Publications Search

Groundwater offers smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Lao PDR opportunities to diversify cropping beyond wet season paddy and thus enhance their livelihoods while reducing climate risks. This chapter focuses on evaluating existing and specifically developed groundwater irrigation options on the Vientiane Plain, and framing the findings around...

Irrigated agriculture has become an important focus of the Government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) for addressing poverty alleviation, food security and climate change. Most irrigation systems to date have relied upon surface water, limiting irrigation development to areas close to streams, rivers and reservoirs. To address this gap, a...

Groundwater can provide irrigation for rural communities where surface water is absent or unreliable. Technical, institutional and capacity limits have prevented rural communities from using groundwater for irrigation, and researchers have not demonstrated how to extract and use groundwater effectively for agriculture. A recent Australian-funded...

Owing to a high prevalence of rural poverty in Lao PDR, improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers by increasing their productivity is a high priority for the Government. Smallholder farming relies primarily on rainfall, which is prone to shortfalls and occasional droughts during the crop planting season. Reliable irrigation supplies would...

----

In a poorly developed, water-rich country such as Lao PDR, most attention has historically been given to surface water development issues with limited consideration to groundwater. However, even with such relative abundance, spatial or temporal shortfalls and occasional droughts are faced, and groundwater is being increasingly relied upon to...

Agricultural groundwater use in the Lower Mekong is gradually gaining attention due to increasing uncertainty over water availability. Although this region is blessed with abundant rainfall and a network of rivers, climate change, commercial agriculture, and competition for hydropower, ecosystem and urbanization are shifting demand-supply pattern...