The document discusses water management challenges in the Ethiopian Blue Nile Basin and presents approaches to address them. It outlines that while rainwater management is a known solution, interventions are not reaching communities due to issues like lack of targeting and scaling. The Nile Basin Challenge Program aims to create tools like a GIS-based suitability mapping tool and game to better target and scale rainwater management practices through research partnerships with local institutions. The goal is to improve resilience through landscape-scale integrated water management and make Ethiopia's water resources sufficient to potentially feed other parts of Africa.

1. The challenge of managing water (and
land) in the Ethiopian highlands (Abbay
basin)
Catherine Pfeifer, consultant for the international livestock research
institute

2. Objective
• Give insights to the relevant water issues in
the Ethiopian Blue Nile basin
• Presenting research for development
approaches

3. Todays presentation
• Setting the scene for the study area in the
Ethiopian Blue Nile Basin (Abbay basin)
• The known solution : rainwater management
• A short description of Research for Development :
Nile Basin Challenge Program
• Creating tools for better targeting and scaling out
• Conclusion on water for food and some food for
thoughts

4. Todays presentation
• Setting the scene for the study area in the
Ethiopian Blue Nile Basin (Abbay basin)
• The known solution : rainwater management
• A short description of Research for Development :
Nile Basin Challenge Program
• Creating tools for better targeting and scaling out
• Conclusion on water for food and some food for
thoughts

5. What is the average yearly rainfall in
Switzerland, and for Lausanne?

6. What is the average yearly rainfall in
Switzerland?
Lausanne 1150 mm
Geneva 954 mm
Sion 598 mm
Santis 2701 mm
Average Switzerland
1530 mm

7. And what about Ethiopia?

8. Rainfall patterns in Ethiopia
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
J F M A M J J A S O N D
Monthly rainfall in Bahir Dar
Rainfall

9. Woreta in July

10. Maksegnit in June

11. The Ethiopian Blue Nile (Abbay) Basin
It is the
water tower
of Africa
Potentially
could feed
the world

12. Challenges in the Blue Nile Basin
• Distribution of water not the availability
• Land erosion
• Even more extreme weather conditions due to climate
changes
• Very high population pressure (more than 250 person/Sqkm
CH=195)
• Mostly rural population living below the 1usd poverty
line, depending on an unreliable rainfed agriculture and in
some case on food aid
• Direct foreign investment in drier areas

13. Todays presentation
• Setting the scene for the study area in the
Ethiopian Blue Nile Basin (Abbay basin)
• The known solution : rainwater management
• A short description of Research for Development :
Nile Basin Challenge Program
• Creating tools for better targeting and scaling out
• Conclusion on water for food and some food for
thoughts

14. Rainwater management as a known
solution
Objective : increase the resilience of smallholders by keeping the water as long as
possible where it comes and make it available for agricultural production
• increase water infiltration = reduce erosion
• In-situ water conservation
• ex-situ water conservation
• Increase water efficiency

15. Rainwater management
practices, Maksegnit

16. Rainwater management in Zefie

17. Rainwater management in Anjeni

18. Rainwater management practices
Shambu (Oromia)

19. Rainwater management in Diga

20. Rainwater management in Diga

21. So what’s the issue?
• Solutions are well known but do
not reach the ground
 Lack of targeting (believe in the one
for all solution)
 Missing approaches to combine
bottom up and top down solutions
 Lack of markets and credits
 Difficulty to increase the capacity of
the extension service (high turn
over)
 Lack of initiatives from the
smallholders

22. Todays presentation
• Setting the scene for the study area in the
Ethiopian Blue Nile Basin (Abbay basin)
• The known solution : rainwater management
• A short description of Research for
Development : Nile Basin Challenge Program
• Creating tools for better targeting and scaling out
• Conclusion on water for food and some food for
thoughts

23. A research for development program : the Nile Basin
Development Challenge (NBDC)
• It aims to improve the resilience of rural livelihoods in the
Ethiopian highlands through a landscape approach to
rainwater management.
• The Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) is funded by the
CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF).
• Strong focus to involve local partner to reach change on the
ground
23

