Improving Organic Resource use in rural Ethiopia (IPORE)

在撒哈拉以南非洲农村地区，改善长期能源、粮食和水供应的有机资源短缺是该地区面临的最大挑战之一。埃塞俄比亚南部国家、民族和人民地区（SNNPR）为跨学科研究如何通过更好地利用有机资源来改善社区的可持续性和复原力提供了一个很好的案例研究。有机资源稀缺，季节性导致全年可用水的显著变化，而不同的文化规范和制度安排，对土地、水和能源的获取构成框架，强调干预措施的成功和影响取决于科学使什么成为可能与个人和社区如何做出决定之间的复杂相互作用。来自哈拉巴区和更广泛的SNNPR的住户和决策者认为，关键的Nexus挑战是复杂的，多层面的和相互关联的。本区域能源、水和粮食等有机资源的使用之间的相互作用是动态的、极其复杂的，而且在空间上变化很大。与撒南非洲其他地方一样，大多数农村人口使用固体生物质做饭和取暖，主要能源是木材、粪便和作物残渣。然而，这些资源对于长期可持续的粮食生产和水资源利用也至关重要。粪便和作物残渣提供有机肥料，提高土壤的持水能力。对有机废物用于燃料和牲畜饲料的需求减少了粪便和作物残留物作为土壤改良剂的使用，这减少了生物量生产和土壤的有机投入。土壤碳损失和森林砍伐也是埃塞俄比亚严重土壤侵蚀的原因，而许多家庭通过在自家地块上种植快速生长和耗水的树种来应对生物量的减少，如桉树，这对粮食生产产生了负面影响，并可能减少地下水的供应。制约资源获取的治理安排也很关键。例如，传统的露天放牧做法可能决定农田中作物残留物的数量，并破坏对集水结构的维护。有机资源的短缺也是由于农民在应对季节变化（而且越来越不稳定）方面面临的困难。在典型的粗放式畜牧系统中，缺水意味着农民要花很长一段时间离开宅基地，把牲畜带到水边;这减少了可用于其他活动的时间。旱季（或由于社区水泵没有或坏掉而全年）附近缺水，影响到家庭成员（通常是妇女和儿童）取水的时间，也影响到上学率。有机资源、正式和非正式文化规范和社会机构的空间变异性意味着，成功的政策干预措施需要适应当地的具体情况。这就需要有适当的、针对当地情况的科学和社会经济数据，并与决策者和其他利益攸关方接触，以便共同掌握拟议的解决方案。该项目将增加我们对在这一特定地理和社会背景下与有机资源使用相关的食物、能源和水之间的相互作用的理解，并将有助于确定适合当地情况的适当解决方案，以提高社区的可持续性和复原力。这将为应用跨学科联系思维改进政策设计提供一个模式。

The shortage of organic resources in rural Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for improving long term energy, food and water provision is one of the region's greatest challenges. The Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region in Ethiopia (SNNPR) provides an excellent case study for transdisciplinary research on how community sustainability and resilience might be improved by better use of organic resources. Organic resources are scarce, with seasonality causing significant variation in available water across the year, while diverse cultural norms and institutional arrangements, framing access to land, water and energy, emphasise that the success and impact of interventions depends on complex interactions between what science makes possible and how decisions are made by individuals and communities.In a Nexus Network grant, engagement with farmers, householders and policy makers from Halaba District and the wider SNNPR identified key Nexus challenges as complex, multi-dimensional and inter-connected. The interaction between the use of organic resources for energy, water and food in the region is dynamic, extremely complex and highly spatially variable. As elsewhere in SSA, most of the rural population use solid biomass for cooking and heating, with wood, dung and crop residues the main energy sources. However, these resources are also crucial to long term sustainable food production and water use. Dung and crop residues provide organic fertilisers that improve water holding capacity of the soil. Demands on organic wastes for fuel and livestock feed reduce the use of dung and crop residues as soil amendments, which reduces biomass production and organic inputs to the soil.Soil carbon loss and deforestation have also been a cause of significant soil erosion in Ethiopia, while many households have responded to diminishing biomass availability by planting fast growing and water hungry tree species on home plots, such as Eucalyptus, which negatively impact food production and potentially reduce groundwater availability. Governance arrangements which frame access to resources are also key. For example, traditional open animal grazing practices can determine the amount of crop residues retained in fields and undermine the maintenance of water harvesting structures. Shortage of organic resources also results from the difficulties faced by farmers in responding to changing (and increasingly erratic) seasons. Water scarcity in the typical extensive livestock system means that farmers spend significant periods away from the homestead, taking their livestock to water; this reduces time available for other activities. Lack of proximate water in the dry season (or throughout the year due to absence or breakdown of community pumps), impacts the time spent by household members (typically women and children) collecting water, and also affects school attendance. The spatial variability in organic resources, and formal and informal cultural norms and social institutions means that successful policy interventions need to be adapted to the specific local context. This requires appropriate locally specific scientific and socio-economic data, and engagement with policy makers and other stakeholders so that proposed solutions are jointly owned. This project will increase our understanding of the interactions between food, energy and water associated with organic resource use in this specific geographical and social context, and will help identify appropriate locally adapted solutions to improve community sustainability and resilience. This will provide a model for application of transdisciplinary Nexus thinking to improve policy design.