Food Insecurity & Hydroclimate in Greater Horn of Africa

Food Insecurity & Hydroclimate in Greater Horn of Africa PDF

Author: Joseph Awange

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783030910037

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This book will benefit users in food security, agriculture, water management, and environmental sectors. It provides the first comprehensive analysis of Greater Horn of Africa (GHA)'s food insecurity and hydroclimate using the state-of-the-art Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its Follow-on (GRACE-FO)'s, centennial precipitation, hydrological models' and reanalysis' products. It is here opined that GHA is endowed with freshwater (surface and groundwater) being home to the world's second largest freshwater body (Lake Victoria) and the greatest continental water towers (Ethiopian Highlands) that if properly tapped in a sustainable way, will support its irrigated agriculture as well as pastoralism. First, however, the obsolete Nile treaties that hamper the use of Lake Victoria (White Nile) and Ethiopian Highland (Blue Nile) have to be unlocked. Moreover, GHA is bedevilled by poor governance and the ``donor-assistance" syndrome; and in 2020-2021 faced the so-called ``triple threats'' of desert locust infestation, climate variability/change impacts and COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, climate extremes influence its meagre waters leading to perennial food insecurity. Coupled with frequent regional and local conflicts, high population growth rate, low crop yield, invasion of migratory pests, contagious human and livestock diseases (such as HIV/AIDs, COVID-19 & Rift Valley fever) and poverty, life for more than 310 million of its inhabitants simply becomes unbearable. Alarming also is the fact that drought-like humanitarian crises are increasing in GHA despite recent progress in its monitoring and prediction efforts. Notwithstanding these efforts, there remain challenges stemming from uncertainty in its prediction, and the inflexibility and limited buffering capacity of the recurrent impacted systems. To achieve greater food security, therefore, in addition to boosting GHA's agricultural output, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs suggest that its "inhabitants must create more diverse and stable means of livelihood to insulate themselves and their households from external shocks". This is a task that they acknowledge will not be easy as the path ahead is "strewn with obstacles namely; natural hazards and armed conflicts". Understanding GHA's food insecurity and its hydroclimate as presented in this book is a good starting point towards managing the impacts of the natural hazards on the one hand while understanding the impacts associated with extreme climate on GHA's available water and assessing the potential of its surface and groundwater to support its irrigated agriculture and pastoralism would be the first step towards "coping with drought" on the other hand. The book represents a significant effort by Prof Awange in trying to offer a comprehensive overview of the hydroclimate in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). Prof Eric F. Wood, NAE (USA); FRSC (Canada); Foreign member, ATSE (Australia).

Food Insecurity & Hydroclimate in Greater Horn of Africa

Food Insecurity & Hydroclimate in Greater Horn of Africa PDF

Author: Joseph Awange

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 3030910024

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This book will benefit users in food security, agriculture, water management, and environmental sectors. It provides the first comprehensive analysis of Greater Horn of Africa (GHA)’s food insecurity and hydroclimate using the state-of-the-art Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its Follow-on (GRACE-FO)’s, centennial precipitation, hydrological models’ and reanalysis’ products. It is here opined that GHA is endowed with freshwater (surface and groundwater) being home to the world's second largest freshwater body (Lake Victoria) and the greatest continental water towers (Ethiopian Highlands) that if properly tapped in a sustainable way, will support its irrigated agriculture as well as pastoralism. First, however, the obsolete Nile treaties that hamper the use of Lake Victoria (White Nile) and Ethiopian Highland (Blue Nile) have to be unlocked. Moreover, GHA is bedevilled by poor governance and the ``donor-assistance” syndrome; and in 2020-2021 faced the so-called ``triple threats’’ of desert locust infestation, climate variability/change impacts and COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, climate extremes influence its meagre waters leading to perennial food insecurity. Coupled with frequent regional and local conflicts, high population growth rate, low crop yield, invasion of migratory pests, contagious human and livestock diseases (such as HIV/AIDs, COVID-19 & Rift Valley fever) and poverty, life for more than 310 million of its inhabitants simply becomes unbearable. Alarming also is the fact that drought-like humanitarian crises are increasing in GHA despite recent progress in its monitoring and prediction efforts. Notwithstanding these efforts, there remain challenges stemming from uncertainty in its prediction, and the inflexibility and limited buffering capacity of the recurrent impacted systems. To achieve greater food security, therefore, in addition to boosting GHA's agricultural output, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs suggest that its “inhabitants must create more diverse and stable means of livelihood to insulate themselves and their households from external shocks”. This is a task that they acknowledge will not be easy as the path ahead is “strewn with obstacles namely; natural hazards and armed conflicts”. Understanding GHA’s food insecurity and its hydroclimate as presented in this book is a good starting point towards managing the impacts of the natural hazards on the one hand while understanding the impacts associated with extreme climate on GHA's available water and assessing the potential of its surface and groundwater to support its irrigated agriculture and pastoralism would be the first step towards “coping with drought” on the other hand. The book represents a significant effort by Prof Awange in trying to offer a comprehensive overview of the hydroclimate in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). Prof Eric F. Wood, NAE (USA); FRSC (Canada); Foreign member, ATSE (Australia).

