Abstract:
Rain water harvesting is thought to provide an alternative source of water in the prevailing situations where rainfall is unreliable in both distribution and amounts. The government of Ethiopia has rapidly expanded on-farm based rainwater harvesting (RWH) interventions. Undoubtedly, the scheme has offered numerous advantages to its beneficiaries, but it was not without setbacks. The main objective of this study was therefore, to identify factors influencing adoption of cemented pond rain water harvesting technology in Misirak Badawacho Woreda. Primary data collected from a sample of 135 randomly selected sample households, 55 Adopters and 80 non-Adopters of the technology. Instruments for data collection include questionnaires, observation focus group discussion and key informant interviews. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from the sampled households. A multistage sampling procedure was used to identify the KAs and then households. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation and percentage. T-test and chi-square (χ2) tests were employed to examine the mean difference of adopters and non-adopters for both continuous and dummy variables, respectively. Results of the econometric (binary logit) analysis was used to identify factors influencing adoption of rain water harvesting technology. The results indicate that age of household heads ,educational status of household head, family size, farm size, livestock holding, frequency of contacts with extension agent and market distance were found to have positive and significant influence on adoption of RWHT. Generally, rainwater harvesting technology gave advantage on household income and diversify crop production. Therefore, governmental, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, development agents and projects need to carefully arrange attributes that have a higher preference and taking into account the different factors influencing adoption of the technology.
