and Management in Kozhikode—have been combined with WAT’s systems analytical expertise for this work [1].

In 2015, essential field data and spatial information from the chosen pilot areas, the Kozhikode district in Kerala, the Tikamgarh district in India’s water-scarce Bundelkhand region, and the Gujarat region, were exchanged between the institutions and nutrient accounting methods and strategies were discussed. The results of this work will be fed into a decision-support system, which can then be scaled up and applied to other areas.

Figure 1. Land equipped with irrigation (left) and soil suitability for maize cultivation (right) in Gujarat


References

[1] Singh PK & Nair A (2014). Livelihood vulnerability assessment to climate variability and change using a fuzzy cognitive mapping approach. Climatic Change, 127:475-491.

Collaborators

Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), India

Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), India

National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), India

Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), India  


Print this page

Last edited: 09 March 2016

CONTACT DETAILS

Günther Fischer

Distinguished Emeritus Research Scholar Water Security Research Group - Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program

Harrij van Velthuizen

Guest Senior Research Scholar Water Security Research Group - Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program

Research program

Related research

Further information

Events

Staff

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313