International Experts Consultation Meeting on Spate Irrigation

07/04/2008-10/04/2008

The Regional Office for the Near East of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will hold an International Experts Consultation Meeting on Spate Irrigation in Cairo, Egypt, from 7 to 10 April inclusive.

The workshop will take place from 9:00 a.m. at Flamenco Hotel, Zamalek, Cairo; with the participation of more than 25 specialists from around the world will attend this meeting which aims at exchanging experience and reviewing the state of the art of spate irrigation worldwide, including innovations in technology and practices, social considerations and economic aspects.

The outcome of the meeting will also serve for updating FAO Guidelines on Spate Irrigation which were first published in 1982. The guidelines are published by FAO for use by farmers, technicians and researchers.

It is worth to note that spate irrigation is the application of spate waters or flush floods that occur in wadis and ephemeral rivers following precipitation in their upstream basins. These floods occur only rarely and often constitute the main source of water in arid and semi-arid areas. Farmers in these areas have since ancestral times mastered the art of harnessing the flush floods and using them for growing crops and recharging groundwater aquifers.