Coen J. Ritsema

• Wageningen University & Research

Sediment discharge decreased, TN rose, streamflow and TP were stable (1980-2020). • These trends were aligned with dam construction, revegetation and land use change. • Dam construction combined with land use change contributed 46 % to these indicators. • Revegetation combined with dam construction multiplied their individual impacts. Evaluating ch...

The presence of pesticide residues in waterbed sediments poses a significant concern for aquatic ecosystems’ health. This study examined pesticide contamination in sediments of 38 water bodies, embedded in agricultural-dominated regions, across eight European countries. Three indicators were targeted: occurrence, type, and concentrations of multipl...

Channel networks have been widely used to model sediment transport and accumulation. Extracting channel networks in the check dam region from digital elevation models on the Loess Plateau can facilitate effective decision‐making and planning for soil and water conservation. Three methods are generally used to ensure the continuity of channel networ...

During the growing season of 2021, 201 soil samples from conventionally and organically managed fields from 10 European countries and 8 cropping systems were taken, and 192 residues of synthetic pesticides were analyzed. Pesticide residues were found in 97% of the samples, and 88% of the samples contained mixtures of at least 2 substances. A maximu...

Rural residents are exposed to both particulate and gaseous pesticides in the indoor-outdoor nexus in their daily routine. However, previous personal exposure assessment mostly focuses on single aspects of the exposure, such as indoor or gaseous exposure, leading to severe cognition bias to evaluate the exposure risks. In this study, residential du...

Increasing wildfire frequency in the Mediterranean Basin could affect future plant-soil–water-dynamics. The capacity of soils to retain water is a key parameter affecting plant post-fire regeneration. Yet, few research has looked at how different soil properties related to water retention is affected by increasing wildfire frequency. This study aim...

Abstract Achieving the objectives of sustainable development in water and agri-food systems requires the utilisation of decision-support tools in stakeholder-driven processes to construct and simulate various scenarios and evaluate the outcomes of associated policy interventions. While it is common practice to involve stakeholders in participatory...

Intensive and widespread use of pesticides raises serious environmental and human health concerns. The presence and levels of 209 pesticide residues (active substances and transformation products) in 625 environmental samples (201 soil, 193 crop, 20 outdoor air, 115 indoor dust, 58 surface water, and 38 sediment samples) have been studied. The samp...

The potential impacts resulting from climate change will cause significant global problems, particularly in underdeveloped nations where the effects are felt the most. Techniques for harvesting water such as small dams provide an alternative supply of water and are adaptive solutions to deal with water scarcity in the context of future climate chan...

Soil aggregate size and stability are two important factors affecting soil erodibility to wind erosion. In this study, we developed new models to quantify soil erodibility to wind erosion by looking at the mean weighted aggregate diameter (MWD) and the wind erodible fraction (EF) of the soil. These two erodibility indices together with the spectral...

The destructive consequences of wind erosion have been reported in many studies, but accurate assessment of wind erosion is still a challenge, especially on large scales. Our research introduces two deep learning (DL) algorithms consisting of bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU), and bidirectional recurrent neural network (BiRNN) for spatial...

Global climate change has resulted in significant changes in local weather conditions in many countries. Changes in rainfall and temperature threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of individuals who are dependent on agriculture. In particular, water shortages in arid and semi-arid regions will become more prominent. In such...

Citation: Adham, A.; Abed, R.; Mahdi, K.; Hassan, W.H.; Riksen, M.; Ritsema, C. Rainwater Catchment System Reliability Analysis for Al Abila Dam in Iraq's Western Desert. Water 2023, 15, 944. https://doi. Abstract: Rainwater Catchment System Reliability (RCSR) is the chance that a system will deliver the required water for an interval of time. Rain...

Pesticide residues in soils can cause negative impacts on soil health as well as soil biota. However, research related to the toxicity and exposure risks of pesticides to soil biota are scarce, especially in the North China Plain (NCP) where pesticides are intensively applied. In this study, the occurrence and distribution of 15 commonly used pesti...

Soils are an important source of microplastics (MPs) to the atmosphere but the fluxes and mechanisms involved in MPs entrainment are not well understood. In the present study, a series of horizontally aligned sediment traps have been deployed at different heights within 1 m above the ground and for a two-month period at various locations in an arid...

