PROJECT PROGRESS R E P O R T

kilit
BY JOS WASSINK

r3

ii^^oods

Together with Ethiopia's Haramaya University, UNESCO-IHE has started a unique master course in an ancient yet nearly forgotten form of water management, called spate irrigation. The first six students started their two-year course in Alemaya last September.

Traditional dyke in A l Romaila area nearjazoa veilige, in W a d i D a w a n , Yemen

In spate irrigation, everything works differently. M o s t irrigation w o r k s make use of continuously f l o w i n g (perennial) rivers to moisten the crops on an almost continuous basis. Spate irrigation however uses the w i l d and muddy waters from rivers that appear only sporadically. The sudden floods or spates that rush f r o m the mountains inundate the lands w i t h perhaps as much as a metre of water. Only then crops are s o w n : cereals and oilseed but also cotton and even vegetables. Typical spate irrigation sites are the arid flatlands at the foot of mountains in South Asia, the M i d d l e East, N o r t h Africa and the Horn of Africa. "Spate irrigations are among the most fascinating and complex water management systems," says specialist Frank van Steenbergen, f r o m the M e t a M e t a private research organization. "It's like a virus: once you've been infected w i t h it, you can't get rid of it." Rudolph Cleveringa, senior technical advisorwith the International Fund for Agricultural Development ( I F A D ) in Rome, shares Van Steenbergen's fascination: "Once infected w i t h the spate irrigation virus, I began to dig up w h o - i s w h o and what-is-what in spate. W h a t was an innovation for me turned out to be a centuries-old, well-balanced system of land and water rights." "The main focus of the Master's education," says senior lecturer, Abraham Mehari Haile, PhD, of UNESCO-IHE, "is to make clear h o w different spate irrigation is from perennial irrigation in its design, manage22

ment, hydrology, operation and management. Once the students k n o w these differences, they can design w i t h a broader knowledge." UNESCO-IHE, M e t a M e t a and IFAD have joined forces in the Spate Irrigation N e t w o r k , which aims to reinvigorate this nearly forgotten type of water management, in order to share the best practices and spread knowledge locally to practitioners. The n e t w o r k focuses on Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan. Currently the area under spate irrigation is estimated at 2 to 2.5 million hectares (half the size of the Netherlands). In future, more farmland is expected to become spate-dependent as a consequence of deforestation (less water is retained) and depletion of ground water reservoirs.

SURGING MUD
Frank van Steenbergen saw spate irrigation first in Balochistan, in the west of Pakistan, t w e n t y years ago. The enormous w a t e r w o r k s astonished him. He saw large earthen barricades, 1 0 to 15 metres high that bulldozers had build right across a dry riverbed. In Eritrea, where they lacked such machinery, people even used oxen w i t h scraperboards to draw mud up the dam, and then fortified it w i t h scrub. Once the river rose and the flood waters came, the large dam blocked the stream and forced the water sideways onto the farmland. The water

streamed along earthen weirs, 2 to 3 metres high and some kilometres long, until it had finally lost its m o m e n tum and spread evenly over the land. "You can only use the water once it has lost its speed," Van Steenbergen explains. "Or, as the Pakistanis say: 'You must kill the f l o o d ' . Otherwise the soil w i l l simply be washed away." Once the fields are firmly inundated, a berth is made in the main barricade. The river then surges through it and rushes on to the next barrier and the adjacent farmlands. And so on. If this seems all perfectly sensible, the trouble comes after a f e w years w h e n the sediment f r o m the stream (sand can account for up to 1 0 percent of volume) builds up on the fields and raises them above the river's flood level. Farmers k n o w that, as they are used to moving to new fields every five t o ten years. They adapt to nature. "Spate irrigation is a Taoist f o r m of water management," says Van Steenbergen. "It merely makes use of nature, rather t h a n t r y i n g t o control it, which is the more traditional Confucianist style of water management." W h a t Rudolph Cleveringa saw some ten years later in the Gash region around Kassala, in Sudan, was a spate irrigation scheme gone into decay. "Getting a piece of w e t t e d land was a lottery w i t h over 7 2 , 0 0 0 people buying raffle tickets in an overloaded system. The irrigation couldn't be mastered like good-old surface-water t a k e - o f f The canals were clogged, bridges were d r o w n e d , and distribution works didn't w o r k as designed." He noticed that drinking pools f o r livestock were filled w i t h sand instead of water, huge pools of invested water had formed in the lower lying areas, and the inner delta at the end of the river "was dry w i t h a capital D". The Government of Sudan had requested IFAD to help and rehabilitate the irrigation w o r k s . Cleveringa recalls: "After extensive consultations and negotiations w i t h government officials, local stakeholders and farmers, a fullyfledged livelihoods regeneration support programme was finally agreed upon in 2 0 0 3 . " The rehabilitation programme was as much about resolving land and water rights and having people assume collective responsibility for the canal operation and maintenance, as it was about civil engineering, like reconstructing river intake weirs and setting up distribution works on secondary channels.

