Groundwater management in Pakistan (proposed project)

This project aims to develop and investigate adaptation strategies for people managing and living in salinity-affected agricultural landscapes in the southern Indus Basin.

For the purposes of this project, the ‘southern Indus Basin’ has been defined as all areas of the Indus Basin in Sindh and the areas of Punjab south of the confluence of Chenab and Ravi Rivers (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The project’s area of interest (AOI) is the southern Indus Basin System (IBS) of southern Punjab and Sindh, but excluding the area of the IBS that extends into Balochistan

This project is using a co-inquiry methodology which aims to engage all participants at all points of the research process. Co-inquiry is different to traditional research approaches which create clear distinctions between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘subject’, with the former carrying out research about the latter. On the other hand, the co-inquiry approach considers all participants, whether from government departments, universities or local communities as ‘co-researchers’. It involves working with participants throughout the research process to attempt to ensure equal input from both researchers and participants with regard to the research focus, design, methods and results. The approach is built around valuing and respecting each person in the research process, including their knowledge, skills, capacities and resources. The sharing of these assets—and a recognition that all are of equal value—builds trust, which is essential to the success of a co-inquiry approach.

This project is also employing the use of a number of frameworks for analysis of results, including:

• The Critical Institutional Analysis and Development (CIAD) framework, which focuses on social situations and their outcomes by analysing how institutions have played—and continue to play—a role in mediating everyday social life and relationships between people, natural resources, and wider society. This approach is nested in the Rural Research Engagement and Learning Model (R²EALM).

Our intended outcomes by the end of the 2.5-year formative project are that:

1. Newly developed and existing evidence-based knowledge about salinity in the southern Indus Basin of Pakistan is available for the staff of Pakistan-based projects, programs and organisations relevant to agricultural development.
2. The project’s case study community members and their institutional support networks have improved understanding of the current opportunities for—and limitations to—adapting to salinity.
3. Individuals and groups (including women and youth) from the project’s case study communities are building capacity to plan their own futures for adapting well to salinity.
4. Relevant government departments, policy makers, donors and other institutions have engaged with—and are supporting—locally and collaboratively determined adaptation planning strategies, including co-development of future participatory research projects.