Forecasting droughts in East Africa

Forecasting Eastern Mediterranean Droughts

A dynamically motivated statistical forecasting scheme for eastern Mediterranean winter rainfall is presented. The scheme is based on North Atlantic sea level pressure precursors. The resulting forecasts are robust and statistically significant at ;13 months lead time, and improve at ;7 months lead. It is suggested that these forecasts form a foundation for an operational early-warning system f...

Forecasting Droughts using Artificial Neural Networks

Abstract The use of artificial neural networks as a tool to forecast droughts in Sri Lanka is presented. Predictions were made using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) as the drought monitoring index. Monthly rainfall recorded at 13 climatological stations covering both the wet and dry zones over a long time period have been used as the input to train and test the neural networks. The a...

Bovine Tuberculosis in East Africa

The zoonotic Mycobacterium bovis is a pathogen of significance in the dairy industry in many parts of the world. Although the pathogen primarily affects cattle, it has a wide host range including humans. A cross-sectional study was carried out in three agro-ecological zones of Tanzania, namely the southern highlands zone (SHZ), eastern zone (EZ) and northern zone (NZ), to examine the status of ...

Fertility in East Africa countries

Islamist Extremism in East Africa

1 The risk of Islamist extremism in East Africa frequently focuses on Somalia and the violent actions of al Shabaab. Yet local adherents to extremist versions of Islam can now be found throughout the region. As a result, tensions both within Muslim communities and between certain Islamist groups and the broader society have been growing in the region in recent years. These tensions have not eme...