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Fluxes and retention of sediment and nutrients in valley bottom fish and rice farms and wetlands: impacts on surface water

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Abstract

This study compares nutrient and sediment retention among rice and fish farms and wetlands in valley bottoms in southern Rwanda. Small-scale wetland, rice and fishpond experimental systems were established to measure sediment, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fluxes during a 9-month period. There were significant differences in the processes contributing to sediment, N and P retention in the three systems related to system characteristics, management practices, and seasons. Overall nutrient retention was higher in the rice and fish systems, but these systems had higher inputs and outputs of sediment and nutrients. In rice plots, resuspension and discharge of sediment and nutrients to the outflow were caused by ploughing and weeding during the first 3 months of the culture period. In fishponds, nutrients and sediment discharge were associated with water renewal and sediment removal during the last 5 months of the farming period. The undisturbed wetland plots had the lowest outflows of sediment and nutrients. Nutrient uptake and accumulation in biomass was much higher in rice and wetland vegetation than in fish biomass. In fishponds and wetlands, nutrients accumulated in soil, whereas rice plots showed a decrease or depletion in nutrient storage. To increase nutrient utilization at the plot level, sediment and nutrient discharge from land preparation and rice transplanting should be reduced by better farm practices. Within a catchment, nutrient flows can be integrated by using fishpond sediments for crop farming, by incorporating natural wetlands in crop rotations or using them as buffer zones.

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Data availability

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Code availability (software application or custom code)

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted as part of a cooperation between the University of Rwanda (former National University of Rwanda) and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands. Financial support was provided by NUFFIC, The Netherlands through the NICHE programme and the Netherlands Fellowship Programme.

Funding

The Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) provided the research funds through the Nuffic Multi Year Agreement (NUFFIC-MYA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water Resources and Ecosystems, Aquatic Ecosystems Group, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, P.O. Box 3015, 2601 DA, Delft, The Netherlands

    Abias Uwimana, Anne A. van Dam & Kenneth Irvine

  2. College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda

    Abias Uwimana & Umaru G. Wali

  3. Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Kenneth Irvine

  4. Institute for Land, Water & Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, Australia

    Anne A. van Dam

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  1. Abias Uwimana
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  2. Anne A. van Dam
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  4. Kenneth Irvine
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Contributions

AU and AAD conceived the research idea and defined the research objectives and methods. AU and UGW collected the data and drafted the article. AU and AAD analyzed the data. AAD and KI reviewed the first draft. All authors took part in the discussions of the results, contributed to and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Anne A. van Dam.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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The research was conducted at the former National University of Rwanda (NUR). At the time of the study (2012–2013), NUR did not have a policy on ethical issues related to animal experiments. No permission for these experiments was or could be requested. In 2014, all public institutions of higher learning in Rwanda merged into one University of Rwanda (UoR), which established a Research Screening and Ethics Clearance Committee (RSEC-C) which can now grant permission for research involving human participants or living vertebrate animal subjects according to Ethics Operational Guidelines and Procedures.

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No human studies, and no potentially identifiable human images or data are presented in this study.

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Uwimana, A., van Dam, A.A., Wali, U.G. et al. Fluxes and retention of sediment and nutrients in valley bottom fish and rice farms and wetlands: impacts on surface water. Wetlands Ecol Manage 30, 273–293 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-021-09854-0

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