sahel region drought case study

Sahel Drought: Understanding the Past and Projecting into the Future

The Sahel occupies a transitional zone between the Sahara to the north and tropical rain forests to the south. As for many such transitional zones adjacent to tropical rain belts, climate is highly variable due to the sharp gradients in rainfall. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the region experienced a profound drought, with over a 30% decrease in rainfall over most of the Sahel as compared to the 1950’s– arguably the most dramatic drought in any region of this large an extent observed in the 20th century. In the figure below, the black line is the observed summer (July-Aug-September) rainfall averaged over the Sahel, normalized by its mean over the time interval shown, taken from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit ( CRUTS2.1 ). A defense of the quality of the observational record after 1930 is provided by   Dai, et. al.

Given this potential for large rainfall variations, and the economic, political, and social challenges facing the region, the possibility that increasing greenhouse gases could alter Sahelian rainfall is of great concern. Understanding the Sahel drought of the late 20th century and improving our future projections for the hydrological cycle in this region is a major challenge for climate dynamics and climate modeling.  

It has been understood since the 1980’s ( Folland, Palmer, and Parker ) that changes in ocean temperature played a significant role in producing the late 20th century Sahel drought. For a more recent influential paper making a strong case for the dominance of oceanic forcing, see Giannini, Saravanan, and Chang . GFDL’s AM2.1/LM2 atmosphere/land model, developed in part for the IPCC’s 4th Assessment, produces the result shown above when provided with the observed ocean surface temperatures over the 20th century. This computation was repeated 10 times — the gray area is the full spread of these 10 simulations, while the red line is the mean. The impressive agreement extends to the beginning of the century, which is somewhat surprising given the uncertainties in the early decades of the 20th century in both the rainfall record and the ocean temperatures used as a boundary condition for these simulations. This result is described in Held, Delwortih, Lu, Findell, and Knutson.   The observation that the rainfall reaches a maximum in mid-century, and that this maximum can be simulated, given the observed ocean surface temperatures, is evidence that the drying from the 1950’s to the 1980’s is unlikely to be primarily forced by increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (assuming that these early century rainfall and ocean temperature records are robust).

A variety of modeling studies have pointed to changes in the inter-hemispheric temperature gradient, within the tropical oceans but also globally, as being of key importance for Sahel rainfall, with drought occurring when the Northern Hemisphere oceans are relatively cold as compared to the Southern Hemisphere oceans. During the early part of the 20th century, the Northern Hemisphere warmed more rapidly than the Southern Hemisphere, but from mid-century till 1980, the Northern Hemisphere cooled on average, while the Southern Hemisphere continued to warm. Since 1980, the Northern Hemisphere has once again warmed more rapidly. The result, as illustrated below by the temperature record (land plus ocean) as compiled by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the maximum warmth of the Southern relative to the Northern Hemisphere was achieved during the most severe period of the Sahel drought.

The picture that emerges seems to be relatively simple, even though the underlying dynamics may be quite complex: the tropical rain-belts are attracted to the relatively warm hemisphere, with the Sahel, which we can think of as the northernmost extension of these rain-belts in Northern summer, suffering drought when the Southern Hemisphere is relatively warm. This effect is thought to be relevant more generally throughout the tropics, and not just for Africa. See, for example, Chiang and Bitz   on the interaction between the Ice Age ice sheets and tropical precipitation, and Yoshimori and Broccoli on the consequences for the tropical rain-belts of north-south asymmetry in radiative forcing. Sarah Kang (graduate student in Princeton’s AOS Program), has studied the underlying dynamics in a variety of idealized models (the first paper emerging from this work is Kang, Held, Frierson and Zhao ).  

An alternative hypothesis, popular during the 1970-1980’s drought itself, is modification of the land surface due to human activity, usually termed “desertification”. Climate models do suggest that one can reduce Sahel rainfall by increasing the surface albedo (the reflectivity of the surface to solar radiation), a result expected from the loss of vegetation, but models have not produced responses of adequate magnitude by this mechanism, and it is difficult to explain a mid-century maximum in rainfall through land alteration.  See Brooks   for further discussion of this major shift in perspective from one in which land alteration is directly responsible for the drought to one in which oceanic changes unrelated to any land modifications are deemed to be the dominant cause. The dominance of oceanic forcing in the past does not deny the possibility that major land modifications could be a factor in the future, or that the feedback of land vegetation to the changes in rainfall could be important for the observed variations.

