Drought Mitigations Measures on Cuvelai Watershed

1. Civil Engineering Department, Hydraulics, Water Resources and Environment Division, Faculty of Engineering, 

University of Porto, Portugal

2. Group of Hydrology and Water Resources, Faculty of Engineering, Agostinho Neto University, Angola

Abstract: This research aims to characterize the drought phenomena and water scarcity in Angolan agriculture, specifically in the Province of Cunene where the Cuvelai Watershed is located, and to also analyze the impacts on crop yield. Several precautions should be taken to mitigate the adverse effects of drought and water scarcity. Drought commonly forms part of the Angolan climate, as recently, it depicted that plenty of cities are drastically affected by too long periods of drought due to a lack of precipitation. To analyze the drought levels in the Watershed, two (2) drought indexes namely SPEI and SPI were used, allowing the calculation of both the Hydrological and Weather Drought Category, the Alert Level as well as the Level of Intervention. Certain measures used to amend drought include modernization of existing irrigation systems, soil restoration, crop rotation, effective use of irrigation water, rehabilitation, and optimization of water distribution, thus, to achieve this goal, big-scale water retention projects, and irrigation development programs are implemented in many provinces of Angola; The need to increase water supply in Angola is intensifying, thus there is an urge to improve uniform national drought and water scarcity mitigation plans with inclusion of prevention, guidelines to counteract the effects. To solve the numerous water scarcity problems in agriculture, the most appropriate Contingency and Mitigation Measures for the Cuvelai watershed should be taken and together with the issue recommendations are to be applied in vigor.