Audio slideshow about Ethiopia’s water resources

My colleague Jason and I put together an audio slideshow about an IRI scientist’s trip to Ethiopia. The scientist, Paul Block, is trying to help he country better manage its scant water resources. He came back with a nice collection of photos for us to sift through and frame out a story. We sat him down in front of our trusty Edirol digital recorder (pictured in the “reporter’s toolkit” section to the right) and had him narrate the piece. We were lucky in that Paul can speak quite eloquently off-the-cuff, so the whole thing took only a few tries.

In areas where Paul didn’t have appropriate photos to tie in with what he was saying, we went to outside sources, including Flickr. NGOs and universities also usually make many images freely available. Click on the image to view the slideshow. Hope you enjoy, and as always, feedback is appreciated.

Water Demand in the Philippines

The population of Manila has increased sharply in recent decades, and so has its demand for water. Right now, about 97% of metro Manila’s water comes from the Angat reservoir, located north of the city in Bulacan Province (map). The reservoir also serves farmers in Bulacan, who rely on irrigation water to grow their palay (unmilled rice) and vegetables, and it is a critical source of back-up hydroelectric power for the region.

Everything runs smoothly in years of normal rainfall. But when the region gets below-normal rainfall-as is typically the case during an El Niño–the situation gets contentious. Continue reading »

Agricultural water management and climate risk

Feasible investments in agricultural water management are likely to bring the greatest livelihood benefit to the rural poor of sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia if they are part of a comprehensive approach to managing climate risk, according to a new report from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

“Despite the known impacts of current climate risk and growing concern about future climate change, climate risk management remains conspicuously absent from many analyses and regional development strategies,” write Casey Brown and James Hansen, the authors of the report, called Agricultural Water Management and Climate Risk (download it here). The report was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will help guide the foundation’s investment strategy in agricultural and water development in the face of climate variability.

Continue reading »