Abstract
Many regions in the world are suffering from agricultural droughts and floods, two sides of the same coin. They result in shortage of available water for plant growth or accumulation of water on farm land that is normally not submerged, respectively. The incidence of droughts and floods is not only caused by extreme weather events, but also by an imbalanced partitioning of rainfall, with higher blue water flows at the expense of green water, i.e. soil moisture generated from infiltrating rain. This chapter suggests that poor partitioning of rainwater and an unbalanced water regime is associated with soil structural degradation, lack of physical structures or evapotranspiration controlling measures, among others. Appropriate soil-water management practices could be a first step in building resilience against agricultural droughts and floods. Such practices refer to the management of soil (in whatever way) with the purpose of enhancing the quantity and flow of soil water. They range from improving physical soil quality, i.e., increasing rainwater infiltration capacity and plant-available water capacity through the use of soil amendments, conservation agricultural practices and other field water conservation practices, over farming practices such as use of mulches and cover crops, to soil conservation practices, and runoff and flood water harvesting techniques. In this chapter, two examples from semi-arid zones in Kenya and Ethiopia are given that demonstrate that soil-water management practices lead to more water being conserved and thus reduce drought and flood risk, resulting in at least 40% higher maize and wheat yields when rainfall was lower than normal. On a Vertic Phaeozems in Kenya, best results were obtained when applying three conservation agriculture practices (minimal disturbance, soil cover, diversified cropping). On a Vertisol in Ethiopia, conservation agriculture-based soil-water management practices with narrow raised beds and furrows outperformed other tested practices. Though not demonstrated with data, this chapter also suggests that soil-water management practices can affect the incidence of hydrological and meteorological droughts and floods as well.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Araya T, Cornelis WM, Nyssen J, Govaerts B, Bauer H, Gebreegziabher T, Oicha T, Raes D, Sayre KD, Haile M, Deckers J (2011). Effects of conservation agriculture on runoff, soil loss and crop yield under rainfed conditions in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Soil Use Manage 27:404–414
Araya T, Nyssen J, Govaerts B, Deckers J, Cornelis WM (2015) Impacts of conservation agriculture-based farming systems on optimizing seasonal rainfall partitioning and productivity on vertisols in the Ethiopian drylands. Soil Tillage Res 148:1–13
Araya T, Nyssen J, Govaerts B, Baudron F, Carpentier L, Bauer H, Lanckriet S, Deckers J, Cornelis WM (2016) Restoring cropland productivity and profitability in northern Ethiopian drylands after nine years of resource-conserving agriculture. Exp Agric 52:165–187
Barron J, Rockström J, Gichuki F, Hatibu N (2003) Dry spell analysis and maize yields for two semi-arid locations in East Africa. Agric For Meteorol 117:23–37
Bünemann EK, Bongiorno G, Bai Z, Creamer RE, De Deyn G, de Goede R, Fleskens L, Geissen V, Kuyper TW, Mäder P, Pulleman M, Sukkel W, van Groenigen JW, Brussaard L (2018) Soil quality–a critical review. Soil Biol Biochem 120:105–125
Chritchley W, Siegert K (1991) Water harvesting: a manual for the design and construction of water harvesting schemes for plant production. FAO, Rome. MISC/17/91
Cornelis WM, Steppe K, Gabriels D (2010) Soil-plant-atmosphere dynamics. In: Verheye W (ed) Soils, plant growth and crop production, vol I. EOLSS Publishers/UNESCO, Singapore, pp 138–157
Dingman SL (1993) Physical hydrology. Prentice Hall Taylor
Falkenmark M, Rockström J (2004) Balancing water for humans and nature: the new approach in ecohydrology. Earthscan, London
Falkenmark M, Fox P, Persson G, Rockström J (2001) Water harvesting for upgrading of rainfed agriculture. Problem analysis and research needs. SIWI Report 11. Stockholm International Water Institute
Greve P, Orlowsky B, Mueller B, Sheffield J, Reichstein M, Seneviratne SI (2014) Global assessment of trends in wetting and drying over land. Nat Geosci 7:716–721
Gunderson L, Holling CS (2001) Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington DC, USA
Hansen NC, Allen BL, Baumhardt RL, Lyon DJ (2012) Research achievements and adoption of no-till, dryland cropping in the semi-arid US great plains. Field Crop Res 132:196–203
Keyantash J, Dracup JA (2002) The quantification of drought: an evaluation of drought indices. Bull Am Meteor Soc 83:1167–1180