Groundwater is one of the most important water resources in Iraq, so efficient management of storage, recharge, and consumption rates is required, for maintaining the sustainability of groundwater supplies. Some of the most valuable methods for ensuring the long-term sustainability of groundwater aquifers are those that provide artificial recharge....

Some weather events like drought, increased precipitation, and warming exert substantial impact on the terrestrial C and N cycling. However, it remains largely unclear about the effect of extreme weather events (extreme drought, heavy rainfall, extreme heat, and extreme cold) on terrestrial C and N cycling. This study aims to analyze the responses...

Dataset of a systematic review on irrigation management in Ethiopia

Runoff data is crucial for development of water resources. Runoff data is however rarely available for ungauged catchments, especially in developing countries. Geomorphological instantaneous unit hydrographs (GIUH) models can be used for predicting runoff in poorly gauged catchments, but a challenge with these models is estimating the dynamic veloc...

Using panel data for the years 2013, 2015, and 2017 collected through field surveys in eight counties in the North China Plain, we examine the relationship between smallholdersÕ land rental behavior and their (agricultural) incomes with a particular focus on the heterogeneous specialization among smallholders. We find that farming-specialized house...

In spite of the investment and efforts made for irrigation development, many irrigation schemes in Ethiopia are performing below design expectations leaving huge areas and many beneficiaries out of irrigation. In this study, a systematic literature review was conducted on management practices, problems and future directions of community managed sma...

To combat land degradation and deterioration issues, the Grain to Green project (GGP) was implemented on the Chinese Loess Plateau in 1999 and substantially altered the land cover by converting slope farmland into forest and grassland. To effectively achieve sustainable land restoration management and avoid stakeholder conflicts, this study aimed t...

Climate change and the fast growth of industrial and agricultural enterprises can have a negative impact on groundwater quality. The evaluation of groundwater quality is an important issue to determine the suitability of water for agriculture and other purposes in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The quality of water is an important indicator for sele...

Due to the frequent pesticide applications, bees are suffered from pesticide exposure risks via consumption and direct contact with sprayed drifts. However, if pesticides are misused and the potential exposure risk to bees based on realistic pesticide application data are still little reported. In this study, pesticide application patterns in wheat...

The objective of this study is to produce suitability maps for potential rainwater harvesting techniques (RWHT) in the West Bank (WB), Palestine. These techniques aim to reduce water scarcity, which is a major problem for the conservation of water resources in the area. Based on literature reviews and expert recommendations, seven RWHts were select...

Water harvesting techniques (WHTs) are important climate change adaptation measures to better manage rainwater for domestic and agricultural purposes, but which WHT to plan where is subject to sustainability considerations. Moreover, suitability of different WHTs varies from one location to another, depending on physical and socio-economic conditio...

Kirkuk city is known for its industrial activities, especially oil and cement production, as well as its road traffic. The aim of this study was to assess potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in the soil and plants from urban areas by measuring pollution indices and estimating the effect that this pollution has on the environment. Leaf and soil sample...

The recently released Farm to Fork Strategy of the European Union sets, for the first time, pesticide reduction goals at the EU level: 50% reduction in overall use and risk of chemical pesticides and a 50% use reduction of more hazardous pesticides. However, there is little guidance provided as to how to achieve these targets. In this study, we com...

Global atmospheric nitrogen deposition significantly affects the nutrient cycling and C–N–P stoichiometry in ecosystems. Herein, a global meta-analysis was conducted based on 898 pairwise observations to analyze the impact of nitrogen addition on plant-soil-enzyme C–N–P stoichiometry and microbial nutrient limitation in different ecosystem types (c...

Pesticides that have accumulated in arable soil could be easily transported by wind erosion, thereby potentially threating air quality and human health in surrounding areas. The risks this poses to farmers exposed to pesticide-associated dust is still unknown, especially in rural areas of China. In this study, we screened pesticide residues in dust...

Despite the importance and prevalence of agricultural soils, little is known about the fate of microplastics (MPs) in this environment. In this study, MPs have been determined in soils and wind-eroded sediments from two vegetable-growing fields in the Fars province of Iran, one using plastic mulch for water retention (Field 1) and the other using w...

