Publications

Central Asia faces substantial water scarcity due to increasing water demand driven by rapid urbanization, population growth, economic development, and inefficiency of irrigated agriculture. These developments are compounded by the effects of climate change, such as rising temperatures, loss of glacier mass and increased frequency of extreme events, including droughts. The region’s escalating water scarcity is causing disputes and straining rural livelihoods. Moreover, these challenges drive migration, creating considerable societal impacts. However, these issues remain underexplored in climate change research, making the region a global blind spot in climate adaptation and migration studies. We advocate for innovative research pathways that scrutinize smallholder adaptation strategies, examine the nexus between climate change, water scarcity, and mobility, and investigate tensions and cooperation over water resources. We conclude by emphasizing that substantial investments in inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration, improved data availability and quality, and strengthening of research and institutional capacities are essential to advance interdisciplinary climate impact research in Central Asia. Such efforts are vital for addressing existing knowledge gaps and enhancing evidence-based policymaking to improve the region’s position in current and future debates on climate change and sustainable development.

The interconnectedness between food, land, and water resources is evident where the use of one resource could generate externalities for others. The uncertainties around global markets challenge economies in the global south and climate change further exacerbates the urgent need for integrated management of natural resources and optimized investments and interventions. Moreover, the interconnections of natural resources and the biophysical environment influence the livelihoods and income of land and water users. Therefore, the partial or complete absence of coherence between sectoral public policies and inter-institutional linkages hampers the ability to address key interdependencies between food, land, and water resources and the three pillars of sustainable development: environment, economy, and society. The study offers an analysis of coherent water productivity policies between the different relevant strategies in Egypt towards a potential coordinated and integrated policy environment contributing to water and food security and sustainable development. Accordingly, it presents the synergies and trade-offs between policy objectives and instruments and the existing stakeholdersapos; cross-coordination mechanisms, which are significant for enhancing policy coherence.

The Circular BioEconomy Innovation Hub was launched in mid-2023 to create awareness and offer training and research opportunities on proper waste management and recycling for a circular economy and environmental protection. The report provides a first MELIA assessment of the ongoing setup of the Hub in Ghana with special reference to its first major activity, a school awareness program for so far over 12500 students. The report is based on mutually agreed progress indicators. Key learning areas (including challenges and possible solutions to address these) are being flagged and discussed.

To address the growing electricity demand driven by population growth and economic development while mitigating climate change, West and Central African countries are increasingly prioritizing renewable energy as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This study evaluates the implications of climate change on renewable energy potential using ten downscaled and bias-adjusted CMIP6 models (CDFt method). Key climate variables—temperature, solar radiation, and wind speed—were analyzed and integrated into the Teal-WCA platform to aid in energy resource planning. Projected temperature increases of 0.5–2.7 C (2040–2069) and 0.7–5.2 C (2070–2099) relative to 1985–2014 underscore the need for strategies to manage the rising demand for cooling. Solar radiation reductions (~15 W/m2 ) may lower photovoltaic (PV) efficiency by 1–8.75%, particularly in high-emission scenarios, requiring a focus on system optimization and diversification. Conversely, wind speeds are expected to increase, especially in coastal regions, enhancing wind power potential by 12–50% across most countries and by 25–100% in coastal nations. These findings highlight the necessity of integrating climate-resilient energy policies that leverage wind energy growth while mitigating challenges posed by reduced solar radiation. By providing a nuanced understanding of the renewable energy potential under changing climatic conditions, this study offers actionable insights for sustainable energy planning in West and Central Africa.

An effective flood early warning system is vital to take action to save lives and protect properties in urban areas which are increasingly prone to flooding. Despite substantial progress in flood early warning systems, limited available and accessible data often impede their advancement and reliability. Engaging communities affected by flooding can help address data and information gaps in flood early warning systems, facilitated by appropriate methods. This study developed and evaluated a flood threshold combination method to support a community-based flood early warning system in the Akaki catchment, home to Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. Various flood threshold combinations were formulated, calibrated and validated by integrating multiple sources of data: rainfall, antecedent precipitation index estimates, Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite time series of flood extent, long-term simulated streamflow, citizen science data, river water level and three days lead-time numerical weather prediction rainfall forecast. During validation, the rainfall and river water level threshold combination outperformed other threshold combinations with probability of detection, false alarm ratio, and critical success index estimates of 0.74, 0.18 and 0.63, respectively. The flood threshold combination showed high detection performance for most flooding conditions. Flood forecasts with a 1-day lead-time exhibited a high likelihood in detecting historical severe flood events. The study provides a tested methodology for selecting suitable flood threshold-combinations, enhance the engagement of citizen scientists in a community–based flood early warning system in urban communities.

