Characterisation of soil degradation under intensive rice production in Office du Niger zone of Mali

Abstract

Food security is a major priority of the most Sahelian governments. With the cyclic droughts, irrigation has shown the potential of ensuring self sufficiency in food production. Unfortunately, soils of irrigated areas in Sub Sahara African countries have continued to be degraded as a result of poor irrigation management practices. In the "Office du Niger" zones, for example, producers and extension workers are concerned about emerging soil degradation symptoms such as salinisation/alkalinisation or sodisation. Whereas the above problems require urgent attention, the phenomenon has been treated as localised and therefore not very important. From 1995 to 1999, studies were conducted by "the Pole regional de recherche sur les Systemes Irrigues (PSI)" which was a regional networking project, to determine the nature, importance and dynamics of soil degradation processes in irrigated zones of Mali A piezometric network installed in the area revealed the impact of cropping systems and soil types on the evolution of water table in terms of dynamics and quality. The results clearly show evidence of soil geochemical changes and water management of the irrigated areas. The present paper highlights the research conducted to combat soil degradation in the irrigated rice system in the "Office du Niger" in Mali from 1995 to the present days.