Citizen Science at the Source of the Blue Nile: Promoting Public Participation in Science for Ensuring Food and Water Security in Ethiopia

The Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, whose inter-annual variability in local precipitation has resulted in droughts and floods that lead to economic and food insecurity, is the area of interest for our NSF-PIRE project, which aims to develop novel forecast technologies to mitigate the stresses to local communities. As part of the PIRE project, a Citizen Science Initiative (PIRE CSI) was established in June 2017, a project that trains high school students in hydrologic data collection under the guidance of classroom teachers and graduate students and professors from Bahir Dar University in four watersheds of interest, located south of Lake Tana, Ethiopia. Four MSc graduate students were selected from Bahir Dar University and trained nine high school students who were nominated taking into account gender and the proximity of their schools to the watersheds. High school students are currently collecting soil moisture data using TDR, river stage measurements using optical levels and groundwater levels using shallow water level meters. The data collection is supported by an app (B-WING), developed specifically for the needs of the project. College-ready activities are being planned for the high school students, i.e. inviting them to Bahir Dar University to analyze some of the data, present their work at a workshop, and familiarize themselves with the university experience. Recently, the PIRE CSI was extended to involve local farmers as “citizen scientists”, collecting soil moisture data using low-cost, soil moisture sensors developed in-house at the University of Connecticut, that have been installed in 12 locations and two soil depths (20 cm and 40 cm). The collected data will be used for the initialization and validation of the hydrological models developed in the region. The PIRE CSI promotes the empowerment of local communities and establishes long-lasting partnerships between scientists and stakeholders. It is believed that the co-generation of knowledge may contribute to higher rates of forecast adaption by the local farmers and may trigger the student’s interest in STEM and encourage their uptake of scientific careers. Acknowledgment: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1545874.