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Groundwater dynamics and recharge trends in semi-arid irrigated lands of Nigeria
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In Nigerian, public building projects (PBPs) failure and abandonment constitutes one of the hindrances to the development of the nation’s economic system. Therefore, the links between PBPs management success and the built environment professionals (BEPs) is becoming an important field of attention. This study evaluates the application of project planning techniques in PBPs in Nigeria and project planning challenges related to their successful delivery. Review of relevant literature combined with experts’ input revealed twenty three factors; this form the basis for designing a questionnaire adopted to collect relevant data from BEPs. Findings identified poor strategic project planning aligned to project success, unrealistic expectation and overly bureaucratic hiccups from project initiators as the most critical factors influencing project management practices (PMP) affecting success in PBP delivery. The study suggests that unsuccessful project delivery is a reflection of inappropriately applied project planning techniques leading to serious project planning challenges.
The potential of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) in semi-arid areas of Nigeria was evaluated using the Kano River irrigation Project (KRIP) as a case study. Groundwater recharge was evaluated daily for 3 years (2009–2011) using the water level fluctuation (wlf) method. Temporal and spatial analyses of recharge were carried out using Microsoft Excel® spread sheet and ArcGIS® 9.0 software. Results show that recharge range from 17 to 32 mm daily on the farmland. Further analysis showed that an average of 8 mm of water is added to storage daily from both rainfall and irrigation. The observed waterlogging problems has implication for salt build up in the area and could be ameliorated by conjunctive use of both surface water and groundwater from the farmland. This will lead to huge water savings that could be released from the Tiga dam to recharge the Chad formation aquifers downstream of the Hadejia River in a systematic MAR implementation via infiltration basin. However, additional modelling studies and aquifer characterization are required to implement this.
Sustaining water availability for smallholder farmers in the near future presents a great challenge to agricultural production in Nigeria. This study assessed the smallholder farmers’ welfare using assets possession and factors affecting their production outputs in Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was applied in three agro-ecological zones with primary data collected and analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results show that the crop water application system practiced across the study area included rainfed system, gravity flow system, motor pump system and bucket system. A large percentage of the motor pump farmers had improved livelihood going by the type of assets they possess. Some of the irrigators were observed to use water unsustainably (not maintaining the existing system for the future generations through misuse and management of the available water resources) especially those using gravity flow system and motor pump systems, this should be discontinued in the face of the climate change affecting the country. Likewise, the use of some agro inputs such as fertilizers need to be controlled since increasing the level of these inputs was found not to translate to increased output for the farmers. Finally, the land tenure system in Nigeria does not promote smallholder farmer’s welfare as no farmer had formal title to their lands. This makes it difficult to have sufficient access to credit facilities. The policy is inimical to agricultural development in Nigeria and should be relaxed.
The groundwater in some parts of north India is generally saline and not suitable for drinking. However, it can be used for growing salt-tolerant crop plants. To explore the potential of using saline groundwater for farm production, a field experiment was conducted at Shahpur village, near Hisar in Haryana State, India, to study the effect of different qualities of irrigation water on mustard (Brassica juncea, cv. RH-30) crop growth, yield, water use efficiency and soil salinity. Treatments consisted of combinations of irrigation with saline groundwater (electrical conductivity (EC) 7.48 dS m(-1)), and a good quality canal water (EC 0.4 dS m(-1)) applied either alone, as blends or in alternate applications. In all treatments, canal water was used for pre-sowing irrigation. In mustard cultivation, saline groundwater with an EC of 7.48 dS m(-1) can be used safely to supplement all post-sowing irrigations with marginal decline in crop yield. Irrigation with saline groundwater gave a yield as high as 95% of the optimum crop yield obtained with fresh canal water. The temporal variation in salinity showed that mustard yield responds to the average salinity of the soil during the growing season. Thus saline groundwater is a good water source to exploit for supplemental irrigation.
The groundwater level of 39 observation wells including 35 unconfined wells and 4 confined wells from 2004 to 2006 in North
China Plain (NCP) was monitored using automatic groundwater monitoring data loggers KADEC-MIZU II of Japan. The automatic
groundwater sensors were installed for the corporation project between China and Japan. Combined with the monitoring results
from 2004 to 2006 with the major factors affecting the dynamic patterns of groundwater, such as topography and landform, depth
of groundwater level, exploitation or discharge extent, rivers and lakes, the dynamic regions of NCP groundwater were gotten.
According to the dynamic features of groundwater in NCP, six dynamic patterns of groundwater level were identified, including
discharge pattern in the piedmont plain, lateral recharge-runoff-discharge pattern in the piedmont plain, recharge-discharge
pattern in the central channel zone, precipitation infiltration-evaporation pattern in the shallow groundwater region of the
central plain, lateral recharge-evaporation pattern in the recharge-affected area along the Yellow River and infiltration-discharge-evaporation
pattern in the littoral plain. Based on this, the groundwater fluctuation features of various dynamic patterns were interpreted
and the influencing factors of different dynamic patterns were compared.
