International Congress: Water 2011
Integrated water resources management in tropical and subtropical drylands

Over the last decade, significant advances have been made in tropical and subtropical drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa to boost sustainable use of water resources for increasing food production. This international symposium aims at creating a forum for those conducting research in drylands of Africa as well as in comparable regions around the globe to discuss results and to exchange experience during paper and poster sessions as well as during field excursions. The congress will be held at Mekelle, the regional capital of Ethiopia’s northern province Tigray. Mekelle University has been spearheading interdisciplinary research on water resources management in the Ethiopian dry lands, covering issues that are of relevance for many tropical and subtropical regions in the world.  

Themes to be discussed

The congress will focus on various aspects of water management which will be elaborated upon into the six thematic sessions on the congress:

• Water Resources: runoff, discharge, sediment transport, flooding, infiltration, enhancing groundwater recharge, groundwater (over)exploitation, groundwater resources potential
• Aquatic Ecology: water quality, eutrophication, cyanobacterial blooms, fish as protein source for livelihoods improvement, potential conflict between fish culture and water quality
• Soil and Water Conservation: water harvesting, soil and water conservation practices, conservation agriculture, watershed management
• Crop Water Productivity: salinization, deficit irrigation, irrigation management, drip irrigation, long-term fertility, traditional systems, mechanization, modernization, crop livestock systems
• Livestock Water Use and Productivity: water use efficiency and productivity in pastoral and mixed crop livestock systems feeding strategies; livestock and water quality, conflicts over resource use (including biomass) and way forward to improve livestock footprint on water resources
• Water and Livelihood: household-level irrigation, institutional arrangements of water management, marketing of water products, cultural significance of water, water-related extension, sanitation
• Climate Change Adaptation: land-use change, adaptation to climate change
• Stakeholders Forum on Water: extension of water-saving technologies

Rationale for the congress

Although farmers’ living conditions in the Tigrinian highlands were considered relatively favorable, the ever-increasing population pressure has expanded agriculture into marginal mountainous areas as wells as into lowland plains (below 1,500 m asl) with mean annual rainfall of less than 500 mm. Hence, the demand for water to irrigate crops has substantially increased and has resulted in a non-sustainble water use in the Tigray drylands.

When Mekelle University was awarded its status of “Unesco-Centre of Excellence on water issues”, it has played its leading role in a number of national and international fora such as the Nile Basin Initiative, Friend Nile etc… The Government of Ethiopia, in its drive of meeting the Millennium Goals has written into its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) a commitment to make its people in the dry lands less vulnerable to erratic rains. With this congress, Mekelle University wants to take advantage of sharing minds with the best water specialists in the world, so as to be empowered to better fulfill the challenges on water at the scale of the Blue Nile as well at scale of its tributaries. We aim at providing the researchers on water resources of Ethiopia  a forum to reflect on where they are with their multidisciplinary research and with the cross-cutting issues. They will not only discuss among themselves but also with international peers from all over the world and hence gain from international experience with a holistic approach to water management.