HR: 0800h
AN: G11A-1189    [Abstracts]
TI: Techniques for monitoring and predicting water vulnerability with an application in Ethiopia
AU: * Funk, C C
EM: chris@geog.ucsb.edu
AF: Climate Hazard Group, UCSB Geography, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 United States
AU: Verdin, J
EM: verdin@usgs.gov
AF: USGS EROS, National Center for EROS, Sioux Falls, SD 61052 United States
AU: Senay, G
EM: senay@usgs.gov
AF: USGS EROS, National Center for EROS, Sioux Falls, SD 61052 United States
AB: A lack of water will be one of the great challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. UN projections for 2050 suggest that between 2 and 7 billion people will face chronic water insecurity. Improved information tools for assessing, monitoring and predicting water insecurity will become increasingly important. This study combines rainfall estimates with surface runoff estimates and population density information to create a Water Vulnerability Index. The WVI is a standardized index that expresses the relative availability of surface water. A WVI of 100 denotes sufficient water to support typical agro-pastoral livelihoods. We apply the WVI in Ethiopia, which has a large, growing, and increasingly food and water insecure population. Recent research performed for the USAID Famine Early Warning System Network has identified large water insecure populations threatened by a recent decrease in rainfall, probably associated with warming in the southwest Indian Ocean. We use a 40-year time-series of WVI values to explore trends, seasonal and intra-seasonal predictability, with particular attention paid to climate forcing in the Indian Ocean. An early warning tool combining satellite rainfall observations and climate-based projections will be described and evaluated.
DE: 5419 Hydrology and fluvial processes
DE: 5445 Meteorology (3346)
DE: 5464 Remote sensing
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005