New web-tool introduced to enhance water management
A decision support and web tool to help policy makers to identify where an ideal water systems should be sited was launched in Tamale on Thursday.
The tool known as Targeting AGwater Management Intervention (TAGMI) would also help boost food production and address challenges in the Limpopo and the Volta River Basins.
Ms Annemarieke de Bruin, a researcher at the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI), launched the tool at a day’s workshop organised for heads of state agencies, civil society groups and development partners from Ghana and Burkina Faso.
The forum forms part of activities put in place to educate participants on the need to adopt the innovation to address the search and sustainable use of water systems such as small-scale irrigation and small reservoirs.
She explained that TAGMI was an output from a three-year research as part of the CGIAR-Challenge Programme’s Basin Development Challenges (CGIAR-CPBDC), which researchers practitioners and farmers identified to manage rainfall.
Ms de Bruin said the web tool, which was used nationally, defined Bayesian network models to assess the likelihood of developing Agriculture Water Management (AWM) in the various Volta River Basins based on an array of social, human, physical, financial and natural factors.
She said TAGMI included AWM technological interventions namely soil and water conservation, conservation agriculture, small-scale irrigation and small reservoirs.
Dr Mathias Fosu, a Principal Research Scientist at the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), said the tool when adopted by government would avoid the human element of bias involved in deciding on where to locate a water system.
The tool will reduce wastage and prevent leaders and politicians who site water projects in their favorite locations. This is because the web tool calculates the viability of, for instance, a small irrigation dam by considering its economic importance, the population source of water, nearness of farming lands as well as market.
He said the web tool, when adopted by policy makers, could boost agricultural production especially cereals and vegetables, since the best areas for water systems would be developed to serve farmers.
Dr Olufunke Cofie, Basin Leader for the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) said the research carried out before the development of the web tool was aimed at improving rainwater and small reservoir management to contribute to poverty reduction.
She said it would also improve livelihood resilience while taking account of downstream and upstream water users including ecosystem services.
Termed Volta Basin Development Challenge (VBDC), she said the research explored what kind of water management systems option would best enhance efficient and sustainable use of small water reservoir for multiple purposes within a given biophysical, social and economic context at the local level.
Source: GNA