MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

Program to Build Resilience for Food and Nutritionn Security

in the horn of Africa
Swale Structure
Construction
December 2023
Adama
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Contents
Introduction
Design of the Swale

Objectives
Benefits of the Swale
Swale structures Structures
Potential for up scaling

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Introduction
• Rangeland degradation is serious problem affect forage or biomass productivity. The
decline of forage growth or biomass productivity posed a negative impact on the
individual and the economy of the pastoralists as a whole.
• Soil moisture status is very essential for several life processes; it is very limited in arid
climatic zone for biomass growth.
• Even though it is erratic over the season and makes harsh for biomass growth, rainfall
is the principal input of water into the rangeland system and thus plant biomass
production is some function of the total rainfall.
• If rainwater has not taken the form of runoff, then it has infiltrated into the ground.
• To promote plant biomass, this is the pathway that should be favored. When runoff
occurs, it’s erosive nature transports soil nutrients from the site and can even reduce
A-horizon (topsoil) depth, decreasing the amount of water that can be stored in the
soil profile.
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Cont...
• A coping mechanism; reduction of surface run-off by structures will help to
increase infiltration rate and reduce erosion.
• Soil moisture improvement includes understanding about the release pattern
and storage of water by the soil.
• Conservation structures plays an important role in controlling
o Spatial and
o Temporal variations of soil moisture by influencing infiltration rates,
runoff and
o Evapotranspiration, which is important to biomass growth and
vegetation restoration for pastoralists in lowlands.

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Objectives of Swale
To adopt the swale structures within Arid and Sem Arid
area
Enhance the soil and water harvesting approaches within
water shortage area
Easily cover large area with in a short time by using machine

To create better understand the short term and long-term or

sustainable changes have occurred in order to improve the
effectiveness of current or future interventions of swale structur es
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Swale Structures
• A swale is a ditch that is dug along contour line, meaning that it runs
perfectly level across the landscape. It may convey or concave shapes.
• Swales are often the most cost effective type of earthworks (depending on
the situation), catching the most amount of water for the work put into their
construction.
• Once constructed, swales greatly assist the growing of grass, bushes and
trees by capturing rainwater that would otherwise run off the land, eroding
the soil in the process.
• It can be both sustainable and economic because they are relatively easy to
construct
• Furthermore, swales can form good habitats for flora and fauna which
might have lower survival rates in conventional manufactured gullies. 6
Rational for Swale implementation

potential water sources Natural resources conservation

practices in rangeland management is
are usually scarce;
one of the strategies that has proven
groundwater sources effective in combating and even
are costly to access reversing desertification has been
reforestation.

A B
Pastoralist and agro-
pastoralist areas receive
less rainfall than other
regions (ranging between
600mm-200mm/year),
C D
swales greatly assist the growing of grass,
bushes and trees by capturing rainwater that
would otherwise run off the land, eroding
the soil in the process. Additionally, swales
also help to recharge groundwater.
E
Less available of working labor
for Soil and water conservation
structures in arid and semi arid
area/ particularly pastoral area

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Assumption in Swale implementation

The local climate factors including

Land use practices in the
01 temperature, rainfall, wind speed, 04 selected area where free grazing,
humidity and solar radiation,

The soil types, structures and

02 Annual estimates of seepage and 05 texture are similar to the area,
evaporation losses of water,

03 Slope of the swale implemented area 06 Livelihood pattern and

is 4%-25% and semicircle shape settlement arrangement in the
swale structure area,

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Construction of Swales
Nowadays swales are becoming one of the best technology in Water
Catchment Strategies for Drylands.
Arid climates are characterized by large rainfalls occurring in just a few
events each year.
As such, swale dimensions in these regions will be a little different than they
would be in regions with more rainfall.
One easy and inexpensive way to find a level contour is to construct an A-
frame as shown in the diagram and hang a string with a weighted end down
from the top of the A-frame.
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Cont...
• By reducing soil erosion and capturing water that would otherwise have been
lost. Swales contribute to the creation of healthy soils. Nowadays swales is
becoming one of the best technology in Water Catchment Strategies for
Drylands.
• A-frame level to map level areas along the ground. Along the level point, place
stakes as markers. At the end, you will have marked out a contour line.

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 Specification of swale structures
• The distance vertically one swale from another one is 50m with 25m in middle.
• Mark out contour lines about 20 to 50 meters apart from one another. (30m is a
rough guide, as the shape of the land will make the contour lines closer in some
places and further apart in others).
• Dig the swales to be 2 to 3 meters across and about 50 cm deep. The excavated
earth is used in construction of the swale’s mound on the downhill side. When
digging the trench and when constructing the mound of the swale, do not compact
the earth.
Soil Slope Rainfall
Any soil. The sandier the soil, the Swales should be used with caution in areas with
thicker the swale should be. In clayey 5-25% high rainfall (1200 mm or more) as waterlogging
soil, swales can be a bit higher and can occur.
narrower.

