July 19, 2021
Spate News 30 November 2015
We are happy to send you this message – announcing a number of new activities and in some cases asking for your own expert input!
- Leadership course 29 February – 11 March 2016
- Rodent control in flood based farming systems
- National workshop on spate irrigation in Pakistan 7 December 2015
- Joining learning alliance on road water harvesting
- Regional course
- Publication on Prosopis Juliflora
Leadership Course Flood Based Farming Systems and Water Harvesting 29 February – 11 March 2016 at ICRAF Nairobi
ICRAF, MetaMeta and Spate Irrigation Network Foundation will organise a leadership course on Flood Based Farming Systems and Water Harvesting from 29 February to 11 March, 2016. The first week will be at ICRAF in Nairobi and the second week is to be organized in Arusha Tanzania.
This short course is about Flood-based Farming Systems (FBFS) and Water Harvesting and focuses on the productive use of floods to irrigate crops, feed drinking-water ponds; serve forest and grazing land, recharge local aquifers, mitigate climate change and variability as well as contribute to more efficient use of water within a watershed.
Participants (mid-career and young professionals, practitioners, policy shapers, farmer leaders) are invited from government and non-government institutions, farmer organizations, universities directly or indirectly engaged in the broader field of land and water development with a particular emphasis on FBFS. As part of the course programs for rolling capacity building activities will be practical. Floodwater engineering structures are debated, but also cropping patterns, organizational setting, economic analysis, watershed and climate change effects and gender issues. The participants thus grow into professional leaders, not only in a theoretical way but also in a very practical way.
Participants should have a good command of English, at least a BSc degree in any land and water development field and basic knowledge of flood management and water harvesting. Exceptions are farmers and practitioners who may not have formal education but possess unique and valuable field experiences in FBF and water harvesting. More information on coarse fee and programmes will be provided soon at www.spate-irrigation.org. In meantime, contact can be made with M.malesu@cgiar.org.
Rodent control
We also seek your help in sharing your experience on an important topic – the control of rats and other rodents in flood based farming systems. Globally rodents destroy 5-10 % of all agricultural crops: this adds up to an enormous quantity. We would like to better document current problems and solutions – both traditional and new – and the experiences with this. We hope to come to a broader range of measures – better storage, better biological control for instance. What experience do you have? What stories you have come across? Of special treatment methods or other experiences or references?
Please contact mkool@metameta.nl.
National conference on Spate Irrigation Potential and Prospects in Tandojam, Pakistan on 7 December 2015
We are pleased to inform you that Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam (SAU),
Research and Development Foundation (RDF) and Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro (MUET), Sindh-Pakistan are organizing the Conference on ‘‘Spate irrigation: Potential and Prospects” at Sindh Agriculture University
Tandojam’ scheduled on December 07, 2015. The conference will explore the most promising ways forward in spate irrigation.
For more information please contact Ashfaq Sooomro ataahmed@rdfoundation.org.pk
This followed On 4 September 2015, a one-day workshop on ‘Spate Irrigation: Potential and Challenges in Sindh, Pakistan’ was jointly organized by Research & Development Foundation (RDF) and US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCASW) in collaboration with Oxfam Novib and The University of Utah at ORIC Hall MUET Jamshoro. Though spate is an ancient system for irrigation in Sindh, there is no policy or regulations formulated by the Government in Sindh to manage spate water. Instead, it is being managed informally by the communities. The objective of the workshop was to promote and make participants aware of the potential of spate irrigation in Sindh to harness and use floods from rivers and hill torrents in order to alleviate poverty and enhance agriculture productivity.
Join Learning Alliance on Road Water Harvesting!
This is to draw your attention to a topic closely related to spate irrigation: The capture of water from roads. There is a large potential in systematically using floods to collect and manage water. from culverts and side-drains. In many cases, this road water harvesting is quite similar to spate irrigation. With 1-2 Trillion spend yearly on roads the opportunities to manage the links between road builders and water managers is enormous. A website on roads water harvesting is www.roadsforwater.org.
You are invited to join the learning alliance on these emerging topics. This will put you on the mailing list of the initiative and also will allow you to use the training material freely. Please contact marta@metameta.nl
The Roads for Water Learning Alliance brings together implementers, researchers, trainers, policymakers, funders and others who work on making roads work for natural resources management and large resilience. We encourage you to join, share experience, access training and learning material and join in initiating activities.
Regional Short Course on Integrated watershed Management and Flood-based farming Systems in ASAL areas, Horn of Africa.
For the third year in succession, the regional short course on Integrated watershed management and FBFS was successfully organised and hosted by Mekelle University in October.
The course was organised to qualify professionals with a comprehensive understanding and technical skills in participatory approaches, integrated watershed development in ASAL areas as well as FBFS and techniques to enable them to better plan, design, and manage FBFS. The modules were fine-tuned to deal with the interests and composition of the participants. The participants mainly from Kenya (from Turkana and Marsabit counties) were very satisfied with the courses and the field visits organised
Publication on Prosopis Juliflora (mesquite)
The proceedings of the May 2014 conference on Prosopis juliflora organized by GIZ, UNESCO-IHE and Spate Irrigation Network are now available! For downloads:
https://floodbased.org/documents/library/addis-ababa-2014/
Prosopis juliflora is a most invasive species in dry lowlands and affects spate irrigation systems and grazing areas alike. The proceedings consist of 14 papers describing the problems and the efforts at handling the problem.
And:
Any news to share yourself ?– please contact info@spate-irrigation.org.