Improving Organic Resource use in rural Ethiopia (IPORE)

撒哈拉以南非洲农村地区缺乏用于改善长期能源、粮食和水供应的有机资源，这是该地区面临的最大挑战之一。埃塞俄比亚南部国家、民族和民族地区（SNNPR）为跨学科研究如何通过更好地利用有机资源来提高社区的可持续性和复原力提供了一个极好的案例研究。有机资源是稀缺的，季节性导致全年可用水资源的显著变化，而不同的文化规范和制度安排，构成了对土地、水和能源的获取，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。在Nexus网络赠款中，通过与哈拉巴地区和更广泛的SNNPR的农民、户主和政策制定者的接触，确定了Nexus的主要挑战是复杂的、多维的和相互关联的。该地区有机能源、水和食物利用之间的相互作用是动态的、极其复杂的、高度空间可变的。与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，木材、粪便和作物残茬是主要能源来源。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。粪便和作物残茬提供有机肥料，提高土壤的持水能力。对用作燃料和牲畜饲料的有机废物的需求减少了将粪便和作物残茬用作土壤改良剂的使用，从而减少了生物质生产和对土壤的有机投入。土壤碳流失和森林砍伐也是埃塞俄比亚严重的土壤侵蚀的原因，而许多家庭通过在家庭地块上种植速生和耗水树种来应对生物量减少，如桉树，这对粮食生产产生负面影响，并可能减少地下水的可用性。制定资源访问框架的治理安排也是关键。例如，传统的露天放牧方式会导致农田中残留的作物残余物数量增加，并破坏集水设施的维护。有机资源短缺的另一个原因是农民在应对季节变化（以及越来越不稳定）时所面临的困难。在典型的粗放型畜牧业系统中，水资源短缺意味着农民要花很长时间离开家园，带着牲畜去取水；这减少了用于其他活动的时间。在旱季（或由于社区水泵的缺失或故障而导致全年）缺少就近水源，会影响家庭成员（通常是妇女和儿童）取水的时间，也会影响上学。有机资源的空间变异性、正式和非正式的文化规范和社会制度意味着，成功的政策干预需要适应具体的地方环境。这需要适当的当地具体科学和社会经济数据，并与决策者和其他利益攸关方接触，以便共同拥有拟议的解决方案。该项目将加深我们对这一特定地理和社会背景下与有机资源利用相关的食物、能源和水之间相互作用的理解，并将有助于确定适合当地的解决方案，以提高社区的可持续性和复原力。这将为应用跨学科的Nexus思维来改进政策设计提供一个模型。

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.