Land- and Water- Use Planning

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 Why Land- and Water-Use Planning Are Important
 a traditional way of increasing agricultural production is
by means of land and water engineering
 Currently concern is on the use of the resources of this earth in a
sustainable way
 Need to ensure there is sustainable production of food, agrobased
material for industry, and shelter for human habitation and industries.
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 land- and water-use planning : This phrase has the following terms
 land use, water use, and planning
 Plan:
 By the Oxford Dictionary
“1a) a formulated and esp. detailed method by which a thing is to be done; a design or scheme,
 1b) an intention or proposed proceeding,
 2) a drawing or diagram made by projection on a horizontal plane,
 3) a large-scale detailed map of a town or district,
 4a) a table etc. indicating times, places, etc. of intended proceedings,
 4b) a diagram of an arrangement,
 5a) an imaginary plane perpendicular to the line of vision and containing the objects shown in a picture.”
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 plan” refers both to
 something on paper (1a, 3, 4a, 4b, 5) and
 a more abstract concept:
 an idea that exists in the minds of people who are involved in the planning and
that is expressed by them (1a, 1b).
 The land-use plan consists of two parts:
 a map of the area for which the development zones and other proposed
changes and developments are represented;
 an accompanying text that explains the symbols used on the map
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 “planned, planning: Definitions by Dictionary:definitions:
 “1) arrange beforehand; form a plan,
 2a) design, b) make a plan of (an existing buiding, an area, etc),
 3) in accordance with a plan (his planned arrival) and
 4) make plans.”
 Meanings 1, 2, and 4 refer to the planning itself, the whole process of thinking
of solutions to a problem.
 Meaning 3 refers to planned; the past tense shows that this meaning only exists
after the planning is completed.
 In land- and water-use planning, meaning 3 is a very important part of the
whole planning process
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 Land use
 to use” means “to employ for a purpose, put into action or service.”
 The noun “use” means “the act or way of using or fact of being used, the ability or
right to use something, the purpose or reason for using something.”
 agricultural, living, and recreational grounds that are specifically designed for
those uses, are examples of land uses
 natural grounds also are a form of land use: recreational use, woodland, carbon
sequestration, grazing lands etc.
 When people decide to protect it, its by choice that its “Natural Land USE”.
 All activities on earth can be considered land use
 Land use can be preserved and protected or can be changed.
 Water Use
 Water use is a little different from land use
 Surface water
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 Can occur naturally as in oceans, rivers and lakes
 Can be man made as in canals, manmade ponds and dams
 A main function of streams is water drainage.
 Streams discharge the superfluous water from an area and this is stored in the lakes,
seas, and oceans
 Man has no role in discharge of water through streams
 Man can interfere with the natural process,
 making areas drier by increasing drainage
 Making areas wetter through irrigation and water retention
 This is water use: Man decides how to use the water
 Water use can be drinking, laundry, domestic use, irrigation, industrial
 For Oceans and Lakes, it could be raising aquatic life, and transport purposes,
energy generation etc.
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 Many areas are water stressed.
 Such areas cannot
 function to their best abilities, in both socioeconomic and technical senses
 Produce food for human survival, feed for animal survival, agromaterials for
industry
 Other areas experience excess water:
 Floods, water logging become serious changes
 Shortage or surplus of water has direct influence on land use.
 Land use influences the amount of water needed.
 water should be a part of land-use planning
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 water quantity and water quality are important in land use.
 Land- and water-use planning can play important roles in the
prevention and solution of problems such as pollution and salinity.
 Important to consider the influence of land use on the quality of surface
and subsurface water.
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 Water-use and Land Use Planning:
 Consider a certain area, with certain challenges
 What improvements can give the best possible benefits for a certain land use?
 What are the desired land uses
 What are the possible options for solving the challenges to meet each land use?
 What are the necessary measures needed in each option?
 Evaluate all the choices
 Pick the best option, implement the plan, and evaluate it during the planning
process and afterward.
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 With this description a definition can be made:
 Land-use planning is the process of systematically describing the
problems in an defined area, the way in which the problems can be
solved, the combination of these solutions into plan options, and the
weighing of these options to come finally to the economically and
socially optimal use of the land and its resources
 Look at the problems, define them
 Describe the options that can be used to solve the problems
 Put the solution options in action plans
 Weigh the options
 Pick the most economically and socially optimal solution for the use of the
land and its resources.
 Land Reclamation
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 Means modifying the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the soil to restore
its capacity for beneficial use while protecting
the environment.
 Soil could have lost its suitability for cropping or other use by means
of natural or anthropogenic (by human action) causes
