Pepijn van Ravesteyn – FutureWater

In July 2026, FutureWater travelled to Pakistan to move IDIP (Innovative Drought Impact Prediction) forward. Pepijn van Ravesteyn and Tania Imran spent the week meeting the partners and institutions behind IDIP, a service that monitors and forecasts flash droughts and turns them into practical calls to action for cotton farmers in southern Punjab.

Throughout the visit the team was warmly hosted by WaterSprint, our strong local partner in the consortium. Their generous hospitality made the week, and their central role in local implementation and in the project’s parametric crop insurance shows why WaterSprint is so important to IDIP on the ground.

In Islamabad, the team met the National Drought Monitoring Centre (NDMC), the FAO, and the Netherlands Embassy. In Lahore, the conversations continued with Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), the Punjab Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), the Punjab Irrigation Department, and the Punjab Agriculture Department. The team also travelled to Bahawalpur to see cotton operations in person and better understand the daily realities farmers face.

A highlight of the visit was the signing of a Letter of Cooperation between FutureWater, WaterSprint and Better Cotton Initiative. It marks a shared commitment to bring reliable flash drought early warning to Pakistan’s cotton farming communities.

The meetings with NDMC, Better Cotton and the provincial departments confirmed strong interest in IDIP and set the stage for its further upscaling and uptake, extending the service to more districts and putting its warnings and calls to action directly in the hands of farmers. By capturing flash droughts, a fast hazard that can develop within weeks and is often missed by conventional monitoring, IDIP offers a new way to protect cotton yields and farmer incomes.

Signing of the Letter of Cooperation with Better Cotton Initiative and WaterSprint

FutureWater has started a new assignment for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) examining how climate change will affect Armenia’s existing and planned reservoirs. The work feeds into ADB’s “Glacier to Farms” investment programme.

Armenia depends on its 87 existing dams and a pipeline of planned reservoirs for irrigation (80% of crop water), hydropower (>30% of energy), and drinking-water supply. National projections show river flow declining by roughly 14% by 2040 and up to 39% by the end of the century, putting this storage system under increasing pressure. FutureWater is assessing climate risk across the country’s six primary river basins using the SPHY hydrological model together with ERA5 and NASA-NEX climate datasets.

A central focus is seasonality. Reservoir operation depends not on annual totals but on when water arrives, and warming is shifting Armenia’s snowmelt earlier in the year while reducing late-summer baseflow. Capturing these seasonal changes is critical for reservoir filling schedules, irrigation timing, and the design of new storage.

A key output is a prioritisation of reservoirs — ranking existing and planned dams by climate vulnerability, refill reliability, and adaptation potential — to indicate where Armenia and its development partners should focus investment first. The findings will inform ADB’s lending pipeline and Armenia’s long-term water resources planning, in close consultation with Armenia’s Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, and Ministry of Economy.

More information about the project can be found here.

FutureWater, together with partner Acacia Water, has started a new World Bank assignment to prioritise Yemen’s water basins for water and food security development. The project will help the Government of Yemen and the World Bank identify and rank the country’s 42 water basins and sub-basins to guide future investment in one of the world’s most water-scarce and food-insecure settings.

The work brings together socio-economic, hydrological and remote-sensing data with stakeholder consultations to build a multi-criteria prioritisation of the basins. FutureWater leads the water demand analysis and climate change impact assessment, estimating sectoral water demand and screening each basin for climate risk towards a 2050 horizon.

The team is currently working on the inception report, which will set out the detailed methodology, data sources and work plan for the assignment. Further updates will follow as the project progresses.

More information available at the project page.

Armenia is a landlocked country in the Southern Caucasus with a dry climate, where the highest precipitation falls in the mountains. Its surface and groundwater resources — around 9 bcm of usable water annually — support hydropower (over 30% of the national energy mix), irrigation (80% of crops), and drinking water supply, with reservoir storage playing a central role in balancing demand across seasons. Yet warming is shifting snowmelt earlier in the year, and river flows are projected to decline by roughly 14% by 2040 and up to 39% by the end of the century. This places Armenia’s 87 existing dams, and a pipeline of planned reservoirs, under increasing pressure.

For the Asian Development Bank (ADB), FutureWater conducts a climate risk assessment of water resources availability in Armenia’s six primary river basins, with a focus on existing and planned reservoirs. The assessment combines the SPHY hydrological model with downscaled climate projections from ERA5 and NASA-NEX. The specific activities include:

Collecting DEM, soil, land use, and historical and future climate data for the six primary river basins.
Assessing water resources availability and inter-annual and seasonal variability using a hydrological model, including inflows to a selected set of key reservoirs.
Assessing climate change impacts on water resources, including changes in snowmelt contributions.
Calculating impact indicators for the basins and reservoirs — potential refill frequency, and high- and low-flow indicators.
Prioritising existing and planned reservoirs by climate risk and adaptation potential, to support ADB investment decisions and Armenia’s national water resources planning.
Identifying preliminary adaptation solutions in consultation with government counterparts and development partners.

