Managing crop location with farmers at the watershed level in order to reduce surface runoff. A case study in Pays de Caux, France

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Souchère, Véronique | Joannon, Alexandre | Papy, François | Martin, Philippe | Lapierre, Bénédicte

Edité par CCSD -

1a
1a. In the loam belt of Northern Europe runoff and gully erosion cause severe off-farm damage. Some rainfall events can even be fatal. We studied the possibility of reducing surface runoff, and therefore off-farm damage, by managing crop location at the watershed level without modifying farms’ crop acreage.During 2001 and 2002 we carried out a survey of 14 farmers cultivating approximately 90% of a 1,000 ha watershed located in Pays de Caux, France, an area very prone to surface runoff and gully erosion. We also recorded the land use of each field of each farm from 1996 to 2002. These data allowed us to set up and validate a decision-making model of crop location at the farm level based on the agronomic rules of the farmers. Then we used this model to simulate different crop locations at the watershed level for the year 2002 and so build different scenarios. Simulations of surface runoff made with the STREAM model for each watershed scenario showed that the volume of surface runoff varies by up to 9,000 cubic meters, when comparing the two extreme scenarios.Based on this case study we devised a method to assess how much maneuvering room farmers have for modifying crop location at the farm level. The method combines an indicator and decision-making simulations, both based on farmer’s agronomic rules of crop location. This method has been tested in 2005 with 3 farmers and a water conservation agent. They evaluated it as being useful and, although time-intensive, uncomplicated to implement.

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