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Cont...

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Benefits of Swale
Reduce peak flows; Slow the movement of water through the land-
scape after heavy rainfall; 01
Form a temporary reservoir; A reservoir is a manmade lake that is created like
a dam is built on a river. River water bank store behind the dam creating a reservoir. 02
Facilitate the absorption of water into the ground;Infiltration is the process by which wa-
ter on the ground surface enters the soil. Water not used by plants moves deeper into the 03
ground.
Seeds and organic matter accumulate on the ridge of the swale, causing vegetation to grow, which
stabilizes the ridge.The ridges can also be planted with long-living plants such as comfrey, marigolds,
nasturtiums or grasses.
04
Promote the grass growing;The rain water losses by seepage is promote the germination
of the grass seed in the soil that absorbed and create suitable condition on availability of the
forage for livestock for some period time as rain gone up and recharge the ground water.
05
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Cont....

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Water holding capacity of Swale
• The swale implemented area were covered 802hectares’ in Anajoge kebele Aysha
Woreda Somali Region. Based on the slope the land, there were 5 swales per
hectare.
• It marks out contour lines about 50meters apart from one to another in vertical
distance or if the slope of the land high limit it within 5%. 25meters between the
two line of the starting of other horizontal at line. One line has 50m length.
• The other is begin after 30m horizontal with the same contour line. This means the
structures were designed to construct 50m away one from another vertical with two
swales and 1.5 swale horizontally as a result of one 50m long and 30m apart on from
the next.
• So, the total number of swale constructed on 802 hectares’ of land in Anajoge
kebele Aysha Woreda Somali Region is 4,010 swales structure and or 200,500m
which is equivalent to 200.5km.
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• Excavation of normal soil up to 25cm with trapezoidal shape as shown in the drawing.
• The top width shall be 2.9m and bottom width 1.40m. The length of each swales shall be 50meter as per
the alignment shown on the drawing.
• The shape of the dyke shall be trapezoidal and the top width shall be 0.50m and the bottom width shall
be 1meters in length.
• Each Swales canal (50m length) excavation volume is 26.75m3 that can hold the rain water with the
cannel and each swales has 0.43m diagonal height and (2.9m+5.5m) which is 8.4m width that water
catches on with length of 50 meter has a volume of 180.65m3. The total volume of the swale is 207.4m3.

Volume: Area x hight

TotalVolume: Vexcavated+ Vsurface

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 Cont...
• The total amount of water collected by the swale on 802 hectares’ of land in
Anajoge kebele Aysha Woreda Somali Region is;
4,010 swales structure x Vtotal of Swale 207.4m3, which is equal to
831,674m3

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 Cont...

• The average annual rain fall in Aysha Woreda in year of 2022 is

242.1mm/m2. To estimate the amount of rain fall in the area of
swale construction;
• 802hectare= 8,020,000m2 then,
• 8,020,000m2 x 242.1mm/m2 =1,941,642,000 which is equivalent to
194,164.2m3
• The amount of rain obtained by the swale implemented area in
Aysha Woreda is lower than the capacity of swale structure
constructed in the area.
194,164.2m3 < 831,674m3

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Cont...

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 Biomass in the swale structures
• The result indicated that swale structure increased soil moisture contents
and biomass growth as compared to non-intervention rangelands.
• Because, soil moisture content and biomass had shown substantial
variation with implementation of swale structures.
• This may due to the swale structure in retaining moisture by allowing
infiltration rate during rainfall.
• Effectiveness of swale structure as in-situ moisture conservation method
was highly significant, which enabled rain water to be held on the surface
of land and absorbed by the soil, and useful during the following long spell
of dry weather after raining.
• The land without swale structures showed significantly lower moisture
content and biomass growth compared to the land with swale structures.
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Biomass improved

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Cont...

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Potential for up scaling
• The swale development is a new SWC approach for the country and thus their
performance need to be appraised, particularly focusing on the positive change brought
on soil water retention, grass and biomass and soil productivity in the area.
• Landscape rehydration, swales and regenerative grazing practices will have the
potential for up scaling in the Shrub, Grassland, and Sparsely Vegetated Areas.
• To be assist in the development of appropriate policy and legislative development and
incentives that will play a vital role in addressing the root cause of drought will reduce
the burden of drought for mitigation plans in future.
• All stake holders should scale-up SWALE structure integrated or supported with area
closure for rangeland rehabilitation and alleviate soil moisture stress.
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