It has been an exciting experience conducting research as part of the project DSI4MTF and writing my master thesis on ‘Gendered groundwater technology adoption in Bangladesh’ at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. I am grateful to the project partners BRRI and CSIRO for funding the local costs of my fieldwork during […]

For me a highlight of our DSI4MTF activities has been sharing through social media, including web postings, Facebook, Twitter and especially WhatsApp. Over the last few weeks, a number of WhatsApp postings has interested me, including: A TED talk posted by Santosh Mali which highlighted the importance of communication and personalising issues around climate change […]

Sanjiv de Silva and Stephanie Leder The research conducted in Bangladesh that constitutes this report, is part of a project that seeks to test technological adaptation to seasonal water stress and more recent stresses induced by climatic change in the States of West Bengal and Bihar in India, and Saptari District in Nepal. Bangladesh is […]

Meet Janaki, our project field assistant in Saptari in Nepal. Janaki has been working hard in the DSI4MTF project to collect a range of biophysical data. Each week she collects rainfall and evaporation data to help us understand the changing crop water and irrigation requirements. She is also responsible for collecting data on the depth […]

Irrigation System Performance assessments were recently conducted in Saptari (Nepal). These assessments investigated the Distribution Uniformity on the drip and micro sprinkler irrigation systems, and the performance of the micro-solar and electric pumps. These assessments are important to help the farmers manage their water and energy use. Ensuring that the system is operating evenly and […]

The villages of Koiladi and Kanakpatti, in Saptari, Nepal, may seem similar. These two small farming communities lie a mere 25 kilometers apart and practice similar agricultural techniques in cultivating rice, wheat and more recently vegetables as part of the DSI4MTF project. In spite of these similarities, a recent aquifer pumping test session revealed a […]

With the introduction of interventions on solar pumping, drip and sprinkler irrigation, the agricultural production systems in the project villages are getting intensified. New crops are introduced,  better irrigation schedules are adopted,  improved cultivation practices like raised bed with polythene mulch are practiced. However, the major challenge for the farmers was to maintain the drip […]

In November the DSI4MTF team were involved in a number of irrigation infrastructure assessments. The assessments included solar pump efficiency, diesel and electric pump tests, drip and micro-irrigation uniformity and soil moisture assessments. This data collection is an important part of Project Activity 1.2 (to assess the efficiency of infrastructure), but was also used as […]

The objectives of the Bangladesh component of the project is to understand the bio-physical, socio-economic and institutional aspects of groundwater irrigation in the northwest region of Bangladesh. The study is expected to provide the answers to the following questions: How water and land productivity varies from plot to plot or from location to location and […]

Rice-wheat cropping system dominates the agriculture in the Gangetic Plains of the North Bihar. Rice is cultivated during the kharif (monsoon) season with transplanting dates matching with onset of monsoon. Sufficient monsoon rainfall generally precludes the need of irrigation for this crop, except in the event of dry spell. Wheat, which is the main rabi (winter) […]