The mathematical model SWBACROS was applied to estimate the contribution of a shallow groundwater to the water needs of a maize crop. The model was applied with the top and boundary conditions defined by the observed irrigation/rainfall events and the observed water table depth. The simulated water contents of the top zone were very close to the observed values. Furthermore the model was applied with an assumed free drainage bottom boundary condition. The difference of the computed water content profiles under the presence and absence of the water table gave a very good estimate of the capillary rise. It was found that under the specific field conditions about 3.6 mm/day of the water in the root zone originated from the shallow water table, which amounts to about 18% of the water, which was transpired by the maize crop.
Irrigation is the most important water use sector accounting for about 70% of the global freshwater withdrawals and 90% of consumptive water uses. While the extent of irrigation and related water uses are reported in statistical databases or estimated by model simulations, information on the source of irrigation water is scarce and very scattered. Here we present a new global inventory on the extent of areas irrigated with groundwater, surface water or non-conventional sources, and we determine the related consumptive water uses. The inventory provides data for 15 038 national and sub-national administrative units. Irrigated area was provided by census-based statistics from international and national organizations. A global model was then applied to simulate consumptive water uses for irrigation by water source. Globally, area equipped for irrigation is currently about 301 million ha of which 38% are equipped for irrigation with groundwater. Total consumptive groundwater use for irrigation is estimated as 545 km3 yr−1, or 43% of the total consumptive irrigation water use of 1277 km3 yr−1. The countries with the largest extent of areas equipped for irrigation with groundwater, in absolute terms, are India (39 million ha), China (19 million ha) and the USA (17 million ha). Groundwater use in irrigation is increasing both in absolute terms and in percentage of total irrigation, leading in places to concentrations of users exploiting groundwater storage at rates above groundwater recharge. Despite the uncertainties associated with statistical data available to track patterns and growth of groundwater use for irrigation, the inventory presented here is a major step towards a more informed assessment of agricultural water use and its consequences for the global water cycle.
The potential use of inland valley ecosystems (a category of wetlands) for cropping has not been fully exploited due to their heterogeneity in hydrology, morphology, soil types and agro-economy. The study employed the hydro-period approach to investigate the dynamics of surface waters of six inland valley sites. Hydrographs and hydro-periods of the sites were determined using water-level fluctuation data collected using staff gages. Results show that water level rose gradually from the beginning of the rain season, peaked at the end of the season, and receded gradually until the hydrological peak of dry season in amphitheatre and valley-side valley types. In the low depression valleys, the plots indicate a more instantaneous response to rainfall events with little groundwater flow. The work concluded that amphitheatre and valley-side valleys types are perennial with high base flows and low flow variability, and hence should be suitable for year-round cropping with little or no application of irrigation. On the other hand, the stage-duration curves of the depression valleys are characteristics of seasonal streams occurring in low-sloped topography with largely rain-caused floods, low base flow, and high flow variability. Application of irrigation may be required for dry season cropping in these valleys.
Groundwater salinization studies and recharge estimation were carried out at the Irrigation Research Station, Kadawa, Nigeria. Groundwater samples from fifteen randomly selected piezometer locations were analyzed monthly for chloride using Mohr’s method for three years while recharge was estimated using the chloride mass balance (CMB) method. Groundwater chloride range from 22 - 91.4 mg/L, seasonal trend was identified with the hot dry season (April – June) having higher values than the wet season (July – October). Correlation analysis revealed chloride status that is not associated with one another in all soil types while salt build up was observed at the south western tip of the farmland indicating potential reduction of agricultural productivity. CMB revealed a mean annual recharge of 869 mm; the method was found to underestimate recharge because it does not account for lateral flow contribution, hence should be discouraged as a stand-alone methodology for recharge studies. Salt build-up was exacerbated by the collapse of the drainage system. Reconstruction of the drainage systems using tile drains should be executed to control the rising water level in the area; conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water is recommended to maximally utilize available water in order to ensure ecological sustainability and free some water for other uses. © 2015, Int. Comm. of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. All rights reserved.
Survey of groundwater levels and hydrogeochemistry in irrigated fields. Assessment of transferring irrigation water from the IrtySh River. Mechanisms of groundwater salinization processes in arid area. Salinity management strategies for reducing the risk of further salt accumulation. Lessens for other ongoing water transfer project in similar regions.