The Awash Basin in Ethiopia experiences frequent flooding, sometimes with devastating consequences. Climate change is now creating new flood regimes in different parts of the basin and reshaping the interaction of flooding with rapidly changing communities. This is causing heightened risk, particularly for the most vulnerable communities across the basin, and requires new forms of management and response. This study explores the physical changes in rainfall and landscapes leading to major flood events and examines the interaction of physical phenomena with societal and economic dynamics across the basin’s upper, middle, and lower reaches. The study’s multi-dimensional perspective includes analysis of hydroclimatic variables at the basin level including global drivers, flood characterization in selected catchments, and understanding of affected communities at sub-catchment levels. Selected catchments cover urban parts of the Awash, as well as agricultural, pastoral, and agro-pastoral areas. The major focus of the work was the recent extreme wet season in 2020 and associated flooding during which an estimated, 144,000 were displaced and 60,000 hectares were inundated. This was the most serious flood event in the basin since 1996.

The major concern of applying citizen science in water resources is the quality of the data. However, there are limited scientific studies addressing this concern and showing the data value. In this study, we established a citizen science program in the Akaki catchment which hosts Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Citizen scientists monitored river stage at multiple gauging sites for multiple years. We evaluated the quality of citizen science data through a systematic quality control. Reference data was obtained from neighboring stations of the citizen science program and professionals while the evaluation involved graphical inspections and statistical methods. The quality-controlled data were applied to evaluate the spatial and temporal variation of rainfall-runoff relationships. Initially, large numbers of suspicious data were detected using single station data but that was significantly reduced when the data of multiple sites were compared. Further comparison against professional data revealed excellent agreement with high correlation coefficient (r gt;0.95), and low centered root mean square error (RMSE) lt;0.03–0.08 mm. The citizen science data indicated a large difference in rainfall-runoff relationship over the dominantly urban and rural sub-catchments. The citizen science data allowed comparison of runoff coefficient and base flow index for recent and historical periods where recent streamflow data is unavailable from a formal data source. This study illustrates the immense value of (i) multiple data quality assessment steps for building confidence on the quality of citizen science data, and (ii) citizen science for enhancing our understanding of rainfall-runoff relationships and change in a rapidly urbanizing catchment.

Freshwater pollution is, together with climate change, one of today’s most severe and pervasive threats to the global environment. Comprehensive and spatially explicit scenarios covering a wide range of constituents for freshwater quality are currently scarce. In this Global Perspective paper, we propose a novel model-based approach for five water quality constituents relevant for human and ecosystem health (nitrogen, biochemical oxygen demand, anthropogenic chemicals, fecal coliform, and arsenic). To project the driving forces and consequences for emissions and impacts, a set of common data based on the same assumptions was prepared and used in different large-scale water quality models including all relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural changes, as well as threshold concentrations to determine the risk for human and ecosystem health. The analysis portrays the strong links among water quality, socio-economic development, and lifestyle. Internal consistency of assumptions and input data is a prerequisite for constructing comparable scenarios using different models to support targeted policy development.

This account, issued on IWMI’s 40th anniversary, describes the evolution and growth of IWMI from the idea stage to the present day. It has been prepared as a celebration not only of IWMI’s history and the vision of its founders but also of its contemporary character and culture. As such, it aims to introduce a wide range of IWMI stakeholders — current and future, IWMI leadership and staff, Board members, partners, and funders — to the “what, why, past, and future” of IWMI. A companion publication titled Inception: The creation of an international water management institute, 1969–1984 provides a full account of the creation of the institute, from 1969 to 1984, which is briefly summarized in the first section of this report. In addition to providing a historical record of IWMI’s 40 years of activities, the report contains an important contemporary message that relates to the character of the institute, which was shaped by the way in which it was set up and its evolution since that time. Indeed, the account shows that the key features that define the IWMI of today — its evolution from an irrigation institute to a water systems institute; its research conducted in real-world water systems rather than in controlled experiment stations; its fully multidisciplinary approach spanning the social and biophysical sciences; and its aim to ensure that its research leads to development outcomes — were all established at inception. This report has been prepared by Roberto Lenton, a former Director General of IWMI and, more recently, Chair of the Institute’s Board of Governors.

