Sub-Saharan Africa has an irrigation potential of about 42 million hectares of which only 17% is developed. Despite several investments in irrigation the growth is slow. This study aims at helping to achieve sustainable irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa, through gaining a better understanding of productive irrigation water use and effective management of irrigation development. The study is conducted in the White Volta sub-basin specifically in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso which have been experiencing rapid irrigation development since the mid 1990s. The study identified growing markets for irrigated products as an important driving force behind the expansion of irrigation which has given rise to new technologies. The new technologies have spread because they gave farmers direct control over water sources. These new technologies allow relatively small farm sizes which can be adequately managed by the surveyed farmers. As a result high productivities are achieved. The hydrological impact of upscaling irrigation in the sub-basin is sustainable and will maximize the overall benefits derived from water resources in the Volta Basin.

The Volta River Basin (VRB) is an important transboundary basin in West Africa that covers approximately 410,000 square kilometres across six countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Togo. Its natural resources sustain the livelihoods of its population and contribute to economic development. This book provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary review and assessment of the issues and challenges faced. The authors provide a science-based assessment of current and future scenarios of water availability, the demands of key sectors, including agriculture and hydropower, and the environment under changing demographic, economic, social and climatic conditions. They also identify solutions and strategies that will allow available water resources to be sustainably used to improve agricultural productivity, food security and economic growth in the VRB. Overall, the work examines from a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective the solutions and strategies to improve the use of water and other natural resources in the VRB to achieve enhanced food security, livelihoods and economic growth.

There is no doubt that water is one of the most important inputs in agricultural production in Ghana apart from labour. More importantly almost all agricultural productions depend on natural rainfall. Therefore, crop yields are invariably poor since the rains are very erratic. Groundwater development for irrigation should therefore be really looked at since it constitutes about 30.1% of the available freshwater on earth.The potential use of shallow groundwater for small-scale dry season irrigation is a key issue for irrigation development in the arid zone of Ghana. Farmers within the Atankwidi sub-basin of the White Volta Basin are increasingly using groundwater as a source for irrigation due to the unavailability of surface water in the dry season, hence the need to investigate its availability and suitability in order to ensure sustainability in the application and possible expansion in the area. The aquifer geometry in the Atankwidi sub-basin has therefore been successfully delineated using geophysical (VES and EM) techniques. Groundwater quality (suitability) for irrigation has also been successfully determined.