Supporting Sustainable Development in Africa through EPIC Project
Africa is a continent rich in natural resources, but also facing many challenges such as climate change, food insecurity, water scarcity, and energy poverty. To address these issues, integrated planning and management of water, energy, and food systems is essential. However, such planning requires reliable and accessible data on the availability and use of these resources, as well as their interactions and impacts.
That’s why TAHMO (Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory) is proud to be part of the EPIC Africa project, a research initiative funded by the Horizon Europe program. EPIC Africa stands for Energy Planning and Modelling through Integrated Assessment of Climate-Land-Energy-Water Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Cases of the Volta and Tana River Basins. The project aims to support sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa by developing and applying integrated modeling tools and data for long-term planning and operational management of water, energy, and food systems while engaging with stakeholders and policy-makers in a co-creation process.
TAHMO’s role in the project is to set up the EPIC Africa CLEWs Data Observatory, a platform for integrating and accessing data on climate, land, energy, and water systems needed for planning and operational decisions. TAHMO has a vast network of weather stations across Africa, providing data on temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, and more. These data are essential for understanding the current and future climate conditions and their impacts on water availability and quality, crop production, and energy generation. TAHMO will also contribute to the development of the Data Management Plan and the operational optimization models for water and energy systems.
By participating in the EPIC Africa project, TAHMO hopes to enhance its mission of providing high-quality weather data for various applications in Africa. TAHMO also hopes to strengthen its collaboration with other partners in the project, such as universities, research institutes, NGOs, and government agencies from both Africa and Europe. Together, we aim to co-create solutions that can help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and improve the lives of millions of people in Africa.
To learn more about the EPIC Africa project, visit https://epicafrica.eu/
