Assessing the returns to water harvesting: A meta-analysis

Jetske Bouma, Seema S. Hegde and Ralph Lasage

Agricultural Water Management, 2016, vol. 163, issue C, 100-109

Abstract: This study presents the results of a meta-analysis of the peer reviewed literature on water harvesting technologies, with a focus on the crop yield impacts of water harvesting in semi-arid Africa and Asia. Main aim of the analysis is to assess whether water harvesting significantly improves crop yields, and whether the type of water harvesting technology and the quality of the rainy season correlate with the change in yield. We find that water harvesting improves crop yields significantly, and that the relative impact of water harvesting on crop yields is largest in low rainfall years. Smallholder farmers may still be reluctant to invest in water harvesting, however, as in regions with low agricultural productivity the returns to investment are limited. Finally, our review of the literature suggests that there is only a limited number of studies that has systematically evaluated the crop yield impacts of water harvesting technologies. More work is needed to strengthen the scientific knowledge base.

Keywords: Meta-analysis; Water harvesting technologies; Crop yield impact; Climate change adaptation; Return to investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377415300780
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:163:y:2016:i:c:p:100-109

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2015.08.012

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().