Sub-Saharan African countries are frequently hit by drought. These countries have no advanced industries that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere rather traps CO2 released by industrialized world. The only thing I understand is reduction of forest cover as compared to the past 50 years. What are the major driving factors for occurrence of frequent and devastating drought in Africa?
One answer you have already provided: loss of forest / vegetation cover. This is partly a colonial impact, when land was just overutilized for colonial production, but can be also related to structural adjustment policies later that made it necessary to overutilize land resources. Another reason are the restrictions of the movement of pastoralists that started in colonial times. I worked on the latter in India (Rajasthan desert and nearby areas), where restrictions of movement of animals led to overgrazing and changed the vegetation cover and also micro climate. Similar is reported from Africa. An important aspect is also that it is not only drought that matters in an assessment, but drought vulnerability, meaning the impact of drought on humans, which often caused giantic famines, because people were too poor and vulnerable. Also this relates partly to colonialism. In recent times such vulnerabilities are also created though weak states, warlords, civil warthat all have also impacts of how people can cope with things like droughts. Africa is not a poor continent, it was made a poor continent by outsiders, but often also by some country's own leaders / elites.
Good news are that in many places droughts seem to not cause wide-spread starvation anymore, very bad news: in some locations (e.g. South Sudan, Jemen) these severe problems still persist.
Some readings that can shed more light into the matter are:
Fogelman, C. (2017). Vulnerability after “the end of famine”: Political ecology, development, and deconcentrated starvation. Political Geography.
Cochrane, L. L. (2017). Collective and Community Work in Senegal: Resisting Colonial and Neoliberal Models of Economic Development. In Oppression and Resistance: Structure, Agency, Transformation (pp. 117-135). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Frankema, E., & Papaioannou, K. J. (2017). Rainfall Patterns and Human Settlement in Tropical Africa and Asia Compared. Did African Farmers Face Greater Insecurity?.Working Paper Rainfall Patterns and Human Settlement in Tropical Africa an...
Kabanda, T. A. (2017). Geographical Variability of Drought in Northern South Africa. Journal of Geography and Geology, 9(1), 53.
de Waal, A. (2017). The end of famine? Prospects for the elimination of mass starvation by political action. Political Geography.
Turner, M. D. (2017). Livestock mobility and the territorial state: South-Western Niger (1890–1920). Africa, 87(3), 578-606.
Laris, P. (2017). The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge. Journal of Historical Geography, 56, 152-153.
Garden, D. (2017). Droughts, Cyclones & Floods: El Niños that shaped our colonial past. Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Rao, N., & Morchain, D. (2017). Gendered Vulnerabilities to Climate Change: Insights from the Semi-Arid Regions of Africa and Asia. Climate and Development. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/996448_Rao%20et%20al_Gendered%20vulnerabilities%20to%20climate%20change-Insights%20from%20the%20semi-arid%20regions%20of%20Africa%20and%20Asia.pdf
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/996448_Rao%20et%20al_Gendered%20vulnerabilities%20to%20climate%20change-Insights%20from%20the%20semi-arid%20regions%20of%20Africa%20and%20Asia.pdf
Mutu, P. L. (2017). Causes of Drought Vulnerability and Indigenous Drought Early Warning Methods among the Turkana Nomadic Pastoralists of Ilemi Triangle Region of Northern Kenya. Research in Health Science, 2(2), 209.
Ibrahim A. Elbadawi Structural adjustment and drought in Sub-Saharan Africa Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons) Journal of International Development Year:1996 Month: Day: Volume:8 Issue:5 First page:581 Last page:595
David Anderson Depression, Dust Bowl, Demography, and Drought: The Colonial State and Soil Conservation in East Africa during the 1930s JSTOR African Affairs Year:1984 Month:07 Day: Volume:83 Issue:332 First page:321 Last page:343
Kathleen M Baker Drought, Agriculture and Environment: A Case Study from the Gambia, West Africa JSTOR African Affairs Year:1995 Month:04 Day: Volume:94 Issue:374 First page:67 Last page:86
David S. G. Thomas; Sallie L. Burrough; Adrian G. Parker Extreme events as drivers of early human behaviour in Africa? The case for variability, not catastrophic drought Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons) Journal of Quaternary Science Year:2012 Month: Day: Volume:27 Issue:1 First page:7 Last page:12
Glantz, M. H. (Ed.). (1988). Drought and hunger in Africa. CUP Archive.
