3.1. Integrated Natural Resources Management
3.2. Priorities for Soil and Water Research
In the real world there will be severe limits to what is achievable at any time in research for a particular NRM domain. These practical limits will be imposed by availability of resources, both human and physical, and especially by organizational and managerial skills. Research to help improve NRM is complex and tends to be more difficult to conduct successfully than commodity improvement research. Since there is no proven model that can be transferred from elsewhere, the CGIAR and its partners have a lot of learning ahead of them. TAC has already made this point about the ecoregional approach.
For soil and water management research in the CGIAR, TAC advocates the adoption of an integrated natural resources management approach, analogous to the IPM approach in pest management, or the watershed management approach with its focus on water and land relationships in a watershed. Indeed, both are part of integrated NRM (INRM). We stress that INRM provides a framework for planning and conducting NRM research, and for presenting research findings in an integrated form that can be used by practical people for improving NRM.
The following examples help to illustrate the relationship between the integrated approach and more traditional ones:
· A main focus in water engineering research tends to be on infrastructure (dams and delivery systems) in an irrigation project, whereas the more holistic natural resources management perspective also introduces the concepts and principles of upstream watershed management to protect the investment in the downstream irrigation system.· Again, in dealing with irrigated crops, agronomists might concentrate on crop\soil\water interactions at the field scale and on the water requirements of particular crops, while the broader INRM perspective might focus on how rapidly the water table is being drawn down by pumping and over how wide an area. At a more macro scale, the focus also would be on the comparison between irrigated crops in terms of water requirements and water balances over time.
· Agronomic research on upland agriculture might concentrate on the effects of erosion on on-farm productivity, whereas the broader natural resources management research perspective, using an integrated watershed management framework, would also focus on off-site, downstream damage caused by soil loss from farmers fields.
· Soil fertility problems are often "solved" by simply determining the amount of nutrients to add for a given crop, whereas in a more integrated approach crop residue (organic matter) management is controlled to achieve breakdown and a pulse of available nutrients in synchrony with crop demand, reducing the amount of fertilizer needed and increasing the efficiency of its uptake. The linkages between organic matter conservation and fuel needs are a key component.
Research on such systems should be highly process-oriented, providing an understanding of biophysical processes linking soil and landscape both with crop and animal production processes. These processes are common across a wide range of environmental conditions. This application requires environment-specific adjustment, usually by farmers themselves.
INRM is not a proposal for gigantic research programmes that would be quite unmanageable in practice and shallow in substance. The same point was made in the earlier framework paper for this study, where the watershed was used as the framework to integrate thinking about key aspects of soil and water research. This was widely misinterpreted as advocacy of all-embracing experiments on whole watersheds. 17 Rather, TAC's argument was that focused pieces of research on soil and water processes needed to be planned and interpreted in the watershed context.
17 The reader interested in further discussion of the watershed management framework is referred to TAC's April 2, 1995, discussion draft: Study of Strategic Natural Resources Management Issues and Research Needs in the CGIAR, with Emphasis on Soil and Water. TAC Secretariat, FAO, Rome.
An integrated natural resources management framework needs to be used as an organizing framework within which to consider a number of critical linkages and subjects in the natural resources area that should be incorporated in CGIAR research. When emphasis is given to water issues, then an integrated watershed management framework may be appropriate. If the focus is on insects, then an IPM model may be appropriate. 18
18 Report of the TAC Panel on Crop Protection Research. TAC Secretariat, 1990. FAO, Rome.
The concept of a framework for planning and prioritizing research was stressed in section 1.1. As discussed there, linkages are a key concern in any model of integrated natural resources management research, since everything relates to everything else in ecosystems as well as in economies. Linkages also are a key concern in this study, particularly in terms of building up the justification for NRM research as a priority for international CGIAR research. The linkages of relevance in an INRM framework are discussed below.
Links Between Productivity-enhancing Research and Natural Resources Management Research
An important set of linkages involves those between productivity-enhancing research and natural resources management and policy research. In fact, recognition of the importance of these linkages was a major factor in the development of the ecoregional concept and approach to research in the CGIAR. On the one hand, population growth and persistent poverty have generated a need for increased food production, and the need for high quality water supplies for people has grown in both rural and urban areas. On the other hand, the condition of soil and water appears to be deteriorating, sometimes to an alarming degree, over major parts of the developing world.
The feasible solution to many of these problems lies not in expensive soil remediation or water treatment processes but in reducing or preventing their development in the first place. This is a powerful argument for more closely linking productivity-enhancing and resource degradation-reducing objectives in the conduct of CGIAR research. The two have to go hand-in-hand.
There is one particular linkage between productivity-enhancing research and natural resources management that often is associated with CGIAR research on yield increases in favoured areas. This is the impact that such increases have in terms of taking pressures off less favourable, fragile and often marginal areas. This indirect linkage is important.
Spatial or Landscape Level Linkages
Spatial or landscape linkages, and particularly upstream-downstream linkages, are critically important within the ecoregional framework for research. Agricultural and forestry production practices, because of the large areas covered and large amounts of water used, are frequently the dominant upstream land uses that determine downstream impacts. The sustainability of irrigated agriculture on the plains is directly influenced by the effects of land management practices in upland water catchments, e.g., in terms of the amount of sedimentation build-up in dam reservoirs as a result of erosion from farmers fields and in the frequency and intensity of major floods. Upstream land management practices also increasingly determine the quantity and quality of urban water supplies.
