Stabilizing smallholder crop yields under changing climatic conditions in subSaharan Africa will require adaptation strategies focused on soil and water management. Impact studies of climate change on crop yields often ignore the potential of adaptation strategies such as rainwater harvesting (RWH). While RWH is bringing benefits to agricultural systems today, it is still unclear which regions could increasingly benefit from RWH under changing climatic conditions.

This paper gives an overview of the geophysico-chemical groundwater conditions in Sri Lanka and the associated contemporary management challenges. Groundwater is extensively used in Sri Lanka today, for agriculture, domestic use and industry/tourism. Groundwater access, availability and vulnerability are governed by six major types of aquifer systems of which the most prevalent is the regolith aquifers in the central hard rock areas of the island. Uncontrolled groundwater use and contamination or natural poor quality are leading to access limitations and health concerns.

Although Bangladesh receives plenty of rainwater during its monsoon, both rural and urban areas suffer from shortages of safe drinking water during dry season. Arsenic contamination of ground water affects many rural areas, whilst some urban areas including the capital, Dhaka City, lack sufficient potable ground water to meet the demand.

Gadarif city, in central Sudan, has suffered from a shortage of drinking water for decades. Half of its daily water requirement is met through river water imported over 50 km away and from local salty wells. As a consequence of building a small dam to control seasonal floods, it was found that the dam reservoir recharges groundwater, raising the water table by few a meters.

The groundwater recharge zone mapping often requires a large amount of spatial information and criteria. Geographic information systems are capable of managing large amount of spatially related information, providing the ability to integrate multiple layers of information for multi-criteria analysis.

Water management is facing major challenges due to increasing uncertainties caused by climate and global change and by fast changing socio-economic boundary conditions. More attention has to be devoted to understanding and managing the transition from