Working with Fishermen and other Vulnerable Populations
An estimated 5000 fishermen lose their lives every year on Lake Victoria due to sudden storms.
Lake Victoria, the second biggest lake in the world, is so large that it makes its own weather patterns. Sudden, unexpected storms often come up over the Lake, swamping fishermen’s boats and killing an estimated 5000 people on or around the Lake every year. Lightning, produced in many severe storms, can be used as a marker in predicting and tracking storms. One of ACLENet's earliest research projects was surveying fishermen to determine individual exposure (when and how often they are on the Lake), how they would prefer to be notified (daily forecasts, beach flags, sounds, color coding, etc), and the penetrance of mobile phone and smart-phones that could be used for warning.
The paper published from this survey (link to pdf below) was part of the data that allowed ACLENet, working with four other partners, Trans-African Hydro Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO), Earth Networks, Human Networks International and CHAI at Makerere University, to win the first round of Global Resilience Partnership grants, funded by Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, and SIDA. The goals of the grant were to work with the Uganda National Meteorological Administration (UNMA) to improve warning systems for the citizens of Uganda through mobile phone apps. Grant report 27 November, 2017
