The adoption and impact of climate-smart water management technologies in smallholder farming systems of Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic literature review.

Abstract

Agriculture plays a significant role in global water consumption, accounting for approximately 70% of the world’s freshwater usage. This makes this sector a critical factor in the depletion of water resources. Accordingly, this paper explores potential mitigatory impacts of climate-smart water management (CSWM) technologies in sub-Saharan Africa. About 70% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is dependent on agriculture for sustaining their livelihoods. This is despite the low agricultural output in smallholder farming systems (SFS) due to water scarcity. This has spurred several attempts to promote the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) to raise agricultural outputs and improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods. However, there has not been a comprehensive analysis of data categorised by various aspects of climate-smart water management technologies. In this systematic literature review, climate-smart water management technologies in sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural sector were identified and analysed to determine strategies that could enhance their adoption and impact. To this end, academic articles reporting on the adoption of climate-smart water management technologies in databases were reviewed. Four significant literature databases were used. These were limited to Springer Link, ScienceDirect, MDPI, Wiley Online, and Google Scholar. The findings demonstrate that rainwater harvesting and micro-irrigation are the primary climate-smart water management technologies used by smallholder farmers. The literature review shows that adoption of CSWM practices is constrained by inadequate technological infrastructure, financial implications, unsuitable policies, and low user skills, particularly. It is therefore recommended that government agricultural departments and relevant advocates of CSA should incentivise and subsidise smallholder farmers to encourage CSWM technology adoption. This can be achieved through the implementation of suitable policies directed at technological infrastructure development, financial support for adoption, and technical skills training.