Rainwater harvesting in drought-prone areas of THE Ethiopian highlands
Woldeamlak Bewket
Abstract: Agriculture is the source of livelihood to an overwhelming majority of the Ethiopian population. Ethiopian agriculture is almost totally rain-fed, whereas annual and seasonal rainfall variability is high and droughts are frequent in many parts of the country. Rainfall variability has historically been the immediate cause to the country’s structural food insecurity problem. Recognizing this, the government has recently incorporated household level rainwater harvesting into the national food security strategy with a view to mitigate impacts of rainfall variability on food security of farming households, particularly in the arid and semi-arid environments. Different types of household level rainwater harvesting technologies have been implemented extensively since 2002/03 in many parts of the country. The major objective of this study was to appraise problems and potentials of the newly introduced household level rainwater harvesting practice as a drought-cushioning mechanism and food security strategy. The Kalu Woreda (district) in South Wello is used as a case study site. Structured questionnaire survey, informal discussion and field observation methods were used to generate the data. The results reveal that harvesting rainwater at the household level generally has a good potential to contribute to food security of households. However, the existing rainwater harvesting schemes are also suffering from a range of problems that are undermining their potential significance. The paper discusses details of these problems and concludes by suggesting ways of enhancing the effectiveness of the introduced technologies and household level rainwater harvesting in general.