ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies an alternative model of water resources development in agriculture aimed at achieving the intensification of agricultural production while avoiding the impairment of the natural resource base. This is a pathway of sustainable intensification of agricultural production, where improvements in total water productivity drive growth in agricultural outputs. Water resource development has historically evolved from mobilisation of local resources to meet local agricultural and domestic needs towards large-scale transfer of water in time and space to meet regional, national and international needs. One of the most powerful conceptualisations of these trends is that formalised by Allan involving five paradigms of development. The traditional model of water development focused on blue water involves a ‘peaking’ of water development through a mobilisation of blue water to an unsustainable level. Such behaviour can be termed ‘peak water’. This is followed by a reallocation of water away from productive use to redress environmental degradation caused by over-abstraction.
