Drought In Africa Research Articles

Water as destiny – The long-term impacts of drought in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract We examine the long-term impacts of drought exposure on women born in 19 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, across four decades. We find that women who were exposed to drought conditions during their early childhood are significantly less wealthy as adults. These effects are confined to women born and raised in rural households, indicating that the impacts of rainfall are felt via changes in agricultural output. In addition to lower levels of wealth, women who experience droughts in infancy also receive fewer years of formal education and, in the case of extreme drought conditions, have reduced adult heights. Our results also suggest that drought exposure in infancy can have long-term, negative impacts on women’s empowerment. Finally, we also show that these impacts may be transmitted to the women’s offspring, with children of affected women more likely to be born at a low birth weight (weighing

The impact of drought on commercial livestock farmers in South Africa

ABSTRACTThis article reports on a study that aimed to assess the impact of the 2015 drought in South Africa on commercial livestock producers, with specific reference to the associated drought adoption strategies. The study was based on primary data collected from 350 commercial livestock producers from seven different provinces. The findings revealed that the effect of drought had a significant impact on average herd size, livestock feeding, and sheep flock. Commercial livestock producers did not receive any form of assistance from the government. The majority of the farmers did not have any preventive measures in place during the drought. The study recommends that the government and policymakers should introduce a mechanism to support commercial livestock farmers when drought strikes.

Physiological responses of irrigated wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes to water stress

ABSTRACTThe recent drought in South Africa has reduced the production of both dryland and irrigated wheat. This study evaluated physiological traits of irrigated wheat genotypes in response to water stress (WS) imposed at different growth stages. A 8 × 2 × 3 [(genotypes) × (water treatmets; stresses and non-stressed) × (growth stages; tillering, flowering and grain filling)] factorial experiment based on a randomised complete block design with three replicates was conducetd. In general, the rate of photosynthesis was unaffected by WS except for genotypes LM43 at tillering and LM98 at grain filling. Stomatal conductance (SC) and transpiration rate (Tr) followed the same treand except for genotype LM35 which reduced its SC and Tr significantly at grain filling. Instantaneous waster use efficiency (IWUE) of genotype LM35 and LM57 was unaffected (p > 0.05) by WS at tillering but at flowering stage it was affected. However, at grain filling IWUE was affected (p < 0.05) in genotypes LM35, ML57, LM79 and LM 98. The relative water content was unaffected at tillering except for LM35 and LM47 genotypes whereas at flowering LM57, ML79, LM83 and LM98 were affected. These results indicate some degree of drought tolerance of these genotypes at different growth stages.

Brief communication: Drought likelihood for East Africa

Abstract. The East Africa drought in autumn of year 2016 caused malnutrition, illness and death. Close to 16 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya needed food, water and medical assistance. Many factors influence drought stress and response. However, inevitably the following question is asked: are elevated greenhouse gas concentrations altering extreme rainfall deficit frequency? We investigate this with general circulation models (GCMs). After GCM bias correction to match the climatological mean of the CHIRPS data-based rainfall product, climate models project small decreases in probability of drought with the same (or worse) severity as 2016 ASO (August to October) East African event. This is by the end of the 21st century compared to the probabilities for present day. However, when further adjusting the climatological variability of GCMs to also match CHIRPS data, by additionally bias-correcting for variance, then the probability of drought occurrence will increase slightly over the same period.

Industrial Applications of Selected JFS Articles

Industrial Applications of Selected <i>JFS</i> Articles

Hydrological Response and Complex Impact Pathways of the 2015/2016 El Niño in Eastern and Southern Africa

AbstractThe 2015/2016 El Niño has been classified as one of the three most severe on record. El Niño teleconnections are commonly associated with droughts in southern Africa and high precipitation in eastern Africa. Despite their relatively frequent occurrence, evidence for their hydrological effects and impacts beyond agriculture is limited. We examine the hydrological response and impact pathways of the 2015/2016 El Niño in eastern and southern Africa, focusing on Botswana, Kenya, and Zambia. We use in situ and remotely sensed time series of precipitation, river flow, and lake levels complemented by qualitative insights from interviews with key organizations in each country about awareness, impacts, and responses. Our results show that drought conditions prevailed in large parts of southern Africa, reducing runoff and contributing to unusually low lake levels in Botswana and Zambia. Key informants characterized this El Niño through record high temperatures and water supply disruption in Botswana and through hydroelectric load shedding in Zambia. Warnings of flood risk in Kenya were pronounced, but the El Niño teleconnection did not materialize as expected in 2015/2016. Extreme precipitation was limited and caused localized impacts. The hydrological impacts in southern Africa were severe and complex, strongly exacerbated by dry antecedent conditions, recent changes in exposure and sensitivity and management decisions. Improved understanding of hydrological responses and the complexity of differing impact pathways can support design of more adaptive, region‐specific management strategies.

