WHLab
Water Harvesting Lab
Mechanized water harvesting for the restoration of degraded lands
The edition of 2023-24 of the online course of the Water Harvesting Lab will be on “Mechanized water harvesting for the restoration of degraded lands”
The procedure for the application is online: https://www.unifi.it/formazione_continua#dagri. For the moment it is only in Italian but can be easily translated. An English version will be available soon.
The deadline for applications is May 2nd, 2024.
The course will deal with the presentation of mechanized interventions for soil regeneration able to restore wide areas of degraded lands under arid and semi-arid climate. Technology associated with traditional techniques may allow pasture improvement, reforestation and agroforestry. The Vallerani system will be presented showing the innovative aspect of the mechanization of the traditional “zai” and semi-circular bunds techniques for water harvesting; direct sowing of locally species and transplantation of nursery ones will be made in the created microcatchment.
The course will support students with general information on microcatchment water harvesting interventions and will develop specific skills on siting and monitoring. It will enhance the capabilities of BSc and MSc students, researchers, and academic staff, as well as development practitioners, project managers and agricultural and civil engineers, focusing on interventions dealing with water scarcity adaptation measures.
The following modules are foreseen:
- Introduction to Water Harvesting and the Vallerani System
- Planning of Vallerani interventions
- Project management and monitoring
- Choosing vegetation to be implanted and analysis of environmental effects
The course will start on May 20h, 2024. It will account for 4 ECTS.
Free places will be available for:
- Ph.D. students at the University of Florence (3 places)
- Staff and grant holders and researchers of DAGRI department (3)
- MSc and BSc students at the University of Florences (5)
- Candidates from water scarce and resource-limited countries (10)
In case of free applications exceeding the number of places, separate rankings will be created to assign these places, based on the candidate CV, and eventually her/his country's aridity and Human Development Index.