Balancing Water Demands and Increasing Climate Resilience: Establishing a Baseline Water Risk Assessment Model in Ethiopia

Abstract

Water is essential to sustainable economic growth and climate change adaptation. Ethiopia’s growth and development are vulnerable to water security risks. Despite being known as the “water tower of Africa,” Ethiopia is naturally exposed to highly variable rainfall. Climate change and economic growth across sectors are increasing competing water demands. Recognizing these challenges, the Government of Ethiopia has identified balancing water demands and improving climate resilience as national priorities. Managing water risks requires decision-relevant water risk information. Water managers need to understand hydrological cycles and water use across society to ensure secure and sustainable water availability across sectors. Decision-makers in other sectors also need to understand their exposure to water risks to reduce their vulnerability. However, in Ethiopia, the data required to understand water risks are often lacking or outdated, and the modeling required to assess risks can be complex and resource intensive. This technical note describes the data and methodological approaches used to develop the baseline water risk model, presenting the results at a subbasin level. WRI developed new geospatially-explicit water withdrawal and consumption estimates for irrigation, livestock, domestic, and industry water use in Ethiopia, representing a 2015 baseline. We also extracted 36 years of remotely-sensed data to generate subbasin-level renewable water resources estimates.