Microcatchment Water Harvesting: For Desert Revegetation
Microcatchment Water Harvesting: For Desert Revegetation
Microcatchment Water Harvesting: For Desert Revegetation
SERG
Soil Ecology and Restoration Group
Restoration Bulletin #5
Microcatchment Water
Harvesting for Desert
Revegetation
Q. What is a microcatchment?
A. A microcatchment is a
specially contoured area
with slopes and berms
designed to increase runoff
from rain and concentrate
it in a planting basin
where it infiltrates and is
effectively “stored” in the
soil profile. The water is
available to plants but
protected from evaporation. Water capture in catchments
200
Seed Yield,( Grams/Plant)
150
O
100 M
W
50
1974 1977
Figure 1: Seed production in Jojoba plants
not receiving supplemental water (0) produce
much less seed than those in microcatchments
(M) and especilally those in wax treated
microcatchments (W).
A. Microcatchments work best on gentle slopes (ideally less than 5%), but
steeper slopes can be used if the catchment basins are small. Basins can
also be made on flat ground.
A. The slope is
divided into plots
by small earth
ridges 4-8 inches
high and 8-14
inches wide. The
ridges can be
constructed by
hand or with a
small plow using
the soil excavated
from the planting
Microcatchment construction — Israel basin. Catchment
basins are suscep-
tible to siltation and erosion if undesired runoff is allowed to enter the
system, so protective diversion ditches and berms are often constructed
above microcatchment areas subject to extensive ground flow.
Basin size depends upon design requirements. Small basins can be constructed
by hand labor, but larger catchments should be built with equipment. Basins
should be shaped to form inverted truncated pyramids. The soil removed from
the basin area is deposited and spread on the border ridges.
slope = 7% ground
level
1m
14 m
100.0%
75.0%
Percent Survival
Prosopis sp.
50.0%
Atriplex sp.
25.0%
0.0%
Planting Technique
References and further reading
Boers, Th. M., K. Zondervan and J. Ben-Asher. 1986. Microcatchment
water harvesting for arid zone development. Agricultural Water
Management. 12:21-39.
Cluff, C. B. and R. K. Frobel. 1978. Catchment construction methods. pp. 2-11.
In Water Harvesting Catchment and Reservoir Construction Methods.
Water Resources Contribution Number 2. College of Earth Sciences,
University of Arizona, Tucson.
Ehrler, W. L., D. H. Fink and S. T. Mitchell. 1978. Growth and yield of jojoba
plants in native stands using runoff-collecting microcatchments.
Agronomy Journal 70:1005-1009.
Evenari, M. 1975. Fields and Pastures in Deserts: A Low Cost Method for
Agriculture in Semi-Arid Lands. Eduard Roether, Bundesrepublik
Deutschland. 37 p.
Evenari, M., L. Shanan and N. H. Tadmor. 1971. The Negev. Harvard
University Press, Boston. pp. 221-228.
Fink, D. H., K. R. Cooley and G. W. Frasier. 1973. Wax treated soils for
harvesting water. Journal of Range Management 26(6):396-398.
Glanzberg, J. 1994. Water harvesting traditions in the desert southwest.
Permaculture Drylands Journal 20:8-14.
Howell, D. 1989. How to harvest water with microcatchments. Permaculture
Drylands Journal 5.
Howell, K. and D. Howell. 1991. Water conservation in the home.
Permaculture Drylands Journal 8.
Karpiscak, M. M. 1988. Water harvesting on farmland retired from
groundwater-irrigated agriculture. pp. 273-280. In Arid Lands: Today
and Tomorrow.1988. Westview Press, Inc. Boulder, Colorado.
Laryea, K. B. 1992. Rainfed agriculture: water harvesting and soil
conservation. Outlook on Agriculture 21(4): 271-277.
Lightfoot, D. C. and W. G. Whitford. 1991. Productivity of creosote bush
foliage and associated canopy arthropods along a desert roadside.
American Midland Naturalist 125: 310-322.
Orev, Y. 1988. Some considerations in the planning of runoff farming.
Desertification Control Bulletin 16:13-16.
Rees, D. J., Z. A. Qureshi, S. Mehmood and S. H. Raza. 1991. Catchment
basin water harvesting as a means of improving the productivity of
rain-fed land in upland Baluchistan. Journal of Agricultural Science
116: 95-103.
Shanan, L. and N. H. Tadmor. 1979. Microcatchment System for Arid Zone
Development. Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 99 p.
Shanan, L., N. H. Tadmor, M. Evenari, and P. Reiniger. 1970. Runoff farming
in the desert. III. Microcatchments for improvement of desert range.
Agronomy Journal 62:445-448.
Sharma, K. D., O. P. Pareek and N. P. Singh. 1986. Micro-catchment water
harvesting for raising jojoba orchards in an arid climate. Transactions
of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers 29: 112-118.
Report from the field
Fred Edwards and
David Bainbridge
Prepared for the California Department of Transportation, Biology, District 11, 2829
Juan Street, San Diego, CA 92186. We thank Caltrans for their support and assistance.