Charlotte de Fraiture

• PhD, MSc, MA
• Head of Department at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education

Conventional approaches to irrigation development involve large lumpsum investments in big infrastructure that cannot adapt to changing climate and socioeconomic conditions. There is an urgent need for alternative ways of investing in smallholder irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that are adaptive and avoid capital lock-in. Adaptive Investment...

Study region: The Great Rift Valley Basin of Ethiopia, Arata-Chufa (100 ha) and Ketar (430 ha) irrigation schemes. Study focus: Sedimentation triggers malfunctioning in irrigated agriculture by decreasing canal discharge capacity and increasing operation and maintenance costs. The current study coupled a hydrodynamic sediment model with the output...

It is generally believed that problems surrounding water scarcity led earlier generations to develop and employ a variety of indigenous rainwater harvesting (RWH) techniques. This paper is based on literature review and aims to discuss the current status and impact of these widely practiced indigenous RWH systems with references to archaeological c...

Small‐scale irrigation (SSI) plays a large role in rural livelihoods and the economy in Ethiopia. Despite considerable investment, overall SSI performance is disappointingly poor. The sedimentation of canals and intakes leads to low performance and the abandonment of systems. Livestock roaming in the command area and around riverbanks are an import...

Accurately identifying irrigated areas is crucial for sustainable development, food security, and effective land and water resource management. However, incomplete or outdated national estimates of irrigated areas underestimate the extent of it, particularly among smallholders. This study aimed to address this issue by investigating the impact of d...

Farmer-led irrigation is valued for its resilience and ability to cope with shocks and benefit from opportunities. Yet, typologies of farmer-led irrigation are mostly static categorisations without analysing farmers’ decision-making over time, and without studying ‘failed’ cases. We therefore analysed temporal changes in farmers’ irrigation strateg...

There is an urgent need in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to enhance irrigation access to meet the challenges of growing population and climate risk. To achieve this, big investments are currently planned in large irrigation infrastructure. We believe there is danger in following this conventional approach, which requires big lumpsum investments, locking...

For many centuries, rainwater harvesting (RWH) was the main source of water in many ancient countries. However, over the last four decades, its use has been declining steadily. RWH structures fell into disrepair and were abandoned or were only occasionally used. Taking Sana'a Basin in Yemen as a case study, we examined the underlying factors for th...

Indigenous rainwater harvesting (RWH) is a promising tool for increasing water availability and conserving groundwater in arid environments. This study aimed to develop a multicriteria analysis (MCA) framework to identify and rank suitable sites for different indigenous RWH systems in data-poor areas taking Sana’a Basin, Yemen, as a case study. Unl...

Irrigation is commonly viewed as an activity fixed in time and place requiring permanent infrastructure. However, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa engage in irrigation in diverse locations under different organizational modalities. This research analyses a flexible and dynamic form of irrigation driven by unique partnerships between migran...

Remote Sensing (RS) based monitoring provides opportunities to acquire timely and reliable information on crop growth at diverse scales. Crop yield forecasts can help decision makers to formulate policies on maintaining national food reserves, sustaining food supply chains and attaining national food security. Inter field crop yield heterogeneity a...

In the semi-arid lands of southern Kenya, a dynamic process of farmer-led irrigation has developed over the past two decades. It is characterised by short-term agreements to access land and water. Resident and migrant farmers, capital providers and local landowners have engaged in diverse partnerships to benefit from water and land along the Olkeri...

A widely promoted approach to tackle food insecurity and water shortage challenges simultaneously is to enhance crop water productivity (WP). Therefore, multiple international organizations have featured WP improvements as their major policy goal, and substantial public and private investments have been made in this domain. Advances in remote sensi...

Numerous irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) exhibit excessive sedimentation, resulting in underperformance and high maintenance costs. In the current study, a participatory monitoring program was used to investigate sediment causes and sources, measure the annual sediment load, and monitor desilting campaigns in two small scale irrigati...

