Emmanuel Nyadzi is an applied climatologist with extraordinary interdisciplinary research skills in combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods in understanding the complexities of climate and environmental change and its impacts on natural and human systems. He strives to go beyond the theories and develop innovative solutions to survive these impacts. He has a strong interest in:
-Weather and Climate Information Services
-Ethno-climatology and citizen science
-Hydro-climatology and Water Resources Management
-Agro-climatology and Crop Modeling/management
-Science communication
Ph.D. thesis
Hydro-climatic Services for Adaptive Management of Water and Food Production in Ghana: The complementary Value of Indigenous and Scientific Forecast.
Project description
In Ghana, climate variability and its effects on the agriculture sector is clearly evident as farmers, irrigated water managers, and other stakeholders have to continuously adjust their activities to endure its impacts. Meteorological forecasting services have been in operation for some time in the country and provide mainly weather information on different variables but this according to farmers is insufficient to support their farm decision making. Also, farmers rely on indigenous ecological knowledge to predict weather/climate patterns but are the first to recognize its limitations in terms of accuracy, timing, and reliability. The objective of my project is to make weather and seasonal climate forecast actionable for individual farmers, communities and irrigated water managers engaged in rice production in northern Ghana. In this project, we seek to first evaluate and then harmonize scientific and indigenous forecast for improve forecast reliability and acceptability and largely towards the uptake of hydro-climatic services.The unique approach in this research is the use of android digital tool and the inclusion of citizen science approach in hydro-climatic data and information exchange. This will address the argument that science should not be a one-directional effort, where it produces new knowledge and information and makes it accessible for end-users but rather interactive, where science and practice co-design, co-create and co-produce knowledge by bringing in different forms of expertise.