ACEWM’s PhD Candidate Getahun Kebede Mengistie successfully defended his dissertation

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — The Africa Center of Excellence for Water Management (ACEWM) at Addis Ababa University proudly announces the successful PhD dissertation defense of Mr. Getahun Kebede Mengistie. His dissertation, titled “Leveraging the Power of Citizen Science for Enhanced Hydrological Modeling of Urbanizing Catchments,” presents innovative research that harnesses community-driven data to improve water management in rapidly urbanizing areas.

Mr. Getahun’s research was conducted in the Akaki catchment, where he established a citizen science (CS) program involving local participants in long-term river stage monitoring across multiple sites. Through rigorous evaluation, the study demonstrated that the quality of citizen-generated data significantly improved over time, showing a strong correlation (r > 0.95) with professional measurements and low error margins (RMSE: 0.03–0.08).

His findings highlight critical differences in rainfall-runoff patterns between urban and rural sub-catchments. By integrating updated land use and CS data into the HEC-HMS hydrological model, followed by recalibration, the model’s performance improved considerably (NSE: 0.50–0.70, RVE: 2.02–3.64%). Furthermore, the study successfully linked HEC-HMS with the WEAP model, uncovering significant environmental flow deficits and underscoring the urgent need for conflict-sensitive water reallocation strategies.

The dissertation defense was chaired by Dr. Dessie Nedaw of Addis Ababa University. The examination panel included Dr. Semu Ayalew of Dallas City Government (external examiner) and Dr. Adane Abebe of Arba Minch University (internal examiner). Mr. Getahun’s research was primarily supervised by Dr. Alemseged Tamiru of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

His work marks a significant step forward in participatory science and its application in addressing the water challenges facing urbanizing regions in Ethiopia and beyond.