Evolution of small reservoirs in Burkina Faso

Small reservoirs (SRs) are important infrastructures for providing water for a wide range of activities in Burkina Faso and other semiarid environments. In recent years, SRs have become even more important, considering the effects of climate change and variability such as erratic rainfall patterns, recurrent droughts and floods, delays in the onset of the rains (Laux et al. 2008), increased incidence of in-season dry spells (Lacombe et al. 2012), and high evapotranspiration rates. SRs provide vulnerable rural communities with water for multiple purposes, including domestic and agricultural uses (McCartney et al. 2012; Venot et al. 2012). However, a number of external factors are negatively influencing the sustainable uses of SRs. Rapid population growth (Zuberi and Thomas 2012) and its attendant human-induced activities are a threat to the quality of water in SRs, as are agricultural extensification and intensification around SRs, including the increased use of inorganic fertilizers

One Hundred Priority Questions for the Development of Sustainable Food Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing an expected doubling of human population and tripling of food demand over the next quarter century, posing a range of severe environmental, political, and socio-economic challenges. In some cases, key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in direct conflict, raising difficult policy and funding decisions, particularly in relation to trade-offs between food production, social inequality, and ecosystem health. In this study, we used a horizon-scanning approach to identify 100 practical or research-focused questions that, if answered, would have the greatest positive impact on addressing these trade-offs and ensuring future productivity and resilience of food-production systems across sub-Saharan Africa. Through direct canvassing of opinions, we obtained 1339 questions from 331 experts based in 55 countries. We then used online voting and participatory workshops to produce a final list of 100 questions divided into 12 thematic sections spanning topics from gender inequality to technological adoption and climate change. Using data on the background of respondents, we show that perspectives and priorities can vary, but they are largely consistent across different professional and geographical contexts. We hope these questions provide a template for establishing new research directions and prioritising funding decisions in sub-Saharan Africa

Miracle on Leslie St.

We left the paved trail of Tommy Thompson Park to find a breezy waterside spot to set down for lunch

Small-Scale Irrigation Mapping (SSIM) as a tool for improving and validating irrigated area maps: contextual approach and lessons learnt in Burkina Faso

Recent rapid expansion of private small-scale irrigation provides an opportunity to improve livelihoods and food security, but requires knowledge of where it is happening, in order to sustainably manage water use. Concerns are rising regarding the negative impacts of unchecked expansion of irrigation on downstream water quality and availability, particularly when using sub-optimal practices (de Fraiture et al. 2014; Domenech and Ringler 2013; Shah 2007). Therefore, for informed planning of potential sustainable irrigation expansion, policy makers and resource managers at the national level are interested in maps of the current extent of small-scale irrigation. Although several maps of irrigated areas have been produced for Burkina Faso, these maps, often of 250 meter (m), 300 m or 1 kilometer (km) resolution, are of too low resolution to account for scattered irrigation on areas smaller than 1 hae. Small-scale irrigation in Burkina Faso is typically carried out on individual plots of less than a quarter of hectare, with a small proportion on groups of fields no larger than one hectare, implying that existing maps are not reliably capturing the true extent and distribution of small-scale irrigation in the country

Characterization of small reservoirs in Burkina Faso

Small reservoirs (SRs) are used for multiple purposes in Burkina Faso and West African agroecological landscapes (Venot et al. 2012). These SRs are used for domestic (drinking, bathing and washing) and agricultural (crop, livestock and fishery) purposes, among others (McCartney et al. 2012). However, natural processes and human-induced activities in the surrounding landscapes can be a threat to the water quality and sustainable use of SRs. In order to reduce negative effects, several projects have been designed to study different aspects of how SRs are used and impacted by natural and human-induced activities. But the number of SRs in Burkina Faso (about 1,450) (Cecchi et al. 2009) makes it practically impossible to study every single one of them. A possible solution to this is to categorize the SRs into groups in terms of their responses to the aforementioned natural and anthropogenic influences. Such categorization can provide the basis for site selection in subsequent research programs and further permit generalization (upscaling) of results obtained for selected SRs (at local scale) to many other SRs (at national scale)

Agricultural Water Management Technology Expansion and Impact on Crop Yields in Northern Burkina Faso (1980-2010): A Review

Agricultural water management (AWM) interventions, such as soil and water conservation or small-scale irrigation around small-scale water reservoirs, have repeatedly shown benefits to yields, soil fertility and water availability – at the field and experimental farm scale. It is assumed that these benefits will result in better and more sustainable livelihoods. However, there has been little published evidence of such wide-scale beneficial impacts. This study synthesizes evidence, at the sub-national scale of region, across northern Burkina Faso, of adoption rates of AWM interventions compared with indicators of impact on livelihoods in the form of yield changes, poverty indices and food security. Using several independent sources (national statistics and independent reports and peer papers), the study has found multiple pieces of evidence that since the 1990s provincial adoption rates have been a minimum of 10-20% in provinces with >700 mm of rainfall and up to 40% in several other provinces. Over the same time period, regional cereal yields have had similar rates of increase (ca 3%) as the adoption of soil water conservation and small reservoir expansion. The link to poverty and food security is less clear, highlighting that at the provincial and regional scale much more data is needed to establish the causality between AWM adoption, crop yields and poverty/food security impacts. Multiple methods exist for developing knowledge on provincial and regional level AWM technology adoption and livelihood impacts, but such information is not readily available in the public domain for decision making, research or policy. The methods for measuring indicators of development impact should be explored further. It is particularly critical to capture indicators linking field-scale improvements to the broader socioeconomic and institutional pro-poor development agenda of rural livelihood systems in semi-arid West Africa