We are pleased to share a policy brief produced by Fiyori Mebratu, a current student in the SPIBES East Africa programme. The brief, titled Integrating Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services into Urban Climate Change Adaptation Strategy: Case of an Urban Watershed, was written as part of her MSc research and reflects her own findings and recommendations.
About the brief
The Little Akaki River sub-watershed, a 400 km² urban watershed located west of Addis Ababa in the Oromia Region, is under severe pressure from rapid urbanisation, pollution, habitat degradation, and biodiversity loss. These pressures are undermining the watershed’s ability to deliver essential ecosystem services including water supply, flood regulation, stormwater retention, groundwater recharge, and hydropower generation. Fiyori’s brief examines the drivers of this degradation and explores what evidence-based policy interventions could look like.
Key findings
Fiyori’s research combined floristic inventories of riparian vegetation across upper, middle, and lower stream sections with land use and land cover modelling using the InVEST scenario generator. Her findings show that rapid urbanisation has been the predominant driver of land use change over the past decade. While species richness was highest in the lower stream, biodiversity was unevenly distributed, with a low Shannon diversity index indicating ecological imbalance. Modelling of future land use scenarios showed that reforestation, while resulting in a marginal decrease in annual water yield, is the preferred pathway given its broader benefits for ecosystem services and long-term sustainability.
Recommendations
Based on her findings, Fiyori calls for watershed protection to be explicitly integrated into the Addis Ababa city master plan, reforestation to be prioritised as a critical conservation measure, and stronger collaboration between regional and city administrations for coordinated ecosystem protection. She also recommends rigorous environmental impact assessments before any new industrial facilities are established near the river, and mandatory wastewater treatment systems for industries already operating along it.
You can download Fiyori’s full policy brief below:
