Rainfed agriculture - past trends and future prospects.

Wani, S P; Sreedevi, T K; Rockström, Johan; Ramakrishna, Y. S.

doi:10.1079/9781845933890.0001

Cited by 111 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…Field research shows that 50-70% of rainfall does not reach crops but evaporates or becomes surface runoff (causing soil erosion), recharging water tables (see 'Sub-Saharan water balance'). Guiding more water to the root zone would dramatically improve food production 7 .…”

Section: Untapped Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Agriculture: Increase water harvesting in Africa

Rockström

Falkenmark

2015

Nature

177

112

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Section: Untapped Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Green water can be retained in three ways: collecting run-off; improving the infiltration of rain in soils; and managing land, water and crops across watersheds to increase water storage in soils, wetlands and the water table 7 .…”

Section: Water Harvestingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture: Increase water harvesting in Africa

Rockström

Falkenmark

2015

Nature

177

112

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“…On the other hand, application of low-input value for improvement of organic carbon in agroecosystem (Emiru and Gebrekidan, 2013) and naturally consisting of sandy and infertile soils might contribute to low carbon content in the soil (Gui et al, 2010). In addition, wind erosion of soils and deterioration of vegetation cover attribute to the decline of SOC and susceptibility for land degradation (Wani et al, 2009) in semi-arid agroecosystems. Low carbon storage potentials in semiarid agroecosystems reflect more CO 2 emission into the air than sequestration in the soil.…”

Section: Semi-arid Agroecosystemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organic Carbon Stocks, Dynamics and Restoration in Relation to Soils of Agroecosystems in Ethiopia: A Review

2017

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Soils represent the largest carbon pool and play important roles for carbon storage for prolonged periods in agroecosystems. A number of studies were conducted to quantify soil organic carbon (SOC) worldwide. The objective of this review was to evaluate organic carbon stocks, dynamics and restoration in soils of agroecosystems in Ethiopia. Soil data from 32 different observations, representing four different agroecosystems, were analysed. The mean SOC stocks in the four agroecosystems varied and ranged from 25.66 (sub-humid agroecosystem) to 113.17 (humid midhighland agroecosystems) Mg C ha -1 up to one meter depth. The trend of mean SOC followed (in descending order): humid mid-highland (113.17 Mg C ha -1 ) > per-humid highland (57.14 Mg C ha -1 ) > semi-arid (25.77 Mg C ha -1 ) > sub-humid (25.66 Mg C ha -1 ). Compared with soils of tropical countries, those in Ethiopian agroecosystems contained low SOC storage potential. This might be associated with differences in measurement and analysis methods as 53.1% of the studies employed the Walkley-Black Method, which is known to underestimate carbon stocks in addition to ecological and management effects. However, shifts of land management from rain-fed to irrigation farming systems exhibited progress in the improvement of mean SOC storage potential. The analyses showed that farming systems involving irrigation sequestered more carbon than rain-fed farm systems. The mean SOC in the various agricultural land uses followed the following trend (in descending order): agroforestry (153.57 Mg C ha -1 ) > grazing land (34.61 Mg C ha -1 ) > cereal cultivation (24.18 Mg C ha -1 ). Therefore, the possible solutions for improvement of organic carbon stocks would be implementation of appropriate restoration strategies based on agroecosystems.

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“…In Sub-Saharan Africa, rainfed farms account for 95 % of the local cereal production (Wani et al 2009), employing 70 % of the people (Gelb and World Bank 2000;Wani et al 2009). When widespread drought strikes crops, millions of people, mostly women and children, face hunger.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing seasonal rainfall scenarios for food security early warning

Husak

Funk

Michaelsen

et al. 2013

Theor Appl Climatol

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Rainfed agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 95 % of the local cereal production, impacting hundreds of millions of people. Early identification of poor rainfall conditions is a critical indicator of food security. As such, monitoring accumulated seasonal rainfall gives an important midseason estimate of final accumulated totals. However, characterizing the remaining uncertainty in a season has largely been ignored by the food security community. This paper presents a new technique describing rainfall conditions over the duration of a crop-growing cycle by combining estimated rainfall-todate with potential scenarios for the remaining season based on available satellite rainfall estimates, the common tool for rainfall analysis in Africa. The limited historical record provided by satellite rainfall estimates using previous seasons provides only a coarse view of likely seasonal totals. To combat this, scenarios developed by bootstrapping dekadal data to create synthetic seasons allow for a finer understanding of potential seasonal accumulations. Updating this throughout the season shows a narrowing envelope of seasonal totals, converging on the final seasonal result. The resulting scenarios inform the expectations for the final seasonal rainfall accumulation, allowing analysts to quantify and visualize the uncertainty in seasonal totals. Giving decision makers a tool for understanding the likelihood of specific rainfall amounts provides additional time to enact and mobilize efforts to reduce the impact of agricultural drought.

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Rainfed agriculture - past trends and future prospects.

Cited by 111 publications

References 27 publications

Agriculture: Increase water harvesting in Africa

Agriculture: Increase water harvesting in Africa

Organic Carbon Stocks, Dynamics and Restoration in Relation to Soils of Agroecosystems in Ethiopia: A Review

Developing seasonal rainfall scenarios for food security early warning

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