Brief Bio:
​
Dr. Epule is currently an Assistant Professor and Chair of Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainability Strategies in Africa at the International Water Research Institute (IWRI), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Benguerir, Morocco. Here, he is director of the UM6P's''African Climate Change and Adaptation Lab,'' (ACCA Lab).
Prior to moving to Morocco in January 2021, he served as an Associate Professor of International Farming Systems between 2019 and 2020. Between 2016 and 2019 he served as a Post Doctoral Researcher at the department of Geography at McGill University. He still holds an adjunct faculty position at McGill teaching Human Dimensions of Climate Change course.
Dr. Epule was also a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Geography of University of Montreal (2014-2016).
His research is at the interface of the interactions between climate and land use changes. He holds a PhD in Environmental Science from University of Quebec in Montreal's Institute of Environmental Science. His second masters degree was in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Sciences from Lund University in Sweden. He holds another masters in Geography and a Bachelors degree in Geography. He is author of two books and more than 40 peer review papers in top of the line journals like Plos One, Springer Nature Applied Science, Water, Agriculture, Environmental Science and Policy, Land Use Policy, Regional Environmental Change, Small Scale Forestry and Environment Development and Sustainability etc. He has obtained major grants from the UM6P in Morocco, SSHRC in Canada, the FRQSC and other organizations in Canada.
NEWS
New Funded Project 2022:
-
Prof. Epule's new project titled: ''Pan Moroccan Yield and Precipitation Gaps Platform and App (PAMOCPP) has been funded by OCP Africa and UM6P. The project received funding of about 10.8 million Moroccan dirhams for the next three years. The project is currently hiring two Post Docs and Two PhD students to join the team of current PhDs at the ACCA Lab. For details see PAMOCPP website for details.
New Book 2022:
-
Epule, TE. (2022). Climate Change in Africa: Stressors, Adaptations, Readiness, and Performance. Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN-13:978-620-4-74216-8, ISBN-10:6204742167, EAN:9786204742168.
ACCA Lab is currently leading three projects. Interested PhD students and post doctoral fellows are encouraged to contact the director to discuss their research interests. The projects are:
​
1. Vulnerability assessments of key crops to changes in precipitation across African countries. Ideas that straddle the various components of vulnerability and other novel ways of framing vulnerability as well as the creation of indexes.
​
2. Readiness for climate change adaptation in Africa. A need for regional and country level assessments and testing of Dr. Epule's newly developed readiness index ''ClimAdaptCap'' Index. This work might also involve taking initiative and developing of adaptation or readiness indexes across Africa.
​
3. Precipitation and yield gap studies across Morocco and Africa. Use of existing empirical, PBM and perception based approaches to evaluate and determine yield and precipitation gaps as well as trigger options for closing these gaps using water and nutrient management.
​
Other News:
June 24, 2021: ACCA Lab presented their initial finding on yield and precipitation gaps at the Springer Nature Applied Sciences webinar.
​
June 2, 2021: Prof. Epule lead and taught the PhD course for IWRI and CRSA PhD students on Climate Change Adaptation and interactions with CSA in SSA.
MY LATEST RESEARCH
Current Projects:
At UM6P, Dr. Epule is currently working on the following thematics:
-Crop Yield Gaps in Morocco and other African countries. PAMOCPP, hiring PhDs and Post Docs.
-Crop Yield Vulnerability Indexes across Africa (CPI in a multi-country project).
-ClimAdapCap Index (A newly developed readiness for adaptation index).
-Crop Harvest area interactions.
-Development of a platform to track and monitor vulnerability, sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity across Africa (TERRYSAT project).
-Climate perceptions in Africa.
-Systematic reviews of the status of climate change adaptation and climate shocks In Morocco and across Africa.
-Crop suitability modelling and assessment.
-Household water quality in Morocco.
-Multi-source platform for studies of climate change effects water resources in the Tensift basin in Marrakech.
Previous:
At McGill University i am currently working on a project that promises to verify the level of adaptations to climate change and established resilience to climate change in Uganda and other parts of Africa and proposes relevant policy options.
​
The first part of this SSHRC funded project has the following objectives:
1. Identifies the climatic and non-climatic determinants of the crop yields from 31 food and cash crops in Uganda.
2. Projections of the extent of vulnerability of maize for ethanol to droughts based on adaptive capacity, sensitivity and exposure in the context of droughts in Uganda.
3. A proxy based systematic approach to verifying climate change adaptation options or coping mechanisms in the Sahel.
4. Develop a framework for assessing and categorizing climate change shocks/stressors in the Sahel based on a synthesis of the primary literature.
​
The second part of my post-doctoral research at McGill University has the following objectives:
1. Evaluate population perceptions of climate change in the context of their perceptions of whether stresses such as rainfall, temperature, winds, climate variability and climatic extremes are higher in 2016 compared to 10-20 years ago in North East Uganda.
2. Verify the barriers to climate change adaptation in Karamoja Uganda along financial, political, cultural and social constraints.
3. Identify the impact, causes of climate changes adaptations in key sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fauna, water resources and the parallel adaptations options in Karamoja Uganda.
4. This project also verifies how the adoption of different adaptation options varies with the socio-demographic attributes of the respondents.
5. Finally, this second phase of my project also verifies adaptive capacity varies along poverty and literacy levels. This is an opportunity for us to test our adaptive capacity index at a very small scale.
​
My research at University of Montreal when i did my first post-doc research (May 2014-April 2016) was at the interface of the interactions between climate and land use changes. This essentially FRQSC funded project has the following key objectives:
1. Identifies the drivers of arable production stagnation at a national scale in Cameroon.
2. Uses the drivers identified to propose policies to increase food security in Cameroon based on a systematic approach.
3. Verifies the relative response of maize yeilds in Cameroon to climate trends and land use changes.
4. Verifies the roles of structural equation models in explaining the interactions between arable production, climatic variables, cattle stock, crop land etc.
5. Identifies the adoption of agroecology and conventional farming systems in Cameroon and Africa and their effects on crop yields and related adaptation options.
6. Priority areas for climate smart agriculture in Africa and policy implications.
My other research interests include:
Dr. Epule is open to welcoming new PhDs and Post Docs in his research groups. Check out my research blog and news sections for new opportunities. Some other thematics of interest include:
​
1. Disaster response in the context of climate change adaptation.
2. Facilitating the design, development, implementation and evaluation of climate policies as they relate to renewable energies, energy efficiency, adaptation and conservation in Canada and around the world.
-I am also interested in aboriginal food security in the context of determining the role of conventional and agroecology systems in reducing the dependence of the people of Nunavut to external food sources.
-Determining the drivers of deforestation in Cameroon and Africa and related policy options.
-Identifying the enabling conditions for success in rural and urban greening projects.
-Assessing the vulnerability of populations to the effects of deforestation such as food and water scarcities.
-Sahelian droughts, their causes, effects on food systems and prospects.
-Environmental refugees in Africa, causes and global implications.
