Global Dataset of Sand Dam Features and Geographical Distribution Across Drylands
Date
Authors
Piemontese, L
Villani, L
Limones, N
Aerts, JCJH
Castelli, G
Eisma, JA
Mpofu, B
Neufeld, DG
Ritchie, H
Ryan, Cate
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Abstract
Sand dams are water infrastructure, built across ephemeral sandy rivers, that increase water supply by creating an artificial sandy aquifer upstream of the dam. Despite their effectiveness and recent traction in the research and development arena, empirical data on their distribution and characteristics are scattered and largely unreported. This gap represents a major barrier for understanding the large-scale potential of such a Nature-based Solution and for planning new installations. This paper presents a global dataset of sand dam locations and dimensions, developed collaboratively by research and development experts. We collected sand dam information from several sources, including local sand dam organizations. The data was reviewed and integrated through visual inspection in Google Earth. Although most georeferenced sand dams are from Eastern and Southern Africa, this dataset is a first global inventory and represents an invitation for others working in sand dams around the world to contribute their data. The dataset supports research on the effectiveness of sand dams and can aid practitioners with science-based criteria for sand dam development.Description
Keywords
3707 Hydrology, 37 Earth Sciences, Civil engineering, Water resources
Source
Scientific Data, ISSN: 2052-4463 (Print); 2052-4463 (Online), Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 12(1), 1929-. doi: 10.1038/s41597-025-06197-w
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Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.