Today on the Guardian news website is an excellent short film “Lord of the Rain” that highlights the challenges facing farmers in the remote Omo region of Ethiopia.
Traditional knowledge is being challenged by climate change, and as the young man in the film says: “My dad predicts the weather with the traditional way, but I do it with science.”
The film shows how radio programmes are used to give vulnerable and remote communities access to reliable weather forecasts to help plan their planting or cattle movements.
Researchers in the UPGro BRAVE project are developing similar ways for remote communities in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso. Bringing state-of-the-art climate, weather and groundwater monitoring and modelling to bear on the challenges facing these farmers: when is the best time to plant, when are their wells most likely to dry out.
In the village of Poa, Burkina Faso, researchers from the University of Reading, with local partners, including Christian Aid, have been monitoring groundwater responses to rainfall and working with farmers to understand the implications for their farming calendar – when to plant their onions, cabbages, tomatoes and aubergines.
Your can find out more about this work in Burkina Faso in this short report by Narcisse Ghahl, and the recent RWSN-UPGro webinar on communicating groundwater-climate behaviour with African farmers.
If you want to find out more about want is happening in Ethiopia, the UPGro GroFutures project is researching how groundwater can be used to improve rural livelihoods; and the REACH research programme is working on three aspects of water security, and recently published these guidelines on how to recruit and manage citizen scientists to measure water levels and flows, based on pioneering work in Ethiopia by the University of Newcastle.
And finally, if you want to delve more into the latest in African climate research, then visit Future Climate for Africa
UPGro - African Groundwater 2020 