TY  - JOUR
N2  - The pastoral systems of Eastern Africa have been affected by the alternated incidence of recurrent
drought and flood for the last decades, aggravating poverty and local conflicts. We have
introduced an innovation to convert floods to productive use using water spreading weirs
(WSW) as an entry point to capture and spread the torrential flood emerging in the neighboring
highlands into rangelands and crop fields of low-lying pastoral systems in Afar,
Ethiopia. The productivity and landscape feature have changed from an abandoned field to
a productive landscape within 3 years of intervention. The flood patterns and sediment
loads created at least four different crop management zones and productivity levels. Based
on moisture and nutrient regimes, we developed land suitability maps for integrating crops
and forages fitting to specific niches. The outcome was a fast recovery of landscapes, with
150% biomass yield increment, increased access to dry season feed and food. These positive
outcomes could be attributed to the proper design of weirs, joint planning and execution
between pastoralists, researchers and development agents, identification and availing best-fitting
varieties for each management zone and developing simple GIS-based parcel level maps
to guide development agents and pastoralists. The major ?agents? were community leaders
(?Kedoh Abbobati?) who keenly debated potential benefits and drawbacks of innovations,
enforced customary rules and byelaw and suggested changes in approaches and choices of
interventions. In general, an innovation system approach helped to create local confidence,
attract attention of government institutions and helped local actors to identify investment
areas, develop implementation strategies to increase productivity, define changes as it occurs
and minimize conflicts between competing communities. However, the risk of de facto use of
a plot of communal land translating into long-term occupation and ownership may be
impacting a communal territory and social cohesion that was subject to other collective choice
customary rules.
N1  - This research was supported by BMZ-Germany,
through GIZ-SDR Ethiopia and the CGIAR Research Program Water, Land
and Ecosystems (WLE) which are carried out with support from the CGIAR
Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements. We thank the communities
and local authorities, particularly the Pastoral Agricultural Development
Office (PADO) of Chifra and Yallo districts for facilitating our engagement.
We also acknowledge the strong technical support from Dr Mezgebu
Getnet, Tadesse Gashaw, Dr Mohammed Abate, Abubeker Mohammed,
Mohammed Abdulatife, and local support of Indris Siraje and Henok Aragie.
AV  - public
KW  - Bylaws
KW  -  Crop
KW  -  Flood
KW  -  Forage
KW  -  Pastoralists
KW  -  Risk
KW  - 
Water-Spreading weirs
A1  - Amede, T
A1  - Van den Akker, E
A1  - Berdel, W
A1  - Keller, C
A1  - Tilahun, G
A1  - Dejen, A
A1  - Legesse, G
A1  - Abebe, H
TI  - Facilitating livelihoods diversification through flood-based land restoration in pastoral systems of Afar, Ethiopia
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170520000058
JF  - Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (TSI)
SP  - 1
Y1  - 2020/02/03/
ID  - icrisat11498
EP  - 12
SN  - 1742-1705
PB  - Cambridge University Press
ER  -