A large-scale, drought-induced famine occurred in Africa's Sahel region and many parts of the neighbouring Sénégal River Area from February to August 2010. It is one of many famines to have hit the region in recent times.Famine Drought Spreads Across Continent Worldpress.org
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the north of Africa and the Sudanian savannas in the south, covering an area of 3,053,200 square kilometres. It is a transitional ecoregion of semi-arid grasslands, savannas, steppes, and thorn shrublands.
The neighbouring Sénégal River Area contains various vegetation types and covers parts or all of Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and Guinea. It has also had very low rainfall over the last year according to the UN, NGOs and the Senegal River Basin Development Authority.ACT Alert: Food Insecurity in Mauritania due to Drought situation in the Sahel region Reuters AlertNetACT Preliminary Appeal: Food insecurity in Mauritania due to Drought in the Sahel region AlertNet Sudan set a new temperature record of 49.7 °C (121.3 °F) on 22 June, in the town of Dongola.
Overview Famine and food shortages were present in the following Sahelian countries during 2010 after heavy rains hit the region in late 2009, followed by a heat wave:"Strong risk" of 2010 famine in Africa's Sahel – EU Reuters AlertNet Sudan, the Niger, northern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Chad, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, as well as in parts of the neighbouring Sénégal River Area.Mauritania heat wave kills 7 Magharebia
In December 2009, both USAID and several NGOs predicted an increased food insecurity situation in more of the southern districts of Mali as compared to the same time the previous year.Mali Food Security Outlook PNADS238.pdf – Powered by Google Docs
Possible causes
Environmental problems The Western donor nations once theorised that the drought in the Sahel primarily was caused by humans over-using natural resources in the region through overgrazing, deforestation and poor land management."Desertification – a threat to the Sahel", August 1994 In the late 1990s, climate model studies suggested that large-scale climate changes were also triggers for the drought.
In the early 2000s, after the phenomenon of global dimming was discovered, some speculatively suggested, that the drought was likely caused by air pollution generated in Eurasia and North America. The pollution changed the properties of clouds over the Atlantic Ocean, disturbing the monsoons and shifting the tropical rains southwards. Global dimming, the blocking of sunlight by man-made particulates, has been identified as one culprit for a decades-long drought across sub-Saharan Africa.Transcript of the program "Dimming the Sun" from NOVA, Public Broadcasting Service airdate: 18 April 2006
A 2006 study by NOAA scientists Rong Zhang and Thomas L. Delworth suggests that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation/(MAO) plays a leading role. An AMO warm phase strengthens the summer rainfall over Sahel, while a cold phase reduces it. The AMO entered a warm phase in 1995 and, by assuming the presence of a theoretical 70-year cycle (following peaks in ≈1880 and ≈1950), it would probably peak around about 2020.
The Sahel's farmers have been largely cleared of blame for the 19th century's Sahel droughts. The Sahel region's rains in the 1930s and 1940s were caused by the recent warming of the Indian Ocean, rather than by over-farming causing environmental degradation as previously assumed, according to a new joint Scidev/UN study. With both a 3.5 C. rise in the Niger's temperature over the last decade and with irrigated land accounting for only 0.1% of the Niger's inhabitable land, regular famine crisis is inevitable in most years. Acute water shortages, which are common in the region's harsh weather, make irrigation systems all the more important for the local farmers."What caused the 2010 Niger famine?". Dionysus-://climate-change.suite101.com/article.cfm/what-caused-the-niger-famine-in-2010
The Demise of Lake Chad The Lake Chad basin straddles the borders of both Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. The lake is situated above sea level and is diminishing over time due to lack of rain water and major rivers running into it. According to the UN the marshy lake shrank as much as by 95% from about 1963 to 1998Atlas of Our Changing Environment yet they also state that "The 2007 (satellite) image shows significant improvement over previous years". Lake Chad is economically important, providing water to more than 20 million people living in the four countries that surround it (Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria) on the edge of the Sahara Desert. The plant Typha Australis (or the big cattail) is cutting off water supplies in the Lake Chad Basin, and has slashed available water supplies in the Chad's region. The only protected area is Lake Chad Game Reserve, which covers half of the area next to the lake that belongs to Nigeria. The whole lake has been declared a Ramsar site of international importance.
