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Preface
The impetus for this book originated during the 2006 Annual Conference of the Ethiopian Public Health Association in Harar, Ethiopia, which focused on the role of the changing Ethiopian environment in health, and also during side visits that revealed the aftermath of the devastating 2006 flood in nearby Dire Dawa Town and the dry bed of Lake Haramaya, which finally disappeared after years of water withdrawal for irrigation and urban needs. But our interest in the development and management of the country's water resources goes back several decades to field research on issues of the relationship between water development and water-borne diseases, dam construction and ecological changes, population movements and resettlement, community initiatives and government approaches to health development (Helmut Kloos), and the biological integrity of streams and rivers subject to pollution and hydropower development (Worku Legesse). These studies, involving extensive travel in the highland and lowland regions, revealed to us water-related problems in irrigated areas, manmade reservoirs, highland and lowland ecosystems, and in domestic water supplies and sanitation in a country emerging from medieval feudalism