History of Wondo Genet College Weather Station

History of Wondo Genet College Weather Station

The weather station was established in March, 2011 in a lysimeter experiment site inside the compound of Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCF-NR). The weather station was donated by the Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU), Sweden through the project “Soil and water management in agricultural production – participatory management of natural resources for intensified production” which was funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sweden as a part of their Food Security program.  Currently, air and soil temperature, humidity, soil moisture, rainfall, wind speed and direction and solar radiation are logged every 10 min. and the data are available for non commercial and research and education purpose. 

Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCF-NR)

Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCF-NR) was established in 1978 to train Forest Technician’s in a two year diploma program with the financial and technical assistance of SIDA. It has evolved for long to about 33 years in progress and currently the college is running BSc, MSc and PhD training programs in various fields. In the past 33 years it has produced over 4000 graduates working as researchers, instructors and experts in various areas of forestry and natural resources in the country. In 2000, the college was one of the major contributors in the formation of Hawassa University and has developed long run experience in forestry and natural resources teaching and research. Currently it has the enrollment capacity of about 2000 students in major three Schools: School of Forestry, School of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, and School of Wildlife and Ecotourism.

The schools in total have 9 undergraduate programs which include: General Forestry; Forest Products Processing and Utilization; Agroforestry and Soil Management; Soil Resources and Watershed Management; Natural Resources Economics and Policy; Geographic Information Science; Wildlife, Wetland and Fisheries Management; and Ecotourism and Cultural Heritage Management. There are 8 approved graduate programs in M.Sc. among which 5 are active. In the current issue of climate change and bio-energy, a PhD program has also started. The College has 16 PhD, 34 MSc, and 29 BSc staff, a total of 78 on duty.

Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources is an ideal environment for teaching – learning and research as well as development training forums. The College is situated at 263 km from the capital Addis Ababa, 36 km from the regional capital Hawassa and 11 km from the town of Shashemene in the foot of Mount Abaro. It occupies about 1000 (one thousand) hectares of land area which encompass natural forest with its wildlife and plantation forests suitable for forestry and natural resources research and training. 

For more detail, please find the webpage of WGCF-NR: http://www.hu.edu.et/cfnr/