S u i e i m a n Ran g e

Kacctii Plains Bund

Guide bund

Indus

T l i e dry side of the indus - the extensive l o w l a n d spate areas o f Pakistan.

they regarded it as a subsidence system of marginal economic importance. As a consequence of this neglect, most practical grassroots knowledge of how to kill the f l o o d , how to arrange access to land and water, and how to prevent the w h o l e system f r o m silting up was largely forgotten. Like rare seedlings in a nursery, six students have now enrolled in the new double Master's course of 'agricultural water management in (semi) arid regions'. They students come f r o m Ethiopia ( t h r e e ) , Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan (one each), on a grant from IFAD. These students are to become the ambassadors of spate irrigation, says Mehari. "They w i l l learn about the design of irrigation structures; the management of these, including social and institutional aspects. It w i l l be a comprehensive programme." After their initial three months at Haramaya University, in Ethiopia, the students w i l l be taught at the Delft Institute for Water Education f o r nine months. Their research project (half a year) takes place in their homeland. It will focus on a practical spate irrigation issue. Thus, the spate irrigation n e t w o r k hopes to strengthen the regional nodes and to develop and disseminate knowledge into the regions w e r e it is needed most. The ambitions of the spate irrigation n e t w o r k go well

T h e Spate Irrigation N e t w o r k aims to improve the livelihoods of those living in the spate irrigated areas. It exchanges e x p e r i ences and good practices, initiates and supports n e w programmes and policies, and mainstreams education and training. The n e t w o r k consists of p r o fessionals, practitioners and farmers. A t present the n e t w o r k has more than 4 0 0 members. It is being run w i t h a small part t i m e international secretariat (at M e t a M e t a and U N E S C O - I H E ) whereas in four countries national chapters are being set u p : in Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and Ethiopia, t h o u g h activities are not confined t o these countries. The Spate Irrigation N e t w o r k is currently supported by I F A D , World Bank/EKN, UNWDPC, U N E S C O - I H E / D U P C a n d FAO. Joining the N e t w o r k is free.

Looking back over the eight years since the beginning of the Gash Project, Van Steenbergen summed up the intermediate results in his report for IFAD: t w o - t h i r d s of the targeted 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 hectares had been reopened f o r spate irrigation; settlements of disputes w e r e respected; the production of sorghum had risen by a modest 8 percent but fodder by 6 0 percent. The cattle stock of the semi-nomadic population had g r o w n by 1 2 percent and milk production by 6 2 percent. A l l in all, the region could provide 80 percent of its food r e q u i r e m e n t s - w h i c h is quite an achievement compared to the 'serious threat to the livelihood' that Cleveringa had encountered eight years before.

beyond subsidence farming. Indeed, spate irrigation can germinate a green economy, says Cleveringa. "Simply said, environmental flows can recharge aquifers, enable carbon sequestration, increase biodiversity and keep the habitat for further beneficial exploration. That's what is happening in the Gash." " W i t h spate irrigation you can develop range lands, you can develop agro forestry and recharge ground water," Mehari adds. "Spate irrigation can be the key to developing a local economy. W a t e r w o r k s alone are not sufficient; it should be part of the bigger livelihood picture. Then you get investments, and agricultural products get a value.

More information Rudolpli Cleveringa rcieveringa@ifad.org Frank van Steenbergen f v a n s t e e n b e r g e n metameta.nl Abraham M e h a r i Haiie a.meharih3iie@unesco-ihe,org

RESTORING KNOWLEDGE
A l t h o u g h spate irrigation probably dates back to biblical times, much of the knowledge seems to have evaporated over the last generation. Part of the explanation f o r this is that spate irrigation was outflanked by perennial irrigat i o n , in which western engineers excelled. If indeed water management specialists were aware of the strange customs of diverging floods onto the fields, they perceived it as a risky and an unpredictable practice. Plus, says M e h a r i ,

Country Network team leaders Y e m e n : Sharafaddin Saieh sharafaddens@yahoo.com or sharafi 9 6 0 s @ g m a i i . c o m Pakistan: Karim Nawaz knawaz99@yahoo.com Ethiopia: Tena A l a m i r e w alamirew2004@yahoo.com Sudan: Ms, Eiman M o h a m e d Fadui hrs_iman@hotmaii.com

www.spate-irrigation.org/spate-irrigation-network

23