Agriculture productivity is regularly affected by floods and droughts, and the severity is likely to increase in the future. Even if significant efforts are spent on water development projects, ineffective project planning often means that they continue to occur or are only partly mitigated, for example, in the Mun River Basin, Thailand, where 1,00...

Excessive soil erosion hampers the functioning of many irrigation schemes throughout sub-Saharan Africa, increasing management difficulties and operation and maintenance costs. River water is often considered the main source of sedimentation, while overland sediment inflow is overlooked. From 2016 to 2018, participatory research was conducted to as...

Unpredictable flash floods in ephemeral rivers are the water source for spate irrigation systems. An important element in the success and sustainability of spate irrigation systems is their ability to cope with highly uncertain water supply and high sediment load. Flexibility is considered one of the key ingredients of coping strategies. However, t...

Small-scale irrigation (SSI) development can play a major role in Ethiopia’s economic development, but sedimentation is a major threat to its sustainability. The focus of the dominant discourse around the sedimentation of SSI schemes lies in upstream catchment protection during the rainy season, neglecting both protection against erosion through ov...

Sediment deposition in irrigation systems results in the disruption of water distribution and thereby high maintenance costs. The vast majority of studies on the behavior of cohesive and noncohesive sediments have been done in rivers and estuaries. Modeling studies on sediments in irrigation systems have mainly dealt with noncohesive sediments most...

This paper presents knowledge gaps and critiques on the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus that have emerged since the concept of the WEF nexus was proposed by the World Economic Forum and the Bonn 2011 Conference. Furthermore, this study analyses current innovations on the WEF nexus concept, applications, and impacts during the period of 2012–2020. Thi...

Environmental flows allocation is an intrinsic part of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). This paper analyses socio‐political issues and effects of environmental flows integration on water availability under the context of increased agricultural intensification in an effort to tackle food insecurity. Lack of appropriate framework compris...

In order to cover the crop water requirements, flow control structures such as gates and weirs are used to transfer the desired amount of water from the canals to the field canals. This paper examines the impact of gate operation and the selection of gates on the deposition of non-cohesive sediment. The Delft3D model is used to simulate the effects...

The process of planning and evaluation for local development, especially in the critical sectors of water, energy and food (WEF) should be conducted using a holistic, integrated approach in an attempt to bring the improvement in water, energy and food security in a region. System dynamics models are one of the tools for simulation and assessment of...

Hydrological data and information on the availability of water are essential to support water allocation decisions in irrigated agriculture, especially under increasingly water scarce conditions. However, in many agricultural regions hydrological information is scarce, leading to sub-optimal water allocation decisions and crop yield reduction. Here...

国家层面的灌溉区域统计数据集的不一致可能对制定粮食和水安全政策产生重大影响。遥感可以解决这个问题；然而，对其可靠性的怀疑限制了其主导作用。基于遥感和统计数据集集成的方法似乎是权宜之计，但它们更可能被决策者认可。因此， 了解源于国家层面的统计数据集的基础及其局限性于科学家而言极其重要。。通过综述七个亚洲国家（中国，印度，巴基斯坦，孟加拉国，尼泊尔，印度尼西亚和泰国）的灌溉区域数据收集方法，本文指出了造成数据不确定性的因素以及数据收集方法的局限性。为了了解灌溉区域的空间分布格局与统计记录中不确定性之间的关系，本文还进行了灌溉密度分布分析。结果发现，灌溉面积统计数据主要基于水用户协会和农民的信息，而这些信息是自主报告，或是调查和普查时访谈收集到的。出现差异的主要原因有：缺乏经常列举灌溉土地的资源、...

Inconsistencies in the statistical datasets of irrigated areas at the national level could have considerable implications for policies developed for food and water security. Remote sensing can address this issue, however, dubieties of its reliability inhibit its protagonist role. Methods that integrate both remote sensing based and statistical data...

Inconsistencies in the statistical datasets of irrigated areas at the national level could have considerable implications for policies developed for food and water security. Remote sensing can address this issue, however, dubieties of its reliability inhibit its protagonist role. Methods that integrate both remote sensing based and statistical data...