Lake Chad's role in the Sahel famine has attracted attention partly due to the desertification that is increasingly claiming a huge swath not just of the Sahel region but also the entire African continent. According to a United Nations environment program, in 2002, this phenomenon, which is a process where the soil loses the capacity to retain necessary moisture, has covered nearly half of Africa. It was revealed that the Sahel region is one of the areas that are worst affected.
The problem is also highlighted by the discovery of fossil pollens indicating that, in ancient times, the shores of Lake Chad supported a well-watered savanna, which contributed to a lesser level of aridity in the Sahel area. It was found that around 3,000 B.C., the Sahel averaged 650 millimetres of rainfall a year compared to an average of 350 millimetres recorded today. Given the issue of desertification, even if Lake Chad was not directly a cause of the famine, its potential demise is expected to further aggravate the problem. There are studies that show that the incidence of famine is reportedly related to the delicate seasonal variations in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
The shrinking of Lake Chad is blamed on the long droughts as well as the uptick in human activities such as the use of the lake's water for irrigation, the destruction of wooded areas for firewood, and the shift from the cultivation of corn and wheat to rice as the staple crop.
The Ubangi River diversion proposal In the 1960s, a plan was proposed to divert the Ubangi River into Lake Chad. The copious amount of water from the Ubangi would revitalise the dying Lake Chad and provide livelihood in fishing and enhanced agriculture to tens of millions of central Africans and Sahelians. Inter-basin water transfer schemes were proposed in the 1980s and 1990s by Nigerian engineer J. Umolu (ZCN Scheme) and Italian firm Bonifica (Transaqua Scheme).Journal of Environmental Hydrology, Vol. 7, 1999New Scientist, 23 March 1991 "Africa at a Watershed" (Ubangi – Lake Chad Inter-basin transfer)Umolu, J. C.; 1990, Macro Perspectives for Nigeria's Water Resources Planning, Proc. of the First Biennial National Hydrology Symposium, Maiduguri, Nigeria, pp. 218–262 (discussion of Ubangi-Lake Chad diversion schemes)The Changing Geography of Africa and the Middle East By Graham Chapman, Kathleen M. Baker, University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, 1992 RoutledgeCombating Climate Induced Water And Energy Deficiencies In West Central Africa (Ubangi – Lake Chad Inter-basin transfer) In 1994, the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) proposed a similar project and at a March 2008 Summit, the Heads of State of the LCBC member countries committed to the diversion project.Voice of America News, 28 March 2008 African Leaders Team Up to Rescue Lake Chad In April 2008, the LCBC advertised a request for proposals for a World Bank-funded feasibility study.
The possible effects of cash crops Cotton and groundnuts are two of Chad's four major cash crops. Mali's major cash crops are peanuts and cotton. Mali's cotton production has grown from 500,000 tonnes in 1997 to a record 635,000 tonnes in 2003, which has pleased the African Association of Cotton Producers, but has also led to a claim that cash crops are being put before food and fodder crops in Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad. Cassava production has fallen slightly in Burkina Faso since 2007, relative to cotton output. Their cash crops are cotton, groundnuts, shea nuts, and sesame.Burkina Faso – An Overview The Sahel's farmers are largely cleared of blame for the 20th century's Sahel droughts and this is supported by the position that several of the cash crops in the Sahel region have desirable ecological effects such as the tree crops and the legumes, which help prevent the process of desertification. However, there is the enduring question of whether cash crops like cotton are more important than food plants like wheat and casava. This issue persists as studies cite that the famine is linked to the direct entitlement failure that affected people's access to food.
Over-population Many of the world's countries, including many in Sub-saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, have seen a sharp rise in population since the end of the Cold War. The fear is that high population numbers are putting further strain on natural resources, food supplies, fuel supplies, employment, housing, etc.; in some of the less fortunate countries. The population of Chad has, for example, ultimately grown from 6,279,921 in 1993 to 10,329,208 in 2009, further straining its resources. Nigeria is witnessing a similar growth in population, strained resources and a possible over-population problem in the near future.
The situation was most acute in northern, western and central Africa. Refugees from places like the Sudan have helped further strain the resources of neighbouring states like the Chad and Egypt. The nation is also host to roughly 255,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region, and about 77,000 refugees from the Central African Republic, whilst approximately 188,000 Chadians have been displaced by their own civil war and famines, have either fled to either the Sudan, the Niger or, more recently, Libya.