Balancing water demands and increasing climate resilience:establishing a baseline water risk assessment model in Ethiopia

Water is essential to sustainable economic growth and climate change adaptation. Ethiopia’s growth and development are vulnerable to water security risks. Despite being known as the “water tower of Africa,” Ethiopia is naturally exposed to highly variable rainfall. Climate change and economic growth across sectors are increasing competing water demands. This technical note describes the data and methodological approaches used to develop the baseline water risk model, presenting the results at a subbasin level. WRI developed new geospatially-explicit water withdrawal and consumption estimates for irrigation, livestock, domestic, and industry water use in Ethiopia, representing a 2015 baseline.