Construction of water management infrastructures

Importance

• This development water management infrastructures allows:
  
• the rational use of the small amounts of water contained in the soil or its economy to make it more available to the rice plants
• mobilizing the water for more a sustainable use for agricultural production
• limitation of land degradation by runoff (erosion)
  
• The development also aims to:
• avoid rapid drying out of the rice field
  
• keep the water in the plots as long as possible to use them at will and at the right time
• evacuate excess water when there is too much

Rice field with developped water management infrastructures

Recommendations

• Assurance of the aptitude of the land to be developed:
• an adequate slope (between 1-3%)
• access to the field shouldn't be too difficult
• enough water to grow (rains, stream of water)
• Works must be adapted after heavy rains
• By changing water management infrastructures a cultivation of other crops is possible

Developped rice field adapted to other cultures

Methods

Development of water management infrastructures type I : total water control

Advantages:

• The construction of fairly sophisticated structures allows the permanent mobilization of water to use it at will
  

The inconvenients:

• It requires :
• a permanent maintenance of the works
• qualified personnel trained beforehand
• It is relatively quite expensive
  

Development of water management infrastructures type II: partial control of water (example : approach "smart valleys")

Developped rice field following the approach "Smart valleys"

Capacity:

• between 0,5 and less than 30 ha at once

Advantages:

• It is faster to implement and does not necessarily require large investments
• This type does not necessarily require great skill neither for its realization nor for its management
• Requires low cost for development work (over 90% of activities are carried out by beneficiary farmers)
• Is easier to maintain and durable over time
  
• Can be achieved on low and medium areas of lowlands (0.5 to 10 ha), but also more gradually
  
• Requires very little external input
  
• Offers a satisfactory average yield proportional to the investments made (average of 3 to 4 t / ha)
  

The inconvenients:

• Not suitable for lowland areas with very rugged terrain - in this case the involvement of a specialist in the field of rural engineering is necessary
  
• Not suitable for lowlands with unorganized producers
  
• Not adapted to the development of a bottom of bottom of more than 30 ha at once (it is however possible in this case to realize a progressive development)
  
• Not suitable for alluvial plains
  

Additional information :

• Smart-valleys: Trainer-facilitator's manual (Defoer et al., 2017), AfricaRice

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