Impact of irrigation on poverty and environment in Ethiopia. Draft Proceeding of the Symposium and Exhibition held at Ghion Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 27th -29th November, 2007

Poverty, Crop management, Irrigated farming, Rainfed farming, Irrigation systems, Food security, Water harvesting, Institutions, Environmental effects, Public health, Malaria, GIS, Remote sensing, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Impacts of improving water management of smallholder agriculture in the Upper Blue Nile Basin

With its total area of about 200,000 square kilometers (km2), which is 20% of the country’s land mass, and accommodating 25% of the population, the Upper Blue Nile Basin (Abbay) is one of the most important river basins in Ethiopia. About 40% of agricultural products and 45% of the surface water of the country are contributed by this basin. However, the characteristic-intensive biophysical variation, rapid population growth, land degradation, climatic fluctuation and resultant low agricultural productivity and poverty are posing daunting challenges to sustainability of agricultural production systems in the basin. This calls for technological interventions that not only enhance productivity and livelihoods in the basin, but also bring about positive spillover effects on downstream water users. In this study, the farming systems in the basin have been stratified and characterized; and promising agricultural water management technologies, which may upgrade the productivity of smallholder rainfed agriculture while improving downstream water quality, have been identified. As a consequence, supplementary and full irrigation using rainwater and drainage of waterlogged soils are recognized as being among the promising agricultural water management technologies that can be easily scaled-up in the basin. The magnitude of the impacts of these technologies on the productivity of the upstream farming systems and the concomitant effects on the downstream water flow and quality are under investigation, assuming an assortment of scenarios.Length: pp.7-21River basinsFarming systemsCerealsRainfed farmingWater harvestingIrrigated farming

Flow Regime Classification and Hydrological Characterization: A Case Study of Ethiopian Rivers

The spatiotemporal variability of a stream flow due to the complex interaction of catchment attributes and rainfall induce complexity in hydrology. Researchers have been trying to address this complexity with a number of approaches; river flow regime is one of them. The flow regime can be quantified by means of hydrological indices characterizing five components: magnitude, frequency, duration, timing, and rate of change of flow. Similarly, this study aimed to understand the flow variability of Ethiopian Rivers using the observed daily flow data from 208 gauging stations in the country. With this process, the Hierarchical Ward Clustering method was implemented to group the streams into three flow regimes (1) ephemeral, (2) intermittent, and (3) perennial. Principal component analysis (PCA) is also applied as the second multivariate analysis tool to identify dominant hydrological indices that cause the variability in the streams. The mean flow per unit catchment area (QmAR) and Base flow index (BFI) show an incremental trend with ephemeral, intermittent and perennial streams. Whereas the number of mean zero flow days ratio (ZFI) and coefficient of variation (CV) show a decreasing trend with ephemeral to perennial flow regimes. Finally, the streams in the three flow regimes were characterized with the mean and standard deviation of the hydrological variables and the shape, slope, and scale of the flow duration curve. Results of this study are the basis for further understanding of the ecohydrological processes of the river basins in Ethiopia

Improved water and land management in the Ethiopian highlands and its impact on downstream stakeholders dependent on the Blue Nile

Improved water and land management in the Ethiopian highlands and its impact on downstream stakeholders dependent on the Blue Nile – short title Upstream-Downstream in Blue Nile River project is one of the projects in the Nile Basin supported by the CPWF. It was implemented during from 2007 to 2009 through a partnership of 8 institutions. The Blue Nile is the major tributary of the Nile River, contributing about 62% of the Nile flow at Aswan. About two thirds of the area of this densely populated basin is in the highlands and hence receives fairly high levels of annual rainfall of 800 to 2,200 mm. However, the rainfall is erratic in terms of both spatial and temporal distribution with prolonged dry spells and drought often leading to crop failures. Currently, water resources are only marginally exploited in the upper basin but are much more developed in the downstream reaches. The population, located in the downstream part of the Blue Nile, is dependent on the river water for supplementary irrigation and energy production. Canal and reservoir siltation is a major problem, adding the burdens of poor riparian farmers. This project was envisaged to improve the scientific understanding of the land and water resources of the basin, and hypothesized that with increased scientific knowledge of the hydrological, watershed, and institutional processes of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia (Abbay), constraints to up-scaling adaptable best practices and promising technologies (technical, socio-economic, institutional) could be overcome, which will result in significant positive impacts for both upstream and downstream communities and state

Statues quo analysis, characterization and assessment of performance of irrigation in Ethiopia

In Awulachew, Seleshi Bekele; Loulseged, Makonnen; Yilma, Aster Denekew (Comps.). Impact of irrigation on poverty and environment in Ethiopia: draft proceedings of the symposium and exhibition, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 27-29 November 2007. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI).This paper first looks in to the background on major challenges of Ethiopia with respect to poverty. It discuses the root cause of poverty and its vicious cycle nature, the interlink of population growth, the scarcity of land and natural resources, the extension of agriculture in to marginal land, the decreasing productivity, inability to invest and deepening of poverty and further aggravation as a result of various shocks such as drought, flood, war, etc. The paper also looks in to the importance of the broad agricultural water management in general and irrigation in particular with respect to increasing productivity and capability to break the vicious cycle and opportunity to reverse in to virtuous cycle that can help eradicate poverty and develop the poor economy. The paper also looks in to how poor management of water resources and impacts of variability of rainfall and related drought affecting the socio-economy and the overall wellbeing of the country to the extent that significant population became dependent on imported food. Results of broad assessment of water resources, database of irrigation development and potential, characterization by typology and major performance in Ethiopia are presented. Key water resources information related to each of the 12 river basins in Ethiopia is summarized. Details of existing irrigation and future potential are also captured in the paper. A geographic information system (GIS) database describing irrigation by typology, region and location, scheme size, type of structures, water source, number of beneficiaries, investment cost, etc, are some of the important attributes of the database. In addition, schemes that are operational and failed are identified in the database. Based on the broad database, performances of the schemes are highlighted. Furthermore, the various sites that are used in the detail study and the selection criteria for the impact of irrigation on poverty and environment project and the specific characteristics of these sites are described

Characterization and atlas of the Blue Nile Basin and its sub basins

In Awulachew, Seleshi Bekele; Erkossa, Teklu; Smakhtin, Vladimir; Fernando, Ashra (Comps.). Improved water and land management in the Ethiopian highlands: its impact on downstream stakeholders dependent on the Blue Nile. Intermediate Results Dissemination Workshop held at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 5-6 February 2009. Summary report, abstracts of papers with proceedings on CD-ROM. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Improving the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation by Physical Interpretation of Its Factors

A primary objective of this paper is to change the input data requirement of the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) for the calculation of its runoff factor for possible application in data-scarce areas. Basically, the MUSLE was developed for a small agricultural watershed, where the extent of erosion is from sheet to rill erosion, but we cannot exactly tell whether it considers gully erosion or not. The underlying physical assumption to improve the MUSLE is that the amount of potential energy of runoff is proportional to the shear stress for sediment transport from a slope field and the kinetic energy of the runoff at the bottom of the slope field for gully formation. The improved MUSLE was tested at four watersheds in Ethiopia, and it showed better performance (i.e., the minimum performance is 84%) over the original MUSLE (i.e., the minimum performance was 80%), for all four watersheds under our consideration. We expect the same to be true for other watersheds of Ethiopia

Estimating the Best Exponent and the Best Combination of the Exponent and Topographic Factor of the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation under the Hydro-Climatic Conditions of Ethiopia

The effect of the topographic factor of the Modified Universal Soil Equation (MUSLE) on soil erosion and sediment yield is not clear. Except for the coefficient, soil erodibility, cover, and conservation practice factors of the MUSLE, an individual effect of the exponents and topographic factors of the MUSLE on soil erosion and sediment yield can be seen by applying the model at different watersheds. A primary objective of this paper is to estimate the best exponents and topographic factors of the MUSLE under the hydro-climatic conditions of Ethiopia. For the sake of the calibration procedure, the main factors of the MUSLE that directly affect the soil erosion process, such as cover, conservation practice, soil erodibility, and topographic factors, are estimated based on past experiences from the literature and comparative approaches, whereas the parameters that do not directly affect the erosion process or that have no direct physical meaning (i.e., coefficient a and exponent b) are estimated through calibration. We verified that the best exponent of the MUSLE is 1 irrespective of the topographic factor, which results in the maximum performance of the MUSLE (i.e., approximately 100%). The best exponent that corresponds to the best equation of the topographic factor is 0.57; in this case, the performance of the model is greater than or equal to 80% for all watersheds under our consideration. We expect the same for other watersheds of Ethiopia, while for other exponents and topographic factors, the performance of the model decreases. Therefore, for the conditions of Ethiopia, the original exponent of the MUSLE is changed from 0.56 to 0.57, and the best equations of the topographic factor are provided in this paper