About the book

Hydrological practice has been developed to its greatest extent and sophistication in the provision of water resources from large catchments, usually for industrial and domestic consumption.

Historically, hydrological practice has had a limited role to play in agriculture even where large scale irrigation schemes have been undertaken, because civil or agricultural engineering expertise has usually taken a dominant place in such circumstances. But with the increasing interest in improving poorly developed and more marginal regions of agricultural activity, where large capital investment in uneconomic, a thorough understanding of the hydrological conditions that prevail has become essential. This understanding is particularly important where agriculture is a subsistence activity, or where water harvesting is proposed to improve agricultural production. Knowledge of the hydrological environment is necessary to determine whether or not opportunities to create optimal soil moisture conditions exist, and how these opportunities can be exploited. This book is directed at agricultural projects whose staff do not have the specialised skills of the hydrologist and at hydrologists whose experience in the agricultural field is limited. It is aimed especially at those working in developing countries, where resources will be limited and where it is essential to put the right equipment in the right place, in the right way. Projects usually have a very short life-span compared to the time it takes to collect a comprehensive set of data and a season that does not yield information that can improve that quality of future decisions is, effectively, a season lost.

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Agro Forestry and Farming Systems
3. Water Supply Management
4. Process and Development of Dry Land Framing
5. Sanitation
6. Sewerage and Wastewater Management