Water harvesting techniques for smallholder and large-scale farmers.

Water harvesting techniques for smallholder and large-scale farmers. To respond to the water scarcity and inadequate distribution, new techniques need to be explored and old techniques revisited. Small – scale water harvesting techniques provide a direct solution, especially in rural and drought prone areas hence the use of water harvesting techniques.

 In urban areas dam construction, long distance conveyance of water or desalinization may provide options for ensuring water availability. These solutions are generally too costly and complicated for rural water security. Rural population require low cost systems that can be constructed, operated and maintained with the highest level of community involvement and autonomy. Fog harvesting is another techniques. It is captured with the help of polypropylene mesh net or ridges to capture water loaded fog that forms in humid months in mountainous or coastal areas. The mesh normally collects small water droplets which trickle into collection troughs, gutters and drains into a series of tanks. 

Fog harvesting is cheap and the level of technology and maintenance is simple, furthermore the technique is easy to replicate. Contour Trenching. This involves digging trenches along contour lines. Water flowing down the hill is retained by the trench, and it infiltrates the soil below. A good example is in Amboseli dug by Westerveld Conservation Trust. When they dug the trenches they chose deep and closely spaced trenches 4 meters and a meter deep at 25 meter intervals down the slope high enough to capture rain of up to 150mm per day. In between two dug up trenches, crops can be grown and benefit when there’s less rain from the subsoil water reserve gathered after the rainy season.