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CONCLUSION

In this blog I have explored a variety of issues related to water and environmental change across the African continent. However, I have found myself focusing largely on countries in North and East Africa, including Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. These regions of Africa contain a diverse range of environments such as the Moroccan Hamada, the sub-Saharan frontier, the Saharan plains of Egypt and the Ethiopian and Kenyan highlands. These environments are distinct and vastly different to one another; however, they share a range of common concerns in relation to water and environmental change including extreme climatic and ecological shifts. While each environment has differences in local geography, examining the hydrological system in each environment demonstrates that they are interlinked by various measures of separation. Whilst the case studies I have explored are relatively complex, one significant factor that has been a constant theme is the persistent force of environmental c...
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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN THE SAHEL

The Great Green Wall project was launched by the African Union in 2007 with the objective of combatting desertification by planting an enormous 8000-kilometre strip of vegetation across the entire Sahel, crossing 11 African countries from Djibouti in the east to Dakar in the west ( Morrison 2016 ). Image 1: Map depicting the Green Wall project plan. ( Source ) The Sahel is a strip of land that spans 5,900-kilometres below the Sahara Desert from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The belt varies from several hundred to a thousand kilometres in width, covering an area of approximately 3-million square kilometres ( Hill et al, 2017 ). The Sahel is home to a variety of ecosystems such as grasslands, savannas, steppes, shrublands and deserts ( Prince et al 2007 ). It is a semi-arid region, known for its variable rainfall. The area has some of the world’s highest levels of poverty, and regular droughts and floods lead to shortages of food and drinking water. This ...
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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND RIFT VALLEY FEVER

Climate change in Africa is likely to create the necessary conditions for more outbreaks of disease. RVF is a virus transmitted by blood feeding flies and mosquitos. It affects both humans and valuable livestock such as sheep, goats, buffalos and camels. The virus was first identified in 1931 during an epidemic among cattle (Greenhalgh 2015) . RVF occurs following periods of extreme precipitation. Extreme precipitation events flood fly and mosquito breeding habitats, creating an ideal environment for RVF infected insect eggs to hatch and spread the disease. The RVF virus is extremely difficult to control because the infected fly and mosquito eggs can survive for years in wet soil. Following RVF infection, animals develop a high level of virus in their bloodstream. This infects previously uninfected flies and mosquitos, which in turn infect other animals and humans. Humans can catch the disease either through direct contact with the blood, from the bite of a blood-feeding fly or mosquit...
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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: IMAPCTS ON THE NILE – PART 2

This post follows on from the background information disclosed in the previous entry and focuses on the potential hydrological impacts of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project on the River Nile. The data for this entry has been sourced mainly from the July 2021 scientific report by Eldardiry and Hossain in the Journal of Hydrology titled ‘A blueprint for adapting high Aswan dam operation in Egypt to challenges of filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam’ ( Elidardiry & Hossain 2021 ). In this report, scientists have computed different dam and climatic scenarios against a baseline so that the hydrological impacts and shifts in the river flow regime of the Nile can be determined. The Eldardiry and Hossain ( 2021 ) report found that during the drier summer months (June to August), the High Aswan Dam (HAD) in Egypt releases a significantly higher volume of water into the Nile Delta in order to irrigate the river and decrease water stress in the Upper ...
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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: IMPACTS ON THE NILE

In this post, I will be exploring the various environmental challenges facing the River Nile. Due to the amount of detail necessary for a comprehensive overview of this issue, the post will be split into two separate entries, with the background information and context being provided here.   Figure 1: Geographic overview of the Nile River system. The Nile River is the longest river in the world, crossing 6,600 kilometres from south to north Africa ( Said 1993 ). The source of the Nile begins in the rivers that flow into Lake Victoria (which is located in modern-day Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania), and empties into the Mediterranean Sea more than 4,100 miles to the north ( Said 1993 ). The Nile flows through a total of 11 African countries and approximately 400 million people are dependent on the Nile River basin ( NGS, 2019 ). This is largely because most of these countries have an economy focused on agriculture, so are dependent on the water supply and irrigation coming from the N...
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THE DISAPPEARING OASES OF MOROCCO

 The IPCC reports on climate change have continually recognised the outer edges of the Sahara Desert in West and Northern Africa as susceptible to significant environmental change due to persistent temperature increases. Rising temperatures have resulted in Saharan water systems being altered at a frightening rate and the effects are observable through a precipitously changing environment. The rate of desertification in North African countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia is increasing, transitory waterways are drying up more rapidly and most notably, oases are disappearing ( IPPC, 2014 ). Figure 1:   Annual observed temperature & precipitation changes from the 20th-21st century across Africa ( source ) . Morocco has seen a wide scale warming trend throughout the 21 st century, corresponding with some areas of lower-than-average precipitation. The IPCC calculates that since the 1960s, a temperature increase of 1° C has been observed throughout the entire count...
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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN KENYA

The Tana River Basin in Kenya covers approximately 17,000 km ²  and is home to 5.3 million people ( DW 2018 ). The basin encompasses Mount Kenya and the Aberdare highlands with elevations ranging from 4,500m at Mount Kenya to about 400m above sea level in the east of the catchment ( Marshall 2011 ). The rainfall patterns in the basin have changed drastically over recent decades and have become more sporadic with more torrential rains of high intensity. This particularly true for the Upper Tana River Basin in Kenya and is exemplified by the disastrous May 2018 flash floods when the highest rainfall in 50 years hit the area. These floods caused extensive damage to the village communities with 100 dead and almost 300,000 people displaced from their homes ( DW 2018 ). Much of the damage was also visible through scarring on the local landscape as a result of large mudslides. The Tana River basin is characterized by relatively fertile soils as it is derived from volcanic parent materia...
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INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome to this 'water and environmental change' blog series! In this blog, my aim will be to explore the relationship between water and environmental change in the African continent, focusing on key examples from a variety of regions across Africa. I will attempt to convey the relationship between natural and anthropogenic processes on the accessibility and distribution of water within the continent, drawing on both past and present-day events in order to achieve this. The reason I want to explore the topic of environmental change and water is because water has been identified as the primary medium through which people in Africa will experience the effects of climate change. Water scarcity is also major challenge for the continent, impacting 2/3 of the population ( UN 2019 ). My blog will explore issues such the impacts of climatic changes on the hydrological cycle, infrastructural land use changes and extreme weather events to further understand the links betwee...
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