 we have to deal with an ecosystem in which normal biological processes are at a standstill.
 processes must be restored so that a normally functioning ecosystem of soil, plants, and
animals is reactivated,
 Once restored the natural processes of nutrient release, plant growth, and nutrient cycling
proceed at a natural rate.
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 Drainage of wetlands, amendment of saline soils, restoration of soil
contaminated with urban waste materials, and the rehabilitation of
floodplains and tidal forelands are all reclamation processes.
 may not lead to complete restoration of the soil and landscape, although
a self-sustaining ecosystem always must be created.
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 Reclamation of Wet Soils
 wet soils are defined as soils where saturation with water is the
dominant factor determining the nature of soil development and the types of plant and animal
communities living on the surface
 water supply by rainfall, overland flow, and seepage from upslope exceeds the water loss by
drainage, throughflow, and evapotranspiration.
 Poor drainage usually is associated with soils that have low permeability.
 soils are shallow and/or overlie an impermeable barrier such as rock or very dense clay pan
 The impermeable subsoil prevents the water from moving downward and the natural subsurface
drainage system from functioning properly
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 Wet soils are an obstacle to man’s use of land resources for cropping
and, in general terms, for economic development.
 However, wetlands play a major role as a natural resource, which may
be superior to the benefits from agricultural resources.
 For Agricultural purposes they must be reclaimed
 In most cases they are in depressions with minimum overland flow
 It is necessary to eliminate the depression, and create overland flow
 Construct channels that carry water away from affected area
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 surface drainage, can be defined as the diversion or orderly removal of excess
water from the land through ditches or by shaping of the
ground surface.
 Sometimes, a subsurface system of drain pipes is needed in conjunction with
the surface drainage measures
 Design of discharges is based on Rainfall-runoff relations
 The rate of removal is called the “drainage coefficient,” which usually is
expressed in terms of flow rate per unit area and varies with the size of the
area.
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 Surface drainage, when properly planned and designed, eliminates
ponding, prevents prolonged saturation, and accelerates flow to an
outlet without siltation or soil erosion
 Surface Drainage Systems
Three types of systems that are in common use today
 parallel, random, and cross slope.
 A combination works at times
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 Any surface drainage system should
 fit the farming layout
 remove water quickly from land to ditch, avoiding erosion and siltation;
 have adequate capacity to carry the flow;
 be designed for construction and maintenance with appropriate equipment
locally available.
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 Reclamation of Salty Soils
 Salts occur in the soil in one of the following three forms:
 salt ions dissolved in the soil water (the soil solution),
 cations adsorbed on the negatively charged surfaces of the
soil particles (adsorption complex),
 precipitated salts.
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 The principal salts are sodium, magnesium, and calcium chlorides;
sodium and magnesium sulfates; sodium carbonates and bicarbonates;
and nitrates and borates.
 They originates from rocks as they weather.
 a high salt content in the soil may be related directly to the soil’s parent
material.
 This type of soil salinity is normally termed “primary” or “residual”
salinity.
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 most common cause of high soil salinity is salinization, that is, the accumulation of
salts in the upper layers of the soil from some outside source.
 Salinization can be either a natural or an anthropogenic process.
 Anthropogenic salinisation results from irrigation in regions with low precipitation,
high rate of evaporation, and without artificial leaching or drainage.
 The result is a rather rapid accumulation of salts, which influence the growth of crops
 The main effects are physiological drought, disturbance of the ion balance in the soil
solution, degradation of the soil structure, and decrease of the biological activity of the
soil
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 Reclamation Procedures
 The term “salty” generally refers to a soil that contains sufficient salts to
impair its productivity
 Reclamation of saline soils depend on suitable irrigation water,
appropriate means of water application, and good drainage.
 Large quantities of water with low salt content are needed to leach salts
from the soil profile.
 Surface basins and sprinkle irrigation are usually appropriate because these
apply water on the entire soil surface.
 Saltmtolerant vegetation can help to reclaim saline soils, especially those
with fine textures
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 Plant roots help to keep the soil permeable and the top growth prevents
erosion.
 Good drainage is required to remove the leaching water fast enough and to
keep groundwater levels from rising.
 Reclamation requires that land be well managed afterward.
 The water table has to be kept low enough to keep from making the soil
saline again.
 Suitable amounts of irrigation water have to be applied to let drainage
remove the salt brought in by the irrigation water.
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 Soil Degradation
Soil structure: definition of soil structure is the “spatial heterogeneity of
the different components or properties of the soil.”
 Soil structure is the most important feature of a soil in relation to plant
growth and crop production.
 soil degradation can be envisaged as the consequence of any process or
human action negatively influencing soil structure.

