Estimating returns to surface-water management infrastructures: Evidence from coastal Bangladesh

Crop producers in coastal Bangladesh depend on rainfed paddy cultivation and face water management challenges, including water shortages during dry seasons and flooding during monsoons. To address these issues, the Smallholder Agricultural Competitiveness Project rehabilitates canals, buried pipes, and dykes, and provides complementary input transfers. Using inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) on data from ∼3,000 households, we estimate the impacts of these interventions on agricultural and food security outcomes. Canal investments are associated with large increase in output, driven by greater crop diversification and land use during the relatively less-rainy Rabi season. Buried pipes and dykes are associated with economically significant gains in production, although these estimates are statistically imprecise. Input transfers enhance output by supporting crop diversification into high value crops. However, these production gains do not translate into improvements in food security or dietary quality. The results suggest that bundling infrastructure with input support can enhance production benefits, but agricultural commercialization interventions need to be combined with complementary nutrition-focused interventions to ensure production gains also support improved household nutrition.