In many cases, the farm level rainwater harvesting structures were highly effective for rainfed farming and had a multiplier effect on farm income.
Although rainfall in high rainfall regions is sufficient to meet the water demand of crops, its spatial and temporal distribution makes rainfed farming a risky proposition.
The high recharge is probably enhanced by deforestation of the land for subsistence rainfed farming (Ibrahim et al. 2014) that constitutes over 60%% of the land cover within the plain (Ndzeidze 2008).
Rainfed farming in Ethiopia is the main contributor to crop production, but highly variable due to its exposure to rainfall variability (Ford et al. 2015; Conway and Schipper 2011; Deressa et al. 2009).
This high crop yield variability characterizes rainfed farming system in Ethiopia in general and in the central Rift valley (CRV) in particular (Seleshi and Demaree 1995; Conway and Hulme 1993).
We conclude that both variants of conservation tillage (NT and ST) increase SOC stock in the rainfed farming areas of northern China and are therefore more sustainable practices than those currently being used.
The on-farm reservoir (OFR) is used to harvest the surplus water from the diked crop field and recycle the stored water as supplemental irrigation to rice in monsoon (rainy) and non-rice (dry) crops in winter season under rainfed farming system.
We define potentially available cropland as the moderately to highly productive land that could be used in the coming years for rainfed farming, with low to moderate capital investments, and that is not under intact mature forests, legally protected, or already intensively managed.
These factors are major constraints in the predominant rainfed small farm cotton culture of south-central India.
Of the lowland rainfed rice farms worldwide, over 22 million hectares are vulnerable to flash flooding, representing 18% of the global supply of rice (Khush 1984).
