Ethiopia has been working at its maximum efforts to ensuring food security.The rapid growth of its population; change of fertile farmland to construction for the urban dwellers; climate change; decline of available natural resources; inflation of basic needs; greater number of young unemployment among other reasons have forced the country to give due emphasis for the agriculture sector.
Hence, presently, to overcome the above narrated challenges, the country has intensified summer season; the main rain season for land preparations. The country highly needs a greater commitment and not only government’s involvement, but it also needs stakeholders and international organizations’ involvement to secure the peoples’ basic need.
The country needs to expand comm- ercialized agriculture by far through improving infrastructures, provision of incentives and export the agricultural commodities. Moreover, the food demand and price has been increasing in the recent decade than ever in Ethiopia. The variability of food price increment occurs within a short period of time, season, and years.
Meanwhile, Science of The Total Environment in its recent edition under the theme: “Potential predictability of the Ethiopian summer rains: Understanding local variations and their implications for water management decisions,” stated that Ethiopia is known for its complex topography that is characterized by various climate types ranging from humid climate covering the Ethiopian highlands to the west of the Rift Valley, to arid climate zones to the east of the Rift Valley where lowlands and semi-deserts are located.
The climate variations impact water resources management and use throughout the country and affect water availability situation of various sectors. In addition to the various climate zones, the inter-annual variability of rainfall in Ethiopia is high. Ethiopia, a country with over 100 Million population, according to the 2019 data of Central Statistics Agency (CSA), is experiencing growing urbanization, industrialization, and more extreme climate events. Understanding the large-scale atmospheric and oceanic processes that control inter-annual rainfall variability is crucial to managing the limited water resources efficiently and equitably among different users.
More importantly, the annual cycle of rainfall in Ethiopia can be characterized by three main seasons: June to September (known locally as Kiremt, which is the main rainy season), February/March to May (known locally as Belg, second rainy season), and the dry season October to January (known locally as Bega). Most previous studies on the link between large-scale atmospheric and Ethiopian rainfall have focused on the June to September rainfall while fewer have focused on the February/March to May rainfall
In almost all cases the influence of Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures (SST), in the form of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), has been established with El Nino events associated with decrease in rainfall. However, it is noted that the local influence of this phenomena varies spatially across the country, it said.
As per the 2011 performed analysis, the equatorial Pacific, the mid-latitude northwest Pacific and Gulf of Guinea also influence JJAS rainfall over Ethiopia. They noted the relative strength of these influences exhibited variations in different parts of the country and emphasized the need to explore local variations when using the relations for seasonal forecasting purposes. Hence, there is a knowledge gap in previous studies in the aspect of identifying which local areas are linked to which influencers and their relevance for specific sectors such as local water management issues.
For instance, local water management decisions based on larger national or basin-wide precipitation cycles might provide misleading interventions due to the complexity of Ethiopian climate. Therefore, choosing the relevant season for a specific region guided by water management applications and understanding the link with different tele connections would be more relevant than the knowledge gap this research attempts to address in the context of sub-national scale.
To explore the impact of large-scale SST drivers on the spatial variability of seasonal rainfall at local scale, the analysis of the current study focuses on the Awash River basin in Ethiopia. The river basin, strategically highly relevant for Ethiopia, hosts a variety of different types of water users, complex hydro-climatological conditions, and a complicated water governance situation which makes it an interesting case study in the context of rainfall variability and water management applications, it said.
The basin experienced the devastating impacts of climate extremes including drought in the 2015/16 El Nino events, followed by high rainfall and flooding in 2017 in different parts of the basin, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2016 and 2017 stated.
These events could have been more readily managed with robust, actionable weather and climate information on seasonal and sub-seasonal timescales. It is, therefore, important to understand the drivers of sub-seasonal to seasonal variability of the basin’s rainfall to improve water management and resilience to climate extremes.
FAO’S Crop Prospects and Food Situation Quarterly Global Report said that land preparation is underway for 2021 main season started in the major growing areas of Central, Rift Valley and Western provinces in Kenya (“long-rains” season), in southern and central Somalia (“Gu” season) and in southern bi-modal rainfall areas of South Sudan and Uganda. In Ethiopia, planting of secondary “Belg” season crops, for harvest from May, is currently underway in eastern Amhara, eastern Oromia, southern Tigray and northeastern SNNP regions.
In the conflict-affected Tigray planting operations are likely to be affected by insecurity and input shortage due to market disruptions. In central and southern uni-modal rainfall areas of the United Republic of Tanzania, planting of the 2021 “Msimu” crops, to be harvested in May/June, was completed in December 2020. Abundant precipitation between November 2020 and early February 2021 benefited crop development. However, the heavy rains triggered floods in southern Mtwara Region, which are likely to result in localized shortfalls in cereal production. In Rwanda and Burundi, harvesting of the “2021A” season crops was delayed by about one month, concluding in February, due to a late onset of the September-November 2020 rains.
Abundant rains during the season offset the early moisture deficits in most areas and crop production is estimated at an above-average level in both countries. However, the late harvest of the “2021A” season crops delayed land preparation and planting for the “2021B” season, increasing the risk of crops not reaching full maturity before the cessation of the March-May seasonal rains.
According to the latest weather forecast by the Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF), the March-May 2021 rainy season will be characterized by above average precipitation over eastern South Sudan, northeastern Uganda, western Kenya, central United Republic of Tanzania and northern Somalia. Rains are expected at below-average levels over northern and eastern Ethiopia and in areas of western South Sudan, while average amounts of precipitation are expected over the rest of the sub region, it said.
BY ALAZAR SHIFERAW