The pastoral systems of Eastern Africa have been affected by the alternated incidence of recurrent drought and flood for the last decades, aggravating poverty and local conflicts. We have introduced an innovation to convert floods to productive use using water spreading weirs (WSW) as an entry point to capture and spread the torrential flood emerging in the neighboring highlands into rangelands and crop fields of low-lying pastoral systems in Afar, Ethiopia. The productivity and landscape feature have changed from an abandoned field to a productive landscape within 3 years of intervention. The flood patterns and sediment loads created at least four different crop management zones and productivity levels. Based on moisture and nutrient regimes, we developed land suitability maps for integrating crops and forages fitting to specific niches. The outcome was a fast recovery of landscapes, with 150% biomass yield increment, increased access to dry season feed and food. These positive outcomes could be attributed to the proper design of weirs, joint planning and execution between pastoralists, researchers and development agents, identification and availing best-fitting varieties for each management zone and developing simple GIS-based parcel level maps to guide development agents and pastoralists. The major ‘agents’ were community leaders (‘Kedoh Abbobati’) who keenly debated potential benefits and drawbacks of innovations, enforced customary rules and byelaw and suggested changes in approaches and choices of interventions. In general, an innovation system approach helped to create local confidence, attract attention of government institutions and helped local actors to identify investment areas, develop implementation strategies to increase productivity, define changes as it occurs and minimize conflicts between competing communities. However, the risk of de facto use of a plot of communal land translating into long-term occupation and ownership may be impacting a communal territory and social cohesion that was subject to other collective choice customary rules.

中文翻译：

---

通过以洪水为基础的土地恢复在埃塞俄比亚阿法尔的牧区系统中促进生计多样化

在过去的几十年里，东非的畜牧系统一直受到干旱和洪水交替发生的影响，加剧了贫困和地方冲突。我们引入了一项创新，将洪水转化为生产性用途，使用扩水堰 (WSW) 作为切入点，以捕获和将邻近高地出现的暴洪洪水扩散到埃塞俄比亚阿法尔低洼牧区系统的牧场和农田。在干预后的 3 年内，生产力和景观特征已经从废弃的田地变成了生产性景观。洪水模式和沉积物负荷产生了至少四个不同的作物管理区和生产力水平。基于水分和营养状况，我们开发了土地适宜性地图，用于整合适合特定生态位的作物和草料。结果是景观快速恢复，生物质产量增加了 150%，增加了获取旱季饲料和食物的机会。这些积极成果可归因于堰的适当设计，牧民、研究人员和开发代理之间的联合规划和执行，为每个管理区确定和利用最合适的品种，以及开发基于 GIS 的简单地块级别地图来指导开发代理和牧民。主要的“代理人”是社区领袖（“ 为每个管理区识别和利用最合适的品种，并开发基于 GIS 的简单地块级别地图，以指导开发人员和牧民。主要的“代理人”是社区领袖（“ 为每个管理区识别和利用最合适的品种，并开发基于 GIS 的简单地块级别地图，以指导开发人员和牧民。主要的“代理人”是社区领袖（“吉多阿伯巴蒂') 他们对创新的潜在利弊进行了激烈的辩论，执行了习惯规则和细则，并建议改变干预方法和选择。总体而言，创新系统方法有助于建立当地信心，吸引政府机构的注意，并帮助当地参与者确定投资领域，制定实施战略以提高生产力，确定发生的变化并最大限度地减少竞争社区之间的冲突。然而，风险事实上使用一块公共土地转化为长期占用和所有权可能会影响受其他集体选择习惯规则约束的公共领土和社会凝聚力。