Forecasting terrestrial water storage for drought management in Ethiopia |
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| Authors: | Tadesse Tujuba Kenea Jürgen Kusche Seifu Kebede Andreas Güntner |
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| Institution: | 1. Section 4.4 Hydrology, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ , Potsdam, Germany;2. Meteorology and Hydrology Faculty, Arba Minch University , Arba Minch, Ethiopia tade2j@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3725-9492;4. Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, University of Bonn , Bonn, Germany;5. School of Earth Sciences, Addis Ababa University , Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;6. Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam , Potsdam, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6233-8478 |
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| Abstract: | ABSTRACT Reliable seasonal forecasting of water resources variability may be of great value for agriculture and energy management in Ethiopia. This work aims to develop statistical forecasting of seasonal total water storage (TWS) anomalies in Ethiopia using sea-surface temperature and sea-level pressure indices. Because of the spatial and temporal variability of TWS over the country, Ethiopia is divided into four regions each having similar TWS dynamics. Periods of long-term water deficit observed in GRACE TWS products for the region are found to coincide with periods of meteorological drought. Multiple linear regression is employed to generate seasonal forecasting models for each region. We find that the skill of the resulting models varies from region to region, with R 2 from 0.33 to 0.73 and correlation from 0.27 to 0.77 between predicted and observed values (using leave-one-out cross-validation). The skill of the models is better than the climatology in all regions. |
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| Keywords: | total water storage (TWS) drought forecasting |
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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3725-9492;4. Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, University of Bonn , Bonn, Germany;5. School of Earth Sciences, Addis Ababa University , Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;6. Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam , Potsdam, Germany