Drought is a common event in Iraq’s climate, and the country has severely suffered from drought episodes in the last two decades. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is geographically situated in the semi-arid zone in Iraq, whose water resources have been limited in the last decades and mostly shared with other neighboring countries. To analyze drou...

Water scarcity is a major problem in the arid climate of Iraq’sWestern Desert and people struggle to manage the precarious water supply. Harvesting rainwater is one sustainable method that can be used to increase the supply of water. Rainwater harvesting systems (RWH) are considered to be sustainable “if they can continue collecting, utilising, and...

The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) have been widely used for predicting average soil loss. Slope length is an important topographical parameter of the L factor in USLE/RUSLE. Among the widely studied GIS procedures for extracting slope length, the distributed watershed erosion slope length (...

Wind erosion is a critical factor in land degradation worldwide, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions of southern Iran, which have been severely exposed to wind erosion in the recent years due to climate change and land use changes. The main objective of the present study was to predict the wind erosion rate (WER) using easily measurable soil...

Current farm systems rely on the use of Plant Protection Products (PPP) to secure high productivity and control threats to the quality of the crops. However, PPP use may have considerable impacts on human health and the environment. A study protocol is presented aiming to determine the occurrence and levels of PPP residues in plants (crops), animal...

Groundwater in Iraq is considered to be an alternative water resource, especially for areas far away from surface water. Groundwater is affected by many factors including climate change, industrial activities, urbanization, and industrialization. In this study, the effect of artificial recharge on the quantity of groundwater in the Dibdibba unconfi...

Wind erosion potential can be assessed using the Threshold Friction Velocity (TFV) of the soil, which is not always easy to measure, especially on regional and global scales. To overcome this difficulty, the spectroscopy technique can provide a useful approach in estimating the TFV as an alternative for time-consuming wind tunnel studies in the fie...

Water resource management and the investigation of the quality and quantity of groundwater and surface water is important in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The growing population, as well as agricultural and industrial projects, consume huge amounts of water, especially groundwater. A total of 572 ground and surface water samples were collected for...

The herbicide glyphosate interferes with the shikimate pathway in plants and in major groups of microorganisms impeding the production of aromatic amino acids. Glyphosate application on plants results in a slow death, accelerated by reduced resistance to root pathogens. Extensive glyphosate use has resulted in increasing residues in soil and waterw...

PurposeIncreasing wildfire frequency in Mediterranean-basin together with drought periods expansion could affect plant-soil-water dynamics processes. The goal is to assess the effects of wildfire frequency on plant recovery, soil properties, soil moisture content (SMC; %) and effective soil water content (ESWC; %) during the first hydrological year...

CONTEXT: Food systems face multiple challenges simultaneously: provision to a growing population, adaptation to more extreme and frequent climate change risks, and reduction of their considerable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Food system interventions and policies give rise to synergies and trade-offs that emerge over time due to the dynamic natu...

p>Abstract: This article examines the reliability of rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems in subcatchment area. Using water balance simulation and two definitions of this value (time-based and volumetric ones), the reliability of rainwater harvesting systems for 25 locations in Medenine’s dryland agricultural areas in south-eastern Tunisia is assesse...

In the middle of May 2018, an unprecedented dust storm occurred in the Shiraz metropolis. After the storm, several samples were collected from dust that settled around the city. These dust samples were analysed for potentially toxic elements (PTEs), rare earth elements (REEs), and radionuclides. This work is the first study that considered rare ear...

Considering that pesticides have been used in Europe for over 70 years, a system for monitoring pesticide residues in EU soils and their effects on soil health is long overdue. In an attempt to address this problem, we tested 340 EU agricultural topsoil samples for multiple pesticide residues. These samples originated from 4 representative EU case...

ContextFrom 1999 onwards, China has initiated a large-scale landscape restoration project on the Chinese Loess Plateau, which has had profound but variable impacts on the local ecosystem services supply. There was less understood of land restoration impacts on the ecosystem services and dynamics of ecosystem services thoroughout the restoration pro...

Due to the climate change the efficient use of fresh water has become a hot issue. One of the ways to collect water that could otherwise be wasted, is the water harvesting technique. These techniques have been known for centuries and widely applied in the Middle East. This paper presents a simple and easy-to-use water-balance based rainwater harves...