This report describes the creation of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) from early 1969 to late 1984. The report tells the story of how an ever-expanding circle of scientists, practitioners and funders joined forces over a 15-year period to co-create the institute that over time became the IWMI of today. It has been prepared as a supplement to the 40th anniversary publication titled Celebrating IWMI at 40: Learning from our History, Turning to the Future. In providing an in-depth account of IWMI’s creation, this report aims to enhance the understanding of how the debates during those early years shaped the Institute’s contemporary character and culture. It has been written for a target audience of IWMI supporters and alumni, current and future IWMI leadership and staff, and current and future Board members interested in learning more about the “what and why” of the Institute’s origins. This report could also be of relevance to a broader audience interested in learning more about how innovative international institutions tackling emerging global challenges are conceived and brought into being, as well as to scholars of international development. This report has been prepared by Roberto Lenton, a former Director General of IWMI and, more recently, Chair of the Institute’s Board of Governors.

Introduction: Cities located in lower income countries are global flood risk hotspots. Assessment and management of these risks forms a key part of global climate adaptation efforts. City scale flood risk assessments necessitate flood hazard information, which is challenging to obtain in these localities because of data quality/scarcity issues, and the complex multi-source nature of urban flood dynamics. A growing array of global datasets provide an attractive means of closing these data gaps, but their suitability for this context remains relatively unknown. Methods: Here, we test the use of relevant global terrain, rainfall, and flood hazard data products in a flood hazard and exposure assessment framework covering Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. To conduct the tests, we first developed a city scale rain-on-grid hydrodynamic flood model based on local data and used the model results to identify buildings exposed to flooding. We then observed how the results of this flood exposure assessment changed when each of the global datasets are used in turn to drive the hydrodynamic model in place of its local counterpart. Results and discussion: Results are evaluated in terms of both the total number of exposed buildings, and the spatial distribution of exposure across Addis Ababa. Our results show that of the datasets tested, the FABDEM global terrain and the PXR global rainfall data products provide the most promise for use at the city scale in lower income countries.

Freshwater ecosystems are important for directly ensuring a range of benefits and services that sustain local livelihoods and help mitigate climate change. However, freshwater ecosystems are threatened by anthropogenic and natural pressures affecting their ability to sustainably provide these services. Managing freshwater ecosys tems is mainly challenged by the complexity of the drivers of their degradation and by the difficulty of balancing the need for short-term socioeconomic development and protecting and restoring ecosystems to support longterm, sustainable development. Addressing such challenges requires an integrated and systematic approach, catchment-wide management and meaningful engagement and collaboration among stakeholders. The present study was conducted in Lake Ziway, Rift Valley Lakes Basin, Ethiopia. The overarching objective was to conserve the freshwater ecosystem through co-planning and designing management options for the buffer zone and entire catchment. The study engaged local communities through multiple approaches including inception and vali dation workshops, reconnaissance surveys, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. It also employed quantitative data collection methods to characterize the freshwater ecosystem and entire catchment. The participatory approach employed in this study identified multiple management options including tree-based forest and landscape restoration measures, integrated soil and water conservation, and multiple buffer zone restoration measures. The identified and validated management options are aimed at improving the functionality of the freshwater ecosystem in the face of increased need of economic development and climate change. Furthermore, the study provided key recommendations to support the processes of policy development and the effective implementation of suggested and validated management options.

