Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Water Resources and Resilience in Agricultural Landscapes : A Social-ecological systems analysis in the Upper Blue Nile Basin

Pays/Région : Upper Blue Nile Basin

Date : 1 January 2012–31 December 2014

Identifiant : 2011-00763_Formas

Présentation
Water scarcity is among the most challenging issues facing humanity. Agriculture in the tropics is predominantly rainfed and yield are currently low. At the same time extreme variabilty of rainfall, generating frequent droughts and dry spells leads to high risk of crop failure, and low incentives to invest in the production systems.

Unavoidable climate change, due to an already committed warming ranging from 1-2 degrees Celcius, will increase these extreme events. This reserach will explore the potential of water harvesting systems to reduce water related risks, and improve the agricultural production by bridging dry spells and droughts. At the same time the research will analyse the risk of crossing water induced thresholds, the opportunities to use innovations in water management to build resilience against such risks, and assess the consequences on downstream social-ecological systems of large scale implementation of water management strategies. The research will be carried out in the upper Blue Nile river basin in Ethiopia. It will combine empirical field research, hydrological modeling and spatial analysis. The water harvesting technologies will be integrated with the hydrological model and scenario runs for the different water management options will be performed thereby enabling an analysis of downstream blue water impacts. The research will be applied and carried out closely with local farmers, generating mutual benefits on knowledge development.

Coordination : Stockholm University

Financement : Formas
Budget : 3,120,000 kr

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