Kinyumu DM (2012) Is conservation agriculture a solution to dry land rain-fed farming? Experiences and perceptions of smallholder farmers in Laikipia District, Kenya. J Dev Sustain Agric 7:134–147
Kottek M, Grieser J, Beck C, Rudolf B, Rubel F (2006) World map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification updated. Meteorol Z 15:259–263
Krishna HJ (2005) The Texas manual on rainwater harvesting. Texas Water Development Board
Lal R (2008) Managing soil water to improve rainfed agriculture in India. J Sustain Agric 32:51–75
Liniger H, Critchley W, Gurtner M, Schwilch G, Mekdaschi Studer R (2007) Where the land is greener: case studies and analysis of soil and water conservation initiatives worldwide. World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT)
Liniger HP, Mekdaschi Studer R, Hauert C, Gurtner M (2011) Sustainable land management in practice—guidelines and best practices for Sub-Saharan Africa. TerrAfrica, World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Moebius-Clune BN, Moebius-Clune DJ, Gugino BK, Idowu OJ, Schindelbeck RR, Ristow AJ, van Es HM, Thies JE, Shayler HA, McBride MB, Kurtz KSM, Wolfe DW, Abawi GS (2016) Comprehensive assessment of soil health—the cornell framework, edition 3.2, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, USA
Ologunorisa TE, Abawua MJ (2005) Flood risk assessment: a review. J Appl Sci Environ Manage 9:57–63
Oweis T, Hachum A (2006) Water harvesting and supplemental irrigation for improved water productivity of dry farming systems in West Asia and North Africa. Agric Water Manag 80:57–73
Pittelkow CM, Liang X, Linquist BA, van Groenigen KJ, Lee J, Lundy ME, van Gestel N, Six J, Venterea RT, van Kessel C (2015) Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture. Nature 517:365–368
Rockström J, Barron J, Fox P (2002) Rainwater management for increased productivity among small-holder farmers in drought prone environments. Phys Chem Earth 27:949–959
Rockström J, Falkenmark M (2015) Increase water harvesting in Africa. Nature 519:283–285
Rockström J, Kaumbutho P, Mwalley J, Nzabi AW, Temesgen M, Mawenya L, Barron J, Mutua J, Damgaard-Larsen S (2009) Conservation farming strategies in East and Southern Africa: yields and rain water productivity from on-farm action research. Soil Tillage Res 103:23–32
Schär C, Lüthi D, Beyerle U, Heise E (1999) The soil–precipitation feedback: a process study with a regional climate model. J Clim 12:722–741
Shaxson F, Barber R (2003) Optimizing soil moisture for plant production: the significance of soil porosity. FAO, Rome, Italy
Sillmann J, Kharin VV, Zwiers FW, Zhang X, Bronaugh D (2013) Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: part 2. Future climate projections. J Geophys Res Atmos 118:2473–2493
South PF, Cavanagh AP, Liu HW, Ort DR (2019) Synthetic glycolate metabolism pathways stimulate crop growth and productivity in the field. Science 363(6422):eaat9077
Stroosnijder L (2009) Modifying land management in order to improve efficiency of rain-water use in the African highlands. Soil Tillage Res 103:247–256
Tilahun K (2006) The characterisation of rainfall in the arid and semi-arid regions of Ethiopia. Afr J Online 2:429–436
Wani SP, Sreedevi TK, Rockström J, Ramakrishna YS (2009) Rainfed agriculture—past trends and future prospects. In: Wani et al. (eds.) Rainfed agriculture: unlocking the potential. CAB International, pp 1–35
Waweru G, Okoba B, Cornelis WM (2019a) Is tillage management and mulch cover the critical aspect in determining maize yield under conservation agriculture in semi-arid Kenya? Submitted to Catena
Waweru G, Okoba B, Cornelis WM (2019b) Short-term effects of no till, crop residue retention and incorporation of agroforestry on soil chemical properties in semi-arid region of Kenya. Submitted to Soil & Tilage Research
Wesseling JG (1991) Meerjarige simulaties van grondwateronttrekking voor verschillende bodemprofielen, grondwatertrappen en gewassen met het model SWATRE. SC-DLO report 152
Wildemeersch JC, Timmerman A, Mazijn B, Sabiou M, Ibro G, Garba M, Cornelis W (2015) Assessing the constraints to adopt water and soil conservation techniques in Tillaberi, Niger. Land Degrad Dev 26:491–501
Wu P, Christidis N, Stott P (2013) Anthropogenic impact on Earth’s hydrological cycle. Nat Clim Change 3:807–810
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cornelis, W., Waweru, G., Araya, T. (2019). Building Resilience Against Drought and Floods: The Soil-Water Management Perspective. In: Lal, R., Francaviglia, R. (eds) Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 29. Sustainable Agriculture Reviews, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26265-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26265-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-26264-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-26265-5
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)