If we accept that inter-hemispheric gradients in ocean temperature are a key proximal cause of multi-decadal Sahel rainfall variations, the search for the ultimate cause becomes the search for an explanation for these ocean temperature variations, A substantial part of these changes in temperature gradient is likely due to internal variability, the source of this variability most likely being in the meridional overturning circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. Zhang and Delworth , for example, have shown how manipulating the northward heat flux by the Atlantic ocean in a climate model can alter Sahel rainfall. But aerosol forcing has also been implicated as a potential candidate for the drying tendency since mid-century, with increasing sulphate pollution in the Northern Hemisphere causing the Northern Hemisphere to cool relative to the south.  The recent warming in the north is, in this interpretation, caused by cleansing of the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere.  Rotstayn and Lohmann   have argued that the evolution of aerosol forcing is large enough to explain a large fraction of the Sahel drought, if one includes relatively large indirect aerosol effects associated with cloud/aerosol interactions. Biasutti and Giannini   describe the results in the CMIP3 coupled-climate model simulations utilized by the IPCC’s 4th Assessment, and conclude that there is a small forced component to the drying trend over the 20th century in most of these models. This trend does not continue into the future in the multi-model average, implying that the dominant forcing in the models is not greenhouse gases but rather aerosols, in qualitative agreement with Rotstayn and Lohmann. Greater confidence in our ability to estimate past variations in aerosol forcing will be needed to make further progress on this aspect of the problem. But, once again, to the extent that the precipitation did indeed maximize in mid-century, the more plausible explanation for the bulk of the observed variability remains internal variability.

CM2.1 — an outlier in its prediction of the future of Sahel rainfall

Closer comparison of the changes in the inter-hemispheric ocean temperature gradient and Sahel rainfall suggests the possibility that another process has operated in recent years. The Northern Hemisphere has warmed quite rapidly since 1980, which one might expect to have led to a more pronounced amelioration of the drought.  Indeed. Atlantic hurricanes, which are plausibly controlled by the same difference in temperatures (at least within the Atlantic Ocean) have recovered to an activity level more comparable to mid-century values.

Analysis of the AM2.1 atmospheric model, which generates the striking fit to observed Sahel rainfall variations shown above, when forced with observed surface ocean temperatures, shows that the model is not simply responding to changes in inter-hemispheric temperature gradients. The model also dries the Sahel when the oceans are warmed uniformly. Given this behavior, it is not surprising that when this model is coupled to an ocean in GFDL’s CM2 climate model, it predicts continued drying into the future; indeed, as indicated in the following figure, the drying it projects exceeds that experienced in the 1980’s by the mid-21st century.

In this figure, the black line is again the observations of summertime Sahel rainfall, but with a 5 year running filter. The red line prior to the year 2000 is a single realization of the freely running coupled model (unconstrained by observed ocean temperatures) but forced with estimates of the evolving greenhouse gas, aerosol, and volcanic forcing since 1860. One does not expect a particular freely running simulation of this type to simulate observations which depend in part on details of the natural variability in the oceans, but, given enough realizations, one does expect to find some that resemble observations. The realization chosen here is the one (out of 6) that most resembles the observed time series. The gray area shows the typical spread of the realizations (plus and minus one standard deviation), while the thick blue line is the mean of this ensemble. The mean provides an estimate of the forced part of the variation, which further analysis indicates is partly due to greenhouse gases in this simulation and partly to aerosol forcing. The three colors of lines continuing into the 21st century are the results of simulations of the future (using the B1(green), A1B(blue), and A2(red) SRES scenarios).

The average over the climate models utilized by the IPCC AR4 assessment is for little change in Sahel rainfall, with a number of models generating modest increases in rainfall, some generated modest drying, but no others producing the dramatic drying in CM2 One is tempted to reject this simulation as an outlier. Analysis supporting this position is provided by Cook and Vizy   and Cook   .