Inland fisheries depend on the quantity and quality of water in streams and ponds, both of which are strongly influenced by upstream agricultural and forestry management practices (as well as by the management of forms of land use that lie beyond the scope of this study, such as mining and parks). Sometimes the results of upstream interventions are totally unexpected, as with the damage suffered by Mediterranean fisheries when the silt load of the Nile was reduced by the building of the Aswan Dam. Logically, the downstream spatial linkages in INRM should be extended to include the effects of run-off on coastal waters.
Temporal Linkages
In addition to spatial linkages, it is important to consider linkages between present and future, with future generations that may want to utilize natural resources currently being depleted by the present generation. Intergenerational concerns is an important concept that is becoming more important as people see the speed with which the uses of resources and their conditions change.
The key area in the case of temporal linkages is the lack of knowledge of the rates of change in key dimensions of natural resources (the dynamics of resources, management, use, enhancement and degradation); and on the impacts of such changes on food and water security; and on health.
This is particularly critical, given the conclusion above concerning the state of knowledge and understanding of the impacts of agriculture on natural resources and the environment and the impacts of land and water degradation on overall agricultural production.
Linkages Between Research and Adoption
A fourth set of vital linkages is between research and the adoption of its results. The realization that development often is limited by political, policy, and socioeconomic factors more than by technical ones, has led to the broadening of the CGIAR's agenda to integrate in a major way policy research into the ecoregional approach. In many cases, the key obstacles or constraints to the application of existing knowledge for good soil and water management are related to national policy failures or voids.
The four types of linkages mentioned above need to be considered in designing sound and relevant integrated natural resources management research. Centres need to integrate the perspective of focused agronomic, field level research with the broader perspective needed to encompass the various natural resources issues and linkages discussed above.
Because of the size of the CGIAR System, its Centres have the unique ability to tackle major, complex research problems and tasks, often in a joint fashion and working with other research groups, including NARS. Because of the track record and the reputation of the scientists in the System, and the long-term nature of its commitment, it often can establish cooperative relationships with a variety of other scientists that would be difficult for other groups to establish.
Several of the previous studies have recommended priorities for soil and water research, generally or for the CGIAR in particular. The TAC 1990 Working Paper (TAC 1990, op. cit.) listed, in a section entitled overview of gaps and overlaps, a number of diverse soil and water research topics that were under consideration at that time. Then, at MTM'94, much more detailed arguments were presented by the Task Force on Agenda 21 for research on a group of agroecologies and land use problems under the heading "Marginal and Degraded Lands". These included the Desert Margins Initiative for the drylands, marginal and degraded lands caused by tropical deforestation, sustainable mountain development, policies to sustain the resource base and productivity growth in fertile lands, and a network for management and conservation in tropical forests.
MTM'94 also discussed IBSRAM's Position Paper (Greenland et al. 1994) 19, which concluded that there was an urgent need to develop indicators or early warning signs of resource degradation. Lists of high priority research components and high priority research areas were given. Several of the latter categories overlapped with the Agenda 21 priorities. The research areas identified at MTM'94 have since evolved via the Zschortau Plan and the Feldafing Consultation into the four subject matter themes of the Soil Water and Nutrient Management Initiative.
19 Greenland, D.J., G. Bowen, H. Eswaran, R. Rhoades and C. Valentin (1994). Soil, Water and Nutrient Management Research - A New Agenda. IBSRAM Position Paper.
The current study deals with both socioeconomic and biophysical research priorities. A number of research priorities have been identified within the context of the linkages discussed earlier, each one having both a biophysical and socioeconomic policy dimension.
In terms of linkages between productivity-enhancing and resources-conserving research the following topics seem particularly relevant:
· managing water and nutrient supplies for greater efficiency and sustainability; research on the efficiency of water and nutrient use by crops, especially to prevent degradation of irrigated land; both economic and biophysical efficiency should be considered;· research on the processes underlying the long-term, less obvious forms of soil and water degradation. (This will complement existing production-oriented CGIAR soils research);
· managing soil fertility (organic matter, mineral nutrients, acidity); the understanding of soil biological processes is a key to the effective management of soil fertility, with the "control" mechanisms being carbon from the local resource inventory, and nutrient inputs from off-farm resources.
In the case of spatial or landscape linkages, the key areas for research include:
· the pros and cons of devolution of responsibility for NRM to local government bodies and user groups;· research on the physical, economic and social impacts of agriculture, forestry and aquaculture production practices on the quality and quantity of downstream water supplies and on assemblages of aquatic organisms in downstream and upstream water bodies;
· development of acceptable methods for combatting soil erosion (mainly associated with its off-site impact on environment); and
In the case of linkages between research and adoption, the key area for research is:
· the reasons why existing information has not been used more effectively to improve NRM, for instance in the move from shifting to permanent cultivation; also, research on how to get more effective implementation of existing knowledge for improved INRM, i.e., research on cultural diffusion and adoption of research results already on the shelf, in the context of fostering a participatory approach to improving NRM.
In the case of temporal linkages, the key area for research is:
· measurement of the rates of change in key dimensions of natural resources (the dynamics of resources management, use, and degradation); and research on the impacts of such changes on food and water security;
Finally, a greater use of the systems approach and mathematical modelling in NRM research, and the carrying out of a limited number of carefully selected watershed or catchment studies, is advocated.
TAC also encourages IIMI and other Centres to move ahead as rapidly as possible with the development of the already approved Systemwide initiative for water.
TAC proposes that the CGIAR should now move the emphasis to implementation of these priorities. Further evaluation of priorities in soil and water research related to INRM will be needed, but there is also urgency to now learn from experience.
