Gap and opportunity analysis of hydrological monitoring in the Ziway-Shala Sub-basin, Ethiopia

Donauer, Tabea; Haile, Alemseged Tamiru; Goshime, Demelash Wondimagegnehu; Siegfried, Tobias; Ragettli, Silvan

doi:10.5337/2020.210

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Some of the wetlands in the CRV are included in the country-wide overview undertaken by Leykun (2003). Studies on local ecological knowledge and wetland management in the Ethiopian Rift Valley (Gebrehiwot, 2020) and Gap and Opportunity Analysis of Hydrological Monitoring in the Zeway-Shala Sub-basin, Ethiopia (Donauer et al, 2020) are also among the few research done on the wetland systems. Although not exhaustive in exploring the wetland of the CRV, these works highlight the state of the endangered wetlands and create awareness on their vulnerability to anthropogenic and climate variabilities.…”

Section: Climate and The Hydro-ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Groundwater research in the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes region

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite its proximity to many research institutions in the country and prevailing environmental and water security challenges, water resources research in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia has few decades of history. Research undertaken so far, mainly focus on the lakes' environment and anthropogenic activities in their proximities. Worsening deterioration of the water resources and environmental conditions; and the need to address overlooked but determinant natural and anthropogenic processes spurred a critical review of what has been done so far. This work provides an overview of the history of water research in the central rift valley and tries to reveal research gaps related to surface water-groundwater interaction, water quality, and changing trends in the hydro ecosystem and possible causes. Apart from this, articles dealing with the geological and structural setup of the central rift valley were systematically reviewed to show their control over the hydrologic system. The review work has revealed that although the current state of the central rift valley is a product of anthropogenic and geogenic processes; which are happening within the sub-basin and its adjacent basins that need to be addressed at a higher thematic, spatial, and temporal scopes, there is gap in reviewed research, to address the issue at this level. The forefront environmental challenges and the need for quick fixes, lack of data, and funding are found to be some of the reasons to limit the scope of research activities, mainly to shallow groundwater zones and surface hydrological processes around the lakes. This approach has hindered seeing the bigger picture and resulted in ineffective environmental and natural resources restoration measures and policy decisions.

show abstract

Section: Climate and The Hydro-ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Groundwater research in the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes region

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Lake Ziway is an example of this, whereby sedimentation (Desta et al, 2017), evaporation, and abstraction for irrigation and industry (Kebede et al, 1994;Pascual-Ferrer et al, 2014) have reduced the flow of the lake to subsequent downstream lakes. In particular Lake Abayata, as the terminal lake in the closed basin, has suffered as a result and reduced in size by more than 30% between 2000 and 2019 (Donauer et al, 2020). The reduction in lake capacity has an impact on local water resources for many sectors and the huge amount of water loss exacerbates water conflicts amongst diverse users.…”

Section: Agriculture and Land-use Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Problemscapes and Hybrid Water Security Systems in Central Ethiopia

Polaine¹,

Nicol²,

Amézaga³

et al. 2022

Front. Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Water management has followed a basin unit paradigm for several decades. This framing often inherits a pre-defined spatial and institutional boundary of analysis, one that largely fails to account for various externalities influencing water security beyond the hydrological unit. Moving away from this established basin-scale analysis, we present the concept of problemscapes, a systems approach for understanding how multiple physical and social drivers surrounding (and as part of) contextual water systems determine how they work and, ultimately, the outcomes in terms of the water security they provide. By first discussing the concept of boundaries for water paradigms, we argue that problemscapes can help us understand water security as a more dynamic and hybrid system by adapting these boundaries; enabling a clearer understanding of leverage points, interconnections and possible strategic solutions to longer-term water security challenges. We apply the method for establishing and utilizing a problemscape analysis across the Central Rift Valley, Upper Awash, and Abbay basins, as well as the capital city of Addis Ababa. The interactions in this part of Central Ethiopia are notoriously complex, with sets of critical water management issues at national and international scale, hybrid water security challenges across user communities, and contested management at different scales amidst multiple, and sometimes competing, ideologies. We show that problemscaping as an approach could support future planning decisions for long-term water security by enabling a systems perspective to emerge where complexity and connectivity between actors, institutions, and physical and social entities is considered.

show abstract

“…However, the organizational restructuring became too frequent (three times for the period after 2015) to properly sustain the hydrologic data collection and management. For instance, the frequency of velocity measurements has substantially decreased during organizational changes (Donauer et al 2020). As a result, the rating curves for stations across the country have not been updated for the recent decade that constrained researchers from investigating the impacts of recent developments, climate change, and variability on the water resources of the country (Goshime et al 2021) The Lake Tana sub-basin, the source of the Blue Nile River, is one of the locations that was impacted by these streamflow data issues and has had poor data quality in recent years (Abebe et al 2020;Negatu et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filling streamflow data gaps through the construction of rating curves in the Lake Tana sub-basin, Nile basin

Haile

Geremew²,

Wassie³

et al. 2023

Journal of Water and Climate Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent decades, streamflow data remain inaccessible for most river gauges in Ethiopia due to a lack of updated stage–discharge relationships, also called rating curves. In this study, researchers and hydrologic technicians collaborated to fill the recent streamflow data gaps at three gauging stations in the Lake Tana sub-basin of the Nile River. We conducted extensive field campaigns to improve the coverage of stage–discharge measurements for rating curve development. We evaluated the rating curve uncertainty during the time of its establishment and the sensitivity of the rating curves to sample size. The stage–discharge measurements conducted by the hydrological agency during the period 2016–2020 were found inadequate in number and coverage to establish reliable rating curves. Hence, converting recent water level measurements to discharge data was made possible using the rating curves developed in this study. The converted discharge data will be accessible to researchers to investigate the sub-basin's hydrology. Our study emphasizes the need to improve the stage–discharge measurement frequency to keep up with the frequent change in the morphology of the rivers' channels. The study demonstrated that collaboration between the data provider and data users can improve streamflow data availability and accessibility, which has become an increasing global challenge.

show abstract

Gap and opportunity analysis of hydrological monitoring in the Ziway-Shala Sub-basin, Ethiopia

Cited by 8 publications

References 23 publications

Review: Groundwater research in the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes region

Review: Groundwater research in the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes region

Problemscapes and Hybrid Water Security Systems in Central Ethiopia

Filling streamflow data gaps through the construction of rating curves in the Lake Tana sub-basin, Nile basin

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About