We are hopeful that we will find serious flaws in our model that would cause us to reject its projection as unrealistic. There are metrics based on comparison with a variety of observations that one can try to use to evaluate climate models. Ideally, there would be an model property A (for which there are observations to compare against) which takes on values in the world’s climate models that are correlated with, or, more generally, can be used to predict, the 21st century Sahel rainfall projections in this same set of models. The difference between a model’s A and the observed A then provides a metric that is demonstrably relevant to Sahel rainfall projection. There are several excellent examples of this approach in the literature, related to other aspects of climate projections, a particularly clean example being the study of snow albedo feedback by Hall and Qu   . An informative but unsuccessful attempt to isolate such a metric from the co-variability of ocean temperatures and Sahel rainfall in the models is described by Biasutti, Held, Sobel, and Gianinni   . In the absence of an ability to predict a model’s Sahel rainfall projection from a model’s behavior in the 20th century, we are left with subjective metrics that are not fully satisfying.

Plausible sources of this difference between AM2/LM2 and other models can be found in the land surface model and in the treatment of convection and clouds in the atmosphere. Our analysis indicates that it is the latter, convection and clouds, that are the most likely source of our model’s outlier status — specifically, we can change the atmospheric model’s response over the Sahel to a uniform warming of ocean temperatures by modifying the treatment of convection/clouds, but have not found comparable sensitivity to the land model. While we believe we can modify our model to generate much weaker drying in its Sahel projections, we have not yet been able to generate a model of this type that has a 20th century Sahel rainfall simulation of comparable quality.

Therefore, we are not yet ready to reject the hypothesis that, superposed on large multi-decadal internal climate variations, and on aerosol induced changes, there is also a suggestion of a greenhouse induced drying trend that will emerge clearly over the present century.  More detailed information on internal variability in the Sahel over longer time scales is of vital importance, as is a much clearer understanding of why climate models differ even in the sign of the change expected in Sahel rainfall from increasing greenhouse gases.

prepared by Isaac Hel d  for the purpose of placing GFDL research on this subject into a larger context — this essay should not be thought of as a summary of all relevant research on this issue

Comments welcome — isaac.held at noaa.gov.

Bringing dry land in the Sahel back to life

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Millions of hectares of farmland are lost to the desert each year in Africa’s Sahel region, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is showing that traditional knowledge, combined with the latest technology, can turn arid ground back into fertile soil.

Those trying to grow crops in the Sahel region are often faced with poor soil, erratic rainfail and long periods of drought. However, the introduction of a state-of-the art heavy digger, the Delfino plough, is proving to be, literally, a breakthrough.

As part of its Action Against Desertification (AAD) programme, the FAO has brought the Delfino to four countries in the Sahel region – Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal – to cut through impacted, bone-dry soil to a depth of more than half a metre.

The Delfino plough is extremely efficient: one hundred farmers digging irrigation ditches by hand can cover a hectare a day, but when the Delfino is hooked to a tractor, it can cover 15 to 20 hectares in a day.

Once an area is ploughed, the seeds of woody and herbaceous native species are then sown directly, and inoculated seedlings planted. These species are very resilient and work well in degraded land, providing vegetation cover and improving the productivity of previously barren lands. 

In Burkina Faso and Niger, the target number of hectares for immediate restoration has already been met and extended thanks to the Delfino plough. In Nigeria and Senegal, it is working to scale up the restoration of degraded land.

Farming seen through a half-moon lens

This technology, whilst impressive, is proving to be successful because it is being used in tandem with traditional farming techniques.

“In the end the Delfino is just a plough. A very good and suitable plough, but a plough all the same,” says Moctar Sacande, Coordinator of FAO’s Action Against Desertification programme. “It is when we use it appropriately and in consultation and cooperation that we see such progress.”

The half-moon is a traditional Sahel planting method which creates contours to stop rainwater runoff, improving water infiltration and keeping the soil moist for longer. This creates favourable micro-climate conditions allowing seeds and seedlings to flourish.

The Delfino creates large half-moon catchments ready for planting seeds and seedlings, boosting rainwater harvesting tenfold and making soil more permeable for planting than the traditional - and backbreaking – method of digging by hand.

