Global water scarcity and the future of upland farming – learning from Wales and Lesotho

This partnership between the Scottish Rural College (SRUC) and the Global Water Partnership (Lesotho) will co-create a programme of knowledge exchange on the tensions between culture and community in the face of global food and water scarcity in upland farming regions in Wales and Lesotho, and the role of local government policy and informal governance on sustainable land use. Whilst these upland peatland farming landscapes have a longstanding history for managing water, food and people, the obvious geographic, linguistic and cultural differences may render these landscapes as poor comparisons. However, these remote communities face many similar challenges in facing risk to loss of livelihoods from climate-facing policy whilst building resilience to protecting identity in cultural landscapes and are open to national efforts to support sustainable farming and mitigating the impacts of climate change. In response to specific challenges for water resources, both communities are also under pressure to reform sheep grazing to protect national and regional investments in water development infrastructures, and to secure the water reproductive capacity of peatlands and their requisite services.

Through this collaboration, we will understand the cultural, social and economic barriers in the uptake of national and regional programmes of investment that seek to maintain water resources and water quality in the face of climate change. As such, this collaborative partnership will create valuable opportunities to learn from social science research experience with farming communities in upland Wales and programmes of community water management in Lesotho, to develop best practice approaches for policy, governance and innovation to protect both livelihoods and global water resources.