In the presence of his family, friends and PhD supervisor - who travelled from France - Professor Djiby Thiam delivered his inaugural lecture on 30 July.
Professor Thiam explored the impact of water resource management on productivity in sectors such as agriculture, as well as the challenges posed by water scarcity, environmental hazards and climate change.
His lecture was titled, "The economics of water and climate resilience: Lessons learned from African experiences". Thiam began on a sobering note. "Most of the time, the poorest and the most vulnerable suffer the most from water scarcity. Ten percent of the global population live in countries with critical and high levels of water stress.
"It might become a global issue affecting not just [the] economy, but also social interactions. By 2050, three out of four people worldwide could face drought impacts. Current drought costs already exceed $307 billion annually," said Thiam. Faced with this reality, the role of economics comes into the picture through mitigation and adaptation.
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"Farmers are heterogeneous by nature and differ by farm management strategies, cost structures, and farming styles."
The main aim is to stabilise CO2, the root cause of the problem, as well as reduce the effects of climate change. This requires some levels of adjustments regarding behaviours and systems.
Thiam broke down the economic responses into four themes for the purpose of his lecture. The first is index-based weather insurance. The idea of a scheme that mimics the insurance industry where risks are insured. "Compensation is provided to farmers depending on the evolution of a selected indicator (index), not on losses observed in the field. The index refers to rainfall, temperature, river levels and wind speed."
After surveying farming households in the northern part of Nigeria, "results indicate that farmers are willing to pay a premium lower than what is demanded. Therefore, there is a need for realignments and development of alternative funding schemes to support upscaling. Results also showcase some additional factors that positively influence uptake which include access to extension services, years in farming experience and distance to weather stations."
The second strand is interested in farming and drought pollution control. Here, Thiam and his research colleagues bundled six water conservation practices - drip/sprinkler irrigation techniques, conservation tillage, cover crops, mulching, intercropping and growing drought-tolerant crops.
Compensation behaviours
"Farmers are heterogeneous by nature and differ by farm management strategies, cost structures, and farming styles. As a result, they are expected to have different incentives and aims for enrolling in an Agricultural Non-Point Source (agNPS) pollution control scheme. Therefore, understanding how these differences drive farmers' compensation requirements is fundamental to designing appropriate and more acceptable water quality improvement in South Africa and elsewhere to successfully regulate agNPS pollution."
Thiam continued: "Our results suggest that farmers are willing to accept compensation to control agNPS pollution. Therefore, we recommend the promotion and use of monetary incentives to induce farmers to lessen agriculture's impact on water quality."
"Water scarcity will become a world problem involving both developing as well as developed nations."
"Second, we unpacked trends that influence compensation behaviours. These include age, farming experience, secured land rights, awareness of agNPS pollution, farm size and farm ownership. Thus, any effective strategy/ies aimed at increasing farmers' participation in future Agri-environmental schemes (AESs) contracts must, out of necessity, factor in these differences in preferences observed in the classes."
Water conservation and diversification of supply sources is also a consideration. This investigates the adoption of water recycling strategies, the effects it has on water security and the potential benefits in terms of health. Thiam also considered the role of institutions. He said: "Institutional corruption increases the probability of water insecurity, inadequate health, and monetary poverty."
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Finally, the gender dimension came to the fore. The question is, can providing women with a higher portion of power to weigh in over household decisions have the potential to speed up access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities? Thiam noted: "To answer this research question, we tested the empirical relationship between women's decision-making power and access to WASH services. If empowering women promotes access to WASH, then the findings may offer strong justification for policymakers to design institutional and policy frameworks that promote gender equality."
He ended on a word about big data, adding that "water scarcity will become a world problem involving both developing as well as developed nations. Data centres built around industrialised countries will exacerbate water scarcity. This is because they need to account for cooling systems, facility operations and humidification."