A central focus is seasonality. Reservoir operation depends not only on annual water volumes but on when water arrives, and the shift to earlier snowmelt and reduced summer baseflow has direct consequences for reservoir filling schedules, irrigation timing, and the design of new storage infrastructure. The findings — including a prioritised shortlist of reservoirs for adaptation investment — will inform ADB’s investment pipeline under the Glacier to Farms programme and Armenia’s long-term water resources planning. The work is delivered in close consultation with Armenia’s Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, and Ministry of Economy.

Yemen is one of the most water-scarce and food-insecure countries in the world, where decades of over-abstraction, fragile institutions, and a changing climate have pushed many river basins beyond sustainable limits. With limited resources and competing needs across domestic supply, agriculture and industry, the Government of Yemen and the World Bank need a transparent, evidence-based way to decide where to invest first. In a data-scarce, conflict-affected setting, no single dataset offers a basin-by-basin picture of water availability, demand and climate risk.

This assignment supports the Government of Yemen and the World Bank in identifying and ranking the country’s 42 water basins and sub-basins for future investment. Delivered by Acacia Water and FutureWater as partners, the work integrates socio-economic, hydrological and remote-sensing data; delineates and characterises the basins; assesses water availability and water balances; analyses climate vulnerability; and brings everything together in a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework, with GIS outputs, maps and investment recommendations. Crucially, this data-driven analysis is complemented by stakeholder meetings that capture local and strategic priorities known to policymakers but not visible in the available datasets, ensuring the prioritisation reflects realities on the ground.

FutureWater leads the water demand analysis and climate change impact assessment. We estimate seasonal and annual demand for each basin across the domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors, combining population and per-capita use with irrigated-area and crop water requirements, and develop future demand scenarios. In parallel, we screen each basin for climate risk using the IPCC hazard, exposure and vulnerability framework, drawing on World Bank climate projections for a historical baseline and a 2050 horizon.

These results, together with the insights from stakeholder engagement, feed directly into the basin prioritisation. The outcome gives Yemeni water-sector counterparts and the World Bank a shared basis for ranking basins, defending investment choices.

The results are in. After a year of fieldwork in the mid-hills of Nepal, our feasibility study on the Smart Sprayer has reached completion — and we are excited to share a fresh-off-the-press video reporting on the outcomes.

Carried out by a consortium of FutureWater, Practica, and the Climate Resilience Research Centre (Nepal), and supported by the Dutch Enterprise Agency through the Partners for Water programme, the study set out to tackle water scarcity in the Syangja district. The Smart Sprayer combines a low-pressure mini-pivot sprayer with tailored irrigation advice delivered by SMS and WhatsApp (Croptimal), helping farmers apply water uniformly and efficiently.

The response from the ten participating farmers in Putalibazar and Bheerkot has been encouraging. They report clear time savings, more efficient water use, and strong crop yields — irrigating larger areas with less water than conventional practices. Because the sprayer is lightweight and easy to operate, it has also made irrigation less physically demanding, particularly for the women who carry out much of the fieldwork.

Building on these results, the consortium is now looking ahead to a larger pilot. We hope to test the Smart Sprayer with 50–100 farmers during the upcoming dry season in the mid-hills of Nepal, the period when water shortages bite hardest and demand for produce is greatest. This pilot is the next step in making the technology ready for wider uptake across the Nepalese agricultural sector.

To make this happen, we are actively looking for funding opportunities and donors to help implement and co-design the pilot. We warmly invite interested partners and funders to reach out and explore how we can shape the project together. You can directly reach out to Pepijn van Ravesteyn (p.vanravesteyn@futurewater.nl).

You can watch the new video on the feasibility study results below, and read the full Smart Sprayer Pilot Project Proposal for details on objectives, site requirements, and planning.

Over the past year, a consortium of FutureWater (NL), Practica (NL), and the Climate Resilience Research Centre (Nepal) has been conducting a feasibility study on the Smart Sprayer in Nepal, addressing water scarcity in the mid-hills (Syangja district).

By combining high application uniformity with tailored irrigation advice, the system aims to reduce water use, increase yields, and prevent nutrient leaching. It integrates a low-pressure mini-pivot (Sprayer) with a smart advisory service via SMS and WhatsApp (Croptimal), supported by the Partners for Water programme (RVO).

The study is progressing well. The 10 participating farmers are currently harvesting their winter crops, with promising early results. Farmers report improved ease of use, water efficiency, and crop performance (see summary in the bar chart below).

