Fully Coupled Surface–Subsurface Hydrological Modeling to Optimize Ancient Water Harvesting Techniques
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Handbook ofWater Harvesting and Conservation: Case Studies and Application Examples
Abstract
Worldwide, but particularly in drylands, water scarcity
has become a major limitation to crop production and to
delivering ecosystemservices in general. Likewise, in many
regions rainfall is becoming more erratic, with later and
shorter rainy seasons, more and longer dry spells, and fewer
rainy days (Sillmann et al. 2013), even in cases when total
rainfall is increasing (Wu et al. 2013; Greve et al. 2014).
This might be linked to anthropogenic climate change
(Rockström and Falkenmark 2015). It results in a higher
frequency of particularly agricultural droughts – shortage
of available water for plant growth – which generally occur
more often than meteorological droughts, i.e. shortage of
precipitation (Wani et al. 2009).
In order to improve food and water security, water
harvesting in its broadest sense should be an entry-point
activity to enhance crop production through sustainable/
ecological intensification. On a larger scale it
contributes to regreening of the landscape, through crops,
grasses, shrubs, or trees, hence rendering ecosystem services
for society (Stroosnijder 2009). In a broad sense,water
harvesting refers to retaining rainwater by in situ and ex
situ practices (Dile et al. 2013; Cornelis 2014). In situ practices
capture and store water where it falls, whereas ex situ
practices collect water from a larger area and convey it to
fields for immediate use or to storage systems for later use.
Various examples are given elsewhere within this book.
Description
Keywords
Hydrological Modeling, Water Harvesting Techniques
Citation
Cornelis, W. M., Verbist, K., Araya, T., Opolot, E., Wildemeersch, J. C., & Al‐Barri, B. (2021). Fully coupled surface–subsurface hydrological modeling to optimize ancient water harvesting techniques. Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation: Case Studies and Application Examples, 49-64.