Improving catchment and water-use efficiency (SG506)

Project title: Improving catchment and use efficiency of water for high-value dry season crops (SG506)

Introduction

In the driest regions of Ghana, the traditional system of excavating the farmlands to access water for post-rainy season farming leads to farmland degradation, inadequate water to meet cropping requirements, reduced farm sizes and low yields. Also inadequate water reduces the quantity and quality of vines that are produced as planting materials in the dry season for rainy season cultivation.

The project aims at sustainable and profitable production of dry season vegetable crops and of sweet potato production in the Volta Basin in Northern Ghana through introduction of innovative ways to improve the capture, storage and use of rainwater.

Research highlights

• Improvement on the traditional hand-dug system of groundwater abstraction through the use of cement/concrete casts provides permanent water reservoirs, and mitigates farmland degradation caused by annual excavation of the farmlands.
• Domestic rainwater harvested into suitably constructed low-cost ferro-cement reservoirs, coupled with use of micro irrigation drip kits potentially alleviates water scarcity.

Project outcomes

• Hand-dug wells to depths of 7 – 8 m made permanent with concrete casts, arranged around the fringes of the lowlands offers the best potential to sustained dry season production and increased income, and mitigating farmland degradation caused by traditional methods of groundwater abstraction in the hydromorphic lowlands of the Upper East Region of Ghana.
• Domestic rainwater harvesting into suitably constructed, low-cost ferro-cement reservoirs coupled with the use of micro-plot drip irrigation equipment alleviates the single most important constraint to increased sweet potato production (lack of water for vine maintenance) in the Talensi-Nabdam District of Ghana.
• The project provided environmentally friendly options to groundwater abstraction for dry season agriculture in the lowlands of the Upper East Region of

Selected publications and outputs

NA

Project partners

MoFA, Bolga, Kassena-Nankana, Talensi-Nabdam

Project lead

SARI

For more information on Phase 1 outputs please contact Martin Van Brakel or Udana Ariyawansa.

Tags capacity building Ghana groundwater innovation systems irrigation Phase 1 Rainwater Management SARI SG SG506 Small Grants Program VOL Volta water productivity water use