Welcome to the course page of the training on Water Accounting in Pakistan!

On this website, we will share the training material and assignments with you. There is a forum, that you can use to communicate with your instructors and fellow participants. You can also post questions, comments or suggestions.

Course introduction

As an agrarian economy that heavily depends on water, it is crucial for Pakistan to adopt a more integrated water management approach and formulate data-driven strategies to avert from the deepening water crisis. Limited storage infrastructure and a weak management system are aggravating the tensions between provinces as the water crisis continues to worsen.

In order to address the growing vulnerability of the Indus Basin, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change, has developed a project titled ‘Transforming the Indus Basin with Climate Resilient Agriculture and Water Management’. The project is funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and aims to shift agriculture and water management to a new paradigm in which farmers are successfully adapting to climate change and can sustain their livelihoods. There are three main components:

1. Enhancing Information Services for Climate Change Adaptation in the Water and Agriculture Sectors
2. Building on-Farm Resilience to Climate Change
3. Creating an Enabling Environment for Continued Transformation

The first component focuses on building the country’s capacity to utilize modern tools and technologies for improved monitoring, analysis and dissemination of information related to climate, water, and agriculture in Pakistan. Within the first component, there are three sub-components: i) Developing a Water Accounting (WA) System, ii) Establishing an Evapotranspiration (ET) based Water Management System, and iii) Improving Availability and Use of Information Services.

This course was developed by FutureWater as part of the first sub-component of Component 1. The aim of this course is to enable stakeholders to develop water accounts at four respective scales: i) Indus Basin, ii) Provincial (Punjab and Sindh), Canal Command Areas and Water Course Level. Given the growing issues of water scarcity, climate change impacts, unmet irrigation demands and weak water governance in Pakistan, this water accounting system can aid decision-makers to design evidence-based policies and achieve sustainable water resources management.

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s (SDCs) Global Programme Climate Change and Environment (GP CCE) India is supporting the operationalization of climate change adaptation actions in the mountain states of Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh through the phase two of the “Strengthening State Strategies for Climate Action” (3SCA) project that was launched in 2020. Within this framework SDC has granted a project to FutureWater, together with Utrecht University, The Energy and Resources Institute, the University of Geneva and a few individual experts. The activities in this project focus on the development and application of climate responsive models and approaches for integrated water resources management (IWRM) for a selected glacier-fed sub-basin system in Uttarakhand and that at the same will find place in relevant policy frameworks paving way for their replication across the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) and other mountainous regions.

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This tailor-made training, funded by Nuffic as part of the Mena Scholarship Programme and requested by The Center for Conservation and Development of Sustainable Ecosystems (ZIPAK) in Iran, focused on providing participants with relevant hands-on experience in tools and techniques to enhance their capacity to manage (protected) ecosystems in Iran.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Pakistan has recently secured Green Climate Fund (GCF) funds for increasing the climate resilience of agriculture and water management in the Indus Basin. Given the region’s climate vulnerability, it is critical to improve information services and build the country’s capacity to use this information to cope with the impacts of climate change on the agriculture and water sector. Establishing a water accounting system is the first step to better managing water resources and maintaining agricultural yield; however, limited technical capacity and lack of ground data remains a challenge. Therefore, FutureWater aims to not only offer an improved understanding of water accounting for key stakeholders but also conduct a capacity needs assessment to design and deliver tailor-made trainings which will focus on using open-access datasets to implement water accounting at different spatial scales.

This tailor-made training, funded by Nuffic and requested by the staff of the The Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ), aims to help improving soil water management and crop productivity at the national level. The training focuses on building capacity of participants in accessing and using public data and innovative open source tools. Modules are designed specifically considering the requesting organization needs and take place over a period of 5 months, combining both online and in-person sessions. In total, 5 modules are provided combining both theoretical sessions and and self-paced exercises.

The Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has recently secured funds to continue a program of training on ReWaS, which is a simple tool to estimate the potential for generating real water savings from various agronomic, water management and technical practices in irrigated agriculture. The tool was developed by FutureWater as part of FAO RAP’s developing regional program on water scarcity in Asia and the Pacific. So far successful trainings have been held in Nepal, Vietnam, Malaysia and Iran. The training program will now be extended to Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Afghanistan and Thailand. By the end of the training, participants will have a solid understanding of the linkages between field interventions and basin-scale hydrology, in addition to being able to quantify these impacts.

This tailor-made training, funded by Nuffic and requested by the staff of the college of Agriculture of Basra University, aims to help mitigate soil and water salinization problems hampering agricultural production in Iraq. The training focuses on accessing and using innovative data and tools in the public domain, to gain insight into salinity issues, improve salinity control and enhancing agricultural production in Iraq by analyzing crop performance and assessing irrigation management. Next to building capacity of participants in accessing and using innovative public-domain data, tools and models to analyze water resources and support climate-smart irrigation strategies, a key objective is to strengthen collaboration and partnerships between Dutch and Iraqi institutions in the fields of water management, agriculture, and education.

The ‘Farmers Toolkit’ as presented in this project contains various geodata tools applicable for farmers to assist their decision-making and adopt climate smart agricultural practices. This project launches a training program on these tools, which are: Flying Sensors, irrigation advisory services (IrriWatch portal), WaPOR and Google Earthengine Apps, and Climate Risk Assessments. The training providers consortium (FutureWater, IrriWatch, Delphy, Cairo University and HiView) are tailoring the activities towards the requirements of the selected beneficiaries which are private companies, consultants, and NGO’s active as extension officers in the agricultural sector of Egypt. The training program is a unique combination of face-to-face training, online teaching, and field schools conducted throughout the growing season of 2021.

FutureWater will conduct the bio-physical assessment and hydrological analysis for the Mukungwa and Akagera Lower Catchments in Rwanda. The project will be the basis for two catchment plans to be developed through the “EIWRM Project”, funded by the Government of the Netherlands and implemented by a consortium led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). FutureWater is very proud that it has another opportunity to do a project in Rwanda.