Dereje Tesfahun’s study assesses the possible influences of climate change to river flows.
Malaria risk is linked to the hydrological and geomorphological processes that form vector breeding sites. Often, the environmental control of malaria transmission is represented by temperature and rainfall amounts, and ignores the hydrological influences. To control malaria, it is important to improve our understanding of how surface water bodies are formed and destructed
Key findings
His study models the effect of potential climate change differs among the Ethiopian river basins, and depends on the strength of the climate changes. Our analysis, based by a relative sensitivity analysis of climate change scenarios, shows the annual river flows are highly sensitive to variations in rainfall, but only moderately sensitive to temperature changes.
The land use changes, resulting from different land use modifications, are secondary to the effect of precipitation changes on the annual river flow. However, the seasonal changes in flow were occasionally strongly affected by land use changes.
His study confirms that simpler models for continuous river flow simulation are better than mathematical complex models.
Publications:
Mengistu, D. T. and Sorteberg, A. (2012): The sensitivity of the Omo Gibe River basin in Ethiopia to climatic and Land use change. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 2012; 16: 391–407.
Dereje Tesfahun did not complete his PhD studies.