Sediments cause serious problems in irrigation systems, adversely affecting canal performance, driving up maintenance costs and, in extreme cases, threatening system sustainability. Multiple studies were done on the deposition of non-cohesive sediment and implications for canal design, the use of canal operation in handling sedimentation problems i...

Flooding is the most frequent natural disasters in Thailand, resulting in the loss of life and damage. In this research, we develop an integrated hydrologic and hydraulic model of the Mun River Basin, Thailand, and employ it to predict flood hazard maps at 10-, 25-, 50-, and 100-year return periods. The ‘goodness-of-fit’ statistics for probability...

Irrigated agriculture, particularly small-scale irrigation (SSI), is a mainstay for sustainable livelihoods in the developing world. In Ethiopia, SSI sustainability is threatened mainly due to excessive sedimentation. Stakeholders’ perceptions of the causes of sedimentation and how they sustain SSI under excessive sedimentation conditions were inve...

This paper develops a qualitative causal model of the water, energy and food (WEF) security nexus system to be used in analyzing the interlinkages among those three sectors and other sectors that influence and are influenced by each sector in a local context. Local stakeholder's engagement through a group model building (GMB) approach was applied i...

This paper develops a qualitative causal model of a water, energy, and food (WEF) security nexus system to be used in analysing the interlinkages among those and other sectors that influence and are influenced by each other in a local context. Local stakeholder engagement through a group model building (GMB) approach was applied in Karawang Regency...

Inconsistencies in the statistical data sets of irrigated areas at the national level could have considerable implications for policies developed for food and water security. Remote sensing can address this issue; however, doubts about its reliability inhibit its protagonist role. Methods that integrate both remote sensing based and statistical dat...

When assessing drought risk, most studies focus on hazard and vulnerability, paying less attention to exposure. Here, we propose a comprehensive drought risk assessment scheme combining hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. At the Mun River Basin, 90% of rice cultivation is rain-fed and regularly encounters droughts resulting in the lowest yields in...

Current war in Yemen affects the lives of Yemenis, their properties, and basic needs through several impacts and damages on fuel, electricity, and water systems. This paper investigates how this war has affected the people’s main water sources. The war impact framework developed in this study is the combination of difference-in-difference (DID) and...

The area to be cropped in irrigation districts needs to be planned according to the available water resources to avoid agricultural production loss. However, the period of record of local hydro-meteorological data may be short, leading to an incomplete understanding of climate variability and consequent uncertainty in estimating surface water avail...

The area to be cropped in irrigation districts needs to be planned according to the available water resources to avoid agricultural production loss. However, the period of record of local hydro-meteorological data may be short, leading to an incomplete understanding of climate variability and consequent uncertainty in estimating surface water avail...

p>Remote sensing techniques have been shown, in several studies, to be an extremely effective tool for assessing the performance of irrigated areas at various scales and diverse climatic regions across the world. Open access, ready-made, global ET products were utilized in this first-ever-countrywide irrigation performance assessment study. The stu...

Increase in irrigated area, driven by demand for more food production, in the semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa is putting pressure on the already strained available water resources. To cope and manage this situation, monitoring spatial and temporal dynamics of the irrigated area land use at basin level is needed to ensure proper allocation of w...

Water, energy, and food (WEF) related sectors are important to support people's life in a region. Resource evaluation is one of the stages in resource management to ensure that the existence of those sectors is provided sustainably. The assessment of the agglomeration level and growth of each sector in economic development can give better insights...

Water scarcity problems are becoming increasingly common due to higher water demand, urbanization, economic development and climatic variability. Policies and measures based on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) are often advocated to tackle the problems of competing demands and conflicts among stakeholders. Demand management measures as...

This paper distinguishes between bridging and bonding social capital to assess their roles for individual farmers’ adaptation strategies taken through technology adoption. Based on primary data collected in Langcang River (LCR) basin area in southwestern China, the paper finds: (1) adaptation measures have been widely taken by surveyed households,...