Editorial

Editorial

Influence of coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomena on the Greater Horn of Africa droughts and their implications

Drought-like humanitarian crises in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) are increasing despite recent progress in drought monitoring and prediction efforts. Notwithstanding these efforts, there remain challenges stemming from uncertainty in drought prediction, and the inflexibility and limited buffering capacity of the recurrent impacted systems. The complexity of the interactions of ENSO, IOD, IPO and NAO, arguably remains the main source of uncertainty in drought prediction. To develop practical drought risk parameters that potentially can guide investment strategies and risk-informed planning, this study quantifies, drought characteristics that underpin drought impacts management. Drought characteristics that include probability of drought-year occurrences, durations, areal-extent and their trends over 11 decades (1903–2012) were derived from the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI).Transient probability of drought-year occurrences, modelled on Beta distribution, across the region ranges from 10 to 40%, although most fall within 20–30%. For more than half of the drought events, durations of up to 4, 7, 14 and 24months for the 3-, 6-, 12- and 24-month timescales were evident, while 1 out of 10 events persisted for up to 18months for the short timescales, and up to 36months or more for the long timescales. Apparently, only drought areal-extent showed statistically significant trends of up to 3%, 1%, 3.7%, 2.4%, 0.7%, −0.3% and −0.6% per decade over Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, respectively. Since there is no evidence of significant changes in drought characteristics, the peculiarity of drought-like crises in the GHA can be attributed (at least in part) to unaccounted for systematic rainfall reduction. This highlights the importance of distinguishing drought impacts from those associated with new levels of aridity. In principle drought is a temporary phenomenon while aridity is permanent, a difference that managers and decision-makers should be more aware.

Identifying Droughts Affecting Agriculture in Africa Based on Remote Sensing Time Series between 2000–2016: Rainfall Anomalies and Vegetation Condition in the Context of ENSO

Droughts are amongst the most destructive natural disasters in the world. In large regions of Africa, where water is a limiting factor and people strongly rely on rain-fed agriculture, droughts have frequently led to crop failure, food shortages and even humanitarian crises. In eastern and southern Africa, major drought episodes have been linked to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. In this context and with limited in-situ data available, remote sensing provides valuable opportunities for continent-wide assessment of droughts with high spatial and temporal resolutions. This study aimed to monitor agriculturally relevant droughts over Africa between 2000–2016 with a specific focus on growing seasons using remote sensing-based drought indices. Special attention was paid to the observation of drought dynamics during major ENSO episodes to illuminate the connection between ENSO and droughts in eastern and southern Africa. We utilized Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-based Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) with 0 . 25 ∘ resolution and Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) with 500 m resolution as indices for analysing the spatio-temporal patterns of droughts. We combined the drought indices with information on the timing of site-specific growing seasons derived from MODIS-based multi-annual average of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We proved the applicability of SPI-3 and VCI as indices for a comprehensive continental-scale monitoring of agriculturally relevant droughts. The years 2009 and 2011 could be revealed as major drought years in eastern Africa, whereas southern Africa was affected by severe droughts in 2003 and 2015/2016. Drought episodes occurred over large parts of southern Africa during strong El Niño events. We observed a mixed drought pattern in eastern Africa, where areas with two growing seasons were frequently affected by droughts during La Niña and zones of unimodal rainfall regimes showed droughts during the onset of El Niño. During La Niña 2010/2011, large parts of cropland areas in Somalia (88%), Sudan (64%) and South Sudan (51%) were affected by severe to extreme droughts during the growing seasons. However, no universal El Niño- or La Niña-related response pattern of droughts could be deduced for the observation period of 16 years. In this regard, we discussed multi-year atmospheric fluctuations and characteristics of ENSO variants as further influences on the interconnection between ENSO and droughts. By utilizing remote sensing-based drought indices focussed on agricultural zones and periods, this study attempts to contribute to a better understanding of spatio-temporal patterns of droughts affecting agriculture in Africa, which can be essential for implementing strategies of drought hazard mitigation.

