Selecting and Promoting Low Cost Methods for Sealing Ponds

Teshome Lemma (Msc., Hydraulic Engineer)

ABSTRACT

Ethiopia is one of the Sub- Saharan African country that is suffering from a recurring drought due to erratic rainfall occurrence both in amount and distribution. The livelihood of the largest portion of the people is dependent on rain fed agriculture. Thus, Crop failure is widely encountering the peasants of the region because of the erratic nature of the rain and recurrent drought. As a result, millions of people are exposed to relief assistance every year.

It is therefore, necessary to detach the agricultural sector from its dependency on this seasonally fluctuating rainfall occurrence in order to supplement crop failure and feed the ever-increasing population of the country. This calls for harnessing runoff that occurs during wet seasons using water harvesting facilities and latter use it in safeguarding crop failure through supplementary irrigation.

Although, harnessing runoff is not uncommon in Ethiopia, one of the major problems in this effort is the problem of excessive seepage losses and bank stability. This research work thus, tried to look for methods that reduce seepage losses from ponds using locally available treatment materials. The treatment materials used were compacting the pond, lining the pond with termite mould and Soil: straw mixture. These treatment methods resulted in reducing seepage losses and protected slope failure. Soil: straw mixed and termite mould lined ponds contained water up to 47 and 43 days, respectively. Where as, the untreated (control) pond contained water only for about 5 days. These methods are least cost as local materials are used in the treatment and can be used in areas where seepage and bank stability are a problem. Moreover, this work is expected to pave the way for further research in the area.

 

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