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Main charactristics, benefits, disadvantages and resilence to climate variability

Main benefits

  • Increased water availability, reduced risk of production failure, enhanced crop, fodder and tree production and improved water use efficiency
  • Simple to design and control, and cheap to install (and to adapt) by individual farmers, therefore easily replicable
  • Higher runoff collection efficiency than medium or large-scale water harvesting systems; negligible conveyance losses
  • Erosion control and trapping of nutrient-rich sediments in runoff
  • The area to be prepared for planting as well as fertilizer inputs are reduced compared to conventional preparation of the entire field, while overall production is improved and the risk of failure reduced

Main disadvantages

  • Catchment uses potentially arable land (with the exception of steep slopes)
  • Catchment area has to be maintained, i.e. kept free of vegetation. However, crusts often develop on bare surfaces of the catchment and therefore naturally reduce weed growth.
  • As in all water harvesting systems, systems can be damaged during exceptionally heavy rainstorms
  • If maintenance is inadequate, soil erosion can occur and initial investment will be lost

Resilience to climate variability

Water harvesting in microcatchments reduces risks of production failure due to water shortage associated with rainfall variability and dry spells. It accumulates and concentrates water and enables crop growth (including establishment of trees) in areas where rainfall is normally not sufficient, or unreliable. Although runoff-farming methods can increase the water availability, climatic risks still exist and in years with extremely low rainfall, it cannot compensate for overall water shortages.