Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Are we prepared? Somalia Water and Land Information Management System Z. Balint, Chief Technical Advisor P. Muchiri, Meteorologist FAO SWALIM

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Integrated drought management What to do ? Who should do it? How to do? Can we manage drought? Natural phenomena Impacts of drought Mitigating the impacts of drought WHAT can we use? Tools, measures, facilities HOW can we use? Response systems, Preparedness

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa WHAT?HOW? Drought resistant crops Irrigation Storage systems Market systems etc. Long term plans for sustainable production Short term plans for adaptation Rapid response plans for mitigating the impacts MONITORING Long term trends Real-time drought evolution Early warning Impacts

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa SOLUTION (example) Proper identification: Env. Degradation export charcoal prod plant degradation soil erosion Altern. income generation Land conservation Land use planning Farm development Food distribution Local market price down SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY OF FOOD SHORT TERM LONG TERM DEPENDENCY FUNDS Based on Measurements & analysis More difficult to get Relatively easy to mobilise “DROUGHT” Food shortage caused by drought or env. degradation Production stops (incl. seeds) Skills degrade SHORT + LONG TERM Why monitor drought? Proper diagnosis is needed for proper response

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Drought is a frequent, recurrent event in the Horn of Africa. - Despite its frequency it always seems to be a surprise, causing an emergency. Are we prepared? Do we have the common understanding of drought? Do we know what to observe and do we have the equipment for that? Do we have monitoring systems? Do we have methodologies how to interpret the observations? Do we have the pre-set mechanisms, the standard procedures how to react in a real emergency situation? Do we know the measures, tools, how to mitigate the impacts of drought? Do we have long term visions how to adapt the production system to show more resilience to drought? There is a long way to go. We can start with better understanding the drought and join our efforts in developing methodologies for monitoring, forecasting and mitigating its impacts.

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa What is drought? Animals die overgrazing Population growth hail, cold rain disease Crop failure drought armed conflicts market problems Malnutrition grows Food shortage Armed conflicts Market problems drought disease wrong crop type drought Drought – short term (end foreseen) – temporary deviation Land degradation – long term - difficult to reverse Treatment is much different

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Serious anomaly - Long duration What is drought? Drought is an extended period, during which, fresh water availability and accessibility for the ecosystem at a given time and place is below normal, due to unfavourable spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall, temperature, soil moisture and wind characteristics.

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Drought factors in a given region are: Rainfall amount Rainfall temporal distribution Soil moisture Soil moisture temporal distribution Temperature Temperature temporal distribution Wind characteristics

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa How to measure the severity of drought? Physical indices (water balance) Palmer’s Drought indices, namely, Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), Palmer Hydrological Drought Index(PHDI), Palmer Z-index (PZI) and Crop Moisture Index (CMI) Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI) Reclamation Drought Index (RDI) Statistical indexes (time series analysis) Percent Normal Drought Index (PNDI) Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) Precipitation Decile Index Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation (WASP) Drought indices analysed

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Multiple parameter precipitationtemperaturesoil moisturewind Combined effect

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa The SWALIM Combined Drought Index (CDI) It is an index that measures how much the present conditions deviate from the reference level, which is the multi-year long-term average for a selected time duration (X dekads, Y months). Step 1: Three different, individual drought indices are calculated, each reflecting the quantity deviation from LTM and the persistence of the deviation Step 2: The combined effect is calculated in the CDI

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Precipitation drought index Temperature drought index Vegetation drought index For more information please consult the CDI brochure and the attached CDI calculator CD

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Kenyan stations

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa

Debrecen – Hungary, Europe

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa CDI trends and comparison with drought reports Drought severity legend Extre me Seve re Moderat eMildNone

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa The CDI reflects: rainfall amount deficit and its critical duration air temperature excess and its critical duration NDVI deficit and its critical duration It provides a time series of the indices that can be further analysed with statistical methods Further research is suggested on Howe to use it for short time early warning How to extent it from point data series to spatial analysis SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS ON CDI

Drought Monitoring and Mitigation in the Horn of Africa Somalia Water and Land Information Management System Thank you for your attention