A NEW APPLICATION OF THE URBAN LAND TELECONNECTIONS CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR IDENTIFYING LINKAGES BETWEEN WATER DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND URBANIZATION IN ETHIOPIA

Ethiopia has long struggled with poverty, and is consistently one of the largest recipients of international aid from development banks and organizations. While these efforts have helped Ethiopia make improvements in a number of areas, water resource development remains a central issue. Many Ethiopians still lack access to a clean and reliable drinking water source, which results in very high morbidity and child mortality rates. Additionally, the majority of Ethiopian agriculture (the dominant driver of the country’s GDP) relies on rainfall, which closely ties the country’s economy to its hydrologic variability. Ethiopia is also the second most populated country in Africa and is urbanizing at a staggering rate; its population density more than quadrupled from 1960 to 2012, and nearly 20% of its 85 million people live in urban areas. These issues are the current focus of much of the development work in the country.

Using Ethiopia as an example, this study tested a novel application of the conceptual framework known as Urban Land Teleconnections for understanding the complex and unexpected linkages between water development projects, urbanization, and land use change. The Teleconnections framework is appropriate and necessary because it links urban and nonurban places through their processes. This enables the consideration of demographic, economic, and natural drivers—all of which are essential to water and international development. The study showed that water development projects in Ethiopia are often driven by—and drivers of— urbanization and land change, and that these linkages are multi-faceted, bi-directional, and exist at the local, regional, and global scales. Furthermore, it offers the Teleconnections model as a tool for those working in the development sector, with the assumption that being able to conceptualize the complexity of the networks they operate in and create will help facilitate holistic and sustainable project planning.