Climate change challenges on energy-water-food nexus in Dera district, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

The energy water and food (EWF) nexus is used to underline the need of controlling primary components collectively rather than separate since it is interconnected and linked. Ethiopia’s economy remains heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture which contributes 47% to the gross domestic product (GDP). Leaving the country highly vulnerable to changing rainfall with rising frequency of climate risks like flood and drought, the main economic activity relying on rain-fed agriculture. All agricultural regions are negatively affected by climate change, the reduction of growth being most pronounced in the moisture reliable humid lowlands and the pastoralist arid lowlands. With the purpose of better understanding nexus, thinking and showcasing its analysis approaches and tools, this study mainly focusing on the linkage under the changing climate in Dera District, Ethiopia. Primary and secondary data were collected from different sources. The normalized difference moisture index, the climate trend and index analysis were conducted to investigate the effect of climate change on the EWF nexus. Accordingly, the normalized difference moisture index revealed that a significant water stress was observed in the district from the image analysis of the years between 1994 and 2024. Whereas, the Maximum and minimum temperature trend analysis revealed that a general increment and rainfall declined from the year 1982 to 2024. This implies that crop and livestock feed production are negatively affected, and the shortage of energy, water and food sources and jeopardized in all of the seasons. Therefore, the EWF nexus is also adversely affected which directly or indirectly the linkage is episodic. The researchers therefore recommended to take actions on implementing adaptation and mitigation strategies such as increase cropping intensity, income diversification, use of farm inputs, tree plantation, rainwater harvesting, small scale irrigation and use of off-farm and non-farm activities at all level among the community.