Assessment of institutional setup and effect of household level water harvesting in ensuring sustainable livelihood: case study of Kobo, Almata and Kilte Awlaelo Woredas in Amhara and Tigray Regions of Ethiopia

Assessment of institutional setup and effect of household level water harvesting in ensuring sustainable livelihood: case study of Kobo, Almata and Kilte Awlaelo Woredas in Amhara and Tigray Regions of Ethiopia

Published Nov 2007

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H. Tesfay

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The effects of household level water harvesting irrigation development in rural Ethiopia

This study aims to establish a better understanding and documenting of the effects of the household level water harvesting irrigation development and its limitations. The study was carried out in six Ethiopian villages through household level surveys, and discussions with various institutions and local authorities. The study focused on three household level water harvesting systems that include ponds, underground tankers, and shallow well irrigation.

The main findings of the study were as follows:

  • the study revealed that most of the constructed shallow wells definitely have promising potential positive impacts in terms of improving and diversifying household food security and income in the future if some of the witnessed gaps are addressed
  • women expressed their appreciation for the shallow well irrigation by saying that they now manage to send their children to school, and can easily receive medical services with the income from growing backyard vegetables
  • many visited ponds are in poor working conditions since they are not properly designed and constructed
  • this success has mainly taken place where the ponds are constructed in a proper way, have a sufficient micro catchments area to feed water to the pond and when the constructed pond is located near farmers’ backyards
  • in all the visited kebelles lack of access to market information is an acute problem that has hindered the beneficiaries from fully realising benefits from using the water harvesting well and pond irrigation.
The study led to the following recommendations:

  • it is technically sound and legitimate to develop household managed water harvesting for irrigation purposes
  • different water harvesting solutions should be available to the community that can be applied under different agro ecological, geological and social conduction
  • the overall evidence, suggests that in areas which have sufficient ground water, shallow well water harvesting is found to be an effective way of spreading benefits among wider target groups
  • efficient water saving systems should be expanded, so the current level of water utilisation efficiency should be promoted through extending the usage of low cost water saving and lifting irrigation technology
  • strengthening of the local manufacturers to produce more efficient and affordable water lifting and saving technologies is also of paramount importance for future success of the household level water harvesting programme
  • training in water management, general crop production and marketing is important for all the water harvesting beneficiaries.

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