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GrainsWest:
How did you become interested in water
management?
Daniel Itenfisu:
I am from Ethiopia, and while Ethiopia has
quite a few rivers, it is well-known for having problems with
drought. I thought I’d better understand water as a natural
resource and the science of it in order to solve the problem of
drought. I have an agricultural engineering background and did
my graduate studies and research in Belgium, in the Netherlands
and at Utah State University.
GW:
Your passion for drought management has taken you all
over the world. What brought you to Alberta?
DI:
I was working at Oklahoma State University, with Oklahoma
Mesonet, the best weather station network in the world. I often
visited my extended family in Alberta and loved the prairie and
the mountains. There was an opportunity to expand the provin-
cial drought modelling and risk management program following
the drought of 2001/02. So, in 2004, I decided to work for AF,
and since 2005, I have worked with what is now the AgMet unit
on drought monitoring and reporting.
GW:
So, the idea for a risk management program came out of
the 2001/02 drought?
DI:
That was a critical point. Of course, drought had happened
before, but this was when AF and the province decided it was
time to track and manage that risk. The traditional way of
managing drought was not economical or timely. The province
implemented the Alberta Drought Risk Management Plan, using
science-based drought reporting to manage the risk. However,
when the program was launched, there wasn’t enough weather
data to write a scientifically sound drought report.
GW:
Why wasn’t there enough data?
DI:
The weather data for the agricultural area of the province
was primarily based in cities, which meant it wasn’t sufficient in
quality and quantity to build an agricultural drought risk man-
agement program.
GW
: How was the data improved?
DI:
AF established a standard drought weather station network
consisting of weather stations in the dry land (37) and irrigated
areas (10) in the south. You can have a simple weather station
on a stick, which many guys have, but they don’t last. Weather
stations must be placed right, and you should be able to perform
quality control on the weather data. In our standard weather
stations, we measure precipitation, temperature, humidity and
wind speed at two and 10 metres. Additionally, we measure
solar radiation, and profile soil moisture and temperature at
selected weather stations. We monitor weather variables every
five seconds. We then do quality control to replace faulty data,
and report hourly and daily summaries. This is near-real-time
reporting.
Spring
2018
grainswest.com17
BY ELLEN COTTEE • PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANTHONY HOULE
Drought modeller Daniel Itenfisu helps farmers
manage climate risk
Modelmaterial
NO INDUSTRY IS MORE AWARE OF THE VALUE OF WATER THAN FARMING. IN ALBERTA, VARYING LEVELS OF
precipitation year to year can alternately produce fields of mud and punishing drought. Daniel Itenfisu, a drought modeller with Alber-
ta Agriculture and Forestry’s (AF) AgMet unit, collects data on weather and soil conditions from around the province, which is used
to create drought reports and maps that aid farmers. With his international experience, Itenfisu has helped expand Alberta’s weather
station network to world-class levels while also helping farmers prepare for emerging weather issues.