Abstract:
Nowadays, climate variability and its impact is the main concern put at the top of global
agenda. Climate variability in Ethiopia where agriculture is the dominant sector of the
economy is also increasingly attracting attention. A large percentage of the population is
already vulnerable to a range of natural ha zards with increasing climate variability and
climate change expected to aggravate the situation further by causing more frequent and
intense droughts. In this study, climate variability was assessed using different types of
parameters such as coefficient of Variation(CV), rainfall anomaly index(RAI), Gaussian
index(GI) and other variability causing agents such as onset date of rainfall in season and ElNino seasonal impacts. The related meteorological drought occurrence in terms of severity,
duration and frequency was also analyzed. The SPI calculator software was applied to
compute drought in the study area. The study area practiced drought of different severity in
different temporal and spatial scales other than common drought years that occurred
throughout the area. In order to analyze future climate variability and related drought events,
GCM derived scenarios (HadCM3 A2a & B2a SRES emission scenarios) were used for the
climate projection. The future climatic elements such as rainfall, maximum temperatu re and
minimum temperature are generated by SDSM software. There is high climate variability in
the smaller rainy season and mostly moderate to high climate variabi lity in the main rainy
season. There will be low to moderate climate variability for both projection scenarios. The
future climatic condition and the related drought were analyzed from the projected climate
variables. There is a likely increasing maximum and minimum temperature for both
HadCM3 A2a & B2a SRES emission scenarios. Precipitation also will increase in the study
area with small decrease at Mirab station in2020s and slowly start to increase. Drought
resulting from climate variability is likely to occur. Areas such as Mirab Abaya and Alaba
station with smaller projected rainfall will be highly sensitive to dry climatic condition and
the related drought. To reduce the impact of climate variability and the related drought, some
measures such as high awareness on climate variability for food production, attention to early
warnings and wise use of available water in the drought prone areas are recommended.
