Suitability mapping framework for solar photovoltaic pumps for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

Schmitter, Petra; Kibret, Kefyalew Sahle; Lefore, Nicole; Barron, Jennie

doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.02.008

Cited by 79 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…According to Xie et al (), by combining surface and groundwater, small‐scale irrigable land could increase potentially by 30 million ha in sub‐Saharan Africa. Schmitter, Kibret, Lefore, and Barron () estimated that 6.3 million ha in Ethiopia could be irrigated using solar photovoltaic based lifting technologies to extract groundwater up to 25 m depth. Worqlul, Collick, Rossiter, Langan, and Steenhuis () showed that in the Gilgel Abay basin less than 0.1% of the potential irrigable land could be irrigated with the available surface water resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Establishing irrigation potential of a hillside aquifer in the African highlands

Tilahun

Yilak

Schmitter³

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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Feeding 9 billion people in 2050 will require sustainable development of all water resources, both surface and subsurface. Yet, little is known about the irrigation potential of hillside shallow aquifers in many highland settings in sub-Saharan Africa that are being considered for providing irrigation water during the dry monsoon phase for smallholder farmers. Information on the shallow groundwater being available in space and time on sloping lands might aid in increasing food production in the dry monsoon phase. Therefore, the research objective of this work is to estimate potential groundwater storage as a potential source of irrigation water for hillside aquifers where lateral subsurface flow is dominant. The research was carried out in the Robit Bata experimental watershed in the Lake Tana basin which is typical of many undulating watersheds in the Ethiopian highlands. Farmers have excavated more than 300 hand dug wells for irrigation. We used 42 of these wells to monitor water table fluctuation from April 16, 2014 to December 2015. Precipitation and runoff data were recorded for the same period. The temporal groundwater storage was estimated using two methods: one based on the water balance with rainfall as input and baseflow and evaporative losses leaving the watershed as outputs; the second based on the observed rise and fall of water levels in wells. We found that maximum groundwater storage was at the end of the rain phase in September after which it decreased linearly until the middle of December due to short groundwater retention times. In the remaining part of the dry season period, only wells located close to faults contained water. Thus, without additional water sources, sloping lands can only be used for significant irrigation inputs during the first 3 months out of the 8 months long dry season. K E Y W O R D SEthiopia, groundwater, highlands, irrigation, Lake Tana, water budget, water storage, water table fluctuation method

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Establishing irrigation potential of a hillside aquifer in the African highlands

Tilahun

Yilak

Schmitter³

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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“…Studies show that soil erodibility in forest can be closely related to the agents including fractional vegetation coverage, vegetation health status, soil exposure degree and slope steepness of terrain [23,[54][55][56]. According to the Standards for Classification and Gradation of Soil Erosion [57], the soil erosion rate in planar surfaces is measured with two factors: FVC and slope.…”

Section: Selection Of Predictor Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The slope factor is represented by slope angle that can be derived from a digital elevation model (DEM) [55]. Current commercial remote sensing software usually has a tool to convert DEM to slope.…”

Section: Slopementioning

confidence: 99%

A Remote Sensing Based Method to Detect Soil Erosion in Forests

Xiu-juan

Guan

et al. 2019

Remote Sensing

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Rainwater-induced soil erosion occurring in the forest is a special phenomenon of soil erosion in many red soil areas. Detection of such soil erosion is essential for developing land management to reduce soil loss in areas including southern China and other red soil regions of the world. Remotely sensed canopy cover is often used to determine the potential of soil erosion over a large spatial scale, which, however, becomes less useful in forest areas. This study proposes a new remote sensing method to detect soil erosion under forest canopy and presents a case study in a forest area in southern China. Five factors that are closely related to soil erosion in forest were used as discriminators to develop the model. These factors include fractional vegetation coverage, nitrogen reflectance index, yellow leaf index, bare soil index and slope. They quantitatively represent vegetation density, vegetation health status, soil exposure intensity and terrain steepness that are considered relevant to forest soil erosion. These five factors can all be derived from remote sensing imagery based on related thematic indices or algorithms. The five factors were integrated to create the soil erosion under forest model (SEUFM) through Principal Components Analysis (PCA) or a multiplication method. The case study in the forest area in Changting County of southern China with a Landsat 8 image shows that the first principal component-based SEUFM achieves an overall accuracy close to 90%, while the multiplication-based model reaches 81%. The detected locations of soil erosion in forest provide the target areas to be managed from further soil loss. The proposed method provides a tool to understand more about soil erosion in forested areas where soil erosion is usually not considered an issue. Therefore, the method is useful for soil conservation in forest.

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“…For small or marginal farmers, it is very difficult to afford for a high horse power solar pump (Xie et al, 2014). Therefore, small or nano size solar DC pumps are recommended for them (Schmitter et al, 2018). But, the farmers need to cultivate the most remunerative crop for getting higher net return and early payback of the initial investment.…”

Section: Issn: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 06 (2018)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility Study of 0.1 HP NanoSolar Pump with Gravity based Drip Irrigation System for Vegetable Cultivation

Das¹,

Toppo²

2018

Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci

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Suitability mapping framework for solar photovoltaic pumps for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

Cited by 79 publications

References 40 publications

Establishing irrigation potential of a hillside aquifer in the African highlands

Establishing irrigation potential of a hillside aquifer in the African highlands

A Remote Sensing Based Method to Detect Soil Erosion in Forests

Feasibility Study of 0.1 HP NanoSolar Pump with Gravity based Drip Irrigation System for Vegetable Cultivation

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