International activities
Design and evaluation of water harvesting micro structures in the Jordan Badia
Synopsis:
Continuous population growth, recent refugee movement and migration as well as boundary restrictions and their implications on the nomadic lifestyle are increasing environmental pressure on rangelands throughout the Middle East. In particular, overgrazing through increased livestock herds threatens the Jordanian rangelands – the Badia. Degradation of the native vegetation and soils harm the rainwater infiltration and retention and eventually accelerates surface runoff and erosion (Ben Khelifa et al., 2016). Recently, various projects have been launched aiming at restoring the degraded ecosystems. This study focuses on the ‘Vallerani plow’ based mechanized WH technique, which creates micro-catchments along hillslope contour lines at regular spacing and enables the development of favorable growth conditions for shrubs within the WH pits. The Rangeland Hydrology and Erosion Model (RHEM; Nearing et al., 2011) is being used to 1) validate and investigate water and sediment dynamics to 2) optimize the design of Vallerani WH system, and thus propose micro-WH design/spacing based on various environmental and biological conditions.
Collaborator: S. Strohmeier, ICARDA, Amman, Jordan;
http://www.icarda.org/water-harvesting-restoring-rangelands-jordan
Hydrological characterization of land surface conditions using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle imagery: A pilot study in the Atacora Mountain of Benin
Synopsis:
The aim of this pilot study is to demonstrate the potential of UAV technologies to provide valuable information on land and vegetation condition and topography for use in hydrology and erosion models at a low cost. This study has three objectives: (1) select and test a sensor platform and UAV combination that would be adequate for land surface characterization at the hillslope and small catchment scale, (2) conduct field campaigns in the Benin Atacora Mountain to collect data and (3) develop parameters for the RHEM model from the UAV imagery collected during the field campaigns.
Collaborator: Abdel-Kabirou Bouraima, University of Parakou, Parakou, Rep. of Benin
