Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water & Sanitation & Hygiene August 2018 | Page 21

SOLUTIONS
Green solutions – the new black
Text | Anna Tengberg and Maria Sköld
By the year 2050, population growth is expected
to have led to a 50 per cent increase in global food
demand. Climate change will have caused major shifts
in rainfall patterns and extreme weather phenomena
could be much more common. At the same time, nature
has hopefully helped us fi nd new solutions.
Awareness is growing that we need to change how
we do things like growing food, building roads and
generating energy. Often smarter and more sustain-
able solutions can be found in nature. The use or
mimicking of natural processes can contribute to
improved water management, but to be able to draw on
them we need to better understand the links between
water, ecosystems and human development.
Discussions around nature-based solutions are
gaining traction this year. They are an important part
of the theme of this year’s World Water Week and
they were also the topic of World Water Day 2018 and
the World Water Development Report from UN Water.
Looking ahead, there is progress to be made on
several fronts to better leverage nature’s capabilities:
The agricultural sector must fi nd production
methods that produce higher yields with less irriga-
tion and more effi cient water use. Increased climate
variability calls for more regulation and management
of water, not least to make sure that agriculture has
enough water withou t endangering environmental
health and habitats. Water management is critical
to avoid unwanted tipping points and threats also to
human life.
The forestry sector has its own set of challenges,
with tree cover loss in 2017 the second-highest on
record. This trend must be rapidly reversed, or it
will exacerbate both climate risks and water scarcity.
Trees and forests regulate water fl ows, clean water,
store carbon, enhance biodiversity and reduce erosion
and runoff from landscapes. But more research is
needed before we fully understand their impacts on
the hydrological cycle.
Meanwhile, urban planners are beginning to grasp
how reliant they are on ecosystems for cities to be
resilient and sustainable, which will become even
more apparent with rapid urbanization and more
extreme weather.
The search for more nature-based solutions is on.
In this issue of WaterFront, we look at some examples.
Sources: The report Water for Productive and Multifunctional
Landscapes; World Water Development Report 2018 and World
Resources Institute.
Agriculture
Intercropping in Lesotho
Agriculture needs to become more water effi cient,
high-yielding and resilient to climate change. In the
southern African country of Lesotho, a local mixed
intercropping initiative has proven to be an effective
way to achieve that. The method was originally devel-
oped by farmer J.J. Machobane in the 1940s but was
reintroduced in the 1990s to tackle the mountainous
country’s erosion problems.
The system is based on rows of potatoes inter-
cropped with rows of pumpkin or watermelon. In the
same rows as the pumpkins and watermelons it is
possible to grow grain crops such as maize, peas,
sorghum or wheat, amounting to at least seven crops
being cultivated simultaneously. Potatoes are gradu-
ally covered with soil, forming ridges which, as well as
increasing the potato yield, serve as windbreaks and
small water-retaining “terraces”.
Compared to conventional monocropping of maize,
the Machobane system is more adaptive and resilient
to climate change, leading to greater food security.
Soil fertility has been improved and the increased plant
cover throughout the year prevents erosion. To many
farmers, the cash crops also provide a welcome extra
income.
Courtesy:
WATERFRONT
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