TRANS-SAHARA will establish a groundbreaking approach for leveraging agroforestry systems to support African communities in their fight against climate change.  This innovative approach is based on the well-established Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus approach, which emphasizes the primacy of ensuring water security when designing, installing and managing agroforestry systems.  The translation of this conceptual agroforestry management approach into real-world applications is supported by an array of technical and non-technical innovations. These include cutting-edge measurement methods and tools to accurately assess environmental and socio-economic impacts, scalable nature-based intervention strategies to facilitate sustainable exploitation of natural resources, and novel business models designed to secure long-term livelihoods of local communities engaged in agroforestry practices.  The efficacy of the novel approach and supporting innovations will be rigorously tested and validated through a series of large-scale pilot demonstrations set to take place in key locations across Africa, including Tunisia, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Novel community-led engagement methods are used to support the co-design of the demonstrators, and ensure deep acceptance of the innovation within local communities.  Expected outcomes will contribute to bridging the agroforestry data gaps in Africa, increased crop yield, doubling of farmers’ annual incomes, and creation of new carbon sinks across previously degraded territories. An ambitious post-project exploitation plan executed in partnership with EU and African policymakers and civil society groups foresees the immediate and widespread uptake of resulting innovations across African Union (AU) member countries and beyond by 2030.  Innovation adopters will significantly enhance their communities’ resilience to threats posed by the climate emergency, and stimulate highly sustainable socio-economic development across their region. 

Contact persons: Roberto Monsorno, Roberto Mendicino, Ekaterina Chuprikova 

Objectives and WPs 

TRANS-SAHARA will address the challenges outlined above by using water security as an entry point to focus on agro-silvo-pastoral systems in the GNAR with the overarching aim to (i) increase the water content in regional water cycles to facilitate regeneration of degraded ecosystems, followed by (ii) the development of bespoke, data-driven, scalable and economically viable agroforestry interventions in three living labs (Tunisia, Ghana, Ethiopia) to showcase agroforestry innovations and finally (iii) facilitating an innovation ecosystem at regional, national and global scales by embedding its approach from the outset in a participatory multistakeholder socio-economic process to support a systemic socio-technical transition. 

The objective of TRANS-SAHARA are: 

SO1 

Capture, monitor and model qualitative and quantitative hydrological, geoscience, agricultural, biodiversity and socio-economic data through a novel inter- and trans-disciplinary approach in order to better understand the links between agroforestry management and climate change resilience, biodiversity preservation and sustainable agriculture 

SO2 

Develop a WEFE-Nexus based Agroforestry Intervention Design Tool for implementing scalable agroforestry management systems, taking into account local specificities within the three Living Labs across the GNAR (Tunisia, Ghana, Ethiopia), aimed at increasing water availability and ensuring a balance between agricultural productivity, socio-economic viability and sustainability 

SO3 

Develop capacities for better understanding and evaluating the socio-economic and environmental performance of agroforestry by equipping local stakeholders/authorities with capabilities to collect and report agroforestry data and equipping them with entrepreneurial capabilities 

SO4 

Strengthen the agroforestry innovation ecosystem to enhance user acceptance and facilitate implementation by developing non-technical innovations related to (i) new business models for economically sustainable use of agroforestry and build-up of agroforestry value-chains, (ii) higher replicability potential across the AU 

SO5 

Demonstrate the innovations/solutions from SO.1-SO.4 as part of three living labs in Tunisia (Sejnane), Ghana (Tamale) and Ethiopia (Aribayitu Enisesa), successfully validating the proposed technical and non-technical innovations and achieving use-case specific KPIs defined in SO.1 

Activities description 

The contribution of EURAC through CSS in this project will help to reduce the data gap by developing novel data collection and modelling strategies. In terms of data collection, CSS will be in charge of the data management system capable to integrate remote and in-situ sensing methods in order to combine various types of data. The in-situ sensor technology complementing remote sensing will be developed using "Made in Africa" sensors, in collaboration with WASCAL, using components and machine tools that are easily obtainable in the region of interest and can be easily be repaired if necessary, supported by capacity building. 

CSS will be mainly active in WP3, Strategies for data identification, collection & sensing and database development, and will coordinate WP4, Development of TRANS-SAHARA Models and the Agroforestry Intervention Design Tool 

WP3.3  Task Leader 

Development of “Made in Africa” node sensors and training 

The technical specification of the sensors from T3.2 will be translated in first prototypes of “Made in Africa” sensors. Lab tests will be conducted, followed by upscaling into TRL 5 before deployment of the sensors as part of the Living Labs. Importantly, the sensor prototypes will have to be produced in the required quantity to cover all Living Labs. The manufacturing and system setup will take place in Africa, led by WASCAL, with the assistance of EURAC. Individuals in the Living Labs will be trained on the use and maintenance of the sensors in order to address any issues or failures. Along with a technical report, a series of webinars will be created and stored in a repository for easy access, providing information on the main hardware components and how to conduct necessary tests to identify potential points of failure. 

WP3.4  

Data collection, categorization and integration into agroforestry systemic database 

Task 3.4.1:   Development of system solution for collecting data 

WP3.5 Data Management System Design and Implementation (EURAC leader) 

WP3.6 Validation and assessment 

EURAC is WP leader of WP4, Development of TRANS-SAHARA Models and the Agroforestry Intervention Design Tool 

WP4 Objectives are: 

To develop comprehensive digital models for combining agroforestry with current land use systems through optimized land use/land cover (LULC) allocations to achieve best compromises for sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation potential. 

To develop an Agroforestry Intervention Design Tool as a decision support system for translating the learnings from the models into specific agroforestry interventions 

WP4 will be mainly concentrated in year 1, and year 2, namely 2025 and 2026 

The full WP will at first explore existing agroforestry and related land use models (WP4.1), then will build Modelling of agroforestry WEFE Nexus (WP4.2) and develop new models for agroforestry system scenarios.  

The WP will then Develop an Agroforestry Intervention Design Tool , a novel Visual Analytic tool for assisting agroforestry intervention decision-making that will translate the learnings from the models developed in T4.2 and T4.3 into a user friendly BI based visual analytics tool to aid the decision-making. 

Expected results 

Made in Africa Sensors 

Data Management system 

Visual Analytic Tools for agro-forestry management