Runoff water management technologies for dryland agriculture on the Loess Plateau of China

Arid and semi-arid environments undergo periodic seasonal agricultural droughts of varying extents and duration, erratic and ineffective rainfall of high intensity and short duration, with high surface runoff. High efficiency water-harvesting agriculture has been routinely used in the Loess Plateau agricultural production of China over the past 10 years. Localized habitat effect and regional water resource enrichment are the theoretical basis of high efficient water-harvesting agriculture. Features of this agricultural system are described, including: water harvesting of surface runoff from roads and collection in concrete yards on plastic sheets; water storage cellar tanks for harvesting runoff to provide life-saving/critical irrigation, with devices for water lifting and conveying such as hand pumps and pipelines; feasible methods of water use for limited supplies such as drip, hole, subsoil, and super-sheet irrigation; agronomic measures of high water use efficiency; and field micro-catchment for water harvesting and conservation to increase fallow efficiency in rainy seasons. Using the stored runoff water to irrigate the mulched winter wheat and spring corn, as well as vegetables and fruit trees, significant yield increasing and water use efficiency improvements have been achieved. Plastic mulching for increasing fallow efficiency in rainy seasons and improving yield of the next winter wheat crop have been developed and demonstrated. These techniques have provided obvious benefits in terms of soil and water conservation on slope farmland in the hill regions and remarkable effects of storing water and reducing drought in the dryland farming regions have been obtained.