Review of Agricultural Water Management Intervention Impacts at the Watershed Scale: a Synthesis Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

This report by the Stockholm Environment Institute synthesises the impacts of agricultural water management (AWM) interventions across 37 cases in developing and newly-industrialised countries. Using the sustainable livelihoods framework, the authors evaluate changes across five capitals: natural, financial, social, human, and physical. The review finds that while AWM interventions generally lead to positive outcomes—particularly in income and yield—there is a significant lack of comprehensive monitoring and evaluation, especially regarding negative externalities and long-term sustainability.

• The most frequently reported positive impacts of AWM interventions span all five livelihood capitals: financial (increased income), natural (increased on-farm yield), social (establishment of user groups and governance), physical (improved water infrastructure), and human (increased skills and knowledge).
• Projects that implement a holistic approach with five or more AWM interventions tend to achieve more positive and diverse impacts than those with only one or two interventions, showing an average of 20 per cent more positive changes.
• Common negative impacts associated with AWM interventions include increased production costs, higher labour requirements, and issues with gender inequity.
• Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in AWM projects is generally insufficient, with only eight of the 37 reviewed cases mentioning M&E activities. Most evaluations focus narrowly on physical and financial metrics, neglecting ecological regeneration, gender parity, and long-term sustainability.
• Certain natural capital changes, such as groundwater fluctuations, downstream discharge changes, and the expansion of cropland into marginal lands, were recorded but often lacked sufficient data to be definitively classified as positive or negative.
• The most common AWM interventions identified in the synthesis were changes to crop patterns, species, or varieties (25 per cent of cases), followed by in-situ soil conservation measures (20 per cent) and the adoption of irrigation practices (15 per cent).

APA

Barron, J., Noel, S., & Mikhail, M. (2009). Review of Agricultural Water Management Intervention Impacts at the Watershed Scale: a Synthesis Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/agwater/review-of-awm.pdf

Chicago

Barron, Jennie, Stacey Noel, and Monique Mikhail. Review of Agricultural Water Management Intervention Impacts at the Watershed Scale: a Synthesis Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2009. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/agwater/review-of-awm.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Barron |first1=Jennie |last2=Noel |first2=Stacey |last3=Mikhail |first3=Monique |title=Review of Agricultural Water Management Intervention Impacts at the Watershed Scale: a Synthesis Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2009 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/agwater/review-of-awm.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{barron2009review, author = {Barron, Jennie and Noel, Stacey and Mikhail, Monique}, title = {{Review of Agricultural Water Management Intervention Impacts at the Watershed Scale: a Synthesis Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2009}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/agwater/review-of-awm.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }