Contributions of water harvesting technologies intervention in arid and semi-arid regions of Ethiopia, in ensuring households’ food security, Tigray in focus

Interventions of water harvesting technologies (WHTs) in drought-prone areas like the Tigray region (northern Ethiopia) is an option less strategy to alleviate food insecurity issues emanating from water scarcity. Hence, wide spectrums of WHTs were applied in Tigray Region in the last three decades. Thus, this study aimed to assess the WHTs and the subsequent contributions in ensuring households’ food security in Kilete-Awlaelo district of the Tigray Region. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a household survey (n = 246), focus group discussion, key informants interview, and field observation, and subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis on the SPSS environment. The explanatory power of the WHTs to food security was determined using a regression model. The result revealed that 64.6% of the households applied WHTs while 35.4% not. Though a statistically significant positive relationship (p < 0.05) between the WHTs (predictor) and PCC acquisition as food security parameter (predictand) was observed, the magnitude was not strong enough where only 6.1% of WHTs users and 0.81% of non-users had achieved the average standard PCC requirement (2100 kcal) from their farm production. Hence, strengthening and expanding the functional domain of the WHTs fitting to the socio-economic, environmental, and biophysical context of the locality is profoundly indispensable.