The Challenge Program “Water and Food” for river basin scale water resources assessment

A key component of the Green Revolution was the investment of many billions of dollars in irrigation infrastructure. This progress was accompanied by populations rise, and countries industrialization. The latter created a substantial demand for water in urban areas of developing countries, and will increase significantly in the coming decades. Large-scale development of river and groundwater resources, however, is less acceptable and less cost effective now than it was in the 1960-1990 period, when most of the world’s 45,000 large dams were built. Irrigation agriculture is consuming a large share of available water resources but other water user sectors are claiming their demand as well. Groundwater resources are drying up and the willingness to develop new resources has declined for financial as well as environmental reasons. To assess innovative methods of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and water productivity in irrigation agriculture but preserving environmental sustainability the Challenge Program “Water and Food” has been launched by the CGIAR in November 2002. Applying ‘frontier science’ to produce more food with less water, the program will integrate cutting edge science and research knowledge, including functional genomics and molecular biology; the use of remote sensing and GIS tools; and global modeling linked to the global change research projects. The paper presents the research organization structure and potential of the research program and its key components.