Improved agricultural water management for resilience

Context:

The livelihood of smallholder farmers and rural communities in the southern part of the Tonle Sap basin in Cambodia is increasingly under risk due to the decline in the rainy season despite increasing precipitation, causing limited suitability for many crops, poor water quality, and further drying in the wet season. On the other hand, heavy precipitations are leading to flooding, landslides and destruction of crops, livestock herds, and infrastructure.

Client’s need:

Cambodia’s agricultural sector faces the adverse impacts of climate change. To reduce its vulnerability, the Government intends to mobilize new and additional resources to build the resilience of the agricultural sector. finres was contracted to support a joint investment of two public international banks and the government.

Solutions implemented by finres:

finres provided a detailed climate hazards assessment and a prioritization of adaptation options to increase farmers’ resilience and profits by improving water use management practices and investing into new solutions at the farm level. The prioritization of adaptation options was based on financial indicators considering various uncertain parameters affecting the agricultural sector.

Solutions deployed:

• r/aware – climate hazard analysis
• r/rating – crop and livestock value chain analysis
• r/invest – prioritization of adaptation options

Status:

on-going