24. Partners of NBDC
•International Livestock Research Institute,
•International Water Management Institute,
•World Agroforestry Centre,
•Oversees Development Institute
•Nile Basin Initiative
•Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute
•Catholic Relief Services – Ethiopia
•Oromia Regional Research Institute,
•Amhara Agricultural Research Institute
•Ethiopian Water Harvesting Association
•Bahir Dar University
•Ambo University,
•Nekemte University,
•the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
•the Ministry of Water Resources
24

25. A program with 3 “research” oriented projects
25
Project 2
Research in 3 micro-
catchement
•Hydrological
measurement
•Local impact
assessement on
livelihoods and
environment
•Small scale
hydrological modelling
Create local innovation
plateforms
Project 3
Up-scales results
from N2 to the basin
•Create suitability map
based on bio-physical
and socio-economic
characteristics to
target interventions
Create a decision-
making support tool to
promote site-specific
intervention to RMS
Project 4
Develops a basin
wide hydrological
model
•To assess
downstreem impacts
of new practices
•Assess
economic, social and
enviromental impact of
interventions
•Runs scenarios for
different interventions

26. Todays presentation
• Setting the scene for the study area in the
Ethiopian Blue Nile Basin (Abbay basin)
• The known solution : rainwater management
• A short description of Research for development :
Nile Basin Challenge Program
• Creating tools for better targeting and scaling
out
• Conclusion on water for food and some food for
thoughts

27. A suite of tools for better targeting and
scaling out
• A new concept to combine rainwater management
practices at landscape scale
 Modeling watershed integrated approaches
 Coming up with context specific
combinations, including socio-economic criteria's
• An open source GIS tool
• A game : Happy Strategies

28. A concept for context specific rainwater
management at landscape scale
ZoneLand use
Main objective (examples)
Cropland Grassland Degraded land
Upslope Increase infiltration
Agroforestry, forestry
Increase the quantity
and quality of fodder
for livestock
over-sowing, limiting
animal movements
Rehabilitate
degraded land
forestry
Midslope Control erosion, maintain
soil moisture
Soil and water
conservation
Agroforestry
Conservation agriculture
Lowslope More efficient use of
surface or shallow
groundwater
Wells, river diversion

29. Development and impact of the
concept
• 3 focus stakeholder meetings (5-15 participants)
• 1 broad stakeholder meeting (60 participants) for
validation done with the Happy strategy game
TODAY All major stakeholders talk
• in a context specific way about rainwater
management
• of combinations of rainwater management practices
at farm and at landscape scale

30. Nile-Goblet : an open source GIS
solution of suitability mapping
• No prior GIS knowledge is required
• Best-best practices are already modelled : expert can easily adjust the suitability
criteria based on their knowledge
• A database of best bet rainwater management practices as well as freely available
GIS layers.
• Integrates socio-economic constraints with “adoption maps” based on micro-
economic models
• Allows mapping rainwater management strategies at landscape scale
• With some GIS knowledge can be fed for any technology in any location of the world
• Works on windows 7 and below as well as linux (without GUI)

31. Nile Goblet

32. Impact of the Nile Goblet tool
• Trainings for 40 multipliers (workers from the research institutes, extension
service, NGOs)
• Learning events for high level stakeholders
• Linkage with the Water and Land Resource center in Addis Ababa (SDC)

33. Happy strategies game
• A game to learn from each other on suitable context specific rainwater
management strategies
www.happystrategies.wikispaces.com
• Used at different levels
 Large stakeholder meeting to validate the concept
 Training for practitioners to teach about rainwater management
 Local communities to validate maps and develop road maps for development

34. Some conclusions
• Ethiopia could be feeding Africa
• There is an urgency NOW to enable more productive
agricultural production through improved water
management = improved the resilience of smallholders
• Solutions are well known but do not reach the ground
 Lack of targeting (believe in the one for all solution)
 Missing approaches to combine bottom up and top down solutions
• Research for development aims at
 Changing the perception of key stakeholders
 Providing the tools to address the bottlenecks

35. Where to find more information
• www.catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com
Actualities in rural development
Descriptions the rural communities presented
All outputs, including software and game
Links to free GIS data
• www.happystrategies.wikispaces.com
• www.nilebdc.org

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