Rainwater harvesting in the Sahel
Sub-Saharan agricultural water management / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rainwater harvesting in the Sahel is a combination of "indigenous and innovative"[1] agricultural strategies that "plant the rain" and reduce evaporation, so that crops have access to soil moisture for the longest possible period of time. In the resource-poor drylands of the Sahel region of Africa, irrigation systems and chemical fertilizers are often prohibitively expensive and thus uncommon: so increasing or maintaining crop yields in the face of climate change depends on augmenting the region's extant rainfed agriculture systems to "increase water storage within the soil and replenish soil nutrients."[2] Rainwater harvesting is a form of agricultural water management.[3] Rainwater harvesting is most effective when combined with systems for soil regeneration and organic-matter management.[4]