**6. Discussions**

The CPWF program was a new approach by the CGIAR system to collaborative and multidisciplinary research that was implemented in two phases and in several selected benchmark basins worldwide.

The implementation of the CPWF program, with the contribution of national and international research institutes and centers, had a lot of capacity building for experts and faculty members at the national level (NARES). In addition to the scientific and research results, practicing the spirit of multidisciplinary and collaborative cooperation with each other, training and capacity building, identifying the KRB and Iran in international forums and events, recognizing international researchers and professors, and the possibility of working together were other benefits of the CPWF program in KRB.

A comparison between the approach and work organization used by the CPWF program in KRB with the other similar international joint projects, studied in Iran country, e.g., the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Wetlands Conservation Project, with the support of the government of Japan and FAO-SIDA, in the Urmia Lake in the northwest of Iran, and on issues such as water accounting, improvement of WP, drought management, etc., indicate that:


*Approaches to Improve Water Productivity and Livelihood Resilience in the Karkheh River… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108720*


Significant outputs of CPWF in KRB could be mentioned as: Development of supplementary irrigation in rain-fed agricultural systems in upstream of KRB, provide necessary solutions and measures to further disseminate the results and apply new methods and cropping patterns of agricultural crops in the downstream areas of the basin, application of land drainage technologies and salinity management in saline lands downstream of KRB, transition from one dimensional and researcher-oriented agricultural research to demand-driven research, as well as the development of technologies related to providing more participation of farmers in research process, establishing a balance between rural development and food security goals in terms of protection of soil and water resources and sustainability of mountainous watersheds in arid and semi-arid regions, development and promotion of production and marketing of chickpeas in order to increase farm income and ultimately the income of watershed residents, and mainstreaming of participatory development of technologies in agriculture.

However, the KRB was not selected in phase 2 of the CPWF program. This was a failure and had many reasons that are out of this chapter's scope. The reasons for not selecting KRB for phase 2 are presented in detail by Heydari et al. [9].

Continuation of the work and dissemination of the results of the CPWF program in the KRB, or so-called out-scaling and up-scaling of the results to policy-makers and planners, was one of the things which should have been continued after the completion of the program. However, this task was followed to some extent but not fully, and stopped after a while so its issues should be investigated. This shortcoming occurs for most R&D projects in most developing countries, including Iran.

However, the project archives and databases (documented fully in [9]), as well as its many national and international research reports and published articles (e.g., [3, 5– 7, 10]), along with the information presented in this chapter, could be used as important resources for future use.

The present collection can be a good roadmap to explain the process of water and food challenges in KRB and to continue the road in this basin and other basins in Iran country and even similar basins in the region such as the Amu Darya in Central Asia and the Tigris-Euphrates in the Middle East.

As a result, the following common issues and strategies can be used as key indicators for multidisciplinary and multi-scale studies in similar studies in related basins:

### **6.1 Basin scale issues**

Water resources and drought, areas prone to supplementary irrigation, upstream impacts and interactions on the downstream basin, land use effects on sediment flow in the basin, agro- ecological characterization, and similarity analysis of the basin.

### **6.2 Assessment and evaluation of options for improving WP in the basin**

Rainwater productivity improvement by using supplementary irrigation, evaluating and improving WP in irrigated lands (saline areas with salinity and drainage limitations), recognizing and presenting agricultural options to improve WP under salinity of water and soil resources, socio-economic factors affecting WP in the basin.

### **6.3 Improving the resilience and livelihood of local communities in the basin**

Integrated watershed management (including: water resources of the pilot sites, rangeland resources and its management, soil fertility management, soil erosion studies, and spatial decision support system); participatory technology development (PTD) in the basin (including: mainstreaming of the principles and concepts of participatory technology development, seed modification of common and major crops under participatory method, and improving the management of common and major crops); socio-economic and policy-institution issues (including women's participation in improving rural livelihoods, market access and its effects on low-income farm residents, rural livelihood zoning, effects of access to water resources, and policy considerations in upstream developments; policy-making and organizational-institutional issues, and the principles of integrated water resources management and its related institutional aspects).
