Tropentag, September 19 - 21, 2012 in Göttingen "Resilience of agricultural systems against crises"

A Knowledge Hub for Efficient Agricultural Water Use: www.agriwaterpedia.info

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Germany

Abstract

The agricultural and water sector is facing a tremendous challenge in the upcoming decades:
The need for food and agricultural products will continuously increase while at the same time the availability of water resources will decrease; a situation which is aggravated by climate change. With water resources being already scarce in many countries, water allocation, access and effective agricultural water use are key for food security and sustainable development. Globally, practitioners, scientists, politicians and the private sector have developed much knowledge in water management. Hence, one of the major challenges is the accessibility of this knowledge as agricultural water management was a niche topic during the last years. Knowledge is documented in paper reports, stored in archives and libraries while experts shifted to other sectors.
Making accessible, linking and further developing the former experiences with regard to the new challenges will form an important corner stone for effective and sustainable water use in agriculture. Accessibility of knowledge is of upmost importance in our partner countries. Through an internet based platform, we offer an affordable access to a wide range of experts and expertise all over the world. As working means, GIZ established the website www.agriwaterpedia.info as a public, internet-based, multilingual knowledge platform. With the platform, we offer context specific best practices and lessons learnt as well as an online-based network for experience sharing.
The presentation will demonstrate the www.agriwaterpedia.info website in detail and guide the audience through the different layers and possibilities. Within our session, we like to trigger the exchange of interested experts to add on or exchange their knowledge in the network.

Keywords: Agricultural water use, climate change, expert's network, knowledge platform

Contact Address: Elisabeth van den Akker, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Rural Development and Agriculture, Eschborn, Germany, e-mail: elisabeth.akker-vangiz.de