Optimal Allocation of Rainfall in the Sichuan Basin, Southwest China

Traditional water allocation at a regional or basin scale can be too coarse to be used in a local area such as a village. For example, in the hilly area of Sichuan Basin the landform is fragmented and land use pattern consists of small farms. Furthermore, seasonal drought occurs frequently due to sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources management 2010-12, Vol.24 (15), p.4529-4549
Main Authors: Zhang, Weihua, Wei, Chaofu, Zhou, Jia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Allocations
Atmospheric Sciences
Basins
Civil Engineering
Crop evapotranspiration
Crop yield
Crops
Drought
Droughts
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Efficiency
Environment
Exact sciences and technology
Farms
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Humidity
Hydrogeology
Hydrology
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Irrigation
Land use
Precipitation
Rain
Rainfall
Reduction
Reservoirs
Resource management
Seasonal drought
Small farms
Soil reservoir
Studies
Supply & demand
Temperature
Water
Water allocation
Water balance
Water resources
Water resources management
Water shortages
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Summary:Traditional water allocation at a regional or basin scale can be too coarse to be used in a local area such as a village. For example, in the hilly area of Sichuan Basin the landform is fragmented and land use pattern consists of small farms. Furthermore, seasonal drought occurs frequently due to spatially and temporally variability in rainfall patterns. These droughts often lead to a reduction in crop yield or no yield at all. Due to the remoteness and scale of the farms, the farm populations are dependent on the annual crop yield. A poor harvest can mean serious hardships to the farmers. In order to mitigate the seasonal drought we first analyzed the drought characteristics from both meteorological and soil aspects. The results showed that both the spring droughts and canicular days (dog-day) droughts had in excess of a 60% chance of occurring. Using a water balance approach, we found that a series of storage ponds and bunds could greatly reduce the impact of these droughts.
ISSN:0920-4741
1573-1650
DOI:10.1007/s11269-010-9673-1