Abstract
The Kou watershed, situated in the Southwestern part of Burkina Faso, has succumbed since a couple of decades in a typical theater play of anarchistic water management. With its 1800 km2, this small watershed holds the second largest city of Burkina Faso (Bobo-Dioulasso), a former State ran irrigated rice scheme and several informal agricultural zones. Despite the abundance on water resources, most water users find themselves regularly facing to water shortages due to an increase in population and low irrigation efficiencies. Local stakeholders are hence in need of easy-to-use and low-cost decision support tools for the monitoring and exploitation of the water resources at different spatial and user levels. A top-to-bottom string of adapted water management tools has been successfully installed to tackle the problems: from watershed (top) to field level (bottom), passing by the 1200 ha irrigation scheme. Land use maps have been derived from time-series of free satellite images. Combined with data from a network of hydrologic gauging stations, regional water use maps were established. SIMIS was put in place for the public-private management of the regions irrigated rice scheme. Day to day water use on irrigated plots was followed by soil humidity and crop canopy measurements. A simple field-cropwater balance model Aqua Crop was used by extension workers to draft optimal irrigation charts. Each tool was applied independently, requiring only limited data; but their combined results contributed to an improved integrated water management.
Highlights
By 2030 irrigated land is predicted to increase by 28% [1]
This study shows how different tools have been developed or adapted to tackle water management problems at different scales or levels, and how their combined results contribute to an integrated water management approach
Detailed irrigation calendars were elaborated using SIMIS, a water distribution was proposed from headwork to parcel level (Figure 2)
Summary
By 2030 irrigated land is predicted to increase by 28% [1]. In sub-Saharan Africa rapid population growth, coupled with recurring droughts, has led to a renewed call for irrigation development [2]. Water is on to be managed at a watershed level, and big State funded irrigation schemes are to raise their productivity and efficiency, and where water is available smallholder irrigation initiatives are being promoted. In such a situation water management becomes complex because it involves various spatial scales, multiple stakeholders and varying goals. Studies exist on multi-user and multi-level water management using integrated computer models [3,4], but they require most often highly skilled operators and vast amounts of data; both are not available everywhere
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