1st Stakeholder meeting in Sudan

On October 22nd-23rd, 2022, the Water Research Centre (WRC) of the University of Khartoum hosted the first local stakeholder meeting in Sudan on best management practices (BMPs) evaluation & site-specific brokerage.

The first day of the meeting was attended by 47 participants representing public authorities, associations, and private sector involved in water management and agriculture in the Gezira Irrigation Scheme – study area for Sudan in the framework of WATDEV project.

Gezira in Arabic means “in the middle”, indeed the Gezira Irrigation Scheme is located between the Blue Nile and the White Nile River within a semiarid agroclimatic zone, approx. 350 km from Khartoum. In this area, advanced irrigation systems have been introduced since 1904 by British engineer William Earsten. Two years later, irrigated cotton was introduced as a cash crop in the area.

As for the stakeholder meetings held in Egypt, Kenya and Ethiopia, the main goal of this first stakeholder meeting in Sudan was to carry out a participatory assessment of the state of agricultural water and soil practices currently applied in the study area, with the objective of examining the community’s gaps and needs. Based on this participatory approach, a thorough evaluation was made on the BMPs evaluation and their suitability for selection and implementation.

The two-day meeting was organized by the Water Research Centre (WRC) in close collaboration with the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (CIHEAM Bari), and it was coordinated by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Office in Cairo (AICS Cairo).

The opening session was chaired by Prof. Gamal Abdo, the Director of the WRC. The representative of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Office in Khartoum (AICS Khartoum), Mr. Raimondo Cocco, provided a brief overview of the activities of the Italian cooperation in the local context, and discussed the significance of WATDEV project at both national and regional scale.

Mr. Moses Okede, from ASARECA, presented the workshop goals and schedule, also providing a brief overview of WATDEV main goals and expected outcomes.

Dr. Ahmed Hayaty Elshaikh (WRC) introduced local stakeholders arriving from the Gezira scheme and explained the activities developed during the first year of project implementation, concerning the inventory and evaluation of BMPs and innovations in close cooperation with local stakeholders and PhD students. In the last months, the members of the stakeholder forum were selected and represent different types of stakeholders from research, decision makers and farmer’s representatives. Moreover, a PhD candidate was selected and will conduct research in the Gezira scheme to complete his PhD in joint supervision between the Wageningen University (co-partner in WATDEV through International Soil Reference Centre, ISRIC) and the University of Khartoum.

On behalf of CIHEAM Bari, Dr. Gaetano Ladisa presented WATDEV objectives, methodology, and research phases. In his presentation, the linkages between farmers, researchers, and policymakers on BMPs collection and implementation was shown. Ms. Alice Calvo from the Italian National Research Council (CNR) presented how the BMPs were gathered, and displayed some statistics related to the BMPs already collected in the four countries involved in WATDEV programme: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

The meeting was attended by different categories of stakeholders. They included policy makers (i.e., Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Sudan Meteorological Authority, Gezira Scheme Board); research and educational institutions (i.e., Hydraulics Research Center, UNESCO, Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, Water Management and Irrigation Institute, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Khartoum, Sudan University of Science & Technology – College of Water and Environmental Engineering); development partners and NGOs working the area.

The local community organizations were represented by water users’ organization, landowners, village elders (both men and women), local lead farmer leaders, local producers’ association.

Several stakeholders from various backgrounds and institutions actively participated to the debate and brought their valuable contributions to the discussion. In particular, the farmers gave engaging insights into their everyday struggles and routines.

Plenary sessions, wrap-up, and discussions on the brokerage event were chaired by Dr. Ahmed Elshaikh, who summarized the many contributions, expectations, and suggestions collected from the participants.

Prof. Pandi Zdruli (CIHEAM Bari), thanked all the participants for their proactive participation and useful contribution to the meeting. He also underlined the importance of the meeting outcomes for future programme activities.

On the second day after (October 23rd), the participants visited the Gezira irrigation scheme and had the chance to meet local farmers, the Farmers Training Center, and the Hydraulics Research Center (HRC) managed by the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources.

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Ude Kebele groundwater irrigation scheme under the Adaa Becho Groundwater Irrigation system (ABGIS) in the Awash Basin

It is a new intervention area with perspectives to be expanded. It is therefore envisaged that the lessons from other countries could be scaled out in this area.

Ada’a-Becho Groundwater Irrigation (ABGIS) is located in Ada’a Wereda some 50 km from Addis Ababa. The Adama road passes nearby the scheme and has no access limitation.  This scheme is part of Ada’a-Bacho Irrigation Development Project that comprises three conjugate Kebeles (i.e., Dhankaka, Ude and Qallitty) in Ada’a District of East Shawa Zone, Oromia Regional State.