Rice yields in Thailand are among the lowest in Asia. In northeast Thailand where about 90% of rice cultivation is rain-fed, climate variability and change affect rice yields. Understanding climate characteristics and their impacts on the rice yield is important for establishing proper adaptation and mitigation measures to enhance productivity. In...

Farmers in flood‐based irrigation systems face great uncertainties with respect to water supply. Using the Source–Pathways–Receptor and Consequence (SPRC) framework, this paper explores the sources of risks, propagation pathways, risk perceptions and consequences for the farmers, water users’ associations (WUAs) and water managers in the Gash Agric...

Through a case study in Burkina Faso, this paper interrogates the persistence of development projects that promote low cost drip irrigation even though the prophesized widespread adoption of this technology by smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa has remained elusive until now. The enduring image of “drip kits” as effective tools to alleviate poverty...

Conventional irrigation performance assessments narrowly confine the possible effects of using drip irrigation to what it is designed to do, i.e., improve efficiencies. While helpful in the design, such assessments leave little scope for the possibility that irrigators adopt the technology for reasons other than improving efficien-cies. Using a cas...

Hydrological information on water availability and demand is vital for sound water allocation decisions in irrigation districts, particularly in times of water scarcity. However, water allocation decisions are often taken based on uncertain hydrological information, which may lead to sub-optimal decisions and agricultural production loss. This stud...

Efficient irrigation technologies increase agricultural production and potentially save water. Using the case of modernization projects in a small-scale farmer-managed irrigation system in Morocco, we critically discuss the wisdom of solving problems of water scarcity through technological solutions such as drip irrigation and canal lining. In part...

Irrigation system performance is affected by sediment deposition. Many researchers have studied non-cohesive sedimentation in rivers, coastal, estuaries and irrigation canals. While for cohesive sediments, researchers considered only rivers and costal, estuaries but not irrigation canals. This study simulates cohesive sediment in irrigation canals...

The variability in climate regime is an important factor contributing to rice yield variations in Thailand because nearly 80% of total rice cultivation is rain-fed. Here we investigated the past weather conditions using a drought index (SPEI) and examined correlations between rice yield and SPEI and other climatic variables (precipitation and tempe...

Asia holds 70% of global irrigated areas and accounts for 62% of world food demand. Existing datasets for irrigated areas, collected by national and international agencies often vary from each other. In this study, a detailed comparison is made within national and global statistics including global irrigated area maps (up to 250m).Variations in dat...

There is an ongoing debate on what constitutes sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA). In this paper, we propose that a paradigm for sustainable intensification can be defined and translated into an operational framework for agricultural development. We argue that this paradigm must now be defined-at all scales-in the context of rapidly r...

Aims: In Cambodia the frequency and impacts of natural disasters has been increasing. The impacts of droughts and floods are most severe within the agricultural sector which accounts for around 29% of Cambodia’s GDP and 59% of the work force. In this paper we assess the farmers’ perspectives on risk and adaptation strategies in the Mekong, Cambodia...

Development agencies enthusiastically promote micro-drip irrigation as an affordable water and labor-saving device, yet most farmers stop using it as soon as development projects end. This article analyzes why farmers engage in projects promoting drip irrigation kits, even though they appear not to be interested in their water and labor-saving attr...

Smallholder drip irrigation is widely held as a promising technology for water saving, poverty reduction and food security, despite a dearth of evidence of benefits to farmers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In this article, we document three development programmes promoting drip irrigation in Burkina Faso. Using actor network theory and insight...

The Aba’ala spate irrigation systems, traditional and modern, have experienced different set of floodwater and sediment management problems. Despite the dire need of alternative spate irrigation system layout, operational strategy and locally maintainable structures, efforts made to manage floodwater and control sedimentation had been structural. H...

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has been a dominant paradigm for water sector reform worldwide over the past two decades. Ethiopia, among early adopters, has developed a water policy, legislations, and strategy per IWRM core principles. However, considerable constraints are still in its way of realization. This paper investigates the c...

