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Evaluating the impact and uncertainty of reservoir operation for malaria control as the climate changes in Ethiopia

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Abstract

Promising environmental mechanisms to control malaria are presently underutilized. Water level fluctuations to interrupt larval development have recently been studied and proposed as a low-impact malaria intervention in Ethiopia. One impediment to implementing such new environmental policies is the uncertain impact of climate change on water resources, which could upend reservoir operation policies. Here we quantified the potential impact of the malaria management under future climate states. Simulated time-series were constructed by resampling historical precipitation, temperature, and evaporation data (1994–2002), imposing a 2 °C temperature increase and precipitation changes with a range of ±20 %. Runoff was generated for each climate scenario using the model GR4J. The runoff was used as input into a calibrated HEC ResSim model of reservoir operations. The malaria operation management increased the baseline scenario median energy generation by 18.2 GWh y−1 and decreased the energy generation at the 0.5 percentile (during dry conditions) by 7.3 GWh y−1. In scenarios with −20 % precipitation, malaria control increased average annual energy generation by 1.3 GWh y−1 but only decreased the lowest 0.5 percentile of energy by 0.2 GWh y−1; the irrigation demand was not met on 8.5 more days, on average, per year. Applying the malaria control rule to scenarios with +20 % precipitation decreased the likelihood of flooding by an average of 1.0 day per year. While the malaria control would divert some water away from other reservoir operational goals, the intervention requires 3.3–3.7 % of the annual precipitation budget, which is much less than reduction from potential droughts.

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Acknowledgments

This research was initially supported by the fellowship Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need and by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research’s Challenge Program for Water and Food. We thank the Ethiopian Electrical Corporation, Ministry of Water Resources, and National Meteorological Agency for providing climate and water resources data. While we are prohibited from releasing raw data provided at cost by the agencies listed above, please contact the corresponding author to access resampled precipitation, evaporation, and temperature data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 West 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Julia Reis

  2. Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, P.O. Box 400742, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA

    Teresa B. Culver

  3. Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Paul J. Block

  4. International Water Management Institute, P. O. Box 4199, Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic

    Matthew P. McCartney

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  1. Julia Reis
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Correspondence to Julia Reis.

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Reis, J., Culver, T.B., Block, P.J. et al. Evaluating the impact and uncertainty of reservoir operation for malaria control as the climate changes in Ethiopia. Climatic Change 136, 601–614 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1639-8

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