Living with drought in South Africa: lessons learnt from the recent El Niño drought period

South Africa is prone to drought. The country recently experienced the combined effects of a severe drought and a strong El Niño event, which led to serious impacts on livelihood conditions and economic growth. By examining the State's response to drought over time, with a specific focus on responses to the current 2016 El Niño -related drought, we expose a number of ‘sticking points’ in the response to drought and the delayed action to reduce the risks to drought impacts. Complex and seemingly bureaucratic hurdles limiting action are shown to be cumbersome factors that impede and continue to frustrate effective drought response in the country. Such bureaucratic inability to enable swift and flexible responses resulted in many NGOs and civic actors stepping up to provide assistance. As demonstrated in this research, while there are response plans and key contact departments and strategies in South Africa, these have become mired down in officialdom. Some suggest the blame lies with the State itself, and its alleged poor drought risk governance that affect recovery after drought, especially in the agricultural sector. Ineffective responses are surprising given that drought is a familiar feature and given there have been several previous cases of successes in institutional response in the past.

Drought-associated absence of alien invasive anchorworm, Lernaea cyprinacea (Copepoda: Lernaeidae), is related to changes in fish health.

Recently, Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus Peters, 1852) were listed on the IUCN Red List as near-threatened as their populations are at risk due to hybridization. Another factor that potentially contributes to their population decline is that they are regularly infected by the invasive parasitic copepod anchorworm, Lernaea cyprinacea Linnaeus, 1758. Considering anchorworm-infected Mozambique tilapia are common, understanding their condition with respect to infection is difficult as uninfected fish from the same localities have been unavailable for comparison. A severe drought in southern Africa has created hypersaline environments in the Phongolo River floodplain of north-eastern South Africa, such that freshwater parasites cannot survive and uninfected fish are now found. To determine how infection influences host health, infected and uninfected Mozambique tilapia were collected before and during drought conditions, from Nyamiti pan of the Phongolo River floodplain. Anchorworm-infected fish prevalence was recorded, and anchorworms were collected from hosts and identified to the species level using molecular data of the 18S rRNA gene. For each fish, intensity of anchorworm infection, total length, and weights of the gutted body, liver, spleen, and gonads were recorded. Gutted condition factor, hepato-, spleeno-, and gonado-somatic index values per fish, and prevalence of infection per collection were determined. A rapid health assessment was also conducted to determine a health score for each fish. Molecular analyses confirmed the anchorworm studied was L. cyprinacea. Prior to and during drought, prevalence of infection was 100%, and 0%, respectively. Before drought, fish had significantly reduced hepato-, spleeno-, and gonado-somatic index values, and higher health assessment scores, yet significantly higher gutted condition. Anchorworm intensity was indirectly correlated with fish liver and gonad condition. This study demonstrates that host condition and health varies greatly with respect to drought and infection, and provides the necessary data for follow-up studies in post-drought conditions.

Assessing the Contributions of Local and East Pacific Warming to the 2015 Droughts in Ethiopia and Southern Africa

Assessing the Contributions of Local and East Pacific Warming to the 2015 Droughts in Ethiopia and Southern Africa

Strong 2015–2016 El Niño and implication to global ecosystems from space data

ABSTRACTDuring 2015, sea surface temperature (SST) in the central tropical Pacific (TP) was warmer than normal, what indicated about the potential for the development of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). By December 2015, El Niño intensified when SST anomaly in the Niño-3.4 tropical Pacific area reached +2.9 °C, which indicated about the strongest event of the past 36 years. El Niño normally impacts weather, ecosystems, and socioeconomics (agriculture, fisheries, energy, human health, water resource etc.) on all continents. However, the current El Niño is much stronger than the recent strong 1997–1998 event. Therefore, this paper investigates how the strength of El Niño impacts world ecosystems and which areas are affected. The vegetation health (VH) method and 36-year of its data have been used as the criteria of the impact. Specifically, the paper investigates VH-ENSO teleconnection, focusing on estimation of vegetation response to El Niño intensity and transition of the impact from boreal winter to spring and summer. Two types of ecosystem response were identified. In boreal winter, ecosystems of northern South America, southern Africa, eastern Australia, and Southeast Asia experienced strong vegetation stress, which will negatively affect agriculture, energy, and water resources. In Argentina, southeastern USA and the Horn of Africa ecosystem response is opposite. One of the worst disasters associated with ENSO is drought. The advantages of this study are in derivation of vegetation response to moisture, thermal, and combined conditions including an early detection of drought-related stress. For the first time, ENSO impact was evaluated based on all events with |SSTa|> 0.5 ºC and >2.0 ºC. The current strong El Niño has already triggered drought in Brazil, southern Africa, southeastern Asia, and eastern Australia during December–February. Such conditions will be transitioned from boreal winter to spring but not to summer 2016, except for two regions: northern Brazil and southeastern Asia.

