CNH: Agroecosystem-Based Climate Resilience Strategies in the Blue Nile Headwaters of Ethiopia

该项目分析了埃塞俄比亚青尼罗河源头地区的气候变化影响、适应机会和相关风险。在这里，气候变化被定义为包括平均条件的逐渐变化和气候变率的演变模式，如极端事件，在年际到十年的时间尺度上。气候变化可能影响水文、土地质量、作物产量和多样性，并改变现有的社会和经济体系。该项目将评估农业生态系统一级的所有影响。 农业生态系统是一个气候生态区与一套土地管理和种植实践的交叉点，这些实践来自地理，生态，经济和文化条件。适应是内部适应能力、变化速度、知情投资潜力以及社会文化和生物物理制约因素的函数。为了以综合的方式解决耦合适应过程，我们将根据过去气候变化和社会反应的模式生成概率农业生态情景（1980-2010年）预测的未来气候影响和应对措施（2010-2040年），BNH社区家庭一级适应能力分析，开展互动式规划会议，利用关于预计风险和不确定性的信息为气候适应决策提供信息。我们将与参与气候创新平台网络的社区成员合作，使我们能够评估如何将来自最先进的气候，作物和水文模型的变化概率预测纳入适应规划。反过来，这使我们能够评估适应性行动如何最大限度地提高复原力-承受气候引起的压力或从中恢复的能力-并打破当今影响该地区的土地退化和贫困的耦合循环。这项工作将审查尼罗河地区粮食安全、水安全和稳定等核心问题。 青尼罗河源头是非洲的一个重要水塔，它所产生的河流是下游苏丹和埃及人口的生命线。然而，在水源地区本身，投资能力低和土地退化的相互关联的过程推动了农业产量下降和持续贫困的循环，使该地区特别容易受到气候变化的影响。 这一周期因该区域经历的剧烈的年际气候变化而得到加强，人们有理由担心，今后几十年的条件将恶化，因为气候变化可能带来更频繁的干旱和更强的降雨，而且由于人口迅速增长，土地使用的压力也在增加。这些变化对整个区域的粮食和水安全产生了影响。然而，目前加剧该区域贫困的自然和人类系统的结合也提供了机会。对气候变化的脆弱性取决于变化的程度、人类和自然系统对变化的敏感性以及社区以减少影响的方式进行适应的能力。拟议的研究方法将监测和预测气候影响的现有最佳科学工具与对自然和文化多样性景观的潜在适应战略进行前所未有的社区驱动评估相结合。因此，这项研究将促进了解脆弱社区如何最好地利用不确定的气候预测进行未来规划。更一般地说，在农业生态系统层面上开发气候影响情景代表了一种新的气候影响分析方法，将广泛适用于美国和其他地方。

This project analyzes climate change impacts, adaptation opportunities, and associated risks for communities of the Blue Nile headwaters (BNH) region in Ethiopia. Here, climate change is defined to include gradual changes in the average conditions and evolving patterns of climate variability, such as extreme events, on the interannual to decadal timescale. Climate change may affect hydrology, land quality, crop yields and diversity, as well as altering existing social and economic systems. The project will evaluate all impacts at the level of the agroecosystem. The agroecosystem is the intersection of a climatic ecological zone with a set of land management and cropping practices that derive from geographic, ecologic, economic, and cultural conditions. Adaptation is a function of internal adaptive capacity, rate of change, potential for informed investment, and socio-cultural and biophysical constraints. In order to address coupled adaptation processes in a comprehensive manner, we will generate probabilistic agroecological scenarios based on patterns of past climate variability and social response (1980-2010), projected future climate impacts and response (2010-2040), household-level analysis of adaptation capacity in BNH communities, and conduct interactive planning sessions in which information on projected risks and uncertainties is used to inform climate adaptation decisions. We will partner with community members participating in a network of Climate Innovation Platforms, allowing us to assess how probabilistic projections of change derived from state of the art climate, crop, and hydrological models can be integrated into adaptation planning. In turn, this allows us to assess how adaptive actions might maximize resilience - the ability to withstand or recover from climate-induced stress - and break the coupled cycle of land degradation and poverty that affects the region today. This work will examine issues at the core of food security, and water security, and stability in the Nile region. The Blue Nile Headwaters are a vital water tower of Africa, giving rise to a river that is the lifeblood of downstream populations in Sudan and Egypt. Within the headwaters region itself, however, connected processes of low investment capacity and land degradation drive a cycle of depressed agricultural yields and persistent poverty, making the region especially vulnerable to climate change impacts. This cycle is reinforced by the dramatic interannual climate variability experienced in the region, and there is reason for concern that conditions will deteriorate in coming decades - both because climate change may bring more frequent drought and more intense rains and because land use pressures are increasing under rapid population growth. These changes have implications for food and water security throughout the region. However, the same coupling of natural and human systems that currently reinforces poverty in this region also offers opportunity. Vulnerability to climate change is determined by the magnitude of that change, the sensitivity of human and natural systems to change, and the capacity of communities to adapt in ways that reduce impacts. The proposed research approach combines best-available scientific tools for monitoring and projecting climate impacts with an unprecedented community-driven evaluation of potential adaptation strategies across a physically and culturally diverse landscape. As such, the study will advance understanding of how vulnerable communities can best make use of uncertain climate projections for future planning. More generally, the development of climate impacts scenarios at the level of the agricultural ecosystems represents a new approach to climate impacts analysis that will be broadly applicable in the U.S. and elsewhere.