Purpose This study examines the heterogeneous correlations between rural farmers' land renting behavior and their grain production when they experienced a significant price decline. Design/methodology/approach We used well-timed panel data obtained from a two-round survey held in 2013 and 2017 among 621 households in the North China Plain. The emp...

Several earlier studies reported that microplastics (MP) accumulated on soil surfaces could be transported into the subsoil and ingested by soil biota, such as earthworms. The present study explores how networks of earthworm burrows and MP (low‐density polyethylene, LDPE) in subsoil affect the soil hydraulic properties and saturated water flow. A r...

In order to select suitable rainwater harvesting sites within the study area, rainwater harvesting criteria needed to be determined, defined, and structured. Several criteria played an important role in selecting the most suitable rainwater harvesting sites. A multicriteria analysis (MCA) approach, which is widely used to classify potential rainwat...

Desertification constantly and diachronically manifested itself as one of the most critical environmental issues to be confronted and mitigated by society. This work presents the development of a land desertification risk Expert System (ES) for assessing the application of different land management practices by utilizing indicators through a desert...

Forest management practices are commonly used in plantation forestry to obtain renewable energy and harvest biomass, in addition to maintaining the ecological environment, by changing the flow of carbon (C) and nutrients in the food webs of terrestrial ecosystems. To identify which forest management practices, alleviate soil nutrient limitation and...

Land use and climate change are recognized as two major drivers affecting surface streamflow. On the Chinese Loess Plateau, implementation of several land restoration projects has changed land cover in recent decades. The main objectives of this study were to understand how streamflow evolved on the Loess Plateau and how land use and climate change...

Different combinations of organic mulch were applied in smallholder coffee farming systems to assess their effects on soil nutrient contents and coffee yield at three sites in different agro‐ecological zones in Rwanda. Mulching systems consisted of Cymbopogon spp. (T1), Panicum spp. (T2), Cymbopogon spp. and Panicum spp. (T3), Eucalyptus spp. and C...

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) conceptually has the potential to contribute to the sustainable development goals of achieving zero hunger, reducing land degradation, eliminating poverty, tackling climate change, and promoting gender equality. The scaling-up needed to achieve goals of CSA represents a challenge, as it entails understanding synergie...

Environmental context Microplastics found in soil pose several potential environmental risks. This study shows that microplastics on the soil surface can be ingested by earthworms and transported to the lower soil layers. In this way, microplastics may enter the food chain and find their way into groundwater systems, especially in cases where the w...

The improvement of resolution of digital elevation models (DEMs) and the increasing application of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) over large areas have created problems for the efficiency of calculating the LS factor for large data sets. The pretreatment for flat areas, flow accumulation, and slope-length calculation have traditio...

Pesticide use is a major foundation of the agricultural intensification observed over the last few decades. As a result, soil contamination by pesticide residues has become an issue of increasing concern due to some pesticides' high soil persistence and toxicity to non-target species. In this study, the distribution of 76 pesticide residues was eva...

The accumulation of plastic debris and herbicide residues has become a huge challenge and poses many potential risks to environmental health and soil quality. In the present study, we investigated the transport of glyphosate and its main metabolite, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) via earthworms in the presence of different concentrations of ligh...

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) can enter the environment when released from products containing them. As AgNPs enter soil, they are often retained in the soil profile and/or leached to the groundwater. This research assessed the transport of AgNPs in their “particle form” through the soil profile using a series of columns. Three soil types were put i...

This study investigates the dynamics of glyphosate and AMPA in the soil surface layer of two fields growing glyphosate-resistant crops in the loess Pampas of Córdoba Province, Argentina. Glyphosate decay and AMPA formation/decay were studied after a single application, using decay kinetic models. Furthermore, glyphosate and AMPA concentrations were...

This study reports on the effects of applications of a soil surfactant on improvement of grass performance and wetting of a sandy golf course fairway, located near Arnhem, the Netherlands. In addition, the influence of the surfactant on soil water repellency and the nitrogen contents in grass leaves, roots and upper 18 cm of the soil profile was in...