Integrating Climate and Non- Climate Factors to Characterize Food Insecurity Hotspots Over the Horn of Africa

Integrating Climate and Non- Climate Factors to Characterize Food Insecurity Hotspots Over the Horn of Africa PDF

Author: Dickens Molo

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The study interrogates the effect of climate and non-climate factors in identification and determination of food insecurity hotspots in the Horn of Africa (HoA), with a specific focus on Ethiopia. This region is challenged by a multitude of exogenous and endogenous factors that affect the interventions by government and non-government agencies to realize food security. Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) was applied to characterize the drought conditions as a climate factor. SPEI data was downloaded from Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) Archive. The study also used Malaria transmission risk analysis data from Tuft University data Lab, and Conflict and Displacement data from the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) data as non-climate factors in food insecurity hotspot identification. Geospatial analysis and mapping were done to identify hotspots using ESRI ArcMap analysis and overlay tools. The findings based on the model developed found variation spatial variation between the food insecurity identification and classifications to the model commonly used by International humanitarian agencies like Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) and UN-OCHA. The North Eastern part of Ethiopia, borders of Eritrea and Afar region, together with the south eastern part borders of Somalia, Somali and Oromia regions showed severe and emergency food insecurity situations unlike the other model. The results of temporal analysis showed an increasing trend from 3 months to 12 months across the region. In conclusion, the findings of this study show that inclusion of Malaria and Conflict factors as non-climate drivers of food insecurity resulted in different classifications compared to the classification categories by FEWSNET and other humanitarian organization in Ethiopia. This resulted in the identification of food insecurity hotspot region that were not classified as such by FEWSNET. These findings have major implications for emergency response and food aid distribution, and points to the need for governments and humanitarian to consider non-climatic factors such as population distribution in conducting an analysis of food insecurity status.

The Global Engineers

The Global Engineers PDF

Author: Evan Thomas

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-07-17

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 3030502635

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The Global Engineers: Building a Safe and Equitable World Together, is inspired by the opportunities for engineers to contribute to global prosperity. This book presents a vision for Global Engineering, and identifies that engineers should be concerned with the unequal and unjust distribution of access to basic services, such as water, sanitation, energy, food, transportation, and shelter. As engineers, we should place an emphasis on identifying the drivers, determinants, and solutions to increasing equitable access to reliable services. Global Engineering envisions a world where everyone has safe water, sanitation, energy, food, shelter, and infrastructure, and can live in health, dignity, and prosperity. This book seeks to examine the role and ultimately the impact of engineers in global development. Engineers are solutions-oriented people. We enjoy the opportunity to identify a product or need, and design appropriate technical solutions. However, the structural and historical barriers to global prosperity requires that Engineers focus more broadly on improving the tools and practice of poverty reduction and that we include health, economics, policy, and governance as relevant expertise with which we are conversant. Engineers must become activists and advocates, rejecting ahistorical technocratic approaches that suggest poverty can be solved without justice or equity. Engineers must leverage our professional skills and capacity to generate evidence and positive impact toward rectifying inequalities and improving lives. Half of this book is dedicated to profiles of engineers and other technical professionals who have dedicated their careers to searching for solutions to global development challenges. These stories introduce the reader to the diverse opportunities and challenges in Global Engineering.

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