Study region: Akaki is a headwater catchment of the Awash River Basin in Ethiopia and hosts Addis Ababa. The catchment remains ungauged despite providing diverse ecosystem services. Study focus: Studies typically assume that calibrated model parameters remain valid outside the calibration period despite many catchments undergoing anthropogenic change. We evaluated the value of citizen science data to improve a rainfall-runoff model performance in the urbanizing Akaki catchment. Five and nineteen people trained as citizen scientists monitored river stage and rainfall data, respectively, for three years. Rating curves were developed for the conversion of stage data into river flow data. A HEC-HMS model, calibrated for a historical period, was evaluated using citizen science data. Next, we assessed the effectiveness of progressively updating model parameters using a recent land use land cover map and citizen science data. Then, the HEC-HMS model was recalibrated at the catchment outlet and validated at multiple sub-catchments’ outlets. Finally, the model was recalibrated at multiple sub-catchments’ outlets using citizen science data. New hydrological insights for the region: the HEC-HMS model of the Akaki, which was calibrated for a historical period, does not capture the current rainfall-runoff response. However, the model simulations were made useful by revisiting the model calibration at multiple sub-catchments’ outlets using citizen science data. Overall, this article demonstrates the value of citizen science data for model calibration and validation.

The current global energy governance architecture is not likely to deliver what the world badly needs to address the climate crisis. Unless drastic changes are introduced, COP30 in Brazil next year is going to be another failure to deliver actionable outcomes.

This study was conducted in the traditional pastoralist communities of Dolo Ado and Bokolmayo districts in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. These are refugee-hosting communities where the World Food Programme (WFP) is providing humanitarian and livelihood support. This research was designed in partnership with WFP with the expectation that its findings may provide lessons that can inform the organization’s program activities benefiting refugee-hosting communities and integrated refugees. Our study examines livelihood and collective action practices in these communities in the context of climate and waterrelated stresses. It seeks to highlight factors and practices that can enhance drought-resilient livelihoods. This aspect of the study required an understanding of traditional, but changing, livelihood strategies and related institutional and sociocultural practices. In this report, we discuss a range of interrelated topics and their implications for livelihood sustainability and linked interventions—which we highlight in the section Conclusions and Suggestions. We envisage that these findings will be useful for WFP’s program agenda of integrating its emergency-humanitarian response with livelihood resilience building through long-term structural and multidimensional food security approaches. Analysis of the historical and social context of farming and collective practices in these communities revealed that crop production and pastoralism have long co-existed as means of livelihood. While cooperative farming has recently expanded in the two study areas, their past experience of collective labor practices did provide the social and cultural foundation for current cooperative action. Local users appreciate irrigation farming conducted through cooperatives for its valuable contribution to food and income security. However, irrigation farming in the study areas operates in terms of cooperatives rather than on the basis of irrigation water users’ associations (IWUAs), which possibly affects the prospect of legal recognition and sustained practice. Understanding such issues is important for improving the practices of current WFP-supported irrigation cooperatives for the benefit of both refugee-hosting communities and hosted refugees. The livelihoods of people in the study areas have historically and traditionally been associated with pastoralism, characterized by livestock herding and mobility. However, there has been a shift from pastoralism toward sedentary farming. This change is being shaped by climatic and political economy factors and processes, thereby giving it the character of an adaptive livelihood strategy. The shift of livelihoods toward farming and crop production involves gender dynamics. It opens new areas of responsibility for women and increases their workload while having implications for gender disparities in economic gain and financial decision-making power. Therefore, it is imperative that cooperative farming and other intervention pr

This report introduces the refined Multidimensional Digital Inclusiveness Index (MDII), developed to assess and promote inclusiveness in digital innovations within agricultural systems. Developed through iterative consultation with experts and stakeholders, the MDII integrates structural and experiential dimensions of digital inclusiveness. It distinguishes between inclusion — ensuring access and usability — and inclusivity — fostering a sense of belonging and meaningful engagement among diverse underserved groups. By applying theoretical frameworks such as the Capability Approach and the Technology Acceptance Model, the MDII captures the multifaceted nature of digital inclusiveness, addressing both tangible and psychological aspects. The revised framework (Version 3.0) evaluates inclusiveness across seven core dimensions, including accessibility, stakeholder relationships, and the social impacts of digital innovations. Significant refinements have been made to reduce complexity, eliminate redundancies, and introduce actionable core and extended indicators. Piloted across multiple regions, the MDII demonstrates adaptability and effectiveness in assessing inclusiveness within varying socio-economic and cultural contexts. The report highlights the importance of user-centric design and culturally responsive approaches to ensure digital tools are accessible, equitable, and relevant. By addressing critical challenges such as digital illiteracy, device affordability, and socio- cultural constraints, the MDII aims to empower underserved communities and foster resilience within agricultural systems. This refined framework provides actionable insights for policymakers, innovators, and development organizations, supporting the creation of inclusive digital ecosystems that bridge the digital divide. Future steps involve expanding the MDII’s application through multi-country pilots, incorporating empirical feedback to refine the framework further, and developing user-friendly tools to enable real-time evaluation and deliver impactful recommendations.