Communal farmers' perception of drought in South Africa: Policy implication for drought risk reduction

O.R. Tambo District is vulnerable to the effects of drought, given the social and economic circumstances of residents in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The communal farmers of O.R. Tambo District engage in crop and livestock farming activities in pursuit of their livelihoods. Economic reliance on agriculture and the depletion of resources increase their vulnerability to drought. The lack of adequate resources to prepare for and respond to drought has led to high drought vulnerability. The main aim of this study is to analyse the perception of communal farmers towards drought. This study is based on primary data collected from 87 communal farmers following a structured questionnaire survey, purposive sampling method procedures, and the creation of a perception index. The results revealed that perceptions held by communal farmers indicate that (i) they receive inadequate government support for drought risk reduction, (ii) they do not consider social networks as being effectively involved in drought risk reduction, (iii) there is a system of gender stereotyping among the farmers with discrimination against women, (iv) psychological stress affects their farm activities, and (v) they experience high levels of stock theft and insecurity in their farming. The study recommends that there should be coordination and collaboration among all role players. This includes coordination between monitoring agencies in terms of reliable early warning data, communicated in a comprehensive way to decision-makers, farmer's organisations and private sector. Collaboration with government departments at national and provincial level should also be strengthened. This includes collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) at national level, provincial Departments of Agriculture, National and Provincial Disaster Management Centres (NDMC and PDMC), Department of Water Affairs (DWA), South African Weather Service (SAWS) and the South African Police Service (SAPS). This coordination and collaboration will help to strengthen strategies which target enhancing communal farmers’ awareness of the importance of social networking, role of government, level of security, stress and gender equality. The result of this study will directly contribute to the development of South African drought plan which is currently under formulation.

Characteristics of Droughts in South Africa: A Case Study of Free State and North West Provinces

The Free State (FS) and North West (NW) Provinces are often hard hit by droughts with impacts on water availability, farm production and livestock holdings. The South African government declared the two Provinces drought disaster areas in the 2015/2016 hydrological year. This is a major drawback, since both the Provinces play an important role to South African economy as they are a haven to agricultural production and have major water reservoirs in South Africa. This study was undertaken to investigate the historical evolution of drought within the FS and NW Provinces over the past 30 years. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) calculated based on monthly meteorological data from 14 weather/climate stations within the FS and NW Provinces were used to explore and characterize variation in drought intensity, duration, frequency and severity in FS and NW Provinces during 1985–2015. Results indicate that there exist localized positive and negative trends with spatial dependence across the selected stations. In particular, about 60% of the weather stations exhibiting a decreasing trend are located in FS Province, suggesting that FS has being experiencing increasing drought during the analyzed period compared to NW Province. Results from the analysis of drought evaluation indicators (DEIs) calculated from SPEI suggest that drought severity and frequency was more pronounced in FS while the intensity of the drought was more in NW Province during 1985–2015. In addition, based on SPEI calculations, moderate drought occurrences increased during 1985–1994 and 1995–2004 periods and decreased thereafter (2005–2015) in both Provinces. Drought classification based on parameters derived from SPEI produced similar results for mild drought occurrences during the same time scales.

