Water Resources Strategies to Increase Food Production in the Semi-Arid Tropics

Water resources and water balance modelling are used to quantify the effect of water resources strategies and climatic conditions on water resources availability and the potential of alluvial aquifers. The greatest benefit for the least impact comes from strategies providing for better land and soil/water management, such as changing from maize to small grains, production of livestock fodder and conservation agriculture. Small dams are a key resource to rural communities, and there is also great potential for the exploitation of alluvial aquifers for water supply. Better management of existing large dams, and conjunctive use of alluvial groundwater could increase productive use of water.