Vulnerability to water stress brings challenges to water resources management in arid and semi-arid regions and it is an obstacle to socioeconomic development. In this sense, some technologies are used to overcome this bottleneck. The present study sought to investigate the insertion of cisterns and public irrigation schemes in seven sub-basins in Brazil's semi-arid regions, to verify their effects on family farming agricultural development and their suitability according to water availability trend. These technologies were spatialized and agricultural production trend lines, between 1995 and 2017, were generated in order to indicate these technologies efficiency. Finally, the precipitation, surface and subsurface runoff trend was evaluated for all sub-basins. Trend analysis in agricultural production showed that a large part of the municipalities had a decrease in agricultural production and municipalities that had a larger number of cisterns did not achieve good agricultural development, while agricultural irrigation systems brought better results. Regarding physical-natural conditions, subsurface runoff has decreased and an increase in surface runoff was identified, which can be collected through the installation of new cisterns. However, for this purpose, future investigations are important to identify the factors that are affecting cisterns performance.