Investigating the solar energy potential for irrigation system and climate change adaptation in Rwanda. The case study: Bugesera district Rurambi wetland

Abstract

Climate change is a major challenge lead to low rainfall and Water scarcity especially during the dry season and small holder’s farmers at Rurambi wetland struggle to find the alternative way to water their plants where traditional irrigation practices is the common strategy they use to face with that challenge yet tradition irrigation or hand irrigation is not efficient for them as the survey revealed , this study aim to investigate the solar energy potential as energy for irrigation system which can be a best solution to the crops for the small holders farmers at Rurambi wetland , average solar energy potential of Bugesera range 506w/m2 to 751 w/m2 which make a region feasible for irrigation system based on solar ,the minimum solar radiation occurred in rain season where no irrigation is needed and the summer show the highest peak of solar radiation in the time where the irrigation is highly needed,Bugesera is district which is characterized by low precification since the average annual rainfall for 40 yrs revealed that is below 1000m and is region of high temperature which is associated with higher solar radiation and the total number of sunshine hours is above 5 hours per day. due that is region of partly clouds which allow the incoming solar radiation to pass through. All these factors make Bugesera region a good area of using solar powered system for helping communities. solar irrigation system can’t be only solution for increasing the crops production but also the solution for climate change adaptation since solar irrigation system use clean energy from the sun. The survey that was made revealed that most farmers use tradition irrigation for watering their crops Quantitatively, empirical data from interviews with farmers in the Bugesera district revealed that 90% of respondents, constituting 119 individuals, rely on manual irrigation practices, while the remaining 10%, comprising 13 farmers, employ alternative methods to fortify their climate change resilience. Almost farmers in this area cope with that challenge of water scarcity for their crops due to unreliable rainfall by using irrigation method which is hand irrigation although they reported that hand irrigation is not efficient for them and it is time consuming.