Local municipalities are preparing to subsidize the Smart Sprayer in the coming financial year, while the Agricultural Knowledge Centre has already procured systems for further testing. This confirms strong local interest and scaling potential.

We are now preparing a pilot involving 50–100 farmers and are exploring financial mechanisms and partnerships to enable this next phase. We welcome any ideas or connections that could support this effort.

An interim project video of the Smart Sprayer is available on YouTube, and additional information on both the Sprayer and Croptimal is found in the factsheet.

More information about the project can be found here

Video

In October, a team of FutureWater, Practica and Climate Resilience Research Centre visited Syangja district in Gandaki province, Nepal, for the ‘Smart Sprayer’ project, a feasibility study funded by the Partners for Water scheme. The project aims to increase water and food security in Nepal by testing and deploying novel smart irrigation technology.

In Syangja district, situated in the mid-hills of Nepal, smallholder farmers rely on springs for irrigation in the dry season (Nov – Mar). Spring discharge is low this time of the year and further reduction can be expected in the face of climate change. Traditional irrigation systems either require high water pressures or have low water use efficiencies. As a result, food insecurity persists while farmers fail to realize their full income potential. this applies not only to the district at hand since Nepal is a net importer of food.

The project is researching the feasibility of the ‘Smart Sprayer’, a system that combines hardware and software to help farmers grow food even under water scarce conditions. It has two components:

The hardware: a lightweight pivot irrigation system, 12m in diameter, which can operate at pressures as low as 2 m of hydraulic head – far lower than traditional systems. The low pressure and high efficiency allow the system to work under water-scarce conditions.
Software: our digital irrigation advisory tool Croptimal that uses WAPOR evapotranspiration data, crop specs, and growth stage info to calculate crop water demand. We condense all these datasets and calculations into a single practical SMS message, advising farmers number of minutes to irrigate, saving water while ensuring optimal yields.

The sprayer setup and tested in the field.

Discussion between the project team and the municipality of Bheerkot, Syangja.

By enabling efficient irrigation under water-scarce conditions, farmers can increase crop production for the local market. This is expected to improve both food security, farmer livelihoods, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.

Some highlights of the trip were: researching water security challenges with a selection of 10 local farmers; discussing the technology to the municipalities of Putalibazar and Bheerkot; testing the sprayer and installing a weather station for ground truthing.

The project is a one-year feasibility study, requiring the consortium to move fast. The next steps are the transplanting of seedlings (cauliflower and cabbage); setting up farmer-managed irrigation with the Sprayer guided by SMS advisories; monitoring operations and crop performance by WUR intern Maaike de Wit; as well as developing farmer and supplier-level business cases. The ultimate goal of the project is to assess if the ‘Smart Sprayer’ is technically and financially feasible and can have a positive impact on the lives of smallholder farmers in Nepal.

I-DIP builds on InfoSequia, an advanced toolbox that integrates satellite data, local observations, and machine learning to monitor and forecast droughts. A new flash drought indicator, tailored to Pakistan’s climate, will be developed and embedded within NDMC’s existing system. The project will enhance early warning capacities, safeguard food and water security, and contribute to national climate adaptation efforts, paving the way for I-DIP’s upscaling across Pakistan.

Beyond monitoring, I-DIP will connect its forecasts to decision-making tools. Impact information will be disseminated through advisory bulletins and the inFarmer app (developed by WaterSprint), already widely used among farming communities. Field facilitators deployed by the Better Cotton Initiative will translate these insights into actionable guidance for farmers, enabling them to adapt irrigation practices, adjust cropping calendars, and mitigate potential losses. This integration of cutting-edge drought science with established communication networks ensures that early warnings are transformed into practical actions at the field level.

By embedding I-DIP within NDMC’s operational system, the project directly strengthens Pakistan’s early warning capacity for droughts, aligns with national climate policies, and supports the country’s commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals. In the longer term, the pilot is expected to catalyse scaling of I-DIP across Pakistan, offering authorities a state-of-the-art tool to anticipate and manage such extreme events.

Climate change is expected to intensify extreme rainfall events, further stressing the outdated drainage systems and increasing flood risks. Additionally, institutional and legal challenges complicate effective drainage management, including fragmented responsibilities and funding constraints. Environmental considerations are also critical, as many of the drainage areas are adjacent to sensitive ecosystems, including the Kolkheti National Park and the Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This assessment will focus on evaluating the condition and performance of the current drainage systems in West Georgia, the potential and feasibility of their rehabilitation, analyzing the agricultural potential of rehabilitated land, assessing climate and environmental impacts, and identifying legal and institutional gaps. The findings will inform a feasibility study, providing strategic recommendations for rehabilitating and modernizing the drainage systems to enhance agricultural productivity, climate resilience, and environmental sustainability in West Georgia.