The MDII scoring dashboard was developed as part of a set of tools to assess the social inclusiveness of digital innovations across food, land, and water systems. This tool provides decision-makers with interactive visualizations and key metrics such as accessibility, user engagement, and cultural sensitivity. The dashboard, shaped by collaborative workshops and feedback, incorporates metadata indicators, feedback mechanisms, and customizable data views for portfolio managers. By integrating both quantitative and qualitative data, it allows for monitoring performance, identifying gaps, and aligning digital tools with inclusiveness goals, supporting adaptive learning and sustainability in digital innovations.

While digital tools and services present an opportunity to address some of the critical challenges facing food and water systems, concerns remain over large groups of people, such as women, elderly people, or people with little formal education, who may be excluded from the development, use, and benefit of digital innovation. In this report we present the outcome of a study that was conducted to assess whether a digital innovation that provides an irrigation service in many African countries was socially inclusive. The assessment was done with the multi-dimensional digital inclusivity index, a tool that is being developed for assessing digital inclusiveness across various dimensions in food, land, and water systems.

A Limpopo River Basin (LRB) Digital Twin, a significant technological innovation, is being developed to assist water managers to assess and manage the water resources of the basin in sustainable ways. At the core of this innovation, the LRB Digital Twin compiles and serves a variety of raster datasets with unique spatial and temporal resolutions tailored to the basin’s characteristics. These datasets include hydrological variables (e.g., precipitation), climate indicators (e.g., temperature), and land surface characteristics (e.g., vegetation cover, land use). Each data set compromises with advanced preprocessing, fusion, and calibration to ensure consistency, accuracy, and reliability, making it suitable for long-term analysis and immediate decision-making. The Open data cube (ODC) framework was used to organize, visualize and analyze the datasets for different stakeholders of LRB effectively. Automations were built on top of the ODC stack for a smooth workflow, which include steps like creating and indexing the metadata into a database. The present report describes the structure ODC follows in cataloging raster datasets, automations in place for handling ODC tasks and implementation steps taken to get ODC and its components up and running. The available products for the Limpopo region include comprehensive data on irrigated areas and drought index. Additionally, there are environmental flow (E-flow) warnings that provide more insights. These resources collectively support thorough understanding of the region’s water and land management dynamics. This helps policymakers and water managers make informed decisions about resource management and agricultural planning, enabling them to respond more effectively to water-related challenges.

VegDischarge v1, which covers over 64,000 river segments in Africa, is a natural river discharge dataset produced by coupled modeling; the agro-hydrologic VegET model and the mizuRoute routing model for the period 2001-2021. Using remote sensing data and hydrological modeling system, the 1-km runoff field simulated by VegET, was routed with mizuRoute. Performance metrics show strong model reliability, with R² of 0.5–0.9, NSE of 0.6–0.9, and KGE of 0.5–0.8 at the continental scale. The total average annual discharge for Africa is quantified at 3271.4 km³year-1, with contributions to oceanic basins: 1000.0 km³year-1 to the North Atlantic, primarily from the Senegal, Gambia, Volta, and Niger Rivers; 1327.2 km³year-1 to the South Atlantic, largely from the Congo River; 214.7 km³year-1 to the Mediterranean Sea, predominantly from the Nile River; and 729.4 km³year-1 to the Indian Ocean, with inputs from rivers such as the Zambezi. The dataset is valuable for stakeholders and researchers to understand water availability, its temporal and spatial variations that affect water-related infrastructure planning, sustainable resource allocation, and the development of climate resilience strategies.

A study carried out by IWMI, TU Delft and Wageningen University looked at how groundwater recharge can help meet growing demands in both rural and urban parts of the Ramganga Basin, India.