“The whole community is involved and has benefitted from fodder crops such as hay as high as their knees within just two years”, says Mr. Sacande. “They can feed their livestock and sell the surplus, and move on to gathering products such as edible fruits, natural oils for soaps, wild honey and plants for traditional medicine”.

Women taking the lead

According to Nora Berrahmouni, who was FAO’s Senior Forestry Officer for the African Regional Office when the Delfino was deployed, the plough will also reduce the burden on women.

“The season for the very hard work of hand-digging the half-moon irrigation dams comes when the men of the community have had to move with the animals. So, the work falls on the women,” says Ms. Berrahmouni.

Because the Delfino plough significantly speeds up the ploughing process and reduces the physical labour needed, it gives women extra time to manage their multitude of other tasks.

The project also aims to boost women’s participation in local land restoration on a bigger scale, offering them leadership roles through the village committees that plan the work of restoring land. Under the AAD programme, each site selected for restoration is encouraged to set up a village committee to manage the resources, so as to take ownership right from the beginning.

“Many women are running the local village committees which organise these activities and they are telling us they feel more empowered and respected,” offers Mr. Sacande.

Respecting local knowledge and traditional skills is another key to success. Communities have long understood that half-moon dams are the best way of harvesting rainwater for the long dry season. The mighty Delfino is just making the job more efficient and less physically demanding.

Millions of hectares lost to the desert, forests under threat

And it is urgent that progress is made. Land loss is a driver of many other problems such as hunger, poverty, unemployment, forced migration, conflict and an increased risk of extreme weather events related to climate change.

In Burkina Faso, for example, a third of the landscape is degraded. This means that over nine million hectares of land, once used for agriculture, is no longer viable for farming.

It is projected that degradation will continue to expand at 360 000 hectares per year. If the situation is not reversed, forests are at risk of being cleared to make way for productive agricultural land.

Africa is currently losing four million hectares of forest every year for this reason, yet has more than 700 million hectares of degraded land viable for restoration. By bringing degraded land back to life, farmers do not have to clear additional forest land to turn into cropland for Africa’s rising population and growing food demands.

When Mr. Sacande talks about restoring land in Africa, the passion in his voice is evident. “Restoring degraded land back to productive good health is a huge opportunity for Africa. It brings big social and economic benefits to rural farming communities,” he says. “It’s a bulwark against climate change and it brings technology to enhance traditional knowledge.”

A version of this story first appeared on the FAO website .

• Burkina Faso
• agriculture
• Desertification

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• Published: October 2008

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The mysteries of Sahel droughts

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Past variability in Sahel rainfall is closely linked to global sea surface temperature distributions in observations and models alike. Climate simulations for the 21st century suggest that additional influences may become important in the future.

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Land, Climate, Energy, Agriculture and Development in the Sahel: Synthesis Paper of Case Studies Under the Sudano-Sahelian Initiative for Regional Development, Jobs, and Food Security

zef, Working Paper 204

53 Pages Posted: 11 Mar 2021

Alisher Mirzabaev

University of Bonn - Center for Development Research (ZEF)

Tekalign Sakketa

Center for development research, mouhamadou bamba sylla, african institute of mathematical sciences, kangbéni dimobe, institut des sciences de l’ environnement et du développement rural, safietou sanfo, west african science services centre on climate and adapted land use (wascal), assefa admassie.

Ethiopian Economics Association/Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute

Degnet Abebaw

Affiliation not provided to ssrn, ousmane nafolo coulibaly, rabani adamou, université abdou moumouni de niamey, boubacar ibrahim, abdou latif bonkaney, abdoul aziz seyni, ministère de l’environnement, mamoudou idrissa, cabinet du premier ministre, olawale e. olayide, university of ibadan - centre for sustainable development, senegalese institute of agricultural research, mohamadou dièye, pape bilal diakhaté, assane beye.

Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD)

Moussa Sall

Abdelrahman khidir osman, sudanese environment conservation society, adil m. ali, permanent interstate committee for drought control in the sahel, heike baumüller.

Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn

Souleymane Ouedraogo

Joachim von braun.

