Office of the national committee for central planning. National water resources commission. Feasibility study on the use of groundwater in southern Sidamo. Final report

Boubée D., Le Landais F., Sabatier Jean-Luc, Torrent H., Bles J.L.. 1987. Office of the national committee for central planning. National water resources commission. Feasibility study on the use of groundwater in southern Sidamo. Final report. Montpellier : CIRAD, 334 p.

Résumé : The project is located in Arero and Borana awrajas (districts) of the Southern part of the Sidamo Region. The project would aim at complementing current Government actions in the irrigated agriculture sector by assisting food crop production and provision of drinking water supply bath for human and animal consumption in the area of approximately 37,000 sq.km. The Southern Sidamo represents an original part of this Administrative Region. The Project-Area, receives relatively less rainfall than the northern highlands and is subject to considerable climatic hazards largely due to the instability of one of the two rainy seasons. The local activity is mainly rural and pastoral in particular. The recent droughts which severely hi t other parts of the country have had an important effect. The water shortage here resulted in a strong decrease in livestock numbers, lower incomes for the populations and even a threat to their survival. The recent degradation of the terms concerning tracts between the lowland herdsmen and the highland farmers has given a stimulus to the development of agriculture which until then was only carried out around the small villages. This phenomenon seems ought to persist even though the climatic conditions are now less severe and have enabled the herds to be reconstituted rapidly. The background analysis shows that the main obstacle as far as rural development in this area is concerned, is the poor exploitation of the water resources. At present, most of the EWWCA's means are assigned to trying to salve the difficult problem of the reliability of the water supply to the rapidly growing urban centres. It is impossible for similar efforts to be made at the same time with regard to the improvement of the living conditions of the rural populations scattered over a vast zone. These populations suffer, amongst other things, from the scarcity and uneven distribution of the water-points, where the quality of the water is mediocre and its transport requires a considerable amount of time and energy. More than half the rural population has a daily water ration of less than 5 liters, which is well below the usual health standard. And this is the case in spite of daily effort (a day's journey on foot from the camp to the well and back). A better distribution of safe, reliable and close water-points would relieve the populations of the daily task of fetching the water and would help to reinforce more productive development actions. Therefore, it is necessary to design a water supply-based development programme, the method and aims of which would be such as to contribute to the support of the activities of the local populations and to maintain them in a difficult milieu which does however offer potentialities that are not yet sufficiently exploited.

Auteurs et affiliations

• Boubée D.
• Le Landais F.
• Sabatier Jean-Luc
• Torrent H., BRGM (FRA)
• Bles J.L., BRGM (FRA)

Source : Cirad-Agritrop (https://agritrop.cirad.fr/606594/)

Métriques

[ Page générée et mise en cache le 2024-01-20 ]