The intensive use of pesticide and plastic mulches has considerably enhanced crop growth and yield. Pesticide residues and plastic debris, however, have caused serious environmental problems. This study investigated the effects of the commonly used herbicide glyphosate and micrometre-sized plastic debris, referred as microplastics, on glyphosate de...

People living in arid and semi-arid areas with highly variable rainfall and unforeseeable periods of droughts or floods are severely affected by water shortages and often have insecure livelihoods. The construction of dams in wadies to harvest rainwater from small watersheds and to induce artificial groundwater recharge is one of the solutions avai...

Download SQAPP, test it at your location, provide feedback. The iSQAPER project team has launched an Soil Quality app. SQAPP offers an easy-to-use tool that brings global soil data into the decision-making sphere of land users and other interested end users. SQAPP returns available soil quality information for any location in the world, simply pic...

Models can be useful for predicting the hydrological impacts of natural phenomenon such as wildfires and to help implement effective post-fire land management options. In this research, the revised Morgan–Morgan–Finney (MMF) model was used to simulate runoff and soil erosion in recently burned maritime pine plantations with contrasting fire regimes...

Most crops in northern China are irrigated, but the topography affects the water use, soil erosion, runoff and yields. Technologies for collecting high-resolution topographic data are essential for adequately assessing these effects. Ground surveys and techniques of light detection and ranging have good accuracy, but data acquisition can be time-co...

In cold climate regions a significant fraction of annual soil erosion in agricultural land occurs during snowmelt and rain on partially frozen soils. Physically based and spatially distributed soil erosion models have proved to be good tools for understanding the processes occurring at catchment scale during rainfall erosion. However, most existing...

This study investigates the influence of small-scale sediment transport on glyphosate and AMPA redistribution on the soil surface and on their off-site transport during water erosion events. Both a smooth surface (T1) and a surface with "seeding lines on the contour" (T2) were tested in a rainfall simulation experiment using soil flumes (1 x 0.5 m)...

Farmers possess a wealth of knowledge regarding soil erosion and soil and water conservation (SWC), and there is a great demand to access it. However, there has been little effort to systematically document farmers' experiences and perceptions of SWC measures. Sustainable Land Management (SLM) has largely evolved through local traditional practices...

The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE) are often used to estimate soil erosion at regional landscape scales. USLE/RUSLE contain parameters for slope length factor (L) and slope steepness factor (S), usually combined as LS. However a major limitation is the difficulty in extracting the LS factor. Methods to estimate...

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are being used in many products as they have unique antimicrobial-biocidal properties. After disposal of these products AgNPs can reach the soil environment possibly affecting soil organisms and disrupting plants. This work aimed to study the transport of AgNPs by water and sediment during overland flow and soil erosion...

Prolonged soil drying and severe moisture stress during the dry season, and soil saturation and erosion during the short rainy season are critical problems in the Ethiopian highlands. Large-scale implementation of bund structures has been used as soil and water conservation (SWC) measures to fight these problems and establish a sustainable land man...

Approval for glyphosate-based herbicides in the European Union (EU) is under intense debate due to concern about their effects on the environment and human health. The occurrence of glyphosate residues in European water bodies is rather well documented whereas only few, fragmented and outdated information is available for European soils. We provide...

Crop production in arid and semi-arid environments is strongly affected by temporal variation of water availability during the growth period. In-situ water harvesting techniques such as tied ridges and mulching improve water availability over time and may improve crop yield. A field experiment was conducted in 2013 and 2014 in the Gule sub-watershe...

Shallow (<1 m deep) snowpacks on agricultural areas are an important hydrological component in many countries, which determines how much meltwater is potentially available for overland flow, causing soil erosion and flooding at the end of winter. Therefore, it is important to understand the development of shallow snowpacks in a spatially distribute...

Runoff and sediment yield in semi-arid catchments are highly influenced by infrequent but very heavy rains. These events occur over short temporal scales, so runoff and sediment transport can only be understood using an event-based analysis. We applied a hydrological and soil-erosion model, LISEM, to the Gule catchment (~12 km2) in northern Ethiopi...

To have a better understanding of the influence of topographic, climatic and especially anthropogenic factors on hydrological discharge and flooding, this study proposes a new framework approach using a set of methods to answer the questions why, where, when, and how flooding occurs. Including conditional inference tree (CIT), cross correlation and...