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DOWN2EARTH: Translation of climate information into multilevel decision support for social adaptation, policy development, and resilience to water scarcity in the Horn of Africa Drylands

Project description

DEENESFRITPL

Climate services for the Horn of Africa drylands

The Horn of Africa is a region plagued by recurrent drought, which makes rural communities extremely vulnerable to water scarcity, food insecurity and economic losses during drought periods. Severe and prolonged droughts result in reduced soil moisture and drinking water reserves, producing food insecurity, livestock loss and major water shortages, affecting millions of people within the Horn of Africa drylands. The EU-funded DOWN2EARTH project will improve community-centric adaptation and resilience to droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. It will develop community-relevant climate services. The focus will be on providing tools that forecast and project water scarcity and its consequences at or near the Earth’s surface for the agro-pastoral populations. DOWN2EARTH will develop multilevel decision support tools and climate adaptation policy frameworks, as well as building regional capacity and disseminating information to relevant stakeholders.

Objective

Prolonged periods of extreme water scarcity induced by drought are detrimental to regional economies through crop and livestock loss, threatening food security in rural communities, and making politically unstable regions more vulnerable to conflict, terrorism, and mass migration. The rural communities of the Horn of Africa Drylands (HAD) are extremely vulnerable to food insecurity and associated economic losses during drought conditions due to low socio-economic levels and low adaptive capacity to climatic shocks, such that frequent and more severe droughts in HAD have dramatically reduced soil moisture and affecting drinking water reserves, leading to increased food insecurity, livestock loss, and major water shortages. DOWN2EARTH is composed of a multidisciplinary project team that will deliver state-of-the-art and community relevant climate services that focus on water scarcity and its consequences at or near the Earth’s surface (hence DOWN2EARTH) to increasingly vulnerable agro-pastoral populations in HAD. The project is designed to bolster existing climate services frameworks, improve decision support to governments and NGOs in the most vulnerable HAD countries (Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia), and to improve community-centric adaptation and resilience to climate change. The project will: assess the socio-economic dimensions and human dynamics of climate change including feedbacks between climatic shocks, human behavior, and policy implementation; characterize historical trends and future projections of water scarcity, food insecurity, population, and land use; develop and enhance multi-level decision-support tools that emphasize the translation of climate information into critical land and water information required for adaptation and resilience by end users and state/regional governments; and strengthen regional climate services through capacity building, citizen science, information dissemination, expansion of data networks, and policy implementation.

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Topic(s)

Call for proposal

H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020

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Sub call

H2020-LC-CLA-2019-2

Funding Scheme

RIA - Research and Innovation action

Coordinator

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Net EU contribution
€ 1 252 085,00
Address
NEWPORT ROAD 30 36
CF24 0DE Cardiff
United Kingdom

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Region
Wales East Wales Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost
€ 1 252 085,00

Participants (15)

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Last update: 19 December 2023

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/869550

European Union, 2024