Building understanding of climate variability into planning of groundwater supplies from low storage aquifers in Africa - Second Phase (BRAVE2)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Reading
Department Name: Meteorology
Abstract
Secure access to water by the rural poor in Africa is central to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. With more than 500 million Africans dependent on groundwater and the potential for expanded use, the resilience of aquifers in the face of climate, population growth, and land-use change is key to this. Evidence suggests however, that during extended periods of low rainfall, groundwater supplies from low storage aquifers can fail. It is unclear, therefore, whether planned development of substantial numbers of groundwater supplies as a means to meet the expected large increase in demand, will be effective in all areas of sub-Saharan Africa. In the absence of long historical records of borehole levels, we are reliant on process understanding and modelling to infer the stability of groundwater supplies. In partnership with national and local government, NGOs and researchers, the BRAVE project will incorporate new understanding of climate variability and observational capacity and its water resource impacts into the planning and operation of groundwater supplies in the Volta River Basin. As a result of improved understanding of how water moves through catchments representative of the Volta River Basin, combined with output from state-of-the-art climate, land surface and groundwater models, new scientific knowledge will allow appropriate tools to be developed for planning at a range of scales: basin-scale long-term regional planning of aquifer-based water supplies for domestic and productive uses; local-scale long-term and seasonal community management of groundwater supplies; and provision of information that allows timely emergency planning in the light developing drought conditions. New observational capacity and assessments of user vulnerability and an understanding of governance frameworks linking local communities to national government, along with this new scientific knowledge, will be translated into forms that allow participatory decision-making to be made. Bringing together communities, practitioners and policy-makers, the application of the planning tools will be piloted in a series of case studies within eight communities in Ghana and Burkina Faso. A set of meaningful groundwater management tools will be developed with these communities that specifically address the information they want and need, and which are embedded within the existing local, district, national and regional governance structures. The use of the system in the pilot communities will provide insights into the extent such an approach can support sustainable decision making and equitable uptake. Furthermore, after consultation with our partners, we will also develop a methodology to produce seasonal groundwater status reports which will be linked into the newly operational Rainwatch-AfClix Drought Early Warning System in Burkina Faso and Ghana. BRAVE will contribute to building the resilience of poor communities to climate variability and environmental change in the Volta River Basin. The project outputs will be of direct relevance to government departments responsible for water supply development, as well as humanitarian and development organisations. Actively working together from the project inception will encourage ownership, culminating in the co-design and implementation of the planning tools. This will deliver a strategic shift in future national disaster risk reduction, adaptation and resilience related policies to support increased water security for the poorest people in Ghana and Burkina Faso with lessons around resilience building for the wider Sahel region.
Planned Impact
BRAVE2 will have a positive impact, both through the process of conducting the research and the outputs, on the following 6 sets of beneficiaries.
1) RURAL COMMUNITIES IN THE VOLTA RIVER BASIN
Rural smallholder farmers (SHF) will have the opportunity to access, input to, and benefit through their livelihoods from this research. They will be supported to consider development options and pathways for sustainable groundwater use, access and distribution, which will enhance productive (agricultural) and WASH outcomes.
2) AFRICAN WATER SUPPLY-RELATED DECISION-MAKERS
BRAVE2 has very close links with its primary user community of resource planners and government policy makers (e.g. Ghana Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation, Ministry of Agriculture, Burkina Faso Direction Générale des Ressources en Eau) to ensure long-term commitment to provisioning accessible information and promoting adaptive capacity through improved regional integrated decision tools for groundwater management. Training & capacity building will be tailored to user groups' specific needs, and the project will empower these groups through participation in networks for appropriate information. Participatory methods to develop new tools will ensure people act as researcher-advocates and contribute to policy uptake by providing practical evidence to inform policy support for SHF. Local/sub-national governments in both countries now have devolved responsibilities for provision of support services and so will also benefit from an improved evidence base to design interventions.
3) INTERNATIONAL & BILATERAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
These will benefit from robust quantitative and qualitative evidence to inform their programmes of support to national innovation support systems (including advisory services, SME promotion, regulatory frameworks). Those active in this area will be invited to participate in the high-level BRAVE2 Learning Platforms
4) NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
Our close collaborations with NGO partners (e.g. Christian Aid Sahel, CARE Ghana) who are active in supporting SHFs will help influence their livelihood programmes and provide an improved evidence base to inform their own interventions and modes of working with farmer groups.
5) CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) & MEDIA
CSOs, and national/sub-national farmer organizations in both countries, will benefit from evidence to support their lobbying for improved water services for SHF. Some farmer organisations also provide innovation support services of their own (e.g. Uganda National Farmers Federation - UNFFE) and will be able to use the project findings to enhance their service provision. Engagement throughout with CSOs and the media (e.g. Farm Radio) will raise awareness of the research process and outcomes, such as planning information and decision tools. They will also benefit, along with academic stakeholders, from exposure to research and analytical methods that will inform their future investigation and commissioning of research in this area. These initiatives will contribute to improved and sustainable relationships between policy makers and planners and those working with rural communities, setting a platform for longer-term collaboration which is a critical factor in successful future ground water management.
6) NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTES & MET SERVICES
BRAVE2 has very close links with its primary user community of weather and climate forecasters and hydrologists/hydrogeologists, and the decision-makers who use such forecasts, through our formal project partners (GMet, Meteo-Burkina, WRI, Uni. of Ouagadougou & the Institut d'Application et de Vulgarisation en Sciences). These and other national and international research institutes in the region will have access to a richer understanding of the impacts of climate variability on groundwater resource management and how this leads to innovation in practice in the smallholder sector.
1) RURAL COMMUNITIES IN THE VOLTA RIVER BASIN
Rural smallholder farmers (SHF) will have the opportunity to access, input to, and benefit through their livelihoods from this research. They will be supported to consider development options and pathways for sustainable groundwater use, access and distribution, which will enhance productive (agricultural) and WASH outcomes.
2) AFRICAN WATER SUPPLY-RELATED DECISION-MAKERS
BRAVE2 has very close links with its primary user community of resource planners and government policy makers (e.g. Ghana Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation, Ministry of Agriculture, Burkina Faso Direction Générale des Ressources en Eau) to ensure long-term commitment to provisioning accessible information and promoting adaptive capacity through improved regional integrated decision tools for groundwater management. Training & capacity building will be tailored to user groups' specific needs, and the project will empower these groups through participation in networks for appropriate information. Participatory methods to develop new tools will ensure people act as researcher-advocates and contribute to policy uptake by providing practical evidence to inform policy support for SHF. Local/sub-national governments in both countries now have devolved responsibilities for provision of support services and so will also benefit from an improved evidence base to design interventions.
3) INTERNATIONAL & BILATERAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
These will benefit from robust quantitative and qualitative evidence to inform their programmes of support to national innovation support systems (including advisory services, SME promotion, regulatory frameworks). Those active in this area will be invited to participate in the high-level BRAVE2 Learning Platforms
4) NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
Our close collaborations with NGO partners (e.g. Christian Aid Sahel, CARE Ghana) who are active in supporting SHFs will help influence their livelihood programmes and provide an improved evidence base to inform their own interventions and modes of working with farmer groups.
5) CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) & MEDIA
CSOs, and national/sub-national farmer organizations in both countries, will benefit from evidence to support their lobbying for improved water services for SHF. Some farmer organisations also provide innovation support services of their own (e.g. Uganda National Farmers Federation - UNFFE) and will be able to use the project findings to enhance their service provision. Engagement throughout with CSOs and the media (e.g. Farm Radio) will raise awareness of the research process and outcomes, such as planning information and decision tools. They will also benefit, along with academic stakeholders, from exposure to research and analytical methods that will inform their future investigation and commissioning of research in this area. These initiatives will contribute to improved and sustainable relationships between policy makers and planners and those working with rural communities, setting a platform for longer-term collaboration which is a critical factor in successful future ground water management.
6) NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTES & MET SERVICES
BRAVE2 has very close links with its primary user community of weather and climate forecasters and hydrologists/hydrogeologists, and the decision-makers who use such forecasts, through our formal project partners (GMet, Meteo-Burkina, WRI, Uni. of Ouagadougou & the Institut d'Application et de Vulgarisation en Sciences). These and other national and international research institutes in the region will have access to a richer understanding of the impacts of climate variability on groundwater resource management and how this leads to innovation in practice in the smallholder sector.
Organisations
- University of Reading (Lead Research Organisation)
- Volta Basin Authority (Collaboration)
- WATERAID (Collaboration)
- West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (Collaboration)
- Ministry of Water Affairs (Collaboration)
- Directorate General of Water Resources (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- CHRISTIAN AID (Collaboration)
- University of 2ie (Collaboration)
- Réseau MARP Burkina (Collaboration)
- Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (Project Partner)
- Global Water Partnership (Project Partner)
- Savannah Accelerated Development Authori (Project Partner)
- Practical Action (Project Partner)
- Ghana Meteorological Agency (Project Partner)
- Water Resources Commission of Ghana (Project Partner)
- University of Oklahoma (Project Partner)
- Direction Générale de la Météorologie (Project Partner)
Publications
Sarojini B
(2016)
Detection and attribution of human influence on regional precipitation
in Nature Climate Change
R Cornforth
(2019)
Possible futures for groundwater in Burkina Faso under a changing climate
Parker H
(2016)
Using a Game to Engage Stakeholders in Extreme Event Attribution Science
in International Journal of Disaster Risk Science
Maidment RI
(2017)
A new, long-term daily satellite-based rainfall dataset for operational monitoring in Africa.
in Scientific data
Jones L
(2017)
Designing the next generation of climate adaptation research for development
in Regional Environmental Change
Dunning C
(2017)
Identification of deficiencies in seasonal rainfall simulated by CMIP5 climate models
in Environmental Research Letters
Dunning C
(2018)
Later Wet Seasons with More Intense Rainfall over Africa under Future Climate Change
in Journal of Climate
Ciampi L
(2022)
Building resilience through improving groundwater management for sustainable agricultural intensification in African Sahel
in CABI Agriculture and Bioscience
Brown M
(2017)
Monitoring drought in Ghana using TAMSAT-ALERT: a new decision support system
in Weather
Black E
(2016)
The Use of Remotely Sensed Rainfall for Managing Drought Risk: A Case Study of Weather Index Insurance in Zambia
in Remote Sensing
| Title | BRAVE postcards |
| Description | The BRAVE postcards have provided a useful and simple marketing tool which can be adapted for different audiences because of the ability to add and remove postcards from the packs. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Delegates which have seen these postcards have largely kept them, and interacted with them because they are simple, colourful and easy to process. |
| Title | Lorna Young Radio Programmes |
| Description | Radio programmes in local dialects for Ghana. The famer listening groups meet monthly with the radio presenters and local agricultural extension staff to select 5-6 key subjects developed in line with a seasonal and agricultural calendar. The aim is to help the local communities prepare for the challenges related to climate and water in the coming months. The group leaders collate the key learnings and send any questions to the radio presenters, so that the MoFA staff can provide timely support to the communities and help them prepare for extreme weather shocks and potential emergencies in a timely manner. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Too early - monitoring is throughout the 2018 rainy season |
| URL | http://www.walker.ac.uk/news-events/brave-lorna-young-foundation-radio-extension-project-in-ghana-an... |
| Title | Possible Futures for Groundwater in Burkina Faso |
| Description | This narrative describes three possible future scenarios for water resources in Burkina Faso and the human and socio-economic impacts that might be experienced by people living in rural areas. The narratives aim to stimulate discussion towards realistic policy responses and the decision support tools needed to assist future planning needs. It is important to recognise that the scenarios do not represent every possible outcome projected by hydroclimate models, and resulting impacts will be contextualised by local circumstances. |
| Type Of Art | Image |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | This product played a central role in structuring the Scenario Planning event which was held in Burkina Faso which engaged policy makers and representatives from multiple national water agencies. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/3533108#.Xlk71Kj7TyQ |
| Title | Possible futures for groundwater in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso under a changing climate |
| Description | This narrative describes three possible future scenarios based on 2050 models for water resources in dryland Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso, and the human and socio-economic impacts that might be experienced by people, with an emphasis on those living in rural areas. The narratives aim to stimulate discussion towards realistic policy responses and the decision support tools needed to assist future planning needs. It is important to recognise that the scenarios do not represent every outcome projected by climate models and the resulting impacts will be contextualised by local circumstances. |
| Type Of Art | Image |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Impact | This product played a central role in structuring the Scenario Planning event which was held in Ghana which engaged policy makers and representatives from multiple national water agencies. |
| Title | Unlocking Africa's Groundwater Potential |
| Description | Groundwater is extremely important for sub-Saharan Africa, and how it is managed and shared in the future will be central to securing people's lives and livelihoods. Groundwater thus needs to feature in policy discussions and for investments in the continent. This film explains groundwater and presents key research findings from a 7-year UK-Government (DFID-UKRI) funded research programme called UPGro (Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor). For more information, visit www.upgro.org. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Impact | This film hopes to reach a large audience to showcase some of the main findings of the UpGRO project - The BRAVE project features in this film. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp1KekPA6ug |
| Description | The three study sites in Ghana and Burkina Faso are being monitored by ourselves in collaboration with other partners and stakeholders such as; IRC 2iE, WASCAL and WRI. The monitoring has involved local students collecting data during the wet season, which has resulted in significant capacity building. The results show the importance of land use for groundwater recharge. Recent works include pumping tests of project boreholes and sampling of groundwaters for residence times. The opportunity to apply the MRS geophysical survey technique has come about through links with the GroFutures project Monitoring of rainfall, groundwater levels and groundwater abstraction for small scale irrigation continues at our community study sites. We have consolidated links with WaterAid and opportunities are being explored for cross-learning and mutual dissemination of approaches. An MOU has been signed with Burkina Faso DEIE (Dept for Water Information). BRAVE has been given access to their groundwater level monitoring data, some of which is over 30 years. BRAVE will explore methods to analyse the data and use models calibrated from the data to examine groundwater resource status under environmental change. BRAVE will train DEIE in these methods and co-develop approaches for using the outputs to underpin WRM decision-making. Groundwater level and river flow data recently received from DEIE and previously obtained from Ghanaian equivalents, in addition to geological, soils and land use datasets, have put us in a good position to start the modelling that will provide information on basin-scale groundwater resources under climate variability and trends. This modelling is underway by BGS staff on the FCFA HyCRISTAL project, with benefits to BRAVE. This work will be undertaken in collaboration with WRI. Regional climate model output continues to be used to examine future climate scenarios which, in combination with land surface models, is allowing regional-scale water balances to be quantified. |
| Exploitation Route | Policy round table discussions are taking place in Ghana in May 2018 and in Burkina Faso in June 2018 - key police makers will be present to discuss integration within 5 year water resource plans and disaster management policy. Tools development ongoing in WP3 - suggests more work is needed to assess how incorporated in national planning including (1) Better understanding of potential widespread impact of drought on community and household groundwater supplies; and (2) Opportunities for and limits to upscaling groundwater irrigation |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/brave-newsletter/ |
| Description | 1. Coupled Modelling and Capacity Development: The BRAVE project aims to provide tools to support water resource management in Ghana and Burkina Faso. This is expected to improve our understanding of the water flows and storage through the instrumentation of a series of small catchments to monitor all aspects of the water balance. The strategy for the BRAVE project was to build on existing monitored catchments, recognizing the cost of monitoring equipment; the time and effort required to build relationships with local communities in the catchments being monitored; and the value of existing contextual and longer-term data sets. In Burkina Faso, one of the detailed monitoring catchment which BRAVE is working in is around the village of Sanon, 40 km to the north of the capital city, Ouagadougou. Sanon represents much of semi-arid West Africa as the land cover has been significantly changed through farming. Prior to BRAVE's involvement, there was a network of monitoring boreholes and a weather station in place, and geophysical surveys had been undertaken to characterise the hydrogeological setting. This, with the time series data collected, had allowed a conceptual model of groundwater flows and storage to be developed. Crucially, 2iE has developed a good relationship with the local community and involved members of the community in this monitoring. Through the BRAVE project, the further development of the monitoring network at Sanon has been a collaborative activity involving 2iE, the University of Ouagadougou (UO1), IRC Burkina Faso and the British Geological Survey. This has included the drilling and testing of additional boreholes, enhancement of the weather station, installation of a series of transects of access tubes to measure soil moisture and the setting up of a river flow measurement site. It has also involved the construction of three plots (4 x 20 m) containing land use representative of the catchment within which runoff, soil moisture, groundwater level, soil infiltration, soil evaporation and plant growth and transpiration are directly measured. The monitoring is undertaken by members of the local community and by students from 2iE and UO1, as well as by BRAVE project staff. The other two existing catchments where the BRAVE project has enhanced monitoring, are part of the network of research catchments run by the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), a large-scale programme for strengthening research infrastructure and capacity involving ten West African countries and funded by the German government. One of these catchments, Aniabisi, is in Northern Ghana in an area similar to Sanon, where the landscape has been substantially changed through farming; the other, Nazinga, is just across the border in southern Burkina Faso in a nature reserve where the natural land cover is still intact. The infrastructure already in place in these WASCAL catchments has been built upon through collaboration by WASCAL, the Ghanaian Water Research Institute and BGS. Aniabisi now has infrastructure and monitoring equipment similar to that in Sanon, including the three land use plots; Nazinga is a scaled down version of this. As with Sanon, the local relationships with communities has been important in the installation of new infrastructure and local residents are also undertaking some of the monitoring work. Crucial impacts have been the support of WASCAL technical staff in the development and subsequent running of the sites. 2. Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Strengthening Learning Platforms: Mindful of the governance challenges and need to strengthen capacity at national level and local levels and bring the two together, we are working together with IRC, to strengthen a Regional Learning Alliance Platform and set up 2 District level learning alliance platforms (East Mamprusi - N/R & Garu Tempane -UER) in Northern Ghana. These initiatives will together facilitate a greater understanding of climate and water resource information needs of communities and better management of the information by decision makers for the poorest communities, as well as provide the pull through to policy of BRAVE's research findings. Farmers Radio: Radio is arguably one of the most important, cost-effective sources of information for the majority of rural farmers in Africa. Along with farmer field listening groups and multi-stakeholder groups, agri-educational radio programming addresses the training needs of smallholders by establishing a dialogue directly with rural farming populations, delivering live, relevant and real-time updates on issues affecting their crops and livelihoods. In June 2017, the Lorna Young Foundation conducted radio extension training with CARE and Christian Aid Sahel to launch BRAVE's radio extension program. The aim of this radio extension program is to improve the resilience of farming communities to weather shocks, lack of access to good quality water and to support conservation of resources. 3. Policy and Practice Exchanges The BRAVE project is sharing data and findings with the transboundary White Volta Basin Authority. Our partnership is helping with the development of a truly Integrated Water Resource Plan. Prior to our involvement, the 5 year plan neither incorporated the use of groundwater, nor communication that represented a two way dialogue with the water supply sector and community users. We are optimistic that we can continue to use this relationship to influence future policy on groundwater extraction in the county and guide further research being undertaken by the Water Resources Commission and Water Research Institute in Ghana during the development of the plan. We will continue to report on this connection as the project progresses. Current engagement with Aaron Aduna (Director) is on how we can help with the final draft of the next 5 year IWRM plan to better reflect gender issues in groundwater utilization. This will be informed by recent survey work in the Burkina Faso and Ghana around: Local governance of groundwater for agricultural livelihoods - and understanding differential vulnerability through newly developed indicators emerging from BRAVE community studies. The development of the new vulnerability indicators over the last 18 months in BRAVE have created an opportunity to develop an operational partnership with the BRACED Zaman Lebidi project in Burkina Faso. On one hand, BRACED intervenes to Building the Resilience and Adaption of communities to Climate Extremes and Disasters; on the other hand BRAVE intervenes to Bridging science-practice-policy to build livelihoods resilient to drought. These two approaches present many common points of interest which have instigated a joint action supported both by the scientific and technical expertise of the BRAVE project, as well as by the operational aspect and research interest in building resilient communities through the BRACED program. The purpose is to provide the knowledge and capacities needed by rural communities to efficiently manage groundwater resources as part of building their resilience. More specifically, it will examine the vulnerability of communities in relation to the seasonal nature of the use and availability of groundwater resources in order to provide advice in the management of this resource, making use of the newly developed vulnerability indices and the RAINWATCH platform in Burkina Faso. |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | 2016 BRAVE Communities / Practitioners Training |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2016 BRAVE Stakeholders (government and practitioners) |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | Additions introduced to next 5 year IWRM Plan to include groundwater and not just surface water after participation in Volta Basin Planning meeting |
| Description | 2016 BRAVE Stakeholders (researchers and practitioners) |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2016 Volta Basin Authority |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Impact | Participation (Ros Cornforth, PI) at the 2016 Volta Basin Authority 5 year Planning Meeting. Other additions to plan include changes to wording around communication, introducing knowledge exchange as a concept. |
| Description | 2017 Ghana Parliamentary Select Committee: Face to Face High-Level Meetings with Parliamentary Select Committee |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Description | BRAVE Vulnerability Index Training for Reseau Marp and Christian Aid practitioners in Burkina Faso in 2017 - based on new indicators developed through BRAVE research in Ghana and Burkina Faso in 2015/16. Will be used for monitoring community use of groundwater through the rainy season in 2018 |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | BRAVE inputs into White Volta Basin Authority's Integrated Water Resource Plan |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | The BRAVE project shared data and findings with the transboundary White Volta Basin Authority and continues to support policy discussions through our close collaboration with CONIWAS and the National Disaster Management Organization (Ghana) and with the DEIE/DGRE in Burkina Faso. These partnerships continue to help with the development of a truly Integrated Water Resource Plan and build capacity to understand and use existing and new hydrometeorological data for inproved water management. In Ghana for example, and prior to our involvement, the 5 year plan neither incorporated the use of groundwater, nor communication that represented a two way dialogue with the water supply sector and community users. We continue to be optimistic that we can continue to use our high-level relationships to influence future policy on groundwater extraction in the county and provide guidance around a number of future hydroclimate scenarios (2019) guide further research being undertaken by the Water Resources Commission and Water Research Institute in Ghana during the development of the plan |
| Description | Burkina Faso Scenario Futures Event |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The Scenario Planning has been designed to package the main findings form the BRAVE project in terms of what the future implications for climate change in Burkina Faso are with the aim of being used in the National Adaption Plan. The session engaged with 23 participants from multiple key national water agencies with the aim of providing a clear understanding of what the future Burkina Faso climate will look like, the multiple impacts this will have, and the potential for Groundwater to be harnessed to overcome some of the future difficulties. The Scenario Planning method enables participants to unpick and commit to individual doable actions in their own job roles which will enable necessary change. |
| Description | Collins Okrah - WRI Junior Scientist, Ghana - On the Job Training supported by Sebastian Uhlemann - Improved application of EM-32 geophysics system |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | F2F follow up meeting with White Volta Basin Authority to discuss progress of the 5 year IWRM Plan. |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Impact | Volta Basin Authority requested support to bring in gender aspects and review/expand sections on groundwater in plan. |
| Description | Galine Yanon - BRAVE PDRA, Walker Institute UK - Action Lab, Social Science Methods Training Session - T Lab before the Transformations 17 conference |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Ghana Adaptive Social Protection Training |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The Adaptive Social Protection Training was run in Ghana as an event that would improve key national water stakeholder's understandings of the aims and mechanics of Adaptive Social Protection. This has key links into the BRAVE project findings of the changing water futures of the country, and the associated need for change in behaviour. The two-day event had 37 participants on both days including key agencies such as NADMO, GMet, University of Ghana, CONIWAS, MoFA and WRC, and resulted in commitments to sharing the training insights and tools with other national agencies, and multiple requests for further training on HEA data collection processes. The training also supported linkages across different sectors in Ghana which do not normally cross path (this was noted by the participants). These new connections could have a meaningful impact in the future direction of improving adaptive social protection |
| Description | Ghana Scenario Planning Event |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The Scenario Planning has been designed to package the main findings form the BRAVE project in terms of what the future implications for climate change in Norther Ghana are with the aim of being used in the National Adaption Plan. The session engaged with 20 participants from multiple key national water agencies with the aim of providing a clear understanding of what the future of Norther Ghana climate will look like, and the multiple impacts this will have, and the potential for Groundwater to be harnessed to overcome some of the future difficulties. The Scenario Planning method enables participants to unpick and commit to one doable action which will enable the necessary change. Amongst other commitments, one of the delegates from the White Volta Basin committed to mainstream the BRAVE groundwater findings at a national forum. |
| Description | Learning Platforms: Mindful of the governance challenges and need to strengthen capacity at national level and local levels and bring the two together, we are working together with IRC, to strengthen a Regional Learning Alliance Platform and set up 2 District level learning alliance platforms (East Mamprusi - N/R & Garu Tempane -UER) in Northern Ghana. These initiatives will together facilitate a greater understanding of climate and water resource information needs of communities and better management of the information by decision makers for the poorest communities, as well as provide the pull through to policy of BRAVE's research findings. |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Description | Matt Ascott - BGS Hydrologist, UK - Workshop, supported by GroFutures, The Chronicles Consortium Training Workshop at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, Long term analysis of groundwater records |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Mindful of the governance challenges and need to strengthen capacity at national level and local levels and bring the two together, we are working together with IRC, to strengthen a Regional Learning Alliance Platform and set up 2 District level learning alliance platforms (East Mamprusi - N/R & Garu Tempane -UER) in Northern Ghana. These initiatives will together facilitate a greater understanding of climate and water resource information needs of communities and better management of the information by decision makers for the poorest communities, as well as provide the pull through to policy of BRAVE's research findings. |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Narcisse Gahi - BRAVE PDRA - IRC Burkina Faso - On the Job training supported by James Sorensen - Drilling of access tubes using a Van Walt Window Sampler |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Narcisse Gahi - BRAVE PDRA, IRC, Burkina Faso - On the job training: Installation and data collection from a range of monitoring equipment including: •soil moisture sensors •lysimeters weather station |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Narcisse Gahi - BRAVE PDRA, IRC, Burkina Faso - On the job training: Use and application of vegetation sensors including ceptometers and LAI sensors |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Radio listening programme 2018 following 2017's Radio programmes |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Radio is arguably one of the most important, cost-effective sources of information for the majority of rural farmers in Africa. Along with farmer field listening groups and multi-stakeholder groups, agri-educational radio programming addresses the training needs of smallholders by establishing a dialogue directly with rural farming populations, delivering live, relevant and real-time updates on issues affecting their crops and livelihoods In June 2017, the Lorna Young Foundation prepared radio extension training with CARE and Christian Aid Sahel to launch BRAVE's radio extension program. This was extended with further community engagement in April 2018 in Burkina Faso and Ghana through a reflection on seasonal planning challenges with newly established farmer listening groups. The use of reflective diaries by the community groups has additionally created a structure for members to regularly discuss their learning and record activities. The aim of the radio extension program is to improve the resilience of farming communities to weather shocks, lack of access to good quality water and to support conservation of resources. To achieve this, communities have participated in the construction of themes for the radio broadcasts, reflected on the information approach, and shared knowledge about their own farming and observational experience. Follow up engagement with communities in August 2018 focuses on monitoring activities and an assessment of the learning and delivery approach. This feedback will ensure adjustments in the approach to meet different farmers' needs. Furthermore, to ensure sustainability in the approach - where the integrated Rainwatch information can been interpreted and communicated to different users, we have leveraged addition support to develop a training manual for science interpretors, the piloting of feedback on scenarios and the implications for crop use and groundwater. Most significantly here, is the need to ensure that the project establishes a sustainable mechanism for future information delivery to communities, beyond the pilot communities and funded radio broadcasts, and to achieve this additional impact is now working in the last 2 months to embed the approach within existing institutional structures in order to outscale - for example the RELC platform in northern Ghana, through SARI which brings together agricultural extension, crop specialists, NGOs, universities and to train and connect with Ghana-Met. This process will ensure local ownership, innovation of the communication of the tool and its application. |
| Description | Samuel Guug - WASCAL Technician, Ghana - On the Job Training - Supported by Anne Verhoef: Use and application of vegetation sensors including ceptometers and LAI sensors |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Samuel Guug - WASCAL Technician, Ghana - On the Job training supported by James Sorensen - Drilling of access tubes using a Van Walt Window Sampler |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Samuel Guug - WASCAL Technician, Ghana - On the job training: Installation and data collection from a range of monitoring equipment including: •soil moisture sensors •lysimeters weather station |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Shani Haruna - BRAVE RA, IESS, Ghana - Workshop - McGuire communication programme Birmingham UK |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Training DEIE (Direction des Etudes et de information sur l'Eau)/DGRE (Burkina Faso's National Water Resource Directorate) staff on improving groundwater monitoring |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Training provided increase knowledge on groundwater monitoring for staff of DEIE |
| Description | Two policy round tables (June 2018) in Burkina Faso with national/municipal government and the second with municipal/NGOs/HEIs |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | Two policy round tables (May 2018) in Ghana with national/municipal government and the second with municipal/NGOs/HEIs - |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | Working with Students from 2iE and University of Ouagadougou in Sanon to build their capacity in integrated water resources and crop monitoring - Each rainy season (June-October) since 2016 |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | - |
| Description | multi-stakeholder groups, agri-educational radio programming addresses the training needs of smallholders by establishing a dialogue directly with rural farming populations, delivering live, relevant and real-time updates on issues affecting their crops and livelihoods. In June 2017, the Lorna Young Foundation conducted radio extension training with CARE and Christian Aid Sahel to launch BRAVE's radio extension program. The aim of this radio extension program is to improve the resilience of farming communities to weather shocks, lack of access to good quality water and to support conservation of resources. |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | http://www.walker.ac.uk/news-events/brave-lorna-young-foundation-radio-extension-project-in-ghana-an... |
| Description | BRACED |
| Amount | £22,902 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Christian Aid |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2017 |
| End | 12/2017 |
| Description | NATIONAL-SCALE IMPACT-BASED FORECASTING OF FLOOD RISK IN UGANDA (NIMFRU) |
| Amount | £249,556 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NE/S00596X/1 |
| Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2018 |
| End | 02/2020 |
| Description | NERC doctoral training grant |
| Amount | £103,915 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NE/R005478/1 |
| Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2017 |
| End | 03/2018 |
| Description | University of Reading BOISP Impact Funding |
| Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Reading |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2017 |
| End | 07/2018 |
| Title | BRAVE project to co-develop tools with end-users in West Africa to improve water resource management (WRM) |
| Description | BRAVE project to co-develop tools with end-users in West Africa to improve water resource management (WRM) in the face of climate variability and environmental change. WRM requires sound scientific understanding of water flows and storage; in BRAVE we are improving understanding through instrumentation of a series of small catchments to monitor all aspects of the water balance. We are building on existing monitored catchments in collaboration with the Institut International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environnement (2iE) and the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), at sites where they have established research programmes |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | - |
| Title | Further Development of Groundwater Vulnerability Indicators from 2017 |
| Description | The development of the new vulnerability indicators over the last 18 months in BRAVE have created an opportunity to develop an operational partnership with the BRACED Zaman Lebidi project in Burkina Faso. This collaboration is strengthened by the fact that both programmes have common partners such as Christian Aid (CA) and the National Agency of Meteorology of Burkina Faso (ANAM). On one hand, BRACED intervenes to Building the Resilience and Adaption of communities to Climate Extremes and Disasters; on the other hand BRAVE intervenes to Bridging science-practice-policy to build livelihoods resilient to drought These two approaches present many common points of interest which have instigated a joint action supported both by the scientific and technical expertise of the BRAVE project, as well as by the operational aspect and research interest in building resilient communities through the BRACED program. The purpose is to provide the knowledge and capacities needed by rural communities to efficiently manage groundwater resources as part of building their resilience. More specifically, it will examine the vulnerability of communities in relation to the seasonal nature of the use and availability of groundwater resources in order to provide advice in the management of this resource, making use of the newly developed vulnerability indices and the RAINWATCH platform in Burkina Faso. The new BRAVE-BRACED collaboration was formalised in May 2017 and has taken two main forms: - Exchange knowledge through sharing tools, the BRAVE vulnerability indices, approaches and documents, as well as joint participation in the respective trainings and workshops organized by the two projects. - Piloting the operational research in 2 communities in BRACED and two communities in the BRAVE project. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The expected result is to develop a practical and non-scientific tool for advisory support to the rural communities and actors working directly with them for the efficient management of groundwater resources for agricultural production contributing to the strengthening of their resilience building. Also the collaboration will co-author a set of joint publications in French and English. |
| Title | Groundwater Vulnerability Indicators |
| Description | Reveal locally perceived livelihood vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change and variability, and interactions with exacerbating socioeconomic factors, with a particular focus on risks to water for agriculture; Establish local priorities and existing livelihood coping strategies of rural households to manage water for agriculture; Identify perceived effectiveness of groundwater supply and use in the communities, particularly for agricultural irrigation. Examine the existing governance arrangements for groundwater distribution and access.The development of the new vulnerability indicators over the last 18 months in BRAVE have created an opportunity to develop an operational partnership with the BRACED Zaman Lebidi project in Burkina Faso. On one hand, BRACED intervenes to Building the Resilience and Adaption of communities to Climate Extremes and Disasters; on the other hand BRAVE intervenes to Bridging science-practice-policy to build livelihoods resilient to drought. These two approaches present many common points of interest which have instigated a joint action supported both by the scientific and technical expertise of the BRAVE project, as well as by the operational aspect and research interest in building resilient communities through the BRACED program. The purpose is to provide the knowledge and capacities needed by rural communities to efficiently manage groundwater resources as part of building their resilience. More specifically, it will examine the vulnerability of communities in relation to the seasonal nature of the use and availability of groundwater resources in order to provide advice in the management of this resource, making use of the newly developed vulnerability indices and the RAINWATCH platform in Burkina Faso. |
| Type Of Material | Physiological assessment or outcome measure |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Increasingly erratic rainfall is perceived as main driver of agricultural water insecurity and associated with groundwater availability in the communities. Perceptions of shorter rainy seasons with seasonal drying of wells influencing local perceptions about the contribution of groundwater to irrigate crops (e.g. the intensification of gardening activities in good rainfall year - 37% hhs in Burkina increasing their frequency of watering in good rainfall year against 16% in Ghana). Initiatives to explore dry season farming very limited in some locations due to perceived drought risks.What variables shape effective water use for agriculture? In Burkina, more households own livestock and groundwater key to year round water access (94% own livestock in Tomo and 97% for the other communities. In Ghana, the use of water for irrigation correlated to household demography and wealth (e.g. in Jawani and Samini fewer own their house compared to Tariganga and Akara; larger households with more children in Jawani and Samini). This could be expected since maintaining shallow wells and irrigation requires labour inputs and is privately managed. Role of different local governance approaches, livelihood and local expectations from national policy |
| Title | Rainwatch Handbook |
| Description | The Rainwatch Handbook has been designed to support users of all levels to understanding the Rainwatch platform so that they are able to adapt this to fit their specific needs. The manual has been used in conjunction with the multiple Rainwacth training events which have been rolled out throughout West Africa. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The development of this research tool has allowed practitioners, policy makers and local governance members to be able to teach themselves how to use the platform. It is open source which means it is accessible to all. This has also been supported by the development of a Rainwatch video to support users. |
| URL | http://walker.ac.uk/about-walker/news-events/new-rainwatch-handbook-a-step-by-step-guide-to-using-ra... |
| Title | Vulnerability Monitoring Field Guide |
| Description | The Field guide was devised as a research tool to support in country researchers to conduct consistent and meaningful vulnerability assessments and interviews in and effort to track the impact of the BRAVE activities on its target communities in Burkina Faso and Northern Ghana. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This tool supported in building the research skills of the in country researchers and ensured that the data which was collected was consistent and meaningful. |
