Assessing the impact of climate change on water conservation for dry season irrigation farming in Ghana’s Sudan agro ecological zone of the Upper East Region

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title> With an increasing world’s population and the quest to maintain food security, irrigation farming has been identified to play a vital role in food production. Food production in Sub-Saharan Africa is entirely rain-fed with irrigation playing a limited role. The situation is aggravated by the impact of climate change. This article investigates water conservation for dry season irrigation farming as an adaptation to climate change in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The specific objectives were to identify water conservation methods, challenges and adaptive/coping strategies adopted by smallholder farmers to ensure water security for food production in the Region. Primary data were obtained using questionnaires, interviews, and focus group discussions. Secondary data were collected by obtaining documents and reports from key government institutions and climate data from Ghana Meteorological Agency. The data was analyzed using different methods of analysis. The questionnaires were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science and the focus group discussions and interviews were analyzed manually using content analysis. The findings showed that there are many sources of water but these sources were impacted by climate change and usually get dried during the dry season. Erratic rainfall and increasing temperature were also observed to affect crop production and livestock rearing. As a result, various water conservation methods were practiced to promote irrigation farming. The study concludes that innovative water conservation methods should be explored, reduce the challenges confronting dry season irrigation farming as a way to boost food production and diversify the economy of rural farmers.