Food production in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake floodplain requires a more integrated approach to water and land use and a greater focus on nutrition, noting that around 33 percent of Cambodia’s population is malnourished (UNICEF 2023). This includes malnutrition rates among children under 5 years, which are the highest in the region. Addressing nutrition gaps critical for human development and productivity in Cambodia is urgent given the current impacts of climate change on agricultural production and productivity. The climate-induced decline and unpredictability of such crucial resources as water and land have caused increasing competition and conflicts among different users. If this is to be reduced, policies on water-land governance need to be better coordinated and local resource planning and management need an integrated resource-use approach.

Financial inclusion is recognized as a vital driver of sustainable development and serves as a fundamental pillar of climate action. It is crucial to enhance the climate resilience of smallholder farmers in the face of severe and unpredictable climate shocks, which disproportionately affect them. However, the level of financial inclusion in Ethiopia remains low, and its impact on the climate resilience of smallholder farmers has not been thoroughly examined using rigorous model and comprehensive dataset. This study investigates the impact of financial inclusion on the climate resilience of rural households, using a large data set from the Ethiopian Socio-Economic Survey. The principal component analysis was applied to construct a climate resilience index. The financial inclusion was measured using an index that encompasses three dimensions: penetration, availability, and usage. In order to address the endogenous nature of financial inclusion, an instrumental variable approach was employed, using the distance to the nearest financial institution and religion as instrumental variables. The results demonstrated a positive and significant impact of financial inclusion on the climate resilience of rural households. Therefore, the government should strengthen the provision of essential financial and related infrastructures in rural Ethiopia to improve access to financial products and services. Furthermore, it is essential for policymakers to initiate and implement financial sector reforms that ensure the availability of affordable and tailored financial services. These reforms should also prioritize the development of climate-resilient agricultural finance, thereby contributing to the achievement of climate action goal of sustainable development.

Cambodia faces the challenge of managing excess water during the wet season and insufficient water during the dry season. This harms human life and endangers aquatic and natural resources, agricultural practices, and food security. Water governance is crucial to ensure the wellbeing of both people and their food security. However, Cambodia’s water governance is hindered by various obstacles, including sectoral and centralized influences, top-down and large-scale strategies, weak coordination among relevant agencies, and limited involvement of local communities. This study examines water governance across different sectors, from centralized to community-based natural resources management, and explores the opportunities that can be done to improve water governance. This study undertakes the literature and case studies of farmer water user communities (FWUCs), community fisheries (CFis), and community fish refuges (CFRs) in three Mekong Delta provinces in Cambodia. This study concludes that water governance has been challenged by FWUCs competing for water resources to intensify rice production at the expense of increased pesticides and fertilizer uses, which undermine the fishery productivity, degrade the natural resources in rivers and water bodies, and increase water conflicts among farmers and sectors in the face of climate change. To enhance water governance in Cambodia, it is critical to integrate it at the district level. This will promote sustainable water use and management across the country and pave the way for a brighter future.

Despite the government’s active promotion of rice production, a significant portion of the population still faces food insecurity. While existing literature often highlights the success of achieving rice surplus, few studies delve into the connections between rice surplus and food security, and critically analyze why food security is persistent. In addressing this issue, the study investigates the underlying causes of food insecurity amidst the government’s efforts to increase rice production. The study entails a comprehensive review of existing literature and an examination of food security in three provinces in the Cambodian Mekong Delta. It concludes that while rice intensification has led to increased rice production available for consumption, challenges persist in terms of access to and utilization of rice for food consumption. These challenges are attributed to increased production costs with minimal profit margins, indebtedness, migration, land grabs, water conflicts, and lack of institutional integration in food systems, compounded by the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. As a result, a farming household with one hectare of farmland cannot produce enough rice for food consumption. Consequently, young people opt to sell off their land to settle debts and seek employment opportunities in urban and overseas areas.

This brief focuses on drought forecasting in the Limpopo River Basin (LRB), a transboundary river basin in southern Africa that spans South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. The study addresses the significant impacts of droughts on agriculture, water resources, and livelihoods in the region, exacerbated by climate variability and change. Utilizing the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), derived from both historical and forecasted precipitation data, the study evaluates drought conditions from 2023 to 2024, based on data from the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS) dataset and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) seasonal forecasts.