Premium
Large‐scale siting of sand dams: A participatory approach and application in Angolan drylands
Author(s) -
Piemontese Luigi,
Castelli Giulio,
Limones Natalia,
Grazio Alice,
Bresci Elena
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
land degradation and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1099-145X
pISSN - 1085-3278
DOI - 10.1002/ldr.4500
Subject(s) - ephemeral key , arid , rainwater harvesting , environmental science , citizen journalism , water resource management , scale (ratio) , environmental resource management , resilience (materials science) , hydrology (agriculture) , environmental planning , geography , geology , ecology , geotechnical engineering , computer science , physics , cartography , world wide web , biology , thermodynamics , paleontology
Sand dams are simple and effective structures built across ephemeral riverbeds in arid/ semiarid regions to harvest water within sand pores and increase water availability and quality for rural communities. The complex morphological, hydrological, social, and economic conditions that make sand dams a beneficial tool for water resilience are largely influenced by the siting phase. Proper location of a sand dam can reduce communities' travel time to water points, reduce water conflicts, and increase food security through expansion of irrigated agriculture. On the other hand, a misplacement of sand dams can, at worst, increase disparities in water access and increase local conflicts. To approach a viable siting of sand dams, most projects are developed and delivered with the community through a bottom‐up approach. However, in the case of large‐scale projects, remote sensing and biophysical analysis are the dominant approach, leaving the socio‐economic component at the margins of the siting strategy and eventually affecting the benefits to local communities. In this paper, we propose a large‐scale participatory methodology to sand dams siting, which draws on mixed‐methods connecting the conventional top‐down biophysical analysis with bottom‐up participatory research. We first describe the generic approach developed for sand dams siting in Namibe, a semi‐arid region of Southwest of Angola, then we draw on our case to propose a generic approach to large‐scale participatory siting beyond Namibe.