The DOWN2EARTH project addresses the multi-faceted challenges of water scarcity and food insecurity under climate change within increasingly vulnerable rural populations in Horn of Africa Drylands.
Decision-Support Tools
New models and apps to support adaptation decision making at multiple levels of society.
Climate Services
Investment in new technology and information to support existing forecasting frameworks.
Climate Change Planning
Creation of novel policy frameworks and communication to address climate adaptation.
Films Produced by DOWN2EARTH
Models Generated by DOWN2EARTH
https://down2earthproject.org/CUWALID/
Highlighted Publications Produced in DOWN2EARTH (full list here)
Daron, J., Michaelides, K., Hassaballah, K., Quichimbo, A., Parfitt, R., Stacey, J., Steynor, A., Johnson, C., MacLeod, D., Singer, M.B. (2025); Co-produced impact-based seasonal outlooks, Climate Services, 38:100579, doi:10.1016/j.cliser.2025.100579, pdf.
*Rigby, J.M., Luta, A., Preist, C., Wasonga, O., Singer, M.B., Michaelides, K. (2025); Mobile Phones in the Drylands: How Technology Supports Information Sharing in Rural Kenya, Proceedings of the ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies: Association for Computing Machinery; 2025: 167–183, doi:10.1145/3715335.3735464, pdf.
*Koppa, A., *Keune, J., Schumacher, D., Michaelides, K., Singer, M.B., Seneviratne, S., Miralles, D.G. (2024); Global dryland self-expansion enabled by land–atmosphere feedbacks, Science, 385(6712):967-972, doi:10.1126/science.adn6833. pdf.
MacLeod, D., Kolstad, E.W., Michaelides, K., Singer, M.B. (2024); Sensitivity of rainfall extremes to unprecedented Indian Ocean Dipole events, Geophysical Research Letters, 51(5), e2023GL105258, doi:10.1029/2023GL105258. pdf
*Schrieks, T., Botzen, W.J.W., Haer, T., Wasonga, O.V., Aerts, J.C.J.H. (2023); Assessing key behavioural theories of drought risk adaptation: Evidence from rural Kenya, Risk Analysis, doi:10.1111/risa.14266. pdf
*Busker, T., de Moel, H., van den Hurk, B., Aerts, J.C.J.H. (2023); Impact-based seasonal rainfall forecasting to trigger early action for droughts, Science of The Total Environment, 898, 165506. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165506. pdf
*MacLeod, D.A., *Quichimbo, E.A., Michaelides, K., *Asfaw, D.T., Rosolem, R., Cuthbert, M.O., Otenyo, E., Segele, Z., *Rigby, J.M., Otieno, G., Hassaballah, K., Tadege, A., Singer, M.B. (2023); Translating seasonal climate forecasts into water balance forecasts for decision making, PLOS Climate, 2(3):e0000138, doi:10.1371/journal.pclm.0000138. pdf
*Adloff, M., Singer, M.B., *MacLeod, D.A., Michaelides, K., *Mehrnegar, N., Hansford, E., Funk, C., Mitchell, D. (2022); Sustained water storage in East African drylands dominated by seasonal rainfall extremes, Geophysical Research Letters, 49(21):e2022GL099299, doi:10.1029/2022GL099299. pdf.
*Quichimbo, E.A., Singer, M.B., Michaelides, K., Hobley, D., Rosolem, R., Cuthbert, M.O. (2021). DRYP 1.0: A parsimonious hydrological model of DRYland Partitioning of the water balance, Geoscientific Model Development, doi:10.5194/gmd-2021-137. pdf
Singer, M.B., *Asfaw, D.T., Rosolem, R., Cuthbert, M.O., *Quichimbo, A., Miralles, D.G., MacLeod, D., Michaelides, K. (2021). Hourly potential evapotranspiration at 0.1˚ grid resolution for the global land surface from 1981-present, Scientific Data, 8(224), doi:10.1038/s41597-021-01003-9. pdf