One more research paper for ...

One more research paper for you to look into- Agricultural Water Management in Ephemeral Rivers: Community Management in Spate Irrigation in Eritrea

Spate irrigation is a type of water management that makes use of water from "spates", short duration floods. Spates - lasting from a few hours to a few days - are diverted from normally dry riverbeds and spread gently over agricultural land. After the land is inundated crops are sometimes sown immediately. Often the moisture is stored in the soil profile and used later. The spate irrigation systems support low economic value farming systems, usually cereals (sorghum, wheat, barley), oilseeds (mustard, castor, rapeseed), pulses (chickpea, clusterbean), but also cotton, cucurbits and even vegetables. Besides providing irrigation, spates recharge shallow groundwater (especially in river bed), they fill (cattle) ponds and they are used to spread water for pasture or forest land in some places. Says experts - http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/farming-diversity/spate-irrigation-good-for-people-livestock-and