Drought is a recurring reality in many parts of the Sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture continues to be a major sector of most economies, and being predominantly rain-fed, is highly prone to drought. Drought thus gives challenges to economic management at all levels, from households, to...

Farm-level analysis of trade-offs between soil fertility management alternatives is required to improve understanding of complex biophysical and socio-economic factors influencing decision making in smallholder farming systems and to identify opportunities for improving resource use efficiency....

This paper investigates the impact of the dissemination of modern irrigation systems, i.e. private wells with pumps, on the livelihood not only among the farmers who have access to wells but also among the farmers who have no access to wells and thus rely solely on traditional irrigation systems...

There is growing evidence that freshwater availability is declining, while competition among sectors for the withdrawal of this scarce resource is rapidly increasing,(Rosegrant et a, 2002). Therefore, the need to promote inter-sectoral water use efficiency from the demand-side management has...

As a result of the growing world population and enhanced by the rising of living standards, competition for water is growing and this causes increased pressure on water resources worldwide. This tendency gave rise to the development of the integrated water resources management approach (IWRM),...

Currently the South African government is advocating the cultivation of high valued crops and more efficient use of available water resources through the adoption o f more efficient irrigation technology and irrigation scheduling. A requirement of the National Water Act (Act 36 of 1998) is the...

This study investigates the possible use of climate forecasts by Pennsylvania Community Water System (CWS) managers for planning and decision making. The first phase involves analysis of data from a mail survey to identify managers most likely to use climate forecasts. The second phase uses...

Invasive alien plants are invading some 125 million hectares in South Africa and Lesotho. More than R800 million has been invested in the clearing of invading alien plants in South Africa since October 1995. These clearing operations have had huge environmental, social and economic benefits but...

The effect of spatial-scale variations on water harvesting has been evaluated at micro-catchment, hillside/farm, and watershed (=catchment) scales in three relatively dry environments in Syria, Pakistan and Egypt. Micro-catchment water harvesting captures localized runoff only through...

Effective management of invading alien plants in natural and semi-natural systems is imperative if we are to prevent enormous impacts. An integrated approach involving the combined use of a range of methods is usually necessary to control invasive alien plants effectively. The various methods...