The purpose of this project is to develop a risk assessment methodology that can be used to assess the threat posed by climate change on rural water supplies, and suggest steps to minimise or mitigate such risks. The approach will examine risks along the supply chain, from resource, to source and end user, and look at how rural water supplies planning might be better integrated with groundwater recharge and watershed protection measures.

The objective of this project is to develop a rural water supply risk screening methodology that can be used to assess climate-related risks to sustainable services (or ‘secure water’) on community managed projects, and potential risk mitigation strategies/options, from resource/ watershed to source and consumer. 

ODI will work with and build the capacity of partners – and in particular, Government of Finland’s COWASH programme – to ensure that the approach developed is practical and reasonably straightforward to apply on an existing programme and, potentially, others in Ethiopia. The project will then provide recommendations for linking rural water supply and watershed protection activities to enhance the security of both productive and domestic water services.

The anticipated outcome of this programme is to enhance capacity of individuals, organisations and institutions in Ethiopia to plan and implement secure rural water supplies that are robust to existing climate variability and longer term climate change.