Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-3 (section)

==== 3.7.5.2 India ====

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The second great challenge after the Green Revolution in India was the low productivity in the rain-fed and semi-arid regions where land degredation and drought were serious concerns. In response to this challenge IWM projects were implemented over large areas in semi-arid biomes over the past few decades. IWM was meant to become a key factor in meeting a range of social development goals in many semi-arid rainfed agrarian landscapes in India (Bouma et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r1744|1744]]</sup> ; Kerr et al. 2002 <sup>[[#fn:r1745|1745]]</sup> ). Over the years, watershed development has become the fulcrum of rural development, and has the potential to achieve the twin objectives of ecosystem restoration and livelihood assurance in the drylands of India (Joy et al. 2004).

Many reports indicate significant improvements in mitigation of drought impacts, raising crops and fodder, livestock productivity, expanding the availability of drinking water and increasing incomes as a result of IWM (Rao 2000), but in some cases overall the positive impact of the programme has been questioned and, except in a few cases, the performance has not lived up to expectations (Joy et al. 2004; JM Kerr et al. 2002). Comparisons of catchments with and without IWM projects using remotely sensed data have sometimes shown no significant enhancement of biomass, in part due to methodological challenges of space for time comparisons (Bhalla et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1746|1746]]</sup> ). The factors contributing to the successful cases were found to include effective participation of stakeholders in management (Rao 2000; Ratna Reddy et al. 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r1747|1747]]</sup> ).

Attribution of success in soil and water conservation measures was confounded by inadequate monitoring of rainfall variability and lack of catchment hydrologic indicators (Bhalla et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1748|1748]]</sup> ). Social and economic trade-offs included bias of benefits to downstream crop producers at the expense of pastoralists, women and upstream communities. This biased distribution of IWM benefits could potentially be addressed by compensation for environmental services between communities (Kerr et al. 2002 <sup>[[#fn:r1749|1749]]</sup> ). The successes in some areas also led to increased demand for water, especially groundwater, since there has been no corresponding social regulation of water use after improvement in water regime (Samuel et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r1750|1750]]</sup> ). Policies and management did not ensure water allocation to sectors with the highest social and economic benefits (Batchelor et al. 2003 <sup>[[#fn:r1751|1751]]</sup> ). Limited field evidence of the positive impacts of rainwater harvesting at the local scale is available, but there are several potential negative impacts at the watershed scale (Glendenning et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1752|1752]]</sup> ). Furthermore, watershed projects are known to have led to more water scarcity, and higher expectations for irrigation water supply, further exacerbating water scarcity (Bharucha et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1753|1753]]</sup> ).

In summary, the mixed performance of IWM projects has been linked to several factors. These include: inequity in the distribution of benefits (Kerr et al. 2002); focus on institutional aspects rather than application of appropriate watershed techniques and functional aspects of watershed restoration (Joy et al. 2006; Vaidyanathan 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1755|1755]]</sup> ); mismatch between scales of focus and those that are optimal for catchment processes (Kerr 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r1756|1756]]</sup> ); inconsistencies in criteria used to select watersheds for IWM projects (Bhalla et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1757|1757]]</sup> ); and in a few cases additional costs and inefficiencies of local non-governmental organisations (Chandrasekhar et al. 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1758|1758]]</sup> ; Deshpande 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r1759|1759]]</sup> ). Enabling policy responses for improvement of IWM performance include: a greater emphasis on ecological restoration rather than civil engineering; sharper focus on sustainability of livelihoods than just conservation; adoption of ‘water justice’ as a normative goal and minimising externalities on non-stakeholder communities; rigorous independent biophysical monitoring, with feedback mechanisms and integration with larger schemes for food and ecological security, and maintenance of environmental flows for downstream areas (Bharucha et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1760|1760]]</sup> ; Calder et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r1761|1761]]</sup> ; Joy et al. 2006). Successful adaptation of IWM to achieve land degradation neutrality would largely depend on how IWM creatively engages with dynamics of large-scale land use and hydrology under a changing climate, involvement of livelihoods and rural incomes in ecological restoration, regulation of groundwater use, and changing aspirations of rural population ( ''robust evidence, high agreement'' ) (O’Brien et al. 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r1762|1762]]</sup> ; Samuel et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r1763|1763]]</sup> ; Samuel and Joy 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1764|1764]]</sup> ).

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