Restoring Landscapes, Reviving Water and Livelihoods: ICRISAT Study Provides Real-World Evidence from Central India
ICRISAT study titled ‘Restoration potential of degraded landscapes for strengthening rural livelihoods’ presents compelling evidence from Bundelkhand, India and offer a practical and scalable pathway for restoring degraded lands across Asia, Africa and beyond.
Published in Elsevier’s Cleaner Food Systems, the study presents compelling evidence from Bundelkhand – one of India’s most drought-prone regions – showing that watershed-scale interventions can raise groundwater levels by 4–6 meters, expand cultivated land more than twentyfold, and significantly boost farm incomes.
Globally, nearly 29% of land is degraded, affecting around 3.2 billion people and threatening food security, water availability, and rural livelihoods. In Central India, ICRISAT’s landscape restoration approach demonstrates how these trends can be reversed. While the benefits of rainwater harvesting are well documented, this study goes further, linking hydrological improvements directly to gains in agricultural productivity and livelihoods at the landscape scale.
“Global dialogues, including the UNCCD COP meetings, reinforce that land degradation is not just an environmental issue, it is a complex interplay of drought, land degradation, and desertification, each reinforcing the other.
“This study shows that the reverse is possible. When we restore land through science, we not only combat land degradation, but also halt desertification, address drought, and unlock broader social and economic resilience—transforming degraded landscapes into thriving communities,” said Dr Himanshu Pathak, Director General of ICRISAT.
ICRISAT’s landscape restoration interventions in Pura Birda village in Bundelkhand began by addressing how water moved through a degraded system. Barren hillocks generated rapid runoff, while shallow soils and hard-rock aquifers limited groundwater recharge.
To counter this, five masonry-based water harvesting structures were built at foothill locations, supported by field bunding, farm ponds, and diversion drains that slowed and captured runoff. Together, these created a decentralized storage capacity of 150,000 cubic meters, thereby fundamentally improving rainfall retention across the watershed.
What distinguishes this study is how these changes were measured. Researchers established continuous hydrological monitoring using automated rain gauges, runoff stations, and pressure sensors, alongside groundwater tracking across 18 wells. This was combined with satellite-based crop analysis and household surveys, linking changes in water directly to farming and livelihoods over time.
“One of the key strengths of this work is its ability to measure impact across natural resources and livelihoods,” said Dr Stanford Blade, Deputy Director General – Research and Innovation at ICRISAT.
“By tracking changes over time, we can understand what works and design more effective, scalable restoration solutions,” said Dr Blade.
The results did not emerge overnight; in the initial years, moderate rainfall of up to 200 mm was absorbed by dry soils, generating little runoff. However, a high-intensity rainfall event in 2021 marked a turning point. With water-harvesting structures in place, the system was able to retain about 210 mm of runoff, significantly improving infiltration and raising groundwater levels by 4–6 meters, creating, for the first time, a reliable source of irrigation during the rabi season (November – March).
Dr Ramesh Singh, Principal Scientist – Landscape Resource Conservation at ICRISAT, explained that the system began to shift from this point. Even moderate rainfall contributed to recharge, with annual groundwater recharge increasing from 20 mm in 2019 to about 180 mm by 2021. Despite higher groundwater use for irrigation, water levels remained stable, indicating a transition to a recharge-supported system.
These changes enabled a rapid transformation in agriculture. Cultivated area expanded from 4 hectares in 2018 to over 100 hectares by 2021, with farmers shifting to double-cropping supported by reliable irrigation. Crop yields improved significantly, particularly for wheat and chickpea.
The impact extended beyond farming. Total annual income rose from USD 2,370 in 2019 to USD 148,500 in 2023, while average household incomes reached about USD 3,300. Wells that once took days to refill were now replenished within hours, ensuring reliable drinking water and reducing the time women spent collecting it. The transformation also reversed distress migration, with 45 families returning to resume farming.
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Add the video about this project prepared and released on Foundation Day.
ICRISAT’s work, supported by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and One CGIAR’s Multifunctional Landscapes program, demonstrates how integrated, science-led restoration can deliver measurable impact while informing scalable solutions for dryland systems.
Roseleen Aind
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