Water Erosion

Water Resource: Erosion

SCI/275

June 13, 2010

Taneisa Grier

The issue that I believe is something that needs to be researched a little more is water resource erosion. I have seen it a lot in dealing with the agricultural aspect in the area from what I am from. There are a lot of fields around and in a small desert California town that I am from. We bring in our water from the canal that is close by. We bring in that water by irrigation pipes. Irrigation is really just applying water to the soil in the area.

This is a great way to be able to help grow agricultural crops as well as can be used to help keep dust down. If these irrigational systems aren't set up correctly it can cause the field to flood. This will cause the access water to run off and could cause erosion of the area that it is in. if there is a road close by this could end up flooding the road and removing some of the foundation. This tends to make the road more likely to erosion and becoming undrivable. The cost to repair roads due to erosion is very expensive; actually any road repair is expensive. The thing we need to work on is figure out a way to be able to avoid this cost.

What I have done is come up with some sort of plan that will be able to help avoid this and still be able to keep using irrigation pipes to water crops. I believe the easiest way to avoid the erosion is first to ensure that when we are laying the pipes or whatever type of irrigation that maybe at use for the crop. This would be the first thing if there are valves on them, which would make these the center riser system. We would need to make sure they are set correctly and do not run to long. This will help avoid flooding. Flooding is one of the biggest issues that cause erosion.

One of the ways that we might be able to help avoid the over irrigation is to have people when first putting down the irrigation systems to ensure we are doing this correctly. This could mean going through training when are hired for a company that deals with irrigation systems or for a farm. This will be the first way to avoid issues. We all know that mistakes can happen so we need to have backups.

In reading research that was done in Ethiopia I believe that we can use some of their techniques to try to help avoid if we do by chance mess up the valves. In Ethiopia, the research indicated that at some point erosion could be controlled (Akilu Amsalu, 2006). They went over several different methods as well as the type of ground that they were dealing with while in Ethiopia. What I found to be interesting is that a lot of the methods that were used are things that we might not have even thought about using.

Some of the measures that were brought up were stone terraces, drainage ditches, soil bounds, contour plowing (Akilu Amsalu, 2006). Contour plowing is what happens when there we plow rows to allow water to soak into the ground. (k.Van Oost, 2006) Stone terraces are basically conservation structures used for crops. Drainage ditches are exactly what you would think they are ditches that can be used for runoff. This is another good way to avoid erosion. It is one of the biggest ones that I believe would work.

I know in my small town community of farmers, they do tend to use the contour plowing. Contour plowing as I stated before can be used to prevent soil erosion as well as can help get the water into the ground (k.Van Oost, 2006). Funding could be put towards making sure the farmlands have the contour rows. This would be beneficial in the idea of cutting back on how much water is needed. We can still use the irrigation system or can look into a different type of system. There are many out there such as, sixteen perimeter spray system or the four drip system. (Kurt Schulbach, 2010)These are the other two types that are available. I'm not sure how exactly it would work depending on the crop that is being planted; we can find the right system.

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