Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
this period. Spot images for the study area lacked quality or fell outside the
required period. The most reliable source of satellite images was Google
Earth which had historical images from 2003 to present within the required
period and with a resolution of 5mx5m.
The Google Earth images for 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2010 were screen-printed
at high resolution and later merged. The irrigation activities observed in the
Google earth images were delineated with the help of ground observations.
The forecasting of future irrigation development is based on the following
factors: historical trend, irrigation potential, possible future interventions
(policies, investments and technology), and emerging issues (economy,
markets and entrepreneurship) (Shah, 2003; Faurès et al., 2007; Molle and
Berkoff, 2006).
7.3 P
AST
T
REND OF
I
RRIGATION
D
EVELOPMENT
IN THE
W
HITE
V
OLTA SUB
-
BASIN
Irrigation development in the White Volta sub-basin started during the
colonial era by the colonial governments and continued through the post-
colonial era by governments in partnership with development agencies. In
recent times private-led irrigation development has also been significant in
the sub-basin.
Governments started with the development of small-reservoirs and dugouts
purposely for domestic water-use, livestock and irrigation. The development
of small-reservoir based irrigation systems in Burkina Faso began in the
1940s. In 1991, 1100 village dams had been built in Burkina Faso, mainly for
cattle and drinking water purposes (Sally, 1997). Presently, many dams in
Burkina Faso are built or converted to function also as reservoirs for
irrigation water (van de Giesen, et al., 2001). Currently there are over 1700
small-reservoirs developed in Burkina Faso with half of them located in the
White Volta sub-basin (Cecchi et al. 2009; Boelee et al., 2009).
In Ghana, the development of small-reservoirs and dug-outs began in the
early 1950s for the same reasons as in Burkina Faso. Presently there are
about 200 small reservoirs developed in the Ghana section of the White
Volta sub-basin. Data compiled by GIDA in 1994 showed that there were
about 73 dugouts in the Upper East Region. Literature (Ofori et al., 2006)
shows that by 2003 there were over 850 dugouts in the Northern and Upper
East Regions of Ghana.
The governments of Ghana and Burkina Faso have also developed large-scale
irrigation schemes in the White Volta sub-basin. The large-scale irrigation
schemes developed in the White Volta sub-basin of Ghana are the Vea (850
Search WWH ::
Custom Search