El Nino: How prepared are you?

Margaret Mwaura warmly welcomes the Climate Action team to her family farm spanning 12 hectares in Limuru, Kiambu County. As a professional educator, she is passionate about environmental conservation and often engages in farming, tree planting and harvesting activities. While we catch up with her on a Monday evening during maize harvesting, she remains mindful of the weatherman’s forecast of heavy rains that are set to begin soon. Margaret hopes to dry and store her maize to prevent spoilage.

“Often times, a heavy rain season is followed by a prolonged dry period and so we have dug a water pan to harvest rainwater,” she tells Climate Action.

In preparation for the predicted El Nino season by the meteorological department, the family has dug a water pan to harvest rain water.

Last season, their crops suffered due to insufficient rain, so they hope to collect rainwater to irrigate their farm once the rain stops.

“The water pan has not yet collected any water since we dug it. Our target is the heavy rains season. We will use the water to do serious farming,” says the part-time disaster management lecturer at Kenyatta University.

In 1997, Margaret’s family was affected by floods caused by intense rainfall. They were unable to harvest their crops and had to collect rainwater. They also had to move houses because the one they lived in could not withstand the moving water.

But she is determined not to be caught unprepared this time around.

“We will plant some crops during the rains and we hope they will not get damaged by over-saturated soil. We will also plant bamboos somewhere in a small corner, where they will retain the water and hold the soil simultaneously,” she says, noting that the family has bamboo seedlings ready in the nursery.

The part-time disaster management lecturer at Kenyatta University is urging individual preparedness “because heavy rainfall is a disaster that every individual should be ready for.”

“Everybody should have an emergency-preparedness bag where they put fundamental essentials like money, umbrellas, painkillers, disinfectants and the most important documents so that if your house is flooded, you don’t lose them,” she says.

According to the meteorological projections, the country will start experiencing heavy rainfall this month. With this, agriculture experts recommend proper land management practices like providing drainage so that the excess water is redirected to other places to avoid soil erosion-related problems.

“You can have a water channel to make a deep trench at the beginning of the slop. You can also plant along terraces— contour planting and contour cultivation —  as that minimises soil erosion,” says Prof John Wesonga, a horticulture and food security lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

Prof Wesonga believes that the benefit of heavy rainfall is the availability of plenty of water. He says the water should be stored for dry periods. “Kenya is known to be a water deficit country, but we can only reap these benefits if we are prepared and harvest as much water as possible. I know some farmers who harvest 10 million litres of water, but that requires massive infrastructure,” he tells Climate Action.

He further notes that each farmer can utilise whatever facility they have to collect as much water as possible during the El Nino.

“When it comes to using the water, we can use efficient irrigation systems like drip irrigation, which does not utilise so much water. If you use, say, a furrow or overhead sprinkler, you need a lot of water. So combining renewable energy with water-saving technology and water harvesting would advisable,” he says.

While some farmers in different parts of the country are already in planting seasons, he says that it would be good not to plant crops like maize at this time as the crops may not survive the heavy rainfall.

“We can store the seeds and plant after the rains clear rather than spending resources and incur losses because maize cannot survive the extreme weather,” he warns.

The expected heavy rainfall is what climate scientists describe as typical El Nino, or warming in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

“Although the warming in the Pacific drives the whole globe, we need a signal in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean is more important for us, and we have an Indian Ocean Dipole when we have warming over East Africa and cooling to the east of the Indian Ocean. This is called a positive IOD. If we have that, then we have heavy rainfall over East Africa,” says Zachary Atheru, programme coordinator at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Climate Prediction and Application Centre in charge of Climate Services related applications.

While El Nino is typically associated with heavy rainfall, he says some El Ninos are unique and may not bring heavy rains. He notes that just as meteorologists observed in 1997 and 2006, the patterns are the same this year, but the threshold may not be equivalent and that they will know this as the season progresses.

Tips for staying safe during El Nino

Margaret Mwaura, a part-time disaster management lecturer at Kenyatta University, urges that children get information regarding the dangers of heavy  rains. She notes that those attending day schools should be in the company of adults. She also suggests that they dress warmly to avoid respiratory tract infections.

“Parents should warn their children about the dangers of playing in water. The children should avoid playing in pools that form on roadsides and be cautioned to stay away from the rain,”

She advises pedestrians and motorists not to underestimate the strength and amount of water they come across in flooded areas. She adds that drivers should avoid speeding as is often the case during the rainy season “because everyone wants to get home before it starts raining”.

“As a driver, you are not always seeing what is ahead of you because of the rain, and sometimes you end up causing accidents. As a pedestrian, you may not estimate how far the vehicle is at night. We must all exercise caution on the road,”

The disaster management scholar advises people to buy waterproof coats. She also recommends having alternative power sources such as solar energy, rechargeable torches and lamps because heavy rain, lightning, strong winds and other types of severe weather cause power outages and interruptions by knocking down power lines.

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