Working Paper 16. Water Economy Baseline Report. Water and livelihoods in a highland to lowland transect in eastern Ethiopia.
Abstract
This study is one component of RiPPLE’s Growth Long-term Action Research Project (Growth LARS), which focuses on how investments in the Water and Sanitation Sector (WSS) contribute to poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods and pro-poor growth. A central purpose of the LARS is to inform ongoing processes of program implementation within the water supply and sanitation sub-sector.
One component of the Growth LARS focuses on investigating how best to build resilience of communities and households vulnerable to climate change hazards by strengthening policy, planning, and implementation on climate change adaptation measures. The Water Economy for Livelihoods Systems (WELS) – previously known as the Household Water Economy Assessment (HWEA) – action research falls within this component of the Growth LARS and aims to provide both baseline data on household access to water and how this impacts on livelihoods systems, as well as a dynamic set of analytical tools that allows for scenario-based assessment of risk and prescriptive assessment of the impact of hazards.
For piloting the WELS approach, a highland to lowland transect was chosen so that watershed level resource transfers and flows, both natural and human-induced, could be included in the assessment. Within this transect, 3 Livelihood zones were selected: Wheat, Barley & Potato (WBP) (highlands), Sorghum, Maize & Chat (SMC) (midland), and Shinile Agro-Pastoral (SAP) (lowlands). This report details results of a study on the inter-relationships between water availability, access to water at household level, and livelihoods in each livelihood zone along the transect.
Citation
Research-inspired Policy and Practice Learning in Ethiopia and the Nile Region (RiPPLE), Ethiopia, 71 pp.
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