New strategy of water management and soil conservation application in developed and underdeveloped countries
1988
Roose, Eric
Simple experimentation under natural or simulated rainfall on their own fields, confirm quantitatively their problems importance and the efficiency of various solutions. Dialogues between researchers, technicians, peasants lead progressively (10-20 years) from production, water efficiency and soil fertility improvement on individual fields to global watershed soil and water management. One on high intensive agricultural systems of S.W. of France (Toulouse) where motorization imposed regrouping of land and cultivation on long and steep slopes (5 to 30 %). More than 85 rainfall simulations (I=40 mm/h) on maize seedbed demonstrate the possibility of runoff and erosion reduction by adapting cultural practices. The second, on Sudano Sahelian area of Western Africa where runoff plots data and research on peasant fields demonstrate the efficiency of surface top soil structure management and permeable microdam structure to decrease the high runoff rate on sealed slight slope of Mali and Burkina Faso. The author concludes that it is practically necessary to start with modest traditional field structures and cultural practices to management. Soil and water conservation is a problem of education, conviction and adaptation and it takes a long time.
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