Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Civil Engineering

Rainfed agriculture is important globally as it covers 80% of the arable crop land providing 60% of global food and fiber production. Egypt is one of the arid countries of Africa, and food production depends mainly on irrigated agriculture. This thesis focuses on increasing the effectiveness of field-level rainfed agriculture in arid and semi-arid areas by reducing surface flow and maximizing the storage of soil water in the root zone. In this work, Hydrus-2D was used to simulate water infiltration and redistribution in sloping terraces located in the North Coast of Egypt as an arid region and in the Abha region of Saudi Arabia as a semi-arid region. Various scenarios have been studied to determine the extent to which the water needs of the crop (wheat / barley) are met under the prevailing natural conditions and in the case of creating vertical trenches normal to the direction of the land slope of the earth surface and in the case of trenches with the addition of supplementary irrigation for different rain distributions and different distances between trenches. Positive results have been obtained for the use of rain harvesting techniques at the field level where productivity can be doubled in the case of trenches with supplemental irrigation

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