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Frequent droughts and rapidly depleting groundwater reserves have deepened the water scarcity crisis in Jordan. Even though most farms use 'water-saving' technologies, groundwater depletion continues at an alarming rate. We investigate how farmers' past experiences of physical water availability are related to their current behaviour, by examining the frequency of irrigation and how farmers determine irrigation needs. Data came from a primary survey of 414 commercial farms. Using the seemingly unrelated regression estimator, we find that respondents who perceived a reduction in physical water availability and agricultural losses in the past irrigated more frequently and were more likely to use self-judgement in determining irrigation needs. These relationships were more pronounced for smaller farms than larger farms, farms with sandy soil, mono-cropping farms, and owner-managed farms. These effects were lower for farms that preferred in-person approaches for receiving irrigation advice. While the frequency of irrigation was higher among stone fruit farms, the probability of using self-judgement in determining irrigation needs was higher in olive farms and vegetable farms. We argue that farmers' irrigation behaviour must be considered for groundwater management policy and planning in Jordan, an important component of the country's ability to adapt to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As groundwater levels steadily decline in India, authorities are concerned about reducing extraction for irrigation purposes without jeopardizing food security. Very low or zero prices for electricity and water in agriculture is partly responsible for overextraction, but charging higher prices is politically not feasible. In this study, we describe the results of a pilot scheme implemented in Punjab, India, where farmers who enrolled were allocated a monthly entitlement of electricity units and compensated for unused electricity. Eight hours of uninterrupted daytime electricity supply were also provided under the scheme instead of the usual mix of daytime and night‐time supply. Analyzing data from a cross‐sectional farm household survey and instrumenting for enrollment, we find that self‐reported hours of irrigation for enrolled farmers were significantly lower than for non‐enrolled ones, with no impact on rice yields. We also find a reduction in monthly electricity consumption at electricity‐feeder level due to the pilot scheme using the synthetic control method. Our results suggest that the combination of daytime electricity provision and cash incentives for unused electricity has the potential to incentivize farmers to reduce electricity consumption and irrigation hours by at least 7.5% and up to 30% without impacting paddy yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: COVID‐19 has revived focus on improving equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health services in developing countries. Most public programming tends to rely on economic indicators to identify and target vulnerable groups. Can expanded targeting criteria that include social status help to improve not only targeting, but also equity in access to WASH and health services? Purpose: This article assesses the role of social identity in mediating access to WASH and health services, controlling for economic disadvantages such as household wealth, income sources, and assets. Methods and approach: We use regression analysis applied to the 2016 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) to estimate the relationships between social identity and access to WASH and health services, controlling for wealth (using wealth index quantiles) and remittances (using indicator variables for domestic and international remittances). Findings: We find that differences in access are mediated in large part by caste, and religious and ethnic identity, especially in rural areas, suggesting that the supply of such services is lower for historically disadvantaged communities. In addition, communities with least access are not necessarily the most economically disadvantaged, indicating that relying solely on traditional economic indicators to target programmes and interventions may not be sufficient to improve equity in access to public health services. Policy implications: The results make a case for broadening indicators beyond the economic criteria for improving targeting of public funds for more inclusive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Policymakers in Sub-Saharan Africa have placed considerable emphasis on expanding irrigated agriculture. This is in response to the subcontinent's growing population pressure, coupled with production risks associated with declining and variable rainfall. Irrigation is viewed as an important strategy to improve food security and protect rural livelihoods, with small-scale irrigation identified as the preferred strategy. And yet, adoption of irrigation has been slow, and irrigation investments are often underutilized. Expanding irrigated agriculture through increases in cultivated area alone will not be sufficient for greater food security; land and water productivity of irrigated agriculture needs to be increased, and this may in fact help accelerate the adoption of irrigation. Shared irrigation investments among small farmers are going to be challenging to sustain as smallholder households diversify their livelihoods, and do not cultivate field crops every season. For individual irrigation technologies, many barriers exist in their adoption, especially the risks and ambiguities such as pestilence and borehole installation failures; and governments will have to invest significantly more than they currently do in research and extension efforts to ease these barriers. Finally, the expansion of irrigation, especially individual irrigation, will likely create environmental challenges such as aquifer depletion, water pollution, and soil degradation, which governments would also have to manage by coordinating the actions of individual smallholders. This paper identifies the kind of institutional infrastructure and policy support that African agriculture will need to have in place to expand irrigation beyond its current status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis provides new estimates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) prevalence – including CKD of unknown etiology (CKDu) – across ten districts most affected by CKD in Sri Lanka, including an examination of rural households' historical reliance on groundwater consumption. A carefully designed household survey provides information on whether these households self-reported having a member in the decade prior to 2018, who had been clinically diagnosed with CKD. Households were classified according to whether or not they had used groundwater (from household wells, agro-wells or springs) as their primary source for drinking or cooking for at least five years between 1999 and 2018. More than 98% of households reported having consumed groundwater as their primary source of drinking or cooking water for at least five of those years and >15% of households reported having at least one CKD-affected member in the ten-year period up to 2018, but these numbers varied across and within districts. The reported characteristics of symptomatic individuals reveal that the incidence of CKD was significantly higher among females (62%) than males (38%). In addition to CKD, about 63% of symptomatic individuals had hypertension and about one-third of them also had diabetes. About 33% of the symptomatic individuals had neither diabetes nor hypertension, where this group most closely fits commonly used definitions of CKDu. With a survey response of over 8000 households comprising as many as 30,000 individuals, these data illustrate the scale of CKD in the most-affected districts of Sri Lanka on an aggregate basis as well as revealing differences across districts and at the sub-district level. Unlabelled Image • Comprehensive survey of 8049 households in most CKD affected districts in Sri Lanka • New estimates of CKD prevalence and diabetes and hypertension incidence by district • 15.4% households had at least one CKD symptomatic resident between 2009 and 2018. • Significantly higher CKD incidence among females (62%) than males • 67% of the symptomatic individuals had hypertension or diabetes, 33% had neither. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]