Innovative data services for aquaculture, seismic resilience and drought adaptation in East Africa

在本次GCTA中，我们提出了三个项目来应对东非地区发援会国家的重大环境挑战：地震、干旱和粮食安全。项目1将侧重于减轻马拉维的地震风险。在发援会国家，缺乏资源阻碍了有效的防震战略，因此，地震可能造成毁灭性的人员和学校基础设施损失。马拉维是东非地区深受这一挑战之害的国家之一。这是因为传统的砖石结构是未经加固和地震脆弱，有快速的人口增长和城市化，和M7.0或更大的地震可能发生在东非大裂谷（东非大裂谷）。在马拉维，学校往往是村庄里唯一的社区建筑，并被用作灾后避难所。此外，马拉维缺乏预测地震风险的手段。为了应对这一挑战，我们将采取双管齐下的办法。首先，我们将在马拉维部署地震风险评估工具，这些工具是马拉维地震风险评估项目的一部分。这将有助于对地震危险进行可靠的评估（即，在给定的时间窗口内，在给定的地理区域内，以一定的地面运动强度发生地震的概率）。第二，我们将翻译和情境化作为尼泊尔SAFER项目的一部分开发的简单，低成本，易于使用的工具，用于马拉维学校建筑的地震前评估和学校加强的知情优先级。项目2将侧重于适应肯尼亚的干旱。严重缺水是东非地区最紧迫的发展挑战之一，自2000年以来已遭受10次干旱，导致三次严重饥荒，影响到数百万东非人。因此，迫切需要有关水资源的相关、及时和实用的信息，特别是对远离决策中心的农村农牧人口而言。为此，我们开发了一个App。该应用程序将为用户提供水资源短缺的季节性预测（土壤和地下水），以及他们所在位置的不确定性估计，使农民能够对该季节的作物品种做出适当的决定。项目3将侧重于提高坦桑尼亚的水产养殖产量。坦桑尼亚的人口预计将从2018年的5600万增加到2050年的1.29亿，这将导致对鱼类蛋白质的前所未有的需求。罗非鱼养殖被认为是满足日益增长的需求的重要解决方案。然而，它尚未根据需求扩大，获得适当的亲鱼和教育被认为是限制扩大的关键问题。一个关键问题是入侵的小型罗非鱼物种（蓝点罗非鱼）对池塘的广泛污染，这种鱼在幼鱼时与大型鱼类（如尼罗河罗非鱼）无法区分。坦桑尼亚政府认为，随着食品工业的发展，消除这种污染是改善食品生产的关键一步。该项目将提供以环境DNA为基础的监测信息，使发展中的水产养殖部门把重点放在体型大、产量高的鱼种上，此外还将提供咨询意见和信息，说明在哪里可以为受青睐的体型大的鱼种获得纯鱼种和适当的饲料及饲养条件。

In this GCTA we propose three projects to tackle significant environmental challenges; earthquakes, droughts and food security in DAC countries in the East African region. Project 1 will focus on seismic risk mitigation in Malawi. In DAC countries, the lack of resources hinders effective seismic mitigation strategies and as a result, earthquakes can result in devastating human and school infrastructure loss. Malawi is one of the countries in the East African region that suffer greatly from this challenge. This is because traditional masonry structures are unreinforced and seismically vulnerable, there is rapid population growth and urbanization, and large earthquakes of M7.0 or greater can occur in the East African Rift (EAR). In Malawi Schools are often the only community buildings in a village and are used as refuges post-disaster. In addition to that, Malawi lack the means to predict seismic risk. To tackle this challenge, we will employ a two-pronged approach. First, we will deploy the seismic risk assessment tools developed as part of the PREPARE project in Malawi. This will enable the reliable assessment of seismic hazard (i.e., the probability that an earthquake will occur in a given geographic area, within a given window of time, and with certain ground motion intensity). Second, we will translate and contextualise the simple, low cost, easy to use tool developed as part of the SAFER project in Nepal for the pre-earthquake assessment of school buildings and the informed prioritization of school strengthening in Malawi. PROJECT 2 will focus on adaptation to droughts in Kenya. Severe water shortage is one of the most pressing development challenges in the East African region, having been struck by 10 droughts since 2000 which led to three severe famines affecting millions of East Africans. As such there is a pressing need for relevant, timely, and practical information about water resources, particularly for rural agro-pastoral populations which are distant from decision-making centres. We propose to develop an App for this purpose. The App will provide users with seasonal forecasts of water scarcity (in the soil and groundwater) with uncertainty estimates at their location, allowing farmers to take appropriate decisions about crop variety for that season for example. PROJECT 3 will focus on improving aquaculture production in Tanzania. The population of Tanzania is projected to increase from 56 million in 2018 to 129 million by 2050, resulting in unprecedented demand for fish protein. Tilapia aquaculture is proposed as an important solution to meet the increased demand. However, it has not yet expanded in line with demand, with access to appropriate broodstock and education cited as key concerns limiting expansion. A key issue is the widespread contamination of ponds by an invasive small-bodied tilapia species (the blue-spotted tilapia), which is indistinguishable as young fish from large bodied species (e.g. Nile tilapia). Elimination of this contamination has been recognised by the Tanzanian Government as a critical step to improve food production as the industry expands. This project will provide environmental DNA-based surveillance information to focus the developing aquaculture sector on large-bodied, high-yielding species, in addition to providing advice and information on where to obtain pure stock and appropriate feed and rearing conditions for favoured large-bodied species.