University of Bonn - Department of Economic and Technological Change

Date Written: January 19, 2021

This paper synthesizes a set of national case studies conducted in the Sahelian countries during 2019-2020 as a collaboration between national universities and research institutes, and the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, with contributions from the Agrhymet Regional Centre, Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). These case studies provide up-to-date knowledge and critical insights on the nexus of land degradation, climate change and energy in the Sahel. The current synthesis paper highlights their major findings and provides crosscutting and cross-regional analytical conclusions. First, the synthesis paper explores current trends in the Sahel region on land use and land degradation, energy use and supply, climate change projections and impacts, as well as their interactions and links to agricultural growth, food security, poverty reduction, and peace in the region. Second, technological, socio-economic and policy solutions at the nexus of land, water, energy and climate challenges that enable environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive rural development in the Sahel are discussed, including their interactions and implications for peace and stability in the region. The findings show that such socio-economic solutions as improving access to markets, strengthening social safety nets, increasing investments to transport and energy infrastructures, promoting land tenure security, expanding off-farm employment opportunities can greatly contribute to rural development in the Sahel, particularly by aiding climate change resilience and sustainable land management. Key technological innovations highlighted across the case studies include expanding irrigation and adopting water use efficient irrigation techniques, crop diversification, expanding agricultural mechanization, investing into restoring and rehabilitating degraded lands through reforestation, afforestation and agroforestry practices. The key lessons learnt from ongoing national policy initiatives for sustainable development highlight the importance of active stakeholder consultation and participation in policy formulation, institution of effective policy monitoring and assessment mechanisms, and avoiding of excessive reliance on external sources of funding for the successful implementation of sustainable development policies and programs. Based on these findings, the synthesis paper proposes an agenda for applied research to provide guidance to and accompany promising development strategies in and for the region.

Keywords: Sahel, Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus, Food Insecurity, Land Degradation, Climate Change Adaptation, Development Policies, Job Creation, Infrastructure, Conflicts, Future Research Agenda

JEL Classification: O1, O2, O3, Q1, Q2, Q4, Q5, J43

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Alisher Mirzabaev (Contact Author)

University of bonn - center for development research (zef) ( email ).

Walter-Flex-Str. 3 Bonn, NRW 53113 Germany

United States

6 Melrose road, Muizenberg cape Town, Western cape 7945 South Africa

Burkina Faso

Ethiopian Economics Association/Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute ( email )

Addis Ababa, 34282 Ethiopia

Consultant ( email )

Harobanda Quarter Niamey BP 237/108 Niger

Niamey Niger

Olawale Olayide

Senegalese institute of agricultural research ( email ).

Dakar Senegal

Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) ( email )

Fann Dakar Senegal

Khartoum Sudan

Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn ( email )

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Desertification - Sahel case study

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Desertification in the Sahel region is a pressing environmental issue with far-reaching consequences. In this article, we will explore the causes, effects, and potential solutions to combat desertification, using a case study from the Sahel region. By examining the unique challenges faced in this area, we can gain insights into the broader fight against desertification and the importance of sustainable land management practices. The Sahel is a semi-arid zone stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in West Africa to the Red Sea in the East, through northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, the great bend of the Niger River in Mali, Burkina Faso, southern Niger, northeastern Nigeria, south-central Chad, and into Sudan ( Brittanica ).

It is a biogeographical transition between the arid Sahara Desert to the North and the more humid savanna systems on its Southern side.

Desertification in the Sahel has increased over the last number of years.  It has been increasingly impacted by desertification, especially during the second half of the twentieth century. The whole Sahel region in Africa has been affected by devastating droughts, bordering the Sahara Desert and the Savannas.

During this period, the Sahara desert area grew by roughly 10% , most of which in the Southward direction into the semi-arid steppes of the Sahel. 

Understanding desertification in the Sahel

The Sahel region, stretching across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, is characterized by fragile ecosystems and vulnerable communities. The combination of climate change, overgrazing, deforestation , and improper agricultural practices has resulted in extensive land degradation and desertification. The consequences of desertification in the Sahel are severe, including food insecurity, loss of biodiversity, and displacement of communities.

in the region, for around 8 months of the year, the weather is dry. The rainy season only happens for a few short months and only produces around 4-8 inches of water. The population growth over the years has caused illegal farming to take place over the last few years and has resulted in major soil erosion and desertification to take place. 