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 soil regeneration is the result of any natural process and/or human
action capable of recovering soil structure from a deteriorated condition
and possibly aimed at an improvement of soil structure by ameliorative
measures
 main factors involved in the physical degradation of a soil
 compaction,
 microstructure degradation, and
 crusting.
 Soil Erosion
 Types of erosion
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 Soil is a vital resource for the production of renewable resources for the
necessities of human life, such as food and fiber.
 Soil is a non renewable resource
 the area of cultivated land in the world is 14.3 million km2.
 Cultivation reduces vegetative cover on soil and leaves soil exposed.
 Leads to increase of soil erosion on cropland as compared to that on
natural landscapes
 soil erosion in the world is 5.5 times more than during the pre-agricultural
period
 the world is currently losing 23 billion tonnes of soil from cropland in excess
of new soil formation each year
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 Accelerated soil erosion is a serious problem to consider for the
development of a sustainable agriculture.
 Orher problems:
 Sediment load on reservoir-reduces the amount of water available
 Nonpoint-source pollution due to sediment transport phenomena.
 Semi-arid and semi-humid areas of the world are the most vulnerable to
soil erosion.
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 Soil erosion losses are often due to
 a few severe storms with high rainfall intensity and/or high rainfall depth [6],
 high wind velocity values
 Soil erosion is generally a normal aspect of landscape development in which
soil particles are removed by wind or water
 processes of denudation such as soil mass movement can dominate in some
instances.
 According to a classic scheme of the erosive process, the following four phases
are distinguished: rainsplash, sheet, rill, and gully erosion
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 Wind erosion is the process of detachment and transport caused by
fluid (air) action on the soil surface
 process removes the finer particles and the organic matter from
the top soil.
 Redeposition of the soil particles can bury soil and vegetation.
 Process operates in a variety of natural environments that lack a
protective cover of vegetation.
 Erosion control measures
 Ensure soil structure is not destroyed
 Ensure soil has crop cover
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Avoid farming in steep slopes
Use contour farming
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 Ensure there are waterways
 Reduce slope by erection of terraces
 Ensure a cut-off drain is a made at the top.
 Ensure soil clods are not fine
 Moisture content can be maintained by mulching and crop cover
 Reduce wind erosion by reducing wind speed over open fields of land using
wind barriers/wind breaks
 Tillage practices
 Soil management
 Crop and vegetation management
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 Irrigation and Drainage
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 Crop Water Requirements
is necessary to estimate the water volumes to be supplied in
irrigation.
 Evaporation is the physical process by which a liquid is transferred to the
gaseous state.
 Transpiration is the evaporation process of liquid water within a plant
through the stomata and plant surfaces into the air.
 Evapotranspiration (ET) is the combined process by which water is transferred

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from a vegetative cover and soil into the atmosphere through both transpiration
from plants and evaporation from the soil, from dew, and from intercepted
water on the plant surfaces.
 Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) refers to a reference crop
cultivated in reference conditions such that its rate of ET (mm/day) reflects the
climatic conditions characterizing the local environment.