South Africa Drought: No End in Sight

Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical SeriesVolume 53, Issue 8 p. 21388A-21388A Policy and Practice South Africa Drought: No End in Sight First published: 03 October 2016 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6346.2016.07236.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume53, Issue8October 2016Pages 21388A-21388A RelatedInformation

Drought, climate change and sustainability of water in agriculture: A roadmap towards the NWRS2

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The frequency and intensity of drought, extreme events and high wind velocities in South Africa are expected to increase in the next century as a result of the changing climate. The National Water Resource Strategy 2 (NWRS2) has set out the general and strategic directions for water resources management in the country for the next 20 years. However, the strategy does not draw a framework tailored specifically for agricultural use, with specific measures and goals. Therefore, to reach sustainability of water in agriculture, four major strategic goals are suggested, on which research institutions can focus and promote through good governance. The strategy emphasises: (1) crop research to find new drought-and heat- tolerant and resistant breeds and varieties; (2) intensified research in agricultural practices; (3) increasing the efficiency of water use within agriculture; and (4) integrating all these strategic goals within a sustainable research framework. Finally, the research calls for rapid action and implementation.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Significance: &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The framework is proposed for stakeholders and policymakers in higher education, agriculture and resources management in South Africa for new research horizons at national level to improve overall agricultural sustainability by 2030 as stipulated by the Millennium Development Goals.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Impact of climate change and El Niño episodes on droughts in sub-Saharan Africa

Various drought prone regions of sub-Saharan Africa (SSAF) have been affected by severe droughts in recent decades and centuries, which had caused catastrophic humanitarian crisis. In this study, the Palmer Drought Severity Index was used to analyse changes in drought characteristics of SSAF during 1971–2000 and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) climate projections of selected GCMs (Global Climate Models) for the 2041–2070 (2050s) and 2071–2100 (2080s) periods. The results show that most areas in South Africa (SA) and West Africa (WA) will shift to a drier climate in the 2050 and 2080s. However, some areas in Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) are expected to be relatively wetter in the 2050 and 2080s whereas very little change is projected in the average drought severity of Central Africa (CA). The frequency of short (6–12 months) and long (above 12 months) drought events also increased on average by 5 %. However, a 1–6 % decrease in the average duration of long drought periods was projected during the 2050 and 2080s likely due to the increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events in SSAF. An increase in the frequency of El Nino episodes under a warmer twentyfirst century climate is also expected to increase the drought prone regions of WA, SA and particularly GHA while CA still remains virtually unaffected. Overall, the results suggest that SSAF will experience a drier climate in the 2050 and 2080s with an increase in drought prone areas in the four corners of the sub-continent.

Conditional Relationships Between Drought and Civil Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

Much of the literature on climate change adaptation claims the destabilizing consequences of environmental crises are mitigated by sociopolitical conditions that influence a state's susceptibility to scarcity-induced violence. However, few cross-national studies provide evidence of conditional scarcity-conflict relationships. This analysis of drought severity and civil conflict onset in sub-Saharan Africa (1962–2006) uncovers three sociopolitical conditions that influence the link between environmental scarcity and civil conflict: social vulnerability , state capacity , and unequal distribution of resources . Surprisingly, we find drought does not exacerbate the high risk of conflict in the vulnerable, incapable, and unequal states thought to be especially susceptible to increased scarcity. Instead, drought negates the peace-favoring attributes of stable states with less vulnerable populations. During severe drought, states with sociopolitical conditions that would otherwise favor peace are no less likely to suffer conflict than states with sociopolitical conditions that would otherwise increase the risk of violence. These findings, which are robust across several measures of these sociopolitical concepts, suggest environmental scarcity is most likely to increase the risk of conflict where populations have more to lose relative to periods with more favorable weather.

Towards ecohydrological drought monitoring and prediction using a land data assimilation system: A case study on the Horn of Africa drought (2010–2011)

AbstractDespite the importance of the ecological and agricultural aspects of severe droughts, no drought monitoring and prediction framework based on a land data assimilation system (LDAS) has been developed to monitor and predict vegetation dynamics in the middle of droughts. In this study, we applied a LDAS that can simulate surface soil moisture, root‐zone soil moisture, and vegetation dynamics to the Horn of Africa drought in 2010–2011 caused by the precipitation deficit in two consecutive rainy seasons. We successfully simulated the ecohydrological drought quantified by the model‐estimated soil moistures and leaf area index (LAI). The root‐zone soil moisture and LAI are good indicators of prolonged droughts because they reflect the long‐term effects of past precipitation deficit. The precipitation deficit in 2010 significantly affected the land surface condition of the next rainy season in 2011, which indicated the importance of obtaining accurate initial soil moisture and LAI values for prediction of multiseasonal droughts. In addition, the general circulation model‐based seasonal meteorological prediction showed good performance in predicting land surface conditions of the Horn of Africa drought.