© Springer International Publishing AG 2016 49
M. Farooq, K.H.M. Siddique (eds.), Innovations in Dryland Agriculture,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47928-6_3
Water Harvesting in Dry Environments
Attila Yazar and Akhtar Ali
1 Introduction
Drylands cover approximately 40 % of the world’s land area and support more than
two billion people, 90 % of whom live in developing countries, with relatively low
amounts of precipitation in the form of rainfall or snow (UN 2011 ). In these regions,
precipitation is insufficient to support low-risk crop production. The non-uniform
distribution of precipitation, in arid and semiarid regions, usually results in frequent
drought periods during crop growth which severely stress growing crops thereby
reducing yields, sometimes to crop failure. Today, rain is the cheapest and often the
only source of water for agricultural purposes, albeit not always reliable. In many
dry regions of the world, there is no alternative but a better and more effective use
of rain to increase and secure food production. This is the essence and potential
significance of runoff farming in a hungry world (Koohafkan and Stewart 2008 ).
Global water demand has been rising over the past century and is projected to
increase further due to population growth and the need for increased food production
(Kummu et al. 2010 ; Lasage and Verburg 2015 ) and change in lifestyle. The global
food challenge is tremendous to feed an additional three billion people in 2050 and
to address the hidden food gap i.e. eradicating malnutrition among 800 million of the
world’s poorest people (Conway 1997 ; Molden 2007 ; De Fries and Rosenzweig
2010 ). This food challenge is, to a large extent, a development challenge as 95 % of
A. Yazar (*)
Irrigation and Agricultural Structures Department, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey
e-mail: [email protected]
A. Ali
Environment, Agriculture and Natural Resources Division, Asian Development Bank,
Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines
e-mail: [email protected]