Biophysical surveys are systematic investigations that assess the biological and physical components of an environment. These surveys are crucial for understanding the current state of an area, monitoring changes over time, and evaluating the potential impacts of human activities or natural processes. They further provide essential data for environmental management, conservation efforts, and sustainable development planning.
Recently, Dr Anna Matros-Goreses from the Namibia University of Science and Technology visited Prof Joao Mutondo at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique.
Apart from strengthening the existing collaboration, the two institutions also planned for the upcoming Smart WEFE Innovation Model (SWIM) student mobility.
The mobility is scheduled for the last week of May 2025, with activities centred around the Flood Impact Assessment in the Lower Zambezi and Incomáti River Basins, Mozambique.
The mobility programme will focus on critical research areas including:
✅ The Identification of climate resilience indicators across the Water-Energy-Food-Environment (WEFE) nexus;
✅ Socio-economic impact assessments to measure resilience outcomes;
✅ Simulation modelling to strengthen scenario planning and research outputs;
The AUDA-NEPAD Networks of Water Centers of Excellence are honored to partner with the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) to contribute towards the implementation of the roadmap to formulate the post-2025 Africa Water Vision and Policy (AWV&P).
This year marks a significant milestone, as the African Union Commission (AUC) and AMCOW accelerate efforts to develop the post-2025 Africa Water Vision and Policy (AWV&P).
The National Water Resources Institute and AUDA-NEPAD Centre of Excellence, under its ACEWATER-III Human Capacity Development (HCD) activities, conducted a 5-day training on the topic: Climate Change Resilience: Access to Water Supply and Sanitation from 24th to 28th February, 2025. The training aimed to enhance participants’ capacity to address climate change impacts on water resources and sanitation services. Twenty-five participants from different stakeholders’ institutions across Nigeria took part in the training, and the resource persons were drawn from various fields of specialisation.
This week, the University of Khartoum is presenting an online short course in river system modelling and planning as part of the Human Capacity Development activities of the ACEWATER-III project. The short-course span two hours a day over five days between 24 February 2025 and 28 February 2025.
The programme is designed to give the 26 participants an opportunity to systematically understand Water Resource Systems Modelling, an overview of WaterStrategy and why Pywr and WaterStrategy are useful tools, creating a new Projects and model Networks, adding reservoirs and basic operating rules, exploring a model file in JSON format, and creating and running a multi-objective optimization formulation in Pywr. Participants also have the opportunity to present their projects at the end of the training programme.
While 82 applications from 10 African countries were received, a maximum of 26 practitioners and decision-makers were selected for the course from Sudan, Zambia, Togo, Senegal, Uganda, South Sudan, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.
Continue readingAs part of the ACEWATER-III Project, the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted Dr. Mohammed Basheer from the University of Khartoum, Sudan between 17 to 21 Februray 2025. The visit fostered collaboration on climate data acquisition, downscaling and bias correction, while also exploring advanced water resources modelling.
Following the visit, Dr Basheer remarked: “I would like to thank Dr. Khalid Hassaballah and ICPAC for hosting me this past week. It has been a highly productive time, during which we laid the foundation for generating downscaled climate change data for East Africa, ensuring it accurately captures key hydrological characteristics. Thanks to ACEWATER III for making this exchange visit possible.”
Continue readingAs part of the ACEWATER-III project, the team at the University of Botswana, led by Prof Piet Kenabatho, recently published an article titled Innovative trend analysis of long-term spatial-temporal rainfall patterns over Botswana: Implications for water resources management
The study explores the utility of newer trend analysis methods, such as the innovative trend analysis method (ITA), to identify trends in seasonal and annual rainfall data using long-term rainfall data in Botswana.
The results were compared with those from traditional methods (TMs), such as the Mann-Kendall (MK) test and Sen’s slope (SS) methods. The utility of the ITA method has not been explored in Botswana and Southern Africa. Furthermore, rainfall variability is evaluated using the precipitation concentration index (PCI) method.
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As part of the research and capacity development activities in the ACEWATER III project, five post-graduate students and staff from three AUDA-NEPAD Water centres of excellence attended courses offered by the Africa Doctoral Academy (ADA). The courses were offered between 22 January 2025 and 7 February 2025 and offered at Stellenbosch, South Africa The following colleagues attended courses across three weeks.
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