| Title | Baseline Vulnerability Dataset |
| Description | BRAVE collected 289 vulnerability assessments at the start of the project to establish a baseline data set. The data was collected from 4 communities from Burkina Faso (Tomo, Zhilivele, Kado and Poa) and 4 communities from Ghana (Tariganga, Akara, Samini and Jawani). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This data has enabled tracking of community development due to the project impact. |
| Title | Monitoring data |
| Description | 48 in depth interviews and vulnerability assessment were conducted in the final year of BRAVE to establish what impact the project had had in the target communities. The interviews were conducted with community members who undertook the vulnerability assessment at the start of the project and were from the communities of Tomo and Poa (in Burkina Faso) and Jawani and Tariganga (from Ghana). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This data set has fed directly into an academic paper which evaluates methods of overcoming vulnerability through improving groundwater usage. |
| Description | 2iE-BRAVE Partnership |
| Organisation | University of 2ie |
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Technical design, test and implementation of the Cauldron Game. Creation of the Creative Commons License (http://crea tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conceptual design and support for testing |
| Impact | engagement of policy makers and academics through game play at high level (e.g. COP21) and academic events (see listings) |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | BRACED-BRAVE Partnership |
| Organisation | Christian Aid |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | BRACED Project Team (led by Christian Aid Sahel in Burkina Faso) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Supporting joint operational groundwater research linking BRACED pilot communities in with BRAVE pilot communities |
| Impact | Supporting joint operational groundwater research linking BRACED pilot communities in with BRAVE pilot communities |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | BRAVE La Direction des Etudes et de l'Information sur l'Eau (DEIE) |
| Organisation | Ministry of Water Affairs |
| Department | Department of Water Studies and Information |
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Support for analysis of historical water records |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of historical data Influencing other key stakeholders |
| Impact | MoU in process |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | BRAVE Reseau Marp |
| Organisation | Réseau MARP Burkina |
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Supporting Reseau Marp communities with better understanding of groundwater |
| Collaborator Contribution | Contributions to BRAVE scoping visits Agreement to support the community monitoring via Christian Aid Sahel for the next 4 years |
| Impact | multi-disciplinary hydrology meteorology social science knowledge exchange |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | BRAVE Volta Basin Authority |
| Organisation | Volta Basin Authority |
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Technical support to the development of the IWRM planning processes |
| Collaborator Contribution | Invited participation to high level VBA WG developing integrated water resource management for Ghana and Burkina Faso Formal openings of BRAVE workshops Leveraging other key stakeholders |
| Impact | Revisions to next 5 year IWRM plan for the VBA Hydrology Meteorology Social Science Knowledge Exchange |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Direction Générale des Ressources en Eaux (DGRE/DEIE) |
| Organisation | Directorate General of Water Resources |
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Strengthening collaborative work with Direction Générale des Ressources en Eaux (DGRE) to help them make best use of water-related data for water resource planning. BRAVE will explore methods to analyse the data and use models calibrated from the data to examine groundwater resource status under environmental change. BRAVE will train DEIE in these methods and co-develop approaches for using the outputs to underpin WRM decision-making. |
| Collaborator Contribution | BRAVE has been given access to their groundwater level monitoring data, some of which is over 30 years. Participation and support in/to BRAVE wider meetings. |
| Impact | An MOU has been signed with Burkina Faso DEIE (Dept for Water Information), UoR and BGS. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | WASCAL, Burkina Faso & Ghana |
| Organisation | West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use |
| Country | Burkina Faso |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Technical support and supervision for funded PhD student (Co-PI MacDonald, Co-I Verhoef) |
| Collaborator Contribution | WASCAL-funded PhD student in place (Isaac Larbi) whose project is strongly linked with BRAVE |
| Impact | starts in April |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Water Aid |
| Organisation | WaterAid |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Monitoring of rainfall, groundwater levels and groundwater abstraction for small scale irrigation continues at our community study sites. We have consolidated links with WaterAid and opportunities are being explored for cross-learning and mutual dissemination of approaches. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Sharing learning from vulnerability measurements and community support used by WaterAid in similar communities in Ghana |
| Impact | New guidelines being produced for community use of groundwater - will be shared with Water Aid with a view to scale dissemination |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Title | Groundwater Vulnerability Indices |
| Description | Reveal locally perceived livelihood vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change and variability, and interactions with exacerbating socioeconomic factors, with a particular focus on risks to water for agriculture; Establish local priorities and existing livelihood coping strategies of rural households to manage water for agriculture; Identify perceived effectiveness of groundwater supply and use in the communities, particularly for agricultural irrigation. Examine the existing governance arrangements for groundwater distribution and access.The development of the new vulnerability indicators over the last 18 months in BRAVE have created an opportunity to develop an operational partnership with the BRACED Zaman Lebidi project in Burkina Faso. On one hand, BRACED intervenes to Building the Resilience and Adaption of communities to Climate Extremes and Disasters; on the other hand BRAVE intervenes to Bridging science-practice-policy to build livelihoods resilient to drought. These two approaches present many common points of interest which have instigated a joint action supported both by the scientific and technical expertise of the BRAVE project, as well as by the operational aspect and research interest in building resilient communities through the BRACED program. The purpose is to provide the knowledge and capacities needed by rural communities to efficiently manage groundwater resources as part of building their resilience. More specifically, it will examine the vulnerability of communities in relation to the seasonal nature of the use and availability of groundwater resources in order to provide advice in the management of this resource, making use of the newly developed vulnerability indices and the RAINWATCH platform in Burkina Faso. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | Increasingly erratic rainfall is perceived as main driver of agricultural water insecurity and associated with groundwater availability in the communities. Perceptions of shorter rainy seasons with seasonal drying of wells influencing local perceptions about the contribution of groundwater to irrigate crops (e.g. the intensification of gardening activities in good rainfall year - 37% hhs in Burkina increasing their frequency of watering in good rainfall year against 16% in Ghana). Initiatives to explore dry season farming very limited in some locations due to perceived drought risks.What variables shape effective water use for agriculture? In Burkina, more households own livestock and groundwater key to year round water access (94% own livestock in Tomo and 97% for the other communities. In Ghana, the use of water for irrigation correlated to household demography and wealth (e.g. in Jawani and Samini fewer own their house compared to Tariganga and Akara; larger households with more children in Jawani and Samini). This could be expected since maintaining shallow wells and irrigation requires labour inputs and is privately managed. Role of different local governance approaches, livelihood and local expectations from national policymakers. |
| Title | Rainwatch App |
| Description | The Rainwatch app was motivated by a need to significantly enhance the Rainwatch web platform and increase access by providing agricultural extension services and smallholder farmers with real time climate information through their phones. The Rainwatch app, was inspired by the Kurima Mari App (developed by Welthungerhilfe for Zimbabwe: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=zw.co.kurimamari&hl=en), and was driven by a requested from the BRAVE Ghaniain stakeholders. The international tech team included Ghanaian, US and UK developers and was made available in Apple and Play Stores in July 2020. Kofi Asare from the Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute in Accra, Ghana, and on the BRAVE team, continues to play a very active role as Principal Coordinator for the RAINWATCH Alliance of now 17 National Met Services. User Groups and the Friends of Rainwatch supported the interface design and test cycles. T |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Impact | Design consultations with the Zimbabwean team who designed the Kurima Mari app, opened a new partnership with the UNDP and the Zimbabwe National Met Service. As a result, the Zimbabee National Met service jointed the pan-African Rainwatch Alliance as the 17 member and onboarded Rainwatch, with 48 new weather stations added to the Rainwatch Alliance network. Groundwater information from BRAVE was made available on the App which now reaches 17 different countries. The App work also led to new partnership discussions with TAHMO (the Trans-African HydroMeteorological Observatory (https://tahmo.org) to supplement the RAINWATCH Alliance network. TAHMO has over 500 AWS across Africa which would provide a real boost to the real-time rainfall information available in RAINWATCH. A MoU was put in place and Ghana Met agreed that TAHMO Ghana would join the Rainwatch Ghana network. |
| URL | http://www.rainwatch-africa.org |
| Description | 10th Session of Burkina Faso Learning Platform on water Security and Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation by Narcisse Gahi - Community contribution to applied research on water resources and climate (In French) - Contribution of the communities to the applied research on climate and water. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ACRC BRAVE Presentation about the integrated research process the project is undertaking |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Kofi Asare presented on behalf of Narcisse Gahi at the ACRC conference a session entitled 'An integrated approach to sustain community livelihoods resilience to hydrometerological risks in West Africa'. The session presented the complex, integrated approach that the BRAVE project has been taking to solve the multi-faceted difficulties around improved use of groundwater in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso. An extended abstract has been provided to the organisers and should be published with endorsement of IPCC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | ACRC Conference Session 'What do we really know about adaptation?' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This conference session (SS06) attracted over 40 delegates at the conference and was entitled 'What do we really know about adaptation?'. Drawing on key learning across multiple interdisciplinary projects that Walker has been implementing, the session was Chaired by Prof. Rosalind Cornforth had 4 presenters: Cheikh Kane (RCCC), Luisa Ciampi (Walker Institute), Dr Sarah D'haen (Climate Analytics), Pauline Nantongo (EcoTrust Uganda), Dr Celia Petty (Evidence for Development). Key aspects from the NIMFRU, BRAVE, ASPIRE and IDAPS projects were presented to the audience who then actively participated in an interactive and meaningful discussion about the future of research and work around adaptations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://enb.iisd.org/climate/acrc/2019/html/enbplus172num47e.html |
| Description | AGU Fall Meeting 2017, New Orleans, USA, December |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | - |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | AMCOMET Africa Hydromet Forum 2017, Addis Ababa (12-15 September 2017) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited by WHO to support their dedicated session to promote climate-health links at the African Ministerial Meeting (1) Panel Talk: Developing the evidence base for demand-driven climate services to support an informed health sector response (2) Side Event: Mechanisms to integrate climate information in health services - recommendations to the ministers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Activity Monitoring Report |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A report by Christian Aid and Reseau Marp Burkina covering the monitoring activities within Burkina Faso. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://gallery.mailchimp.com/aca638339b138f607b56a7388/files/5171ffc4-8edf-41f3-b6c9-80d22b551c8e/R... |
| Description | Annual science and development platform, University of Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Narcisse Gahi, one of our ECRs, presented at this platform 1 Feb 2017 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | BRAVE 2017 AGM |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Participatory workshop co-organised by Water Resource Commission (WRC), Accra, Ghana.To present scientific results, including the new methodologies; engage stakeholders; and finalise 2017 / 2018 project plans |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | BRAVE Adaptive Social Protection Training |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Adaptive Social Protection is a vital part of supporting vulnerable people in uncertain futures. The Adaptive Social Protection Training Laboratory has been carefully designed to create a collaborative space for stakeholders from multiple disciplines and governmental departments and engage them in the complexities of social protection, a reactive response, and adaptive social protection, a proactive and more contextually relevant response. The training consists of a variety of lecture sessions that are complimented by interactive activities to ensure that participants can actively engage with all aspects of Adaptive Social Protection, and can apply what they have learnt in their job roles. Fittingly, this workshop was co-hosted by the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in Accra, Ghana. Participants highlighted that this training laboratory brought together and created new inter-governmental networks and connections that did not exist prior to this meeting - new relationships that will push the Adaptive Social Protection movement forward in Ghana. Aaron Aduna, Chief Basin Officer at WRC, will be integrating information learnt from the Scenario Planning workshop and the Adaptive Social Protection Training Laboratory into future presentations and discussions at several ministries. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | BRAVE Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Promote activities of the UPGRo programme and flag the new BRAVE project to a wider audience Sparked tweets on twitter |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/walker-institute-climate-news/ |
| Description | BRAVE Burkina Faso Policy Engagament Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In November 2019, The Walker Institute ran a one-day training event for members of the Burkinabe Water Sector. 23 Participants came from government, academia and NGOs. To contribute to preparations of the Water Sector's National Adaptation Plan, the objectives of the meeting were to: i. Provided an interactive and collaborative space for scientific exploration. Ii.To discuss and disseminate BRAVE project findings in a Burkina Faso context. iii. Introduce the recent publication "Possible Futures for Groundwater in Burkina Faso". iv. Provided a hands-on session training participants in the scenario planning methodology. Training participants on timeline horizon planning, 'Use Case' methodology and identification of sectoral gaps through the enabling environment, the session built an understanding of potential future climates in Burkina Faso and what that would mean for the water sector. Working collaboratively, participants identified the necessary steps to successfully adapt to potential futures. Impact monitoring is ongoing to identify where and how the above has been integrated into the NAP. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | BRAVE Future Scenario Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | As part of the BRAVE project, the Walker Institute developed "Possible futures for groundwater in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso under a changing climate". This narrative presents three possible future scenarios for water resources in Ghana based on the scientific findings of the BRAVE project, and presents human and socio-economic impacts that might be experienced by rural communities. This document formed the basis of the workshop and provided a discussion and interrogation springboard to guide the workshop and workshop outcomes. This workshop and approach offered a space for participants to collaboratively unpick realistic actions that can be taken and identify actionable responsibility within their own departments. The Walker Institute also used the Scenario Planning and Use Case Narratives to shape the workshop. The Walker Institute has also used this method in Burkina Faso, November 2019. Key areas covered included: 1. The project has highlighted the value of local and national-scale monitoring data 2. Vulnerabilities and gender directly affect groundwater access, use and management. 3. People are influenced by diverse factors and forces that shape their current and future decisions and actions about water governance locally. 4. Sharing of Information, knowledge and interpretation is by strategic and operating partners - partners that are co-developed and locally owned. The key points identified and accompanying actions were as follows: • Policy makers need to act on information that is provided to them, and there remains a need for policy to be translated into understandable, actionable implementation processes. • However, linked to this, there is a need for research institutions to ensure that they are providing the information to policy making institutions and individuals in a way that is meaningful and relevant to them. This might be supported by encouraging locally funded research projects which are driven by national government priorities rather than international donor priorities. • This being said, policies are designed not to be static, and for this to happen and for them to adapt in the way they need to over time, there is a critical need for accessible and reliable data to be made available to policy makers so that policies can be adjusted to reflect these changes. • For this to happen, national and district institutions need to collaborate and communicate effectively and consistently. CONIWAS committed to supporting the establishment of such a connection platform. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | BRAVE Ghana Listening Groups and Radio Programmes |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The BRAVE Listening Groups (a total of 24 community members) released monthly radio broadcasts which are reported to have reached 146,600 listeners with programmes chosen and crafted by the Listening Group members. A new addition to the radio programmes has been the addition of a function that enable the listeners to call in to ask further questions - the impact of this has not yet been evaluated. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017,2018,2019,2020 |
| Description | BRAVE Launch and AGM in Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 30-40 people participated in the BRAVE launch workshop and AGM in ACCRA to discuss groundwater issues for sustainable development in the White Volta Basin and how the BRAVE research could support policy decisions |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://upgro.org/2015/11/20/brave-project-holds-workshop-on-groundwater-for-the-poor/ |
| Description | BRAVE Newsletter |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | BRAVE Newsletters are produced monthly/bimonthly to update the team, partners and stakeholders about project progress and research findings. These are available in English and French. Responding to demand, we will be changing the newsletters to focus alternatively on Ghana and Burkina Faso in order to capture more detail. Published: BRAVE Newsletter, August/September 2018 BRAVE Newsletter, June/July 2018 BRAVE Newsletter, April/May 2018 BRAVE Newsletter, March 2018 BRAVE Newsletter, February 2018 BRAVE Newsletter, January 2018 BRAVE Newsletter, December 2017 BRAVE Newsletter, November 2017 BRAVE Newsletter, October 2017 BRAVE Newsletter, September 2017 BRAVE Newsletter, July - August 2017 BRAVE Newsletter, June 2017 BRAVE Newsletter, May 2017 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018,2019 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/brave-newsletter/ |
| Description | BRAVE Policy Engagement Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The BRAVE Policy meeting was held in the conference room of the School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences (SNAS) at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC). It was hosted by Ghana Space Science Technology Institute (GSSTI). The objectives of the meeting were to: i. "Provide an interactive and informative session on the BRAVE project focusing on scenario planning and accompanying tools; ii. Provide hands on session on using the tools for scenario planning & enhance future water management; iii. Obtain input & insight into the scenario planning and the use of the tools; and iv. Share information and facilitate learning on how to make the most of the tools, which can support water management planning: the open source Rainwatch Platform" The activities during the day included training session on the Rainwatch platform and use case scenario planning session in preparations for the final Scenario Planning event in Accra in January 2020. This session supported the agenda and invitation list for the final Scenario Planning event in Accra. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | BRAVE Presentation (Peter Cook, BRAVE UK PDRA) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation about BRAVE coupled modelling to support advancement of soil and subsurface processes in climate models |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | BRAVE Project Team Undertakes Scoping Visit to Project Communities in Northern Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Members of the BRAVE project, hosted by Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) at the University of Ghana, undertook a three days scoping visit to two of the project communities in northern Ghana in February 2016 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://iess.ug.edu.gh/news-events/brave-project-team-undertakes-scoping-visit-project-communities-no... |
| Description | BRAVE UNISDR Science and Technology Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | BRAVE poster accepted for the UNISDR Science and Technology Conference, Geneva, 27-29 Jan, entitled "Mitigating drought risk through better seasonal management of groundwater supplies from low storage aquifers in Africa" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.preventionweb.net/files/45270_unisdrscienceandtechnologyconferenc%5B3%5D.pdf |
| Description | BRAVE Website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The BRAVE website is a dedicated space for all news, events and updates around BRAVE and other UPGro information. Since its creation in 2017 we have had 2359 views of the website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018,2019 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/ |
| Description | BRAVE Website - Blog Posts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | BRAVE Blog 1 - The BRAVE Project Annual Meeting (2) - day 1 - 1 Feb 2017 BRAVE Blog 2 - The BRAVE Project annual meeting - day 2 and 3 - 2 Feb 2017 BRAVE Blog 3 - Brave researcher to present key approaches and findings at the fifth international conference on climate services (ICCS5) - 24 Feb 2017 BRAVE Blog 4 - brave presentation at the 9th internationale conference on climate change impacts & adaptation - 10 May 2017 BRAVE Blog 5 - Brave represented at the 4th presass regional climate outlook forum in accra, ghana, may 15-19 - 1 June 2017 BRAVE Blog 6 - Lorna Young Foundation's radio etension programme for Ghana and Burkina Faso is underway - 20 June 2017 BRAVE Blog 7 - In Memoriam - 25 August 2017 BRAVE Blog 8 - Enhancing existing monitoring catchments in West Africa through collaboration - 25 August 2017 BRAVE Blog 10 - Reflections on the Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Assembly, Experiences in Cape Town - 27 September 2017 BRAVE Blog 11 - BRAVE presented at fifth ILEAPS Science Conference Oxford - 11-14 September 2017 BRAVE Blog 12 - BRAVE presents at Mole XXVIII Conference, Accra, Ghana - 24 October 2017 BRAVE Blog 13 - Publication of Interest: A Synopsis of Climate Change Effects on Groundwater Recharge - 15 November 2017 BRAVE Blog 14 - Good news for the UPGro Programme - 20 December 2017 BRAVE Blog 15 - Upcoming Events For BRAVE and the UPGro Programme - 1 February 2018 BRAVE Blog 16 - Farmer Field Listening Groups are set up in Jawani and Tariganga - 16 March 2018 BRAVE Blog 17 - BRAVE policy roundtable and synthesis day - 22 May 2018 BRAVE Blog 18 - New posters on Groundwater and Boreholes - 2 October 2018 BRAVE Blog 19 - UPGro Consortium Publishes New Papers - 5 November 2018 BRAVE blog 20 - 2018 Ineson Lecture - Hydrochemistry and Human Health - 5 November 2018 BRAVE Blog 21 - Radio Listening Programme in Burkina Faso March-August 2018 - 12 November 2018 BRAVE Blog 22 - UPGro at Africa Water Week 2018 - 15 November 2018 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018,2019 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/blog/ |
| Description | BRAVE project Holds Workshop on Groundwater for the Poor - Official Government of Ghana Website, Ghana News |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | There is the need to develop resilient agricultural water supplies as an essential first step to ensuring safe and reliable access to water by the rural poor, Ben Ampomah, Executive Secretary of the Water Resources Commission (WRC)of Ghana, has noted. The workshop, organized by BRAVE (Building Understanding of Climate Vulnerability into the Planning of Groundwater Supplies from Low Storage Aquifers) was part of efforts to ensuring sustainable groundwater supplies in sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop aimed to initiate and expand communication between the BRAVE team and the relevant stakeholders in West Africa; identify key water resource/climate sensitive decisions for West Africa, and who will make the decisions; and identify water demand, water availability and water/land use, which will have significant implications for future water resource management and establish best routes for communication between researchers and decision makers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/media-center/news/2151-brave-project-holds-workshop-on-groundwater... |
| Description | BRAVE: Lorna Young Foundation Radio Extension Project in Ghana and Burkina Faso is Underway |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article by LYF centering on the start of the radio listening programmes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.lyf.org.uk/2017/06/the-lyf-launches-farmer-radio-in-ghana/ |
| Description | Brave project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Knowledge Exchange |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.braveupgro.org |
| Description | Cambridge |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Share information about the BRAVE project with the UK-research community |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Celebration DRR, Burkina Faso |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation by Burkinabe ECR, Narcisse Gahi to highlight BRAVE project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Community Groundwater Resources in Ghana and Burkina Faso |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An article on the work LYF and the rest of the BRAVE team are carrying out, trying to help communities identify sustainable groundwater resources in Ghana and Burkina Faso. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.lyf.org.uk/2017/05/community-groundwater-resources-in-ghana-and-burkina-faso/ |
| Description | Conference - 5th International Conference on Climate Services, Cape Town, S. Africa. March 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 50 people attended presentation (Ros Cornforth, Galine Yanon) showcasing Rainwatch and its application to monitoring climate variability in West africa/ Ghana and the addition of groundwater at the 5th International Conference on Climate Services, Cape Town, S. Africa (28 Feb - 2 March 2017). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Disaster Risk Reduction - Experiential Learning (UPGRo, FCFA) ; African Union Disaster Risk Platform, RECs & Member States Pre-Summit Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Rosalind Cornforth presented at the DRR AU Platform in Johannesburg, June 2018 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Disaster Risk Reduction and International Law Symposium - Walker Institute and School of Law, University of Reading June 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In the opening remarks of the Symposium, BRAVE PI, Rosalind Cornforth, used BRAVE as an example of operational research pulling through in to policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.walker.ac.uk/projects/disaster-risk-reduction-and-international-law-symposium-29-june-to-... |
| Description | European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Co-I Anne Verhoef and Co-PI David Macdonald presented "Current and future groundwater recharge in West Africa as estimated from a range of coupled climate model outputs" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Future Climate for Africa Mid Term Meeting - Cape Town Souther Africa 3-7 September 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Our Physical science team (Matt Ascott, Dan Lapworth, David Macdonald) presented findings from BRAVE project work at the FCFA meeting |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | GEWEX-SoilWat initiativeA in Climate Models, Leipzig |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation about BRAVE coupled modelling to support advancement of soil and subsurface processes in climate models To influence first planning workshop for scoping and interactions of GEWEX-SoilWat |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | GHANA presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented BRAVE and the current activities being implemented, exploring how these can increase the water policy in terms of monitoring GW in Ghana |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Ghana Stakeholder Consultation Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Ghana Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for BRAVE Project, Accra, 26th September 2014 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.lyf.org.uk/2015/12/community-groundwater-resources-in-ghana-and-burkina-faso/ |
| Description | Global Water Partnership - Groupe Apprentissage du Burkina |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Narcisse Gahi, one of BRAVE's ECRs, presented at this partnership meeting on the work BRAVE was carrying out |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Herrenhausen Conference on 'Extreme Events - Building Climate Resilient Societies' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Narcisse Gahi presented a poster about the BRAVE project design and impacts at the Herrenhausen Conference in Hanover, Germany 2019. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en/events/calendar-of-events/herrenhausen-conferences/extreme-even... |
| Description | High Impact Weather and Climate - BRAVE Presentation (Peter Cook, BRAVE UK PDRA) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation about BRAVE coupled modelling to support advancement of soil and subsurface processes in climate models |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Hosted a practice session around innovative communications to broker dialogue in Africa - Transformations 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Theatre of the Oppressed through the lens of experiential learning |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Joint Assembly 2017 IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA (29 Aug-1 September 2017) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation by Peter Cook - Modelling changes in the West African Monsoon (2000 to. 2100) from BRAVE project in international conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Learning Platform for Rainwatch Alliance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Aim to bring the participating met services together to update on Rainwatch platform; to co-develop new technical specification; to discuss governance and transfer ownership of the platform; to work with Senegalese and GFCS users of climate information - both to help train the Rainwatch Alliance partners and engage key regional users Transfer of ownership. Set up of MoUs with each Met Service. Discussions with GFCS Regional Coordinator encouraged early engagement with GFCS National Action Plans and Met Services extending National Action Plans to nominate Rainwatch platform as a "GFCS tool of choice" for participating met services. POsitive policy influence. Chad Met Service made comment "Come on Rainwatch Alliance, this is our African platform, what shall we do next?" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | MOLE Workshop, Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of BRAVE project at annual water forum in Ghana |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences Conference, Manchester, UK, 6th-7th February 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Some of our BRAVE Team, Peter Cook (Presenter), Emily Black, Anne Verhoef, David Macdonald, James Sorensen, presented at the NCAS conference in 2018 on the physical science aspects of BRAVE. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Ninth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses; Cambridge (1 April 2017) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | ECR, Galine Yanon presented findings from BRAVE community studies and new vulnerability indicators. Paper in production "Local governance of groundwater for agricultural livelihoods: Managing climate change impacts in West Africa" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | PRESASS 17, Accra, Ghana (10-15 May 2017) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the regional climate outlook forum Rainwatch Alliance - Ongoing Developments |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation ( Burkina Faso) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | To understand what kind of collaboration is needed for the beneficits of stakeholders etc. To develop capacity of Burkinabe PDRA |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation at Ouagadougou Groundwater conference 31 Jan - 2 Feb 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Narcisse Gahi presented work on the BRAVE Project at this conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation to the UpGro group during the end of project Study Tour in Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Hosted by the Ministry of Water and Environment in Uganda, the UpGro Study Tour took place on the 20th and 21st of February 2020 with the aim of promoting dialogue and connection between the multiple and varying partners who have been engaged in the UpGro research. The final study tour event took place at the Ministry of Water and Environment Headquarters in Luzira which provided a platform for further knowledge sharing from all aspects of the multiple UpGro projects. The Walker Institute was represented at this meeting by Jonah Butsatsa who presented on how the BRAVE project has improved up-scaled vital dialogue platforms through the Listening Group and Rainwatch mechanisms, and by William Agekum who presented the main physical science findings from the BRAVE project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Prof Kunstmann presents "Where high tech meets dust roads: High resolution regional climate modeling and hydrometeorological observations for West Africa" at University of Reading |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Prof Harald Kunstmann also gave a presentation at the UoR Land surface processes group on "Where High Tech Meets Dust Roads: High resolution regional climate modeling and hydrometeorological observatories for West Africa", on 26 November, 2018, as organized by Anne Verhoef. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Rainwatch Refresher Training, Tamale, Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As part of the BRAVE capacity building, a refresher training session on using the Rainwatch platform was requested by partners and local government members in Northern Ghana. The refresher training had a total of 25 participants from multiple national institutions including Savannah Agriculture Research Institute (SARI), Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and CARE international. Participants were taken through the various components of the Rainwatch platform to access climate information. Participants were helped to appreciate the need to manage climate risk based on evidence rather than perceptions and the need to use historical climate information for planning and decision making as well as rainfall monitoring. Based on the information on Rainwatch participants were able to determine the period to advise farmers to plant, when the season ends, the annual total rainfall and distribution. In addition to the useful information, they could compare the information with previous years and other stations of interest. Participants could also compare the current year or any other year and were able to assess a particular year of interest to determine whether the year is wet, normal (average) and dry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Rainwatch Training in Senegal |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This training format was compiled as part of the DfID/World Bank ASPIRE project. The ASPIRE training was held at UCAD in Dakar, Senegal and was run in both English and French with simultaneous translation for the whole two days, and the Rainwatch training was a key component of the first Day which enabled participants to actively use and interact with the site alongside the Principal Rainwatch Coordinator Kofi Asare. There were between 32 - 35 participants from 14 different countries from around Africa, and representing 21 different institutions including regional NGOs, higher education institutions and governmental departments including national and regional meteorological services and social protection services. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://walker.ac.uk/about-walker/news-events/connecting-climate-scientists-and-social-protection-pro... |
| Description | Rainwatch Training with SARI, Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This training was conducted for Research Extension and Farmer Linkage Committee (RELC) members; other SARI researchers and NGO partner to enable them interpret the rainwatch information and give it to their communities and farmers. The training continued immediately after the mapping exercise. The objectives of this section were outlined to focus on going through the examples in the manual and receiving feedback from participants on the Rainwatch manual. This section of the workshop lasted for over two hours. Participants were helped to appreciate the need to manage climate risk based on evidence rather than perceptions and the need to use historical climate information for planning and decision making as well as monitoring. The importance of monitoring the season for management decisions was highlighted and perhaps the need to monitor beyond your location. Rainwatch was then highlighted as an open-access online platform that provides relevant climate information for climate risk management decision making in real time involving over 11 countries in Africa and still expanding. Each participant came with a laptop and connected their laptops to the wireless internet provided for the training programme. Participants were guided through the manual with the help of the facilitator to log on to the Rainwatch website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Rainwatch training in Accra, Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Building on work in Senegal, this Rainwatch training happened as part of the Adaptive Social Protection Training run in Accra, Ghana. The Training had 47 national attendees from multiple national and regional water agencies including Gmet, CONIWAS, WRI, NADMO. The participants were able to interact with the platform so that they will be able to integrate Rainwatch into their various job roles. This session sparked meaningful conversations around data access and use between agencies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Reaching outside the BRAVE project - Rainwatch Training with Ghana Cocoa Sustainability |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | As a result of the Rainwatch Refresher Training which was run in Tamale, a request from the Ghana Cocoa Sustainability project was made for the Principal Rainwatch Coordinator Kofi Asare to run a capacity building session on using the Rainwatch platform. This event had 20 participants from the organisation and local level government institutions, and showcases the active interest and wide applicability of the platform. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Regional Learning Forum on Water Resources Management and Climate Change, |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Ouagadougou (21-23 November 2016): Integrated groundwater monitoring model for the benefit of communities (Burkina Faso vulnerable communities ) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Stakeholder Consultation Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Burkina Faso Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for BRAVE Project, Ouagadougou, 21st January 2014 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.lyf.org.uk/2015/12/community-groundwater-resources-in-ghana-and-burkina-faso/ |
| Description | Training of MoFA staff on RainWatch in Upper West Region (UWR)-Wa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A training on rainwatch was organised for the directors, deputy directors, management information system (MIS) officers and other extension staff of the MoFA in the Upper West region (UWR). The formats used during the training's at SARI and UER were used in the training in Wa. The participants were taken through the various aspects of the rainwatch platform as was done in the SARI and UER training. A mapping exercise was conducted before the Rainwatch training to map out the agricultural extension communication network from the community level to the national level. At the community level, the mapping exercise sort to explore: source of extension information (in the community); audience/target group or institutions extension officers communicate with; the kind of information that is communicated; and the form of communication that is used. At the district level, the mapping exercise explored issues around: the kind of communication structures that exist at the district level (for information sharing); kind of communication medium used to share information; institutions or target audience; and who are the key actors. At the regional level, the mapping also explored the same issues that were investigated at the district level. At the end of the training, participants were asked to share their learning during the training with us. The participants were asked for feedback on: what they had learned from the RAINWATCH session; how they are going to use the information; Where they would use the information; and how they would know if it is useful. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Training of MoFA staff on RainWatch in the UER-Bolgatanga |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The training on rainwatch was organised for the directors, deputy directors, management information system (MIS) officers and other extension staff of the MoFA in the Upper East region. The format used during the training at SARI was used in the training Bolgatanga. The participants were taken through the various aspects of the rainwacth platform as was done in the SARI training. A mapping exercise was conducted before the rainwatch training to map out the agricultural extension communication network from the community level to the national level. At the community level, the mapping exercise sort to explore: source of extension information (in the community); audience/target group or institutions extension officers communicate with; the kind of information that is communicated; and the form of communication that is used. At the district level, the mapping exercise explored issues around: the kind of communication structures that exist at the district level (for information sharing); kind of communication medium used to share information; institutions or target audience; and who are the key actors. At the regional level, the mapping also explored the same issues that were investigated at the district level. At the end of the training, participants were asked to share their learning during the training with us. The participants were asked for feedback on: what they had learned from the RAINWATCH session; how they are going to use the information; Where they would use the information; and how they would know if it is useful. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | UNISDR |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation exploring how local capacity and user perceptions of vulnerability to water insecurity in the Sahel are shaped supports future groundwater |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030; Geneva - Poster Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Poster presentation - Mitigating drought risk through better seasonal management of groundwater supplies from low storage aquifers in Africa (poster) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | UPGro Observatories - Webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | James Sorenson, part of the BGS team for BRAVE, presented on: 1. Design, construction and instrumentation of physical monitoring observatories 2. Integration of physical monitoring observatories with social science research 3. Integration of monitoring observatories across the UPGro programme and beyond: NAGO (Network of African Groundwater Observatories) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/communications/upgro-webinars/ |
| Description | UPGro Webinar Series 1: Climate modelling for hydrological impact assessment, 5th April 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Emily Black gave an introduction to global climate modelling, and presented some regional climate model comparisons for West Africa (on behalf of Michel Nikiema) Emily Black and Martin Todd gave an overview of the climate impact modelling within BRAVE and GroFutures, including useful insights into sources of uncertainty in climate projections and how these can be dealt with for hydrological impact modelling |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/communications/upgro-webinars/ |
| Description | UPGro Webinar Series 1: Communicating Groundwater and Stakeholder Engagement - May 10, 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Supporters |
| Results and Impact | Galine Yanon, part of our BRAVE team, gave an overview of BRAVE's communication and stakeholder engagement strategy built on an understanding of the policy context and governance structure in Ghana and Burkina Faso, in particular decision making pathways and flow of power through society and government |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/communications/upgro-webinars/ |
| Description | UPGro Webinar Series 1: Physical Science Research Methods, 26th April 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | David Macdonald, part of the BGS team of BRAVE, presented work on the use of regional-scale hydrological models to assess the impact of future changes in demand, land use and climate, and local-scale models to assess borehole performance and groundwater abstraction potential. In addition, the use of geophysical surveying techniques to examine groundwater potential and borehole performance at local-scale |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/communications/upgro-webinars/ |
| Description | UPGro Webinar Series 1: Social Science Research Methods: June 1, 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Henny Osbahr and Dr Galine Yanon presented on the Local governance of groundwater for agricultural livelihoods: managing climate change impacts in West Africa. This webinar series presented the ideas around social sciences of the UPGro programmes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://braveupgro.org/communications/upgro-webinars/ |
| Description | Use of Radio for Rural Water Supplies (BRAVE Co-I Cristina Talens, Lorna Young Foundation) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Webinar to enage wider international audience in groundwater issues |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://vimeo.com/118014541 |