Releasing the Pressure

The document critiques traditional 'water productivity' measures for focusing too heavily on agricultural output ('crop per drop') while ignoring the essential water needs of broader landscape ecosystem services. It advocates for an integrated water resource management (IWRM) approach that mimics natural water storage and incorporates 'bottom-up' input from diverse stakeholders to balance agricultural gains with the preservation of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Using case studies from India and Zambia, the brief demonstrates how narrow productivity gains can create downstream trade-offs or overlook the primary subsistence drivers of rural livelihoods.

• Current definitions of water productivity are often too narrow, focusing primarily on agricultural efficiency (such as 'crop per drop') and ignoring the water required to sustain non-agricultural ecosystem services, which can lead to an imbalance between sectoral gains and landscape health.
• Water management strategies that mimic natural surface and underground storage, rather than relying on 'concrete' storage, help ensure water is not solely appropriated for agriculture and continues to support downstream and groundwater ecosystems.
• Case studies illustrate that water management can create significant trade-offs; in India's Kothapally watershed, groundwater recharge and multi-cropped systems increased, but streamflow out of the watershed decreased by more than 50%, negatively impacting downstream users.
• In the Barotse floodplain of Zambia, ecosystem services provide far greater subsistence value than crop production, with fish catch and extensive grazing contributing over 70% of subsistence income compared to only 15% from crops.
• Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a viable framework for maximizing water productivity across multiple uses, though it is limited by spatial and temporal scales and cannot manage global-scale phenomena like the carbon cycle.

APA

Keys, P., & Barron, J. (n.d.). Releasing the Pressure. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/SEI-UNEP-PB-Releasing-the-Pressure.pdf

Chicago

Keys, Patrick, and Jennie Barron. Releasing the Pressure. Stockholm Environment Institute, n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/SEI-UNEP-PB-Releasing-the-Pressure.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Keys |first1=Patrick |last2=Barron |first2=Jennie |title=Releasing the Pressure |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/SEI-UNEP-PB-Releasing-the-Pressure.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{keysndreleasing, author = {Keys, Patrick and Barron, Jennie}, title = {{Releasing the Pressure}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Air-land-water-resources/SEI-UNEP-PB-Releasing-the-Pressure.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }