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Crop Cultivation at Wartime – Plight and Resilience of Tigray’s Agrarian Society (North Ethiopia)
Abstract
During the 2021 conflict in Tigray (north Ethiopia) crop cultivation has been hampered by warfare. Oxen have been looted and killed, farm inputs and tools destroyed by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Farmers felt vulnerable out in the open with their oxen. To produce, farmers evaluated risks involved with ploughing and organised lookouts. Overall, a large part of the land had been tilled in difficult conditions, and crops sown that require minimal management, without fertiliser, what led to low yields. True Colour Composite images, produced from Sentinel satellite imagery show that smallholder irrigation schemes were operational. There was a shift from commercial crops to cereals. The situation in western Tigray was particular, as there has been ethnic cleansing of the population and often the 2020 rainfed crops had even not been harvested. Overall, our findings show that the Tigrayan smallholder farming system is resilient, thanks to community self-organisation, combining common strategies of agrarian societies in wartime: spatio-temporal shift in agricultural activities to avoid the proximity with soldiers and shifts in crop types. Rather unique is the relying on communal aid, while the blockade of the Tigray region made that outmigration and off-farm income were no options for the farmers.
... In Tigray, however, the greatest fears raised, when it was observed, in early May 2021, that many farm parcels had not been tilled. By the end of June, an interpretation of Sentinelbased True Color Composite images indicated that there had been good plowing progress in most of the region (except for Western Tigray) with often more land plowed than in 2020 (Nyssen et al. 2022). However, in most areas, it was reported that war conditions made crop cultivation very difficult: oxen had been looted or killed, and farm inputs and tools had been destroyed (World Peace Foundation 2021; Tghat 2021b; WeForest 2021). ...
... Furthermore, farmers who wanted to till their land felt vulnerable; in many places, Eritrean soldiers prevented the farmers from plowing (AFP 2021; Addis Standard 2021). While trying to produce in February-June 2021, farmers evaluated whether plowing was risky or not and organized watch posts to verify the absence of soldiers (Nyssen et al. 2022). ...
... By the end of June, based on remote sensing data and interviews (yet without formal ground truthing), it was anticipated that the land would have been partly sown (Nyssen et al. 2022), without using fertilizer, although that is necessary on reactive fields (Nyssen et al. 2017;Tittonell and Giller 2013). Late sowing was assumed to have led the farmers to plant crop varieties with a short growing cycle, similar to drought years, particularly fast-maturing wheat landraces as well as the local barley cultivar called sa'isa'a (all terms in local Tigrinya language are in italics), obviously with a lower yield . ...
Due to war conditions, the local farmers had to largely rely on their own crop production, mainly by subsistence farming, in Tigray, North Ethiopia. We assessed the crop stands in 2021 and evaluated the level of resilience of the indigenous farming system. Quantitative data were collected from 161 farm parcels in various ecoregions of this tropical mountain region, in order to detect the share of sown land, crop types, and their status. This participatory monitoring was accompanied by semi-structured interviews. Farmers cultivated their farms late, left it uncultivated or marginally sowed oil crops as improved fallow (28%), due to lack of farming tools, oxen, fertilizer, seeds, or manpower. As compared to peace years, only few lands were sown with sorghum as there was active warfare in the sorghum planting period. The relatively good stands of wheat and barley (47%) are in line with the farmers' priority given to cereals. Teff got a large land share because it could be sown up to the middle of the main rainy season and because farmers had consumed the seeds of their major cereal crops (wheat and barley) when hiding for warfare. Seeds left from consumption were only sown by late June, when troops had retreated, and the communities could revive. With almost no external support, the local farming system has proven to be remarkably resilient, relying on indigenous knowledge and local practices, block rotation, manure, improved fallow, changes in relative importance of crops, seed exchange, and support for one another. This is the first analysis of the socio-agronomic roots of the 2021-2022 Tigray hunger crisis, with a cereal harvest that could not at all sustain the local population as the planting season had been largely missed. The ability of the indigenous farming system to partially rebounce in times of autarky is another novel finding.
... In addition to the above mentioned sustainability and operational challenges, irrigation shemes in Tigray regional state are facing multidimensional problems due to the current war. Many irrigation schemes in the region are severely affected by infrastructural damage, lack of man-power, stolen pumps, stolen and annihilated farm tools, abandonment of farm lands due to farmers insecurity, lack of required farm inputs (such as improved seeds, fertilizers and pesticides), freezing of farmers money in banks and micro-finances as a result of the ongoing war (Demissie et al., 2022;Nyssen et al., 2022). After comparing the areal coverage of 14 irrigation schemes before the war (average of 2019 and 2020) and after the war (2021) using remote sensing data, Nyssen et al. (2022), reported that the irrigated area of surveyed schemes was reduced by 31% as a result of the war in Tigray. ...
... Many irrigation schemes in the region are severely affected by infrastructural damage, lack of man-power, stolen pumps, stolen and annihilated farm tools, abandonment of farm lands due to farmers insecurity, lack of required farm inputs (such as improved seeds, fertilizers and pesticides), freezing of farmers money in banks and micro-finances as a result of the ongoing war (Demissie et al., 2022;Nyssen et al., 2022). After comparing the areal coverage of 14 irrigation schemes before the war (average of 2019 and 2020) and after the war (2021) using remote sensing data, Nyssen et al. (2022), reported that the irrigated area of surveyed schemes was reduced by 31% as a result of the war in Tigray. Excluding large scale plantation farms and Tekeze river side irrigation schemes, smallscale irrigation schemes are more resilient to the extent of the extreme shock of the Tigray war by shifting from planting cash crops to cereals with minimum land management practices (Demissie et al., 2022;Nyssen et al., 2022). ...
... After comparing the areal coverage of 14 irrigation schemes before the war (average of 2019 and 2020) and after the war (2021) using remote sensing data, Nyssen et al. (2022), reported that the irrigated area of surveyed schemes was reduced by 31% as a result of the war in Tigray. Excluding large scale plantation farms and Tekeze river side irrigation schemes, smallscale irrigation schemes are more resilient to the extent of the extreme shock of the Tigray war by shifting from planting cash crops to cereals with minimum land management practices (Demissie et al., 2022;Nyssen et al., 2022). ...
In spite of the investment and efforts made for irrigation development, many irrigation schemes in Ethiopia are performing below design expectations leaving huge areas and many beneficiaries out of irrigation. In this study, a systematic literature review was conducted on management practices, problems and future directions of community managed small-scale irrigation schemes in Ethiopia. Out of 1282 published research reports retrieved from the data bases of Web of Science and Scopus, eventually 83 publications fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Failure and under-performance of irrigation schemes in Ethiopia is reported to mostly relate to problems during design and implementation and/or operation and maintenance. Low level of community participation, lack of site specific reliable hydrological data, poorly designed irrigation infrastructures, high construction cost and delayed project completion are most mentioned problems during the design and implementation phases of irrigation projects. Presence of weak local scheme managing institutions and users’ exclusion in management decisions are among the main problems of small-scale irrigation management practices in Ethiopia. Regardless of their water sources, irrigation schemes face similar problems in Ethiopia. Adoption of a holistic development and management strategy that integrates technical, socio-economic and environmental aspects is needed to overcome problems and sustainability challenges of community managed irrigation schemes in Ethiopia. Supporting the irrigation sector via research-based findings and adoption of advanced technologies needs further investments and efforts to narrow challenges of irrigation schemes sustainability gaps.
... Potassium is a deserted nutrient, while nitrogen and phosphorus (NP) are applied in the usual trend of random soil testing approaches [19]. In northern Ethiopia of the Tigray region, 76% of vertisols are lacking in potassium [20]. A soil fertility map developed by the Ethiopian Soil Information System (Ethio-SIS) in the Tigray region of the Atlas area identified a deficiency of potassium nutrients [21]. ...
Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important tuber crop that is highly affected by poor soil fertility and nutrient disparities. Nutrient depletion due to intensive monocropping and poor soil management practices is a serious problem in Ethiopia, including in northwestern areas. Therefore, an experiment was conducted in the East Gojjam zone of northwestern Ethiopia to evaluate the influence of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer rates on potato tuber production. Three phosphorus levels (0, 34.5, and 69 kg/ha−1) and four potassium levels (0, 100, 200, and 300 kg/ha−1) were set out in a factorial arrangement and replicated three times using a randomized complete block design. Data on growth and quality parameters, as well as plant tissue analysis results, were collected. According to the results, the main effects of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer rates statistically affected growth components. The combined effects of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers had a significant influence on quality components (tuber size distribution). Similarly, the interaction effects of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer rates gave the highest response in all nutrient use efficiency parameters. The combined application of 34.5 kg P2O5 and 200 kg K2O fertilizers resulted in the highest medium (28.32 ton/ha−1) and large-sized (20.0 ton/ha−1) tuber yields. The interaction effect of 34.5 kg P2O5 with 100 kg K2O ha−1 yielded the highest agronomic and recovery efficiency values. Hence, a combination of 34.5 kg P2O5 ha−1 and 200 kg K2O ha−1 fertilizer rates can be recommended for the optimal production of potato in the northwestern area.
Due to war conditions, the local farmers had to largely rely on their own crop production, mainly by subsistence farming, in Tigray, North Ethiopia. We assessed the crop stands in 2021 and evaluated the level of resilience of the indigenous farming system. Quantitative data were collected from 161 farm parcels in various ecoregions of this tropical mountain region, in order to detect the share of sown land, crop types and their status. This participatory monitoring was accompanied by semi-structured interviews. Farmers cultivated their farms late, left it uncultivated or marginally sowed oil crops as improved fallow (28%), due to lack of farming tools, oxen, fertilizer, seeds or manpower. As compared to peace years, only few lands were sown with sorghum as there was active warfare in the sorghum planting period. The relatively good stands of wheat and barley (47%) are in line with the farmers’ priority given to cereals. Teff got a large land share because it could be sown up to the middle of the main rainy season and because farmers had consumed the seeds of their major cereal crops (wheat and barley) when hiding for warfare. Seeds left from consumption were only sown by late June, when troops had retreated, and the communities could revive. With almost no external support, the local farming system has proven to be remarkably resilient, relying on indigenous knowledge and local practices, block rotation, manure, improved fallow, changes in relative importance of crops, seed exchange and support one another. This is the first analysis of the socio-agronomic roots of the 2021-2022 Tigray hunger crisis, with a cereal harvest that could not at all sustain the local population as the planting season had been largely missed. The ability of the indigenous farming system to partially rebounce in times of autarky is another novel finding.
The war in Tigray region of Ethiopia that started in November 2020 and is still ongoing has brought enormous damage to the health system. This analysis provides an assessment of the health system before and during the war. Evidence of damage was compiled from November 2020 to June 2021 from various reports by the interim government of Tigray, and also by international non-governmental organisations. Comparison was made with data from the prewar calendar year. Six months into the war, only 30% of hospitals, 17% of health centres, 11.5% of ambulances and none of the 712 health posts were functional. As of June 2021, the population in need of emergency food assistance in Tigray increased from less than one million to over 5.2 million. While the prewar performance of antenatal care, supervised delivery, postnatal care and children vaccination was 64%, 73%, 63% and 73%, respectively, but none of the services were likely to be delivered in the first 90 days of the war. A conservative estimate places the number of girls and women raped in the first 5 months of the war to be 10 000. These data indicate a widespread destruction of livelihoods and a collapse of the healthcare system. The use of hunger and rape as a weapon of war and the targeting of healthcare facilities are key components of the war. To avert worsening conditions, an immediate intervention is needed to deliver food and supplies and rehabilitate the healthcare delivery system and infrastructure.
We present causal evidence of the long-term effects of the Vietnam War on household agricultural productivity. Using bombing intensity data and data on the intensity of Agent Orange and other chemical agents used during the War, we find that spatial differences in the intensity of the War can help explain differences in long-term household agricultural productivity. Our endogeneity-corrected estimates suggest that, in the long-term, a 10% increase in bombing intensity decreases rice productivity by 2.94% and total agricultural productivity by 3.21%. Results from a fuzzy regression discontinuity design suggest that Agent Orange intensity also had a negative effect on rice productivity. We find that economic production is a channel through which the intensity of bombing and Agent Orange have adversely affected long-term agricultural productivity, while social capital is a channel through which Agent Orange is linked to lower long-term agricultural productivity.
Orography is known to affect local meteorological conditions by inducing orographic rainfall and a rain shadow i.e. reduced rainfall on the mountain’s leeside with respect to the windward side. Therefore it has a strong effect on the local population and agriculture. Recent work highlights the ambiguities in the definition and difficulties in quantification of the rain shadow effect using observational data. A statistical approach is presented that allows its investigation based on climatological model data in geographically complex regions. This approach requires gridded rainfall and wind along with the model topography. The statistical aspects that contribute to the rainfall enhancement at the windward side are disentangled. These include, for windward and leeward events separately: frequency of occurrence, rainfall-event frequency, rainfall depth per event. By spatial aggregation the regional dependence of these statistics are calculated and visualized. The approach is used to characterize summer rain over the Ethiopian Highlands based a 21-year long simulation with the regional climate model ALARO-0 at 4 km resolution. There is an overall increased rainfall of 40% for windward events as compared to leeward events, but regionally this can exceed 150%. This increase can be attributed to the positive differences between windward and leeward events in their frequency of occurrence (on average 20%), and, in the rainfall per rainfall event (on average 16%). Mapped rain shadows correspond well to earlier qualitative observations and the small differences in probability of precipitation confirm that the mechanisms underlying the shadow effect are more complex than the textbook explanation.
Due to renewed interest in hydropower dams in the face of climate change, it is important to assess dam operations and management in combination with downstream impacts on rivers in (semi-)arid environments. In this study, the impacts of the Tekeze hydropower dam on downstream hydrology and river morphology were investigated, including impacts under normal and extreme reservoir operation conditions. Field observations, in-depth interviews, repeat terrestrial photographs, multi-year high-resolution satellite images, daily reservoir water levels and data on hourly to daily energy production were collected and studied. The results show that high flows (Q5) have declined (with factor 5), low flows (Q95) have increased (with factor 27), seasonal flow patterns have smoothened, river beds have incised (up to 4 m) and locally aggraded near tributary confluences. The active river bed has narrowed by 31%, which was accelerated by the gradual emergence of Tamarix nilotica and fruit plantations. A new post-dam equilibrium had been reached until it was disrupted by the 2018 emergency release, caused by reservoir management and above-normal reservoir inflow, and causing extensive erosion and agricultural losses downstream. Increased floodplain occupation for irrigated agriculture consequently provides an additional argument for reservoir operation optimization to avoid future risks for riparian communities.
Many small-scale irrigation schemes are dysfunctional, and learning , innovation and evaluation are required to facilitate sustainable transitions. Using quantitative and qualitative data from five irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan Africa, we analyze how learning and change arose in response to: soil monitoring tools, which triggered a deep learning cycle; and agricultural innovation platforms, which helped develop a social learning system. Knowledge generation and innovation were driven by the incentives of more profitable farming. Learning and change spread to farmers without the tools, and learning at different levels resulted in extension and govern-ance stakeholders facilitating profound institutional change. ARTICLE HISTORY
This book is based on over 150 scientific papers about the Dogu’a Tembien district in Ethiopia. To reach a broader public of people interested in geosites and human-environment interactions, the authors here add a geoguide about this mountain district in Ethiopia(13°30’ N, 39°10’ E; upto 2850 m high) which shows a varied lithology.
A large team has carried out research in that district over the past 23 years, including long stays in the areas. Numerous viewpoints and geosites are only accessible on foot; hence the authors prepared the book as a trekking guide, which will enhance sustainable tourism in the same time. This edited work summarises the study results in the international literature into a comprehensive book, which comprises 35 thematic chapters, detailed description of 573 km of trekking routes to access the landscape and the most scenic excursion points, as well as the necessary logistical information. A state-of-the-art trekking map is included as a digital annex.
The development of the social landscape of towns and villages at the county level in China currently lacks sustainability and urgently needs to be optimized. By developing a compound ecological capital system, the optimization of the social landscape will be an important process. Based on the dialectical relationship between landscape production and landscape sustainability, a theoretical framework is proposed as a paradigm of landscape structure. By highlighting the culture base and life proposed in ecosystem services (ES) described in the common international classification of ecosystem services (CICES) methodology, we propose a new social landscape order. We used Hequ County, Shanxi Province, China as the study case, evaluating the ecology level of social capital by gravity. In this paper, four types of optimization approaches for social landscape structure are proposed: completing urbanization (urbanized approach), shaping social landscape (prioritized development approach), protecting nature (scale-controlled approach), and increasing agricultural landscape (migrated and merged approach).
The true color composite is a widely used Earth observation product for displaying satellite imagery. As it is often used in communication with non-expert audiences in various media, it is desirable that such a product approximates the color perceived by the human eye. Additionally, as the Sentinel-2 mission with its high resolution multispectral imagery and short revisit times is delivering unprecedented amounts of data, any algorithm for computing the composite should be efficient. In this paper we define the natural color product, propose two efficient approaches for computing it, analyze the results, and implement the products on a satellite imagery service for interactive use. Our algorithms work on a per-pixel basis and hence parallelize naturally. The presented approaches are general and not limited to Sentinel-2 data.
This introduction is a reflexive piece on the notion of farmer-led irrigation development and its
politics. It highlights the way the varied contributions to the Special Issue support a shared perspective on farmerled irrigation development as a process whereby farmers drive the establishment, improvement, and/or
expansion of irrigated agriculture, often in interaction with other actors. We analyse how the terminology is used
and reproduced, and what it means for our understanding of irrigation policy and practices in sub-Saharan Africa.
A central tenet of our argument is that farmer-led irrigation development is inherently political, as it questions the
primacy of engineering and other expert knowledges regarding the development of agricultural water use
practices in Africa as well as the privileging of formal state planning or technical solutions. We show how
mainstream understanding of farmers’ engagement focuses on (1) regulation and control, (2) profitability, and (3)
technical efficiency. We demonstrate how these three perspectives have contributed to depoliticised readings of
farmer-led irrigation (development), which has been essential to the ability of the terminology to travel and find
global allies. Second, we explore the paradox of the invisibility of farmer-led irrigation development in national
policies and practices. We discuss practical and political reasons underlying this silence and point out that there
are important advantages for irrigators in not being visible. In conclusion we highlight what can be gained from
adopting an explicitly political analysis of the processes through which farmers engage in irrigation on their own
terms
This book is based on over 150 papers about the Dogu’a Tembien district in Ethiopia. To reach a broader public of people interested in geosites and human-environment interactions, the authors here add a geoguide about this mountain district in Ethiopia(13°30’ N, 39°10’ E; upto 2850 m high) which shows a varied lithology.
A large team has carried out research in that district over the past 23 years, including long stays in the areas. Numerous viewpoints and geosites are only accessible on foot; hence the authors prepared the book as a trekking guide, which will enhance sustainable tourism in the same time. This edited work summarises the study results in the international literature into a comprehensive book, which comprises 35 thematic chapters, detailed description of 573 km of trekking routes to access the landscape and the most scenic excursion points, as well as the necessary logistical information. A state-of-the-art trekking map is included as a digital annex.
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030049546
We have investigated the relevance of the notion of "peripheralism" in the Beles basin. In this lowland border area of Ethiopia, important investments require an evaluation of their socioeconomic and ecological impacts in the light of Ethiopia's Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy. We contrasted literature of different periods with field observations. In the middle and lower basin, the Gumuz people traditionally practiced shifting cultivation. Resettlement of highlanders is particularly linked to water and land resources. A large irrigation project was initiated in the 1980s, but vegetables and fruits face post-harvest losses. Large water transfers from Lake Tana since 2010 affect the movement of people, the hydrogeomorphology and ecology of the river. In several parts of the basin, the settlers' economy now dominates. Many Gumuz became sedentary but maintained their agricultural system, particularly in the south of the lower basin. Land titling allowed allocation of "vacant" areas to transnational or domestic investors. As a result, the semi-natural vegetation is frequently replaced by open cropland, leading to decreased carbon storage and increased soil erosion. This, and water abstraction for irrigation jeopardises hydropower production, in contradiction with the CRGE objectives. Despite the recent developments, the contrasts in economic activity make the core-periphery dichotomy to remain actual in the Beles basin. The resettlements and permanent cropping tend to make the upper basin part of the core. However, the installation of a transit road and commercial farms in the lower basin do not allow to consider that a non-peripheral integration has taken place.
There is a need for improved drought monitoring and assessment methods in the United States. Drought is the most costly natural disaster [Federal Emergency Management Agancy (FEMA 1995; Wilhite 2000)], but it is often neglected by developers of assessment and forecast products. Drought is more nebulous than other disasters and does not lend itself to traditional assessments or forecast methods. Its relatively slow onset and the complexity of its impacts are reasons for the new assessment methodology. Improvements in drought monitoring and forecasting techniques will allow for better preparation, lead to better management practices, and reduce the vulnerability of society to drought and its subsequent impacts. The Drought Monitor (additional information available online at http://drought.unl/edu/dm) was created with the goal of tracking and displaying the magnitude and spatial extent of drought and its impacts across the United States. The Drought Monitor is produced weekly and classifies drought severity into four major categories, with a fifth category threshold assigned to locations on a map are determined from a number of indicators, or tools, blended with subjective interpretation.
Low mineral fertiliser use received much attention in Africa over the last decades. As fertiliser sales have exponentially grown in Ethiopia, and evidence exists of a supply that is beyond the demand in the drier northern parts of the country, we investigated the geographical determinants of inorganic fertiliser sales and its resale prices in north Ethiopia. Quantitative data on fertiliser provision and prices on the black market in 2016 were obtained from official statistics and from key informants in each of the 35 studied districts and in all municipalities of the Raya area. Environmental variables were collected from spatial databases. To promote inorganic fertiliser, agricultural experts use incentives, and also barter the purchase of fertiliser by a farmer against food aid or other advantages from the authorities. The high application rate that is aimed at (200 kg ha-1) contrasts with the dominance of less-responsive soils in the study area, for which inorganic fertiliser application does not result in higher crop yields, or even leads to root burn. The quantitative analysis shows that 40.7 10 3 Mg of fertiliser were officially sold in the study area in 2016, which corresponds to 52 kg ha-1. This is notably different from the application rate, as reselling widely occurs, at 50% of the official price for diammonium phosphate (DAP) and 54% for urea, mostly to users outside the community. By accepting the opportunity offered by agricultural companies and traders, smallholders save themselves from greater losses. The black market rate is strongly and positively correlated to monthly rainfall at sowing time (July 2016) (R² = 0.44; n = 31; p < 0.01). In the four districts with spate irrigation, black market prices for inorganic fertiliser are low (35% of the official rate) and small quantities are sold officially (32 kg ha-1). This corresponds to the farmers' saying that there "nobody needs inorganic fertiliser since the spate irrigation adds organic and inorganic nutrients yearly". We 2 found similarities to the 'Green Revolution' in Mexico: the forced delivery of high-cost fertiliser, and the reselling at half price in the black market. Inorganic fertilisers are one of the elements that have allowed boosting agricultural production in Ethiopia; our findings indicate however that in the study area, the fertiliser policy needs to be much fine-tuned so that it is led by agronomic needs, rather than by statistics of inorganic fertiliser consumption, that hide complex environmental variability and socio-political relations.
Irrigation development in Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged significantly behind that in other developing countries. Consequently, economic development and food security are also lagging behind. Since the mid-2000s there has been a resurgence in the willingness to invest in irrigation, and Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest potential of any developing region to benefit from it. However, to gain from new investment in irrigation without repeating past failures, it is critical to develop a business model for small-scale irrigation schemes. This article explores the barriers that such a model needs to address to be successful and the opportunities this represents for irrigators’ profitability. © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
The availability of new generation multispectral sensors of the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 satellite platforms offers unprecedented opportunities for long-term high-frequency monitoring applications. The present letter aims at highlighting some potentials and challenges deriving from the spectral and spatial characteristics of the two instruments. Some comparisons between corresponding bands and band combinations were performed on the basis of different datasets: the first consists of a set of simulated images derived from a hyperspectral Hyperion image, the other five consist instead of pairs of real images (Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2A) acquired on the same date, over five areas. Results point out that in most cases the two sensors can be well combined; however, some issues arise regarding near-infrared bands when Sentinel-2 data are combined with both Landsat 8 and older Landsat images.
The past decade has witnessed an intensifying focus on the development of irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa. It follows a 20-year hiatus in the wake of disappointing irrigation performance during the 1970s and 1980s. Persistent low productivity in African agriculture and vulnerability of African food supplies to increasing instability in international commodity markets are driving pan-African agricultural investment initiatives, such as the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), that identify as a priority the improvement in reliability of water control for agriculture. The paper argues that, for such initiatives to be effective, there needs to be a re-appraisal of current dynamics of irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly with respect to the role of small-scale producers’ initiatives in expanding irrigation. The paper reviews the principal forms such initiatives take and argues that official narratives and statistics on African irrigation often underestimate the extent of such activities. The paper identifies five key characteristics which, it argues, contradict widely held assumptions that inform irrigation policy in Africa. The paper concludes by offering a definition of ‘farmer-led irrigation’ that embraces a range of interaction between producers and commercial, government and non-government agencies, and identifies priority areas for research on the growth potential and impact of such interactions and strategies for their future development.
The article presents the story of a women innovator in the Tigray region.
Ethiopia has been highly affected by drought and climate-related hazards, and millions of people have been left without sustenance every year. To increase productivity and diversify the livelihood scenarios as an option, small-scale irrigation (SSI) schemes have been introduced.This study assessed the impact of SSI in achieving household livelihood improvement and the major challenges of SSI practices in the Gubalafto district. Questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation data collection tools were used. Proportionally, a total of 374 respondents were included.The collected data was analyzed by descriptive statistics. The application of SSI improved the annual income of irrigator households from 1978.12 to 10,099 Ethiopian Birr (ETB) (1 USD ≈ 20 ETB) before and after using irrigation with a standard deviation of 1534.32 compared to non-irrigators who have an annual average income of 3146.75 ETB with a standard deviation of 1838, respectively. It proved that 32.1% of irrigators increased their frequency of production due to irrigation. Shortage of water, access to improved seeds, marketing, and increment of farm input costs have been hindering SSI practices. Awareness campaigns for non-irrigators and adequate supervision for the irrigators by development agents (DAs) and district officials are important to improve the livelihood of farmers.
The study area, Raya and Kobo valleys, are located in the northern parts of Ethiopia. From the hydrological point of view, the sites are located within the Afar drainage basin. The areal coverage of the valleys is 2369 km2 for Raya and 1439 km2 for Kobo. The amount of groundwater that is currently discharged for irrigation purpose in Raya and Kobo valley is 10755.9 m3/day and 30600 m3/day, respectively. This is estimated to be about 0.06% and 6.91% of the total safe groundwater discharge of each valley, respectively. The annual average groundwater recharge in the Raya valley is estimated to be 84 million cubic meters and that of the Kobo valley is 122.9 million cubic meters. At present, the amount of natural recharge in both valleys is more than the abstraction. With regard to the irrigation development in the valleys, the problem is not lack of water; it is rather absence of or poor management. This is mainly due to absence of responsible and efficient institutions that are equipped with adequate capacity. Sustainable management of groundwater resource is indispensable for better development, allocation and optimum utilization of the groundwater resource of the valleys and to avoid any adverse effects. It is therefore necessary to establish responsible and efficient groundwater management system that can undertake not only detailed groundwater management studies of the basins but also effectively implement the on-going irrigation development in the valleys, following the objectives of the national water resources management policy of the country.
We developed a method to reconstruct land use history from Landsat images time-series. The method uses a breakpoint detection framework derived from the econometrics field and applicable to time-series regression models. The Breaks For Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) framework is used for defining the time-series regression models which may contain trend and phenology, hence appropriately modelling vegetation intra and inter-annual dynamics. All available Landsat data are used for a selected study area, and the time-series are partitioned into segments delimited by breakpoints. Segments can be associated to land use regimes, while the breakpoints then correspond to shifts in land use regimes. In order to further characterize these shifts, we classified the unlabelled breakpoints returned by the algorithm into their corresponding processes. We used a Random Forest classifier, trained from a set of visually interpreted time-series profiles to infer the processes and assign labels to the breakpoints. The whole approach was applied to quantifying the number of cultivation cycles in a swidden agriculture system in Brazil (state of Amazonas). Number and frequency of cultivation cycles is of particular ecological relevance in these systems since they largely affect the capacity of the forest to regenerate after land abandonment. We applied the method to a Landsat time-series of Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) spanning the 1984–2015 period and derived from it the number of cultivation cycles during that period at the individual field scale level. Agricultural fields boundaries used to apply the method were derived using a multi-temporal segmentation approach. We validated the number of cultivation cycles predicted by the method against in-situ information collected from farmers interviews, resulting in a Normalized Residual Mean Squared Error (NRMSE) of 0.25. Overall the method performed well, producing maps with coherent spatial patterns. We identified various sources of error in the approach, including low data availability in the 90s and sub-object mixture of land uses. We conclude that the method holds great promise for land use history mapping in the tropics and beyond.
The Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) dataset builds on previous approaches to ‘smart’ interpolation techniques and high resolution, long period of record precipitation estimates based on infrared Cold Cloud Duration (CCD) observations. The algorithm i) is built around a 0.05° climatology that incorporates satellite information to represent sparsely gauged locations, ii) incorporates daily, pentadal, and monthly 1981-present 0.05° CCD-based precipitation estimates, iii) blends station data to produce a preliminary information product with a latency of about 2 days and a final product with an average latency of about 3 weeks, and iv) uses a novel blending procedure incorporating the spatial correlation structure of CCD-estimates to assign interpolation weights. We present the CHIRPS algorithm, global and regional validation results, and show how CHIRPS can be used to quantify the hydrologic impacts of decreasing precipitation and rising air temperatures in the Greater Horn of Africa. Using the Variable Infiltration Capacity model, we show that CHIRPS can support effective hydrologic forecasts and trend analyses in southeastern Ethiopia.
Drought is onee of the major natural hazards affecting the environment and economy of countries worldwide. Reliance on weather data alone is not sufficient to monitor areas of drought, particularly when these data can be untimely, sparse, and incomplete. Augmenting weather data with satellite images to identify the location and severity of droughts is a must for complete, up-to-date, and comprehensive coverage of current drought conditions. The objective of this research was to standardize, by time of year, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to augment drought-monitoring techniques. The Standardized Vegetation Index (SVI) describes the probability of vegetation condition deviation from "normal," based on calculations from weekly NDVI values. The study was conducted with 12 years (1989-2000) of Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellite images. Z-scores of the NDVI distribution are used to estimate the probability of occurrence of the present vegetation condition at a given location relative to the possible range of vegetative vigor, historically. The SVI can be interpreted as vegetation condition based on the fact that vegetation is an efficient integrator of climatic and anthropogenic impacts in the boundary layer of the atmosphere. It thereby provides a spatially and temporally continuous short-term indicator of climatic conditions. Findings indicate that the SVI, along with other drought monitoring tools, is useful for assessing the extent and severity of drought at a spatial resolution of 1 km. The SVI is capable of providing a near-real-time indicator of vegetation condition within drought regions, and more specifically areas of varying drought conditions.
Military conflicts strongly affect agricultural activities. This has strong implications for people’s livelihoods when agriculture is the backbone of the economy. We assessed the effect of the Tigray conflict on farming activities using freely available remote sensing data. For detecting greenness, a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was analyzed in Google Earth Engine (GEE) using Sentinel 2 satellite images acquired in the pre-war (2020) and during war (2021) spring seasons. CHIRPS data were analyzed in GEE to understand the rainfall conditions. The NDVI of 2020 showed that farmlands were poorly covered with vegetation. However, in 2021, vegetation cover existed in the same season. The NDVI changes stretched from -0.72 to 0.83. The changes in greenness were categorized as increase (2167 km²), some increase (18386 km²), no change (1.6 km²), some decrease (8269 km²), and decrease (362 km²). Overall, 72% of the farmlands have seen increases in green vegetation before crops started to grow in 2021. Scattered patches with decreases in vegetation cover correspond to irrigation farms and spring-cropping rain-fed farms uncultivated in 2021. There was no clear pattern of changes in vegetation cover as a function of agro-climatic conditions. The precipitation analysis shows less rainfall in 2021 as compared to 2020, indicating that precipitation has not been an important factor. The conflict is most responsible for fallowing farmlands covered with weeds in the spring season of 2021. The use of freely accessible remote sensing data helps recognizing absence of ploughing in crisis times.
It has been a year since a devastating war broke out in the Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia, where hundreds of thousands of Tigrayan civilians are killed, millions internally displaced and tens of thousands have fled to seek refuge in neighboring Sudan. An alarming development linked to this war is the manmade famine in Tigray that now threatens the lives of the millions of civilians who survived the horrific atrocities during the war. This piece is an attempt to explain why millions of Tigrayans from all walks of life face famine and concludes that famine was from the start an end goal of the Ethiopian and Eritrean regimes and they employed different tactics to ensure that it unfolds the way it does now. Among others, the tactics include (1) the systematic looting and destruction of Tigray's basic economic infrastructures, (2) implementation of different financial measures to deprive people in the region of access to cash, and imposition of a complete siege that hindered access to supplies including lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Objectives
Investigate the weaponization of water during the Syrian conflict and correlation of attacks on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure in Idlib and Aleppo governorates with trends in waterborne diseases as reported by Early Warning and Response surveillance systems.
Methods
We reviewed literature and databases to obtain information on attacks on WASH in Aleppo and Idlib governorates between 2011 and 2019. We plotted weekly trends in waterborne diseases from two surveillance systems operational in Aleppo and Idlib governorates between 2015 and early 2020.
Results
The literature review noted several attacks on water and related infrastructure in both governorates suggesting that WASH infrastructure was weaponized by state and non-state actors. Most interference with WASH in Aleppo governorate occurred before 2019 and in Idlib governorate in the summer of 2020. Other acute diarrhoea represented >90% of cases of diarrhoea; children under 5 years contributed 50% of cases. There was strong evidence (p < 0.001) of an overall upward trend in cases of diarrhoeal disease.
Conclusions
Though no direct correlation can be drawn between the weaponization of WASH and the burden of waterborne infections due to multiple confounders, this research introduces important concepts on attacks on WASH and their potential impacts on waterborne diseases.
The thesis examines aspects of social change in rural Tigray, northern Ethiopia. It is based on fieldwork conducted between February 1993 and February 1995 in two villages located on the south central highland plateau: Enda Mariyam, and Tegula. The majority of fieldwork was conducted in Enda Mariyam - a village of some 228 farming households - and spanned two complete agricultural years. The thesis considers the local implications of reform measures implemented by nationalist rebels - the Tigray People's Liberation Front - as part of a revolutionary agenda for the transformation of "traditional" Ethiopian peasant society. These measures included, most notably, land tenure reform, as well as changes in customary law and the re-organisation of rural administration. In addition, campaigns were mounted aimed at modifying certain aspects of peasant practice. In the context of a village-based ethnography, the thesis aims to qualify the most significant effects of these measures on social life and livelihoods. A key concern is how reform measures have affected the relationship between subsistence-oriented production, social organisation, and social stratification. In a setting where agricultural inputs - including land, oxen, and seed - are scarce, differential abilities amongst farming households to access agricultural inputs informs the pattern of social relationships. In this context, land reform is intimately linked to changes in the dynamics of wealth differentiation and social stratification in the village. The implications for the position of "big men" and cultural notions of status-honour are considered. Together with land reform, reform of customary law in the area of marriage and divorce has wrought subtle but important changes in marriage and divorce practices, and the nature of intra-household relationships. It is argued that public campaigns for the "emancipation" of women have probably had less effect on the ability of women to exert power within marriage, than the economic penalties that men now face upon divorce. Attempts to modify peasant religious practice are also examined, including efforts to minimise the number of holidays in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar. The outcome of these attempts is explored in terms of notions of disaster and risk, the traditional authority of the Church, and the fragmentation of consensus around religious practice in the village.
Based on extensive field information, farmer-led small-scale irrigation systems along the dam-regulated Tekeze River is investigated and the likelihood of future irrigation expansion within the area with modelled potential is discussed, considering facilitating and hampering factors. Due to dam-induced hydrologic alterations, downstream socio-ecological systems have strongly transformed as the irrigated area has quadrupled and the post-dam potential for perennial crop cultivation has attracted numerous migrant investors to the area, inducing inequalities but also providing opportunities. Future dam construction should involve tailored policy interventions to facilitate irrigation expansion, while safeguarding equal and sustainable access to water and land.
The 21st century revival of large-scale water resources development projects makes it important to keep assessing their impacts – preferably from an interdisciplinary perspective – in order to not repeat past mistakes and explore whether they could improve livelihood conditions for rural communities. In this study, costs and benefits of the World Bank-funded Ribb Irrigation and Drainage Project (RIDP) were investigated using a unique systems approach. The impact for farmers with different initial farming systems (rainfed – residual moisture – irrigated) was studied using field observations, document analyses, remote sensing, agronomic data and semi-structured interviews (n = 165). Data on project-induced changes to land and water availability, cropping patterns, farming systems and farm-level economics were collected. The results show that dam and dyke construction has reduced flooding, which has resulted in declining rice productivity (−42%) and concomitant shifts to lower value cropping systems. Results also reveal that the land redistribution has caused widespread livelihood deterioration as households had to give up 25% of their farmland and the communal grazing land was fully converted into farmland. Due to top-down implementation, nontransparent communication, delayed construction and lagging financial compensation, social resistance has appeared in the command area, impeding the construction works. In addition to these problems, if no rapid change to higher value crops can be realized, 20.5% of the farmers (those who already irrigate) will experience a loss of livelihood, 64.1% of the farmers (those with rainfed and residual moisture cultivation) will be on the verge of livelihood deterioration and only 13.5% of the farmers (those with solely rainfed cultivation) will enjoy RIDP-induced improved livelihoods. The fate of this project stresses the importance of investigating initial farming systems, exploring worthy project alternatives, improving participation, communication and benefit-sharing and strengthening the institutional capacity of implementing authorities.
This article will consider the Nazi Hunger Plan as an instrument of annihilation and tool of war, its retrospective reliance on the American example of resettlement of indigenous peoples, and how these policies prefigured the use of starvation against the people of Yemen by Saudi Arabia, aided and abetted by US and British foreign policy.
It is part of a growing literature on state-induced famines.
Flood‐based farming is a means of improving crop production in rain‐deficit lowlands. Such spate irrigation systems are growing in importance, although the effects of headwater hydrological deficit on downstream flood farming are lacking evidence. This study investigates the impacts of headwater hydrological deficit on the extent of spate‐irrigated agriculture in the Guguf spate system. The length of canals and area of spate‐irrigated agriculture to the right and left of the Guguf River for the 1980s and 2010s were tracked using a global positioning system and mapped in a geographic information system interface, while climate data were collected from National Meteorological Agency. Trends of selected hydroclimatic variables were analysed using linear regression and the Pettitt test. The flash floods have shrunk by 7.36 × 10^6 m^3, as a result of which the length of canals and area of spate‐based farms declined by 1.37 km and 1540 ha, i.e. 35 and 57.5%, respectively, in only three decades. This corresponds to an average withdrawal of −44.0 ha yr‾¹. A single 1 million m3 decline in flash floods caused a 366.4 ha decline in spate‐based farms. Moreover, farm fields located next to the river course are less affected, compared to those at the tail of the scheme. If the current trend continues, there is a high risk that the remaining farms currently receiving floods may find themselves outside of the spate systems. Therefore, we suggest that flood management technologies are needed to optimize the efficiency of soil moisture in the spate system. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In many developing countries, subsistence agriculture is the mainstay of the rural economy, improved land access and efficient land use are critical to short-term livelihoods and long-term economic transformation, and major shocks to land ownership, utilization and arrangements have far-reaching implications for farm families. In many such countries, armed conflict is emerging as a significant source of shock to agricultural and food systems, but its effects on land use are not well understood. This paper conceptualizes and estimates the causal effects of exposure to attacks on plot ownership, cultivated land, rented land, land values and cropping patterns while controlling for other factors. Using data on Nigerian agricultural households affected by Boko Haram, we find that an increase in the intensity of terrorist attacks results in an increase in the amount of land owned due to the abandonment of farms by neighbors and family members, increases the percentage of land left fallow, increases the average size of plots farmed, increases the average distance between plots farmed and the homestead, discourages mono cropping and encourages mixed cropping. Farmers’ expectations about the values of their lands also decrease with exposure to terrorism.
The people of Tembien (Tembienot in Tigrinya) have a long and colourful history of their own; it allowed the Tembien princedom, deeply enrooted in an old culture of heroism of peasant warriors, to grow into a unique territory.
Settled agriculture in Tigray started at least 3000 years ago. Its long history is reflected in the high agricultural biodiversity, including endemic crops, such as the emblematic cereal tef (Eragrostis tef).
Development of a clear understanding of the relationship between the availability of dam-driven irrigation water and crop revenue is important in poverty reduction and food security process. As a result, large research efforts are devoted to understanding the relationship between the availability of irrigation water and crop revenue. However, earlier studies do have several limitations. For example, without considering its indirect effect, prior studies focused solely on the direct effect of availability of irrigation water on crop revue. In this study, using a structural equation model analysis, the direct and indirect effect of availability of dam-driven irrigation water on crop revenue is decomposed and quantified specifically for the Koga irrigation scheme, located in the Mecha district of Amhara region in Ethiopia. A primary data set was collected from a randomly selected sample of 450 households in the Koga irrigation scheme. More than half of the households (254) are supported by the Koga Dam irrigation water during the dry season, and the other 196 households depended only on rainfall. The results of the study showed that, in addition to its direct effect, the availability of irrigation water indirectly affected crop revenue through receptivity of the farmers to use modern farm inputs. Around 27 percent of the total effect of dam-driven irrigation water on crop revenue was mediated by farmers' receptivity to use yield-enhancing modern farm inputs. The results of this study suggested that the availability of irrigation water is essential to improve both crop revenue and receptivity of the farmers to use modern farm inputs. This finding also drives a strategic framework that the receptivity of the farmers to use modern farm inputs is crucial for utilizing the positive effects of irrigation water availability on crop revenue.
We investigate the effects of conflict on agriculture using the Boko Haram insurgency as a case study. We identify the output, input, infrastructure and human capital effects as direct effects and the loss of talent and other environmental factors as indirect effects. Identified market effects include effects on product and input prices, and increased risk premiums. By combining a nationally representative panel dataset on Nigerian agriculture with armed conflict data, we find that the increased intensity of Boko Haram attacks significantly reduces total output and productivity, but not land use, and reduces the outputs of specific staple crops such as sorghum, cassava, soya and yam. Conflict is also found to reduce the hours of hired labor for men and women, but does not affect the use of family labor. Agricultural wages are, however, significantly affected. Because it reveals if, why and how conflict affects agriculture, this study has important implications for post-crisis recovery and agricultural development.
All over Dogu’a Tembien, farmlands appear to be terraced, though there is no evidence of large-scale manual or mechanical levelling of the land, not now and not in the past. Like in many cultural landscapes, such so-called progressive terraces are due to the interaction between plot boundaries and tillage but in north Ethiopia, the process is enhanced by soil conservation activities in farmland. The chapter starts with an investigation of the ard plough or mahrasha because this is the tool that does the soil translocation work.
A highly seasonal and erratic rainfall pattern (Chapter 3) seems to provoke general water scarcity in Dogu’a Tembien for eight months a year. This chapter shortly describes the hydrogeological context and hydrodynamics of actual surface and groundwater flow of the mountain catchments around Hagere Selam. Further, some positive effects of water harvesting techniques on the water availability are shown.
https://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/12258
In Northern Tigray (Ethiopia), contemporaneous agriculture is based on soils stored and developed on terraces, upstream of dry-stone walls crossing the thalwegs of this mountainous area. The discovery, during archaeological surveys, of aksumite and pre-aksumite settlements on the site of Wakarida and its surroundings, questions the age of such terraces landscapes. Comparing with ancient terraces from all over the world, dating from the 3rd millennium BCE, as well as with the functioning of contemporaneous structures maintaining soils and forming thick accumulations, raises the question of the age of those constructions and of their role in the sedimentary filling of the valleys. Sedimentological study and dating of deposits, consultation of iconographic and textual archives, of ancient aerial photographs and conducting of ethnogeomorphological interviews with farmers have formed the basis for first hypotheses regarding the evolutions of the landscape and the environment since the Mid-Holocene. Results tend to show that terraces are recent and develop on inherited sedimentary fillings. These ones testify from changes in the human occupation in the area, from a light footprint to a strong demographic pressure during Aksumite times, followed by an abandonment phase and very recent reoccupation.
Despite public awareness of unintended impacts (1980s) and well-developed international standards (2000s), downstream impacts of large hydropower projects still very often are not properly assessed.
Impacts of (hydropower-regulated) interbasin water transfers (IBWTs) are considered self-evidently positive, although they can have far-reaching consequences for hydrogeomorphological systems and
consequently river-dependent communities. In this study, the downstream direct and indirect impacts of the Ethiopian hydropower-regulated Tana-Beles IBWT are evaluated in an interdisciplinary way. The components of the framework of rural livelihoods are considered and changing contexts, resources’ availabilities and livelihood strategies are analysed. Mixed methods are applied, combining hydrogeomorphological field observations, GIS analyses, scientific literature, policy documents, and semi-structured interviews with local people and local to federal authorities. Results show that the IBWT drastically increased the Beles river’s discharge (with an average release of + 92 m³ s-1 at the outlet; *2 in rainy season and *12 in dry season 100 km downstream of the water release) and introduced dangerous situations for local communities (over 250 people drowned in the river). River bank erosion resulted in the uncompensated loss of farmland (163 ha) and the establishment of largescale commercial farms increased the pressure on land and led to the impoverishment of displaced communities (4310 households). The project was implemented top-down, without any transparency, benefit sharing or compensation for external costs. This stresses the importance of downstream interdisciplinary impact assessments and highlights the need for decent in-depth ex post-analyses of hydropower projects. Environmental impact assessments should be taken seriously and cannot be considered a formality. In Ethiopia and in many developing countries, the hydropower industry is booming. Although dams and IBWTs can be the best solution for water-related problems in specific contexts, national development goals (such as the expansion of the electricity network) should not be at the expense of rural livelihoods.
Crop monitoring information is essential for food security and to improve our understanding of the role of agriculture on climate change, among others. Remotely sensing optical and radar data can help to map crop types and to estimate biophysical parameters, especially with the availability of an unprecedented amount of free Sentinel data within the Copernicus programme. These datasets, whose continuity is guaranteed up to decades, offer a unique opportunity to monitor crops systematically every 5 to 10 days. Before developing operational monitoring methods, it is important to understand the temporal variations of the remote sensing signal of different crop types in a given region. In this study, we analyse the temporal trajectory of remote sensing data for a variety of winter and summer crops that are widely cultivated in the world (wheat, rapeseed, maize, soybean and sunflower). The test region is in southwest France, where Sentinel-1 data have been acquired since 2014. Because Sentinel-2 data were not available for this study, optical satellites similar to Sentinel-2 are used, mainly to derive NDVI, for a comparison between the temporal behaviors with radar data. The SAR backscatter and NDVI temporal profiles of fields with varied management practices and environmental conditions are interpreted physically. Key findings from this analysis, leading to possible applications of Sentinel-1 data, with or without the conjunction of Sentinel-2, are then described. This study points out the interest of SAR data and particularly the VH/VV ratio, which is poorly documented in previous studies.
Unsustainable land use management and the resulting soil erosion are among the most pervasive problems in rural Ethiopia, where most of the country’s people live, jeopardizing food security. Despite various efforts to introduce soil conservation measures and assess their costs and benefits, it is unclear how efficient these measures are from an economic point of view in securing food production. This paper examines the costs and benefits of three soil conservation measures applied in the country in three different rural districts facing different degrees of soil erosion problems using survey data collected from 750 farm households. A production function is estimated to quantify the costs and benefits of more sustainable land use management practices. We show that the soil conservation measures significantly increase productivity and hence food security. Comparing the costs and benefits, the results indicate that implementing soil conservation measures would benefit farm communities in the case study areas through increased grain productivity and food security.
Civil wars have become common and widespread, particularly in Africa. Civil war negatively affects rural livelihoods and contributes to increased vulnerability. Yet, there is limited understanding of how people survive in such circumstances. This article attempts to offer a nuanced understanding of the level of resilience and vulnerability during Sudan's civil war in the 1990s. The main thesis of this article is that households exposed to prolonged conflict undertake livelihood strategies that are effective under certain conditions and less effective in other settings. The households exposed to exogenous counter-insurgency warfare are found to be more resilient than those exposed to endogenous counter-insurgency warfare. Also, a negative relationship between wealth and vulnerability is found in the context of exogenous counter-insurgency warfare, while a positive relationship between wealth and vulnerability is observed in the context of endogenous counter-insurgency warfare, with the non-poor becoming more vulnerable than the poor. The findings of this paper may have some value for informing policy decisions and practical humanitarian approaches during civil war.
Mendae Plain at Abraha Atsbaha (Tigray Region, northern Ethiopia) is an agricultural area, which has been very drought-prone in the past. In the last decade, agricultural development has boosted, due to the intensive use of large diameter wells that tap the phreatic aquifer. Pumped water is used for irrigation during the long dry season (October to May). Since 15 years, water harvesting measures have been implemented, mainly in the form of infiltration ponds and trenches that enhance local infiltration of rainfall runoff from hillslopes. To investigate the sustainability of the groundwater exploitation and the efficiency of the measures, the different recharge and discharge components of the water balance of data-scarce Mendae plain have been identified and quantified, using different methods. Diffuse aquifer recharge is calculated from a soil moisture balance based on meteorological data, and with the chloride mass balance method, based on groundwater analyses. Diffuse recharge is much higher on cultivated land plots than on non-cultivated bare soils. Rainfall infiltration in ponds and trenches is estimated based on the inflow catchment derived from the topography. Groundwater flow to a nearby river is obtained by balancing in- and outflow by the other components over an 11 year period. The balance components are integrated into a lumped parameter model that was run for the period from 2000 to 2010. The results show that infiltration in ponds and trenches contributes between 30 and nearly 50% of total aquifer recharge, with the highest values in dry years. Changes in aquifer storage over time are an indicator for the evolution of groundwater levels in the aquifer and confirm the occurrence of two dry periods in 2002-2005 and 2008-2009. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
