Project Sudarsus

Project Sudarsus

Agnindhira, G.P.
Duijndam, L.
Groen, C.
Kok, D.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Water Management

2016-02-25

Climate variability in temperature and precipitation has the potential to exacerbate the water scarcity problems already present in many parts of Sub-Saharan Sudan. A socio-hydrological study was carried out to determine the extent to which sorghum, the dominant rain-fed crop in Sudan, is susceptible to this climate variability and how this susceptibility is spatially distributed over the region. A simple 1D soil moisture balance model was developed to generate approximations of the reduction on the relative yield of rain-fed sorghum. After the model was developed, farmers were interviewed in order to identify their perception of crop yields over the same specific period of time. The main outcome of the farmers’ interviews was crop yield ratings. Together these two variables show that the severity of climate variability on rain-fed sorghum yields varies latitudinally across the country, and diagonally (NW-SE) along Al Khartoum, Al Jazirah, and Al Qadarif states. The interview results show a clear distinction between the villages with regards to how farmers rated their crop yields over the years, which coincides well with the biophysical products from the model. An observed difference in distribution concerning the intermediate susceptibility values of the two data sources can be explained with the capital indicator being influential on farmers’ crop yields. It is thus capital that enables farmers to cope with climate variabilities. The model outcome shows different biophysical susceptibilities for each 5 km2 and reveals that the northern states will generally remain more susceptible to crop failure than the southern villages given the lack of precipitation that reaches these areas. Even though the study did produce some conclusions, there is still room for improvement. Socio-economic indicators can be further investigated considering their influence on crop yields. Together with an improved model these indicators have the potential to form a very powerful tool in predicting food security issues before they arise. Keywords:

Sudan
Climate Variability
Rain-fed Agriculture
Socio-economic Indicators
Root-zone Soil Moisture
Multidisciplinary Project

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:539242c6-94e7-428e-b778-ecdbadadf44c

TU Delft, Department Water Management

Campus only

14.4011800, 33.5198900

Master Project Report

Student theses

student report

(c) 2016 The authors