Navigating the Polycrisis: Flower farms in the Web of Unsustainable Practices Transforming Ethiopia’s Central Rift Valley

This study examines the hydrological, pedological, ecological, and socioanthropological evidence to unpack the drivers of land transformation in the Central Rift Valley (CRV) of Ethiopia. It identifies a nexus of unsustainable land use, over-extraction of water (leading to dramatic lake-level decline), industrial pollution, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss. These interlinked pressures manifest as acute resource scarcity, compromised water and food safety, heightened socio-economic insecurity, and organized violence as a desperate means to reclaim lost rights, a cascading crisis that is further aggravated by climate change.

A critical driver is state policy that prioritizes export-oriented agribusiness, such as floriculture. These policies grant flower farms preferential access to land and water, leading to the over-extraction and chemical pollution that degrade lakes and soils. While the flower farm investment aims to create jobs and boost the national revenue, it often affects the community through pollution, resource competition and dispossession.  Toxification of water from industry activities, water overextraction by both commercial farms and industry,  clearing of woodlands not only disrupts ecosystems but also dismantles the material basis of indigenous cultural orders, such as the Oromo moral-ecological code Safuu, which once regulated resource use and conflict resolution.

While trends of environmental change in the CRV are well-documented, the usual analytical and governance frameworks remain inadequate. Conventional approaches often treat soil, water, and biodiversity as isolated commodities, overlooking the fundamental biophysical and social processes that sustain these systems. Moreover, these frameworks lack meaningful community engagement. This underscores the necessity for transdisciplinary co-design processes that involve local farmers and indigenous communities to identify the problems and search for suitable repair mechanisms. This study applies a Critical Zone Science (CZS) framework to demonstrate how discrete forms of degradation are causally linked. For instance, soil degradation drives sedimentation and nutrient loading into lakes, exacerbating the shrinkage of lakes and aquatic biodiversity loss. Contaminants from floriculture cause widespread toxification and a human health crisis. Deforestation disrupts microclimates and hydrological cycles, while the erosion of cultural governance creates a vacuum in which resource scarcity fuels protracted violence.

Viable solutions, therefore, depend on integrating local knowledge with scientific. This study advocates for a paradigm shift to process-based, Critical Zone-centered governance, an approach that prioritize community-driven resource management, locally adapted climate responses, and the restoration of both ecological functionality and culturally legitimate conflict-resolution mechanisms to secure a sustainable future for the CRV.