Seasonal forecasting in the Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia for ensuring food and water security
Abstract
The Blue Nile Basin (BNB), Ethiopia has the physical resources to drive regional economic growth through irrigated agriculture and hydropower development, but its vulnerability to exceptional hydrologic variability and sensitivity to climate change have limited this development. Improved management of water resources and crop yields through seasonal forecasts in the BNB are crucial for human security across the region.
The work presented here is part of an NSF (National Science Foundation) funded PIRE (Partnerships for International Research and Education) project, a multi-year collaborative endeavor between USA, European and Ethiopian Institutions (www.pire.engr.uconn.edu) that seeks to understand how the relationships between scientists, farmers and water managers influence the production, dissemination, and outcome of new scientific knowledge. Drawing on strong collaborations with partners in Ethiopia, we are introducing improved forecast products in four rain-fed and two irrigated agricultural communities in the BNB, while observing the social interactions that surround this transnational scientific intervention. The forecast product was produced by incorporating seasonal forecasting information from statistical and dynamical models and modeling tools (hydrologic, groundwater and crop yield models) to predict total precipitation and onset, soil moisture and crop yields for the Kiremt season and reservoir levels, soil moisture and crop yields for the Bega season. The model results were integrated in the form of a bulletin, which was translated in Amharic and introduced to farmers and water managers by trained local agricultural extension agents. By incorporating hydro-climatic forecasts from data-enhanced models and social scientific data, the research seeks to help small holder farmers make practical decisions about water, crops and fertilizers and ultimately gain more secure access to food and water in the face of increasingly challenging climatic extremes. Acknowledgment: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1545874.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H33P2254D
- Keywords:
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- 1816 Estimation and forecasting;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1833 Hydroclimatology;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6344 System operation and management;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES