Achieving food security in the future while using water resources in a sustainable manner is a major challenge for us and the next generations. Agriculture is a key water user. A careful monitoring of water productivity in agriculture and exploring opportunities to increase it are required.
To monitor the performance of water use in agriculture the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed a publicly accessible near real time database using satellite data that allows monitoring of agricultural water productivity – WaPOR, remote sensing for water productivity.
A new WaPOR publication titled ‘Water accounting in the Awash River Basin’ provides the water accounting study for the Awash River Basin in the central Rift Valley of Ethiopia which experiences water scarcity.
The Awash River Basin is the most utilized river basin in Ethiopia hosting most of the industrial activities in the country, a number of small to large scale irrigation schemes and the main population centres of the country with more than 18.6 million people. The basin faces high water stress during the peak of the irrigation season and frequent flooding in rainy seasons.
The publication can be accessed here.
Further information about WaPOR can be found in the video below.
River Rhône: Comprehensive French-Swiss project to remove tons of sediments
From 15 to 27 May 2025, a major cross-border operation between Switzerland (canton of Geneva) and France (department of Ain and Haut-Rhône) takes place: the river Rhône is emptied in order to remove 1.5 million cubic metres of accumulated sediment, particularly upstream of the Verbois dam.