Data and information play a crucial role in quantifying the availability of water resource and the demand placed on it, and is central to water allocation decisions in water scarce irrigation districts. However, water allocation decisions in these irrigation districts are normally taken based on incomplete data or limited information on the current...

Data and information plays a crucial role in quantifying the abundance of the available water resource and the demand placed on it in water scarce regions, and is central to decision making. This is particularly so for water allocation decisions in large irrigation districts. However, in most irrigation schemes data collection is normally limited d...

It is widely accepted that Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is the way forward to respond to efficient, equitable and sustainable development and management of water resources. Additionally, IWRM has also strong linkages with variability in climate conditions which causes various challenges for IWRM approaches. Besides the annual climat...

Over the last 15years, smallholder drip irrigation has gained almost unanimous popularity as an effective tool to achieve the combined goals of sustainable water use, food security and poverty alleviation in the developing world. Based on a study in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article shows that this popularity does not stem from what the technology d...

Over the last 15years, smallholder drip irrigation has gained almost unanimous popularity as an effective tool to achieve the combined goals of sustainable water use, food security and poverty alleviation in the developing world. Based on a study in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article shows that this popularity does not stem from what the technology d...

Assessing the water supply reliability in river basins is essential for adequate planning and development of irrigated agriculture and urban water systems. In many cases hydrological models are applied to determine the surface water availability in river basins. However, surface water availability and variability is often not appropriately quantifi...

Drip irrigation has long been promoted as a promising way to meet today's world water, food and poverty challenges. In most scientific and policy documents, drip irrigation is framed as a technological innovation with definitive intrinsic characteristics-that of efficiency, productivity and modernity. Based on evidence from North and West Africa as...

With a growing and increasingly wealthy and urban population, it is likely that the role of agricultural water management in ensuring food security will become more important. Pressure on water resources is high. Adverse environmental impacts as a result of sometimes poor management of irrigation and drainage are well documented, calling into quest...

Millions of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia benefit from readily available and affordable irrigation technologies. The rapid uptake of small private irrigation in South Asia had a proven positive effect on poverty alleviation. In sub-Saharan Africa similar trends are emerging and several studies point to considerable upscal...

Irrigation is a priority development agenda item in Ghana and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There is a genuine endeavor to increase public and large-scale private investment in the sector. The on-going smallholder-driven private irrigation development that is largely based on water lifting technologies is not yet fully appreciated. We prop...

Fifteen years after the successful introduction of treadle pumps for small farm irrigation in the North Bengal region of India, the socio-economic and technological landscape has changed dramatically. However, donors have continued to support treadle pump programs. Revisiting the factors that contributed to its initial success, the authors in this...

The expansion of irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa has been slow. In Asia, the rapid expansion of smallholder irrigation systems was attributed in part to the availability and affordability of motorized pumps. This paper appraises the current extent of pump-based irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa; profiles the socio-economic and demographic attribute...

As part of their irrigation strategy, the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Malawi are actively promoting the use of treadle pumps in smallholder irrigation. The positive impact of treadle pumps on food security and poverty reduction in Malawi and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa is well documented. However, few studies have an...

Asia accounts for 70% of the world's irrigated area and is home to some of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes. While these irrigation schemes played an important role in ensuring food security for billions of people in the past, their current state of affairs leaves much to be desired. This paper takes forward the IWMI-FAO-ADB (Asian Develop...

Thousands of small reservoirs dot the rural landscape of sub-Saharan Africa. They have long attracted development and academic interest on the grounds that they make vulnerable and generally little-developed regions 'drought-proof' and allow for smallscale community-based irrigation. On the other hand, concerns have long been raised over the high c...

Water scarcity is a reality in the world today, and is a major threat to our food production systems that have to provide enough food for a growing and wealthier population. Managing water for agriculture is a major part of the solution for scarcity. This chapter provides information on water availability and its use in agriculture now and in the f...

The recently completed Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture concluded that globally there are sufficient land and water resources to produce food for a growing population over the next 50 years. But it is probable that today’s trends, if continued, will lead to water crises in many parts of the world. Yearly some 7 100 billio...