The Ude Kebele Groundwater Irrigation Site is small, scheme selected to demonstrate groundwater irrigation practice demonstration sites as it is new irrigation development area will be a learning site for a medium scale community owned groundwater irrigation development in Ethiopia.

ABGIS landscape is one of the low reliefs that slopes gently north-west and south east wards. Apart from close to the hills virtually all slopes are nearly less than 3- 4%, with the majority of the slopes of 0-2%. 

The climatic variables of the project area are highly governed by the topography of the area (mainly altitude). The highland area lies at an altitude of over 2300 m asl and covers 17.5% of the project area. Mean annual temperature of this part of the project area ranges from 12.50C to 160C.

The major crops produced include Teff, chick pea, wheat, barley, vetch, and maize.  Few farmers also produce tomato and onion as cash crops. Crop production in the area is by and large rain-dependent. But in few farmers produce vegetables twice a year using pumped water from Mojo and Waddecha rivers.

The problems in ABGIS are connected with the limited experience in fruit crop production.

Koga Irrigation System (KIS) in the Abbay Basin

KIS is an established and relatively well performing irrigation scheme in Ethiopia. In here besides Irrigation water management, there are also success stories in watershed management.

Koga is located some 40 km from Bahri Dar town (Regional capital of Amhara Regional State. The  Bahir Dar –Addis Ababa highway passes through the scheme (Fig 2), hence the scheme is year round accessible.

Koga irrigation system comprises of 19.7 km of lined main canal, 52 km of lined secondary canals, 156 km of unlined tertiary canals, 905 km of unlined quaternary canals and 11 lined Night Storage Reservoirs (NSRs). The main canal was designed to provide irrigation water for 24 h during irrigation period.

There are 12 secondary canals designed for 12 h irrigation supply each covering an area of irrigated land ranging from 220 ha to over 1000 ha. Tertiary canals are designed for 12 h irrigation supply. The area irrigated by a tertiary canal range between 20 ha to 65 ha. The quaternary canals have a capacity of irrigating 8–16 ha of land while field canals will serve an area of 2.0 ha within the quaternary unit. The maximum field canal design capacity is 30 l/s.

KIS is the best performing among many community-managed irrigation schemes. Unlike other schemes this was designed and developed as an integrated watershed and irrigation development project.

Among the problems associated to the KIS are Seasonal water shortage and associated conflicts between Irrigation water user associations, low irrigation water application efficiency, catchment degradation. In order to increase water productivity in the KIS, water saving technologies will be promoted.

The Gezira irrigation scheme

The Gezira Scheme is located between the Blue Nile and the White Nile Rivers within a semi-arid agro-climatic zone. In terms of accessibility, it is easily accessible by Wad Medani road and the trip between Wad Medani, the capital of the Gezira State and headquarter of the scheme (Barakat), and Khartoum takes about three hours. The scheme is one of the largest irrigation schemes in the region with 880,000 hectares (ha). It is one of the main sources of foreign currency (cotton export), and food security (wheat, sorghum, vegetables) for Sudan. It has huge infrastructure with a value estimated at about US $ 8 billion. The scheme had played a vital role in the history of irrigation in Sudan and Africa and has become a model for many irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of design and operation system. Therefore, any research aiming at improving water management in Gezira scheme is not only beneficial to the project, but also to similar projects at national and regional scale.  There are many challenges that the scheme face and urgent need to investigate Best Management Practices (BMPs) that  can overcome these challenges and enhance productivity. Some of these challenges are deterioration of irrigation infrastructure, inefficient water distribution within the scheme, agricultural drainage discharges directly in the Blue Nile without treatment impacting water quality, institutional weakness and instability.

Belbies district

Belbies district is located 20 km south of El Zagazig city between Long. 31o 24′ and 31o 39′ E and Lat. 30o 19′ and 30o 29′ N. It is bounded at the east by Abu Hammad, at the west by Minia El Kammh and in the south by the Tenth of Ramadan City districts.

As a part of the east Nile Delta, Belbies district constitutes a portion of an arid belt of north Egypt. It is characterized by a long dry summer and short temperate winter with a rainfall period from October to March. The climate is hot in summer; the average temperature is in the range of 19.7oC and 34.7oC, while during winter it ranges from 7.4oC and 18.4oC.

Due to intensive agricultural practice, which involves the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, many soils and shallow aquifers are contaminated. Consequently, pollution of groundwater has become a major concern in recent years. Wastewater disposed in canals can diffuse in groundwater. Overexploitation of groundwater and intensive irrigation in major canal commands has posed serious problems for groundwater managers in Nile Delta e.g. Sharkia governorate. The development of groundwater resources, technology-oriented management skills, adequate and efficient groundwater monitoring system, empowerment of women in unprivileged areas are among the challenges to be addressed. Indeed, water management projects are one of the priority topics in the political agenda of Egypt.