Verschuren, D., Laird, K. R., & Cumming, B. F. (2000). Rainfall and drought in equatorial east Africa during the past 1,100 years. Nature, 403(6768), 410.
Ball, N. (1976). Understanding the causes of African famine. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 14(3), 517-522.
Olsson, L. (1993). On the causes of famine: drought, desertification and market failure in the Sudan. Ambio, 395-403.
Darkoh, M. B. K. (1998). The nature, causes and consequences of desertification in the drylands of Africa. Land Degradation & Development, 9(1), 1-20.
Reuveny, R. (2007). Climate change-induced migration and violent conflict. Political Geography, 26(6), 656-673.
Lofchie, M. F. (1975). Political and economic origins of African hunger. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 13(4), 551-567.
Blaikie, P., & Brookfield, H. (Eds.). (2015). Land degradation and society. Routledge.
Blaikie, P. (2016). The political economy of soil erosion in developing countries. Routledge.
Herrmann, S. M., & Hutchinson, C. F. (2005). The changing contexts of the desertification debate. Journal of Arid Environments, 63(3), 538-555.
Watts, M. (1983). Hazards and crises: A political economy of drought and famine in Northern Nigeria.
Antipode, 15(1), 24-34.
impressive points Weber. You reckon even many more discuss points. But how colonialism is a real cause to drought in Africa? Can we say El-Nino as natural causes of drought?
Birhanu, I was reading a two page article from NASA Earth Observatory on studying desertification in Sahel. Although it does not entirely address your original question of why droughts are frequent and what are the major factors, nevertheless it is an interesting article. May be you will find some inspiration here https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Desertification/desertification.php
Good article Varghese, I raised the issue because drought impacts is becoming another Tsunami in East African countries. I perceived drought caused by climate change during 2008, 2011, 2016 in the region. I don't understand why Tsunamis, hurricane, tornadoes were common in parts of Asia, America and Europe but drought is common in Africa.
Thanks Birhanu for clarifying why you raised this question. Although I'm not a climate change skeptic, whenever I read something that says, 'caused by climate change', I'm very cautious. If you have any peer-reviewed research article links to share for this region and time period, I'll be interested to read them.
Dear Varghese,
Really I have no any articles. I posted the question to learn from colleagues. This issue always move in my mind. Why these countries always hit by drought? Is this a real consequence of climate change? That is my doubts
"Do climate change has a direct relation with drought?"
Climate Change means that there is a change in atmospheric parameters such as temperature and moisture. In some places temperature will go up and moisture will come down, while in some other places other variations differing from perceived normal will be observed!
Drought is prolonged lack of moisture with attendant increase in temperature that eventually will lead to death or inability of plants to grow.
Therefore, if Climate Change means change (either up or down) in atmospheric temperature and moisture, among other things, then it can be said that Climate Change have direct relation to drought!
Hi
it is not all Africa which is stroke by drought, as we show in this paper of 2009.
But West Africa is the most impacted by long lasting drought.
Difficult to answer quickly. But the location of this region in regard to general circulation and the impact also of SST in equatorial Atlantic, are the main drivers of climatic vairiability here.
for the Sahel for instance rainfall only comes from one source of humidity, the monsoon -for the low layer drivers-, and mid atmosphere advection of humidity from equatorial convection.
hen only one major source for rainfall triggering, the East waves, which are partly related to Indian atmospheric circulation and ENSO.
It is still significantly unknown to avoid giving too much details, but it seems to me that these factors explain the very large variability of rainfall and droight in this area
But any other ideas ?
Gil