Co-Authors:
Morin, J., The Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Abstract:
Effective management for agricultural development depends strongly on the regions' infrastructure and local community's culture and means. Western world agriculture management, cannot simply be copied to the African semitropic conditions. Developing effective management systems for any specific local conditions, demands a quantitative in-depth understanding of the particular soil and climate restrictions in which crust formation, surface seal and very high rain intensities are the dominant factors. A computer-based approach to this problem has been proposed. The approach adopted in Israel will be described in this paper, along with an illustration of applications on various scales of time and space. Study of a Cameroon rain storm reveals a promising method which is based on the small basin concept, absorbing all the rainfall in situ. The system is the Areal Basin, locally called, digutte. The main idea here is to divide the area into big basins, each of them practically a small field. They are to be cultivated by the farmer, whatever means are available to him, that is, manual labor or animal traction. © 1993.