Simple models of groundwater flow have limited capability of representing spatial waterlogging/salinization due to the mismatch in scale between model cell size/process conceptualization and actual process scale. This paper presents a method for utilizing increasingly available high-resolution digital elevation data to develop a sub-grid parameterization for groundwater discharge and surface waterlogging. This enables simple groundwater models to represent the actual area of waterlogging/salinization better. The approach utilizes a ‘zero-piezometric surface’ (i.e. a planar surface that passes through the lowest point of each element in a groundwater model). The difference in elevation between the zero-piezometric surface and a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) provides a distribution of depth to the zero-piezometric surface (at the DEM scale) for each element in the model. Traditional methods for evaluating surface discharge can then be applied at the DEM cell scale to the distribution of depth to zero-piezometric surface to derive a relationship between depth to piezometric surface and net recharge/discharge, for each element in the model. A simple one dimensional groundwater flow model, FLOWTUBE, is used to demonstrate the approach. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Accurate estimation of groundwater recharge is extremely important for proper management of groundwater systems. Many different approaches exist for estimating recharge. This paper presents a review of methods that are based on groundwater-level data. The water-table fluctuation method may be the most widely used technique for estimating recharge; it requires knowledge of specific yield and changes in water levels over time. Advantages of this approach include its simplicity and an insensitivity to the mechanism by which water moves through the unsaturated zone. Uncertainty in estimates generated by this method relate to the limited accuracy with which specific yield can be determined and to the extent to which assumptions inherent in the method are valid. Other methods that use water levels (mostly based on the Darcy equation) are also described. The theory underlying the methods is explained. Examples from the literature are used to illustrate applications of the different methods.
The interaction of surface water and groundwater was studied using modeling with regard to climate change. Groundwater level
was simulated for reference climate period (1961–1990) and future climate period (2071–2100). Groundwater level difference
between minimal and maximal values in both periods as well as seasonal tendencies of water level fluctuations in two monitoring
sites Bērze and Mellupīte and impact on drainage runoff was determined. The objective of presented study is to investigate
the overall status of fluctuations of groundwater level and to evaluate the possibility to use improved METUL model for the
groundwater level modeling. However, it is important to consider that climate change could have a significant impact on many
aspects of the hydrological processes, especially on groundwater level fluctuations. Relationship between meteorological conditions
and groundwater are determined as seasonal variations of water level. Climate change directly influenced water cycle elements
especially shallow groundwater as a significant part of water resources. The results show that groundwater level variations
might be higher in the future than currently expected.
For semi-arid regions, methods of assessing aquifer recharge usually consider the potential evapotranspiration. Actual evapotranspiration rates can be below potential rates for long periods of time, even in irrigated systems. Accurate estimations of aquifer recharge in semi-arid areas under irrigated agriculture are essential for sustainable water-resources management. A method to estimate aquifer recharge from irrigated farmland has been tested. The water-balance-modelling approach was based on VisualBALAN v. 2.0, a computer code that simulates water balance in the soil, vadose zone and aquifer. The study was carried out in the Campo de Cartagena (SE Spain) in the period 1999-2008 for three different groups of crops: annual row crops (lettuce and melon), perennial vegetables (artichoke) and fruit trees (citrus). Computed mean-annual-recharge values (from irrigation+precipitation) during the study period were 397 mm for annual row crops, 201 mm for perennial vegetables and 194 mm for fruit trees: 31.4, 20.7 and 20.5% of the total applied water, respectively. The effects of rainfall events on the final recharge were clearly observed, due to the continuously high water content in soil which facilitated the infiltration process. A sensitivity analysis to assess the reliability and uncertainty of recharge estimations was carried out.
The paper evaluates the use of water and land, as important irrigation components, in the Kano River Project, Phase I, based on the Kadawa Large-Scale Irrigation Project. The aim of the paper is to see whether project farmers apply irrigation water and cultivate land to the levels specified by the project management, in accordance with the original project design. The irrigation water requirements of wheat and tomatoes and the projected hectares were taken as standards to demonstrate farmers’ effort in water application and land Development. An average water amount of 4627m3/ha was applied on wheat as against the recommended average of 6557. 1m3/ha. For tomatoes, an average water amount of 6933.9m3/ha was applied as against the recommended average of 7139m3/ha. Again, in terms of land development, an average of 1.1 hectares were under wheat cultivation as against 1.2 hectares devoted to tomato cultivation. The use of these important land development inputs, among others, has yielded an average of 2.0 tonnes per hectare per farmer as against the projected 2.6 tonnes of wheat. For tomatoes, an average yield of 34.5 tonnes per hectare per farmer was realized as against the projected 24.3 tonnes per hectare. It is argued that the observed improper water application and low land development are bound to pose serious limitations to efficient performance of the irrigation project, and, hence a threat to a sustainable irrigation development.
Groundwater Governance and Irrigated Agriculture
- T Shah
Shah T.: 2014. Groundwater Governance and Irrigated
Agriculture. TEC Background Paper No. 19, Global Water
Partnership, Stockholm, Sweden.