Water and Food Security PIRE

Emmanouil Anagnostou

Title/Department: Alumni Association Distinguished Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Eversource Energy Endowed Chair in Environmental Engineering Director, Eversource Energy Center Director of Applied Research, Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation:

Website: http://ucwater.engr.uconn.edu

What excites you most about your research?

Water and food security challenges facing present day Ethiopia will have dire political and socioeconomic consequences and thus require urgent solution. I am excited to explore best available practice to build decision support tools for local farmers and community leaders in East Africa.

I am dedicated to inspiring the current generation of students and researchers who will pave the way and innovate scientific research and technologies to create resilient communities for climatic extremes in emerging economies such as Ethiopia.

What’s the most valuable aspect of your research for the people and communities?

Rapid population growth, weather extremes and rising energy demands are putting significant pressure on water resources, and hence human security in Ethiopia. Yet, water and agricultural forecasts is limited in the country, consequently, local farmers are excluded from the benefits of decision support tools in managing their scarce water resources. Through a multidisciplinary approach, I am seeking to develop and provide seasonal water and agricultural forecasts at a scale relevant to smallholder farmers in the Blue Nile Basin.

 Research focus: Uncertainty characterization of weather predictions and global rainfall estimates; Understanding the energy, water, food nexus in extreme climatic conditions; Development of advanced techniques for estimation of rainfall from radar remote sensing technologies; Long-range detection of lightning; Development of underwater acoustic sensors for quantification of meteorological parameters (rain, wind, fluxes); and evaluation of impacts of off-shore oil platforms and wind generation on the marine environment.