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

Long-term Europe-Africa Research and Innovation Partnership for Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture

Titre : DOWN2EARTH : Translation of climate information into multilevel decision support for social adaptation, policy development, and resilience to water scarcity in the Horn of Africa Drylands

Pays/Région : Kenya ; Somalia ; Ethiopia

Date : Start date 2020-09-01 End date 2024-08-31

Identifiant : 217-DOWN2EARTH
Type de projet : Development and innovation oriented (research) project

Objectif
Prolonged periods of extreme water scarcity induced by drought are detrimental to regional economies through crop and livestock loss, threatening food security in rural communities, and making politically unstable regions more vulnerable to conflict, terrorism, and mass migration. The rural communities of the Horn of Africa Drylands (HAD) are extremely vulnerable to food insecurity and associated economic losses during drought conditions due to low socio-economic levels and low adaptive capacity to climatic shocks, such that frequent and more severe droughts in HAD have dramatically reduced soil moisture and affecting drinking water reserves, leading to increased food insecurity, livestock loss, and major water shortages. DOWN2EARTH is composed of a multidisciplinary project team that will deliver state-of-the-art and community relevant climate services that focus on water scarcity and its consequences at or near the Earth’s surface (hence DOWN2EARTH) to increasingly vulnerable agro-pastoral populations in HAD. The project is designed to bolster existing climate services frameworks, improve decision support to governments and NGOs in the most vulnerable HAD countries (Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia), and to improve community-centric adaptation and resilience to climate change. The project will : assess the socio-economic dimensions and human dynamics of climate change including feedbacks between climatic shocks, human behavior, and policy implementation ; characterize historical trends and future projections of water scarcity, food insecurity, population, and land use ; develop and enhance multi-level decision-support tools that emphasize the translation of climate information into critical land and water information required for adaptation and resilience by end users and state/regional governments ; and strengthen regional climate services through capacity building, citizen science, information dissemination, expansion of data networks, and policy implementation.

Coordinateur : Cardiff University
Partenaires : University of Bristol VU Amsterdam Ghent University University of East Anglia University of Hohenheim Igad Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) ActionAid Kenya Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Climate Analytics BBC Media Action Transparency Solutions University of Nairobi Addis Ababa University

Financement principal : Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) (H2020)
Budget : 6 645 664 EUR

FNSSA project database