 Crop evapotranspiration (ETc) is defined as the rate of ET (mm/day) of a given

crop as influenced by its growth stages, environmental conditions, and crop
management.
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 The transfer from ET0 to ETc is done by adopting the crop coefficients
(Kc), which represent the ratio between the rates of ET of the cultivated
crop and of the reference crop, that is, Kc =Etc/ET0.
 Or ETc=KcxETo
 irrigation water requirement (IWR) is defined as the net depth of water
(mm) that is required to be applied to a crop to fully satisfy its specific
CWR
 The IWR is the fraction of CWR not satisfied by rainfall, soil
water storage, and groundwater contribution
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 The concept of CWR is essential because it is in the basis of irrigation
planning, irrigation scheduling, and water delivery scheduling, as well
as water resources planning and management.
 CWR as the depth of water (mm) needed to meet the water loss through
evapotranspiration from a disease-free crop, growing in large fields
under non-restricting soil conditions including soil water and fertility,
and achieving full production potential under the given growing
environment.
 Water Retention and Movement
 Soil is a porous system madein up ofSoil
solid, liquid, and gaseous phases.

 The liquid phase (soil solution) consists of soil water, which usually
contains a variety of dissolved minerals and organic substances.
 Water in soil may be encountered in three different states: as a liquid, a
solid (ice), or a gas (water vapor)
 Soil water content generally is defined as the ratio of the mass of soil
water to the mass of dried soil, or as the volume of water per unit volume
of soil.
Irrigation Scheduling Techniques

 Irrigation scheduling is the process of defining the most desirable irrigation
depths and frequencies.
 Scheduling provides for the optimal profit on yield of a crop, taking
into consideration crop, farming, water, and environmental restrictions
 Water is scarce, demand is increasing for irrigation/domestic/industry
 No room for wastage, and conflicts abound
 It is necessary to prevent water waste, but also to avoid negative effects of
over-irrigation on crops, both on yield and on the environment
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 Among the particular determining factors of each farm are water availability,
manpower and energy availability, characteristics of the existing irrigation
system and equipment, legal factors affecting the farmland, and user training
 Other factors are
 soil factors (texture, water-retention capacity, and depth),
 climatic factors (temperature, solar radiation, humidity, wind speed),
 factors related to the crop (crop type and variety, characteristics of root system,
susceptibility to water stress and salinity), and
 cropping factors (sowing time, length of the growth cycle, critical growth stages,
tillage, fertilizing, control of pests, diseases, and weeds)
 Irrigation Methods
 Until the 20th century, all irrigation depended on gravity to deliver water to the
fields and to spread water across the
the land.
 surface of

 efficient engines, pumps, and impact sprinklers allowed farmers to mimic

rainfall with sprinkler irrigation.
 microirrigation has become more common where water is scarce, crop values
are high, and the technology is practical
 Surface irrigation remains the dominant system in use worldwide, although
sprinkler irrigation has become widely used in some areas
 Surface irrigation systems are those that depend on gravity to spread the water
across the surface
of the land
 systems also are referred to as gravity or flood irrigation systems.
 shape of the soil surface and how the water is directed across the surface determine
the types of surface systems (i.e., furrow, border, or basin)
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 Sprinkler systems attempt to mimic rainfall by spraying the water
evenly across the soil surface.
 Water is pressurized with a pump, distributed to areas of the fields through
pipes or hoses, and sprayed across the soil surface with rotating nozzles or
sprayers