India

The poor across the world is vulnerable to floods and drought disasters, which have a detrimental effect on the lives and livelihoods of the poor. Weather-based index insurance is one of the ways of dealing with these disasters. Protecting against floods and providing risk cover against losses due to floods has been a major area of concern for any government. Risk transfer through insurance is an important component in managing agricultural risks from extreme flood events. The study developed the first of its kind of design and implementation of an index-based flood insurance (IBFI) product with the advanced use of satellite data and flood models to estimate crop losses due to floods. IBFI insurance product uses two different data elements, and the first one is based on the flood model using HEC-HMS and HEC-RAS that uses inputs from NASA GPM bias-corrected satellite rainfall estimates, observed water level and discharge data, river characteristics, and digital elevation model to generate flood depth and flood duration to develop predetermined thresholds based on the historical flood events between 1991 and 2015 and the second IBFI product uses only satellite data from NASA MODIS Terra and Aqua satellite data and the Copernicus Sentinel-1 SAR data to generate flood depth and flood duration to develop predetermined thresholds based on the historical flood events and economic losses. More than 7000 farming households in Bihar (India) and northern Bangladesh have signed up for a pilot IBFI scheme, which went live in 2017. The participating farmers have received insurance compensation for crop losses of over $US160,000. In addition to the insurance product implementation, the research evaluated the farming willingness to pay, developing business models for scaling, social equity, and economic benefits of derisk disasters. IBFI initiative promotes a closer linkage between risk transfer and risk reduction that could make this a more sustainable and robust financial instrument for flood-affected communities and reduce the burden of postdisaster relief funds for the government. In summary, index insurance using open-access satellite imagery is a win-win opportunity as it brings down the data development cost, lower insurance premiums, quick settlement, and greater transparency among various users.

Groundwater depletion has become a serious concern in north-western India, particularly in Punjab and Haryana, largely due to the dominance of paddy cultivation and unsustainable irrigation practices driven by agricultural electricity subsidies. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of current incentive strategies for crop diversification in this region introduced by the government for the reduction of groundwater over-extraction. Using the plot-level cost of cultivation data for the period 2017-18 to 2019-20, obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture amp; Farmers Welfare, Government of India, we show that the current proposed incentives are inadequate for shifting from water-intensive paddy to less water-intensive crops, mainly due to the higher profitability of paddy cultivation in terms of high yields and lower production costs as compared to other crops. We find that the average proportion of area under paddy that would shift to less water-intensive maize or cotton in Punjab with the current policy would be about 17–20 percent, which is 33 percent lower than the 30 percent target area set by the government. The area that would shift to non-paddy crops in Haryana would be about 11–16 percent, which is even lower. Our results show that the cash incentives required for crop diversification could be as high as 2.5 times the amount offered under the current scheme in order to shift to even the most profitable non-paddy crop. Our study highlights challenges in the implementation of the crop diversification scheme and propose alternatives.

Surface water is essential for agricultural, domestic and industrial production worldwide. Monitoring surface dynamics is crucial for sustainable ecosystems and global water resources. Importance of monitoring surface water dynamics is even more pronounced in the semi-arid regions worldwide. An analysis of surface water extent and volume change patterns has been conducted, comparing these dynamics with alterations in precipitation patterns within a basin in Central Bundelkhand, a semi-arid region in the Central India prone to droughts. To map the waterbodies, we leveraged Sentinel-1 SAR data using an automated mapping framework and utilised DEM dataset to extract bathymetry using interpolation with modifications using water persistence. Analysis revealed a lag in surface water peak water level with respect to accumulated rainfall by 2–3 months. Furthermore, we have categorised the water bodies into small, medium and large by surface area and found that smaller water bodies show a higher intra-annual variance, while medium and large water bodies show a lower intra-annual variance. The findings suggest that smaller communities reliant on smaller water bodies are at a higher risk from climate variability in the region and a delay in attaining peak surface storage across the basin causes further challenges to water management.

A study carried out by IWMI, TU Delft and Wageningen University looked at how groundwater recharge can help meet growing demands in both rural and urban parts of the Ramganga Basin, India.