Transforming Agricultural Water Management for Healthy People and Planet: Thinking Beyond Water

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper develops the concept of Thinking Beyond Water , a transdisciplinary paradigm that reframes agricultural water management (AWM) as a systems catalyst for planetary health, equity, justice and resilience. Moving beyond conventional irrigation‐centric models, we reimagine AWM through integrative frameworks such as the planetary boundaries, the doughnut economy and just transitions. We examine the limits of efficiency metrics and highlight trade‐offs between equity and resource allocation and ecological externalities of infrastructure and technology‐led approaches. We argue that AWM decisions can reinforce exclusion, ecological degradation and policy fragmentation when they are not assessed against planetary health criteria. Thinking beyond water does not replace nexus, systems or resilience approaches; it connects them to explicit planetary thresholds, justice criteria and governance. We set out three propositions: a systemic appraisal matrix that distinguishes threshold criteria that cannot be traded off against productivity from criteria that are scored and weighted; a mapping of financing instruments to the barriers they address and the safeguards they require; and a staged process for reorienting National irrigation plans. Ultimately, we propose that water must be seen not as an isolated input–output for agriculture but as a systems connector linking hydrological integrity, human and ecosystem health and human dignity across scales.