Examining a specific case study in the Sahel region sheds light on the complexities and impacts of desertification. In a particular community, unsustainable farming methods and drought have led to soil erosion and degradation. The once-fertile land has turned into arid, unproductive soil, forcing farmers to abandon their livelihoods and seek alternative means of survival. This case study highlights the urgent need for intervention and sustainable land management practices in the region.

Addressing the challenges

To combat desertification effectively, a multi-faceted approach is necessary. First and foremost, raising awareness about the issue and its consequences is crucial. Governments, NGOs, and local communities must collaborate to implement sustainable land management practices. This involves promoting agroforestry, conservation farming, and reforestation initiatives to restore degraded land and improve soil health. Additionally, supporting alternative income-generating activities and providing access to water resources can help alleviate pressure on the land and reduce vulnerability to drought.

Read more: Preventing desertification: Top 5 success stories

The impact of humans on the Sahel

The impact of humans on the Sahel region is a critical factor contributing to its current challenges and environmental changes. Human activities, including armed violence, climate change, deforestation, and overgrazing, have had significant consequences for both the ecosystem and the local communities. While the area of the Sahel region is already considered to be a dry place, the impact of the human population in the area has really affected how the area continues to evolve. Towns are popping up all over the place, and because of this, more land is being used than ever before. The ground that they are building their lives on quickly began to die and became extremely unhealthy for any type of growth. This has made headlines everywhere and even caught the attention of the United Nations. In 1994, the United Nations declared that June 17th would be known as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. . This was a result of the large-scale droughts and famines that had been taking place and were at their height between 1968 and 1974.

In conclusion, the impact of humans on the Sahel is a multifaceted issue. The region faces a humanitarian crisis alongside security concerns, with climate change and human activities playing significant roles. Desertification caused by climate change, deforestation, and overgrazing has resulted in land degradation, loss of vegetation, and increased vulnerability to droughts and food insecurity. Implementing sustainable land management strategies is essential to mitigate the impact and promote the resilience of the Sahel's ecosystems and communities.

Droughts, grazing, and recharging aquifers

The Sahel’s natural climate cycles make it vulnerable to droughts throughout the year. But, during the second half of the twentieth century, the region also experienced significant increases in human population and resulting in increases in the exploitation of the lands through (cattle) grazing, wood- and bush consumption for firewood, and crop growth where possible.

These anthropogenic processes accelerated during the 1960s when relatively high rainfall amounts were recorded in the region for short periods of time, and grazing and agricultural expansion were promoted by the governments of the Sahel countries, seeing a good opportunity to use the region’s ecosystem for maximizing economic returns.

This resulted in the removal of large parts of the natural vegetation, including shrubs, grasses, and trees, and replacing them with crops and grass types that were suitable for (short-term) grazing.

The world effort for the Sahel:

Natural aquifers, which were previously able to replenish their groundwater stocks during the natural climate cycles, were no longer able to do so, and the regions closest to the Sahara desert were increasingly desertified.

Removing the natural vegetation removed plant roots that bound the soil together, with over-exploitation by grazing eating away much of the grass.

Agricultural activity disrupted the natural system, forcing significant parts of the Sahel region to become dry and barren. Before the particularly bad famine of 1984, desertification was solely put down to climatic causes.

As the Sahel dries, the Sahara advances : and it is estimated to advance with a rate of 60 kilometres the Sahel lost and the Sahara desert gained per year.  Human influence is an important factor in the Sahel’s desertification, but not all can be attributed to human behaviour, says Sumant Nigam, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland.

'There is an important anthropogenic influence there, but it is also being met with natural cycles of climate variability that add and subtract in different periods', Nigam said. 'Understanding both is important for both attribution and prediction.' Ecologists have been meeting all over the world to discuss the desertification of the Sahel at length. While many possible solutions have been proposed, a few goals have been established and are being worked on. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations has not become involved and is working to create a long-lasting impact on the Sahel Region. However, after the mid-1980s , human-caused contributions were identified and taken seriously by the United Nations and many non-governmental organizations. Severe and long-lasting droughts followed throughout the 1960s-1980s, and impacted the human settlements in the forms of famine and starvation, allowing the Sahara desert to continue to expand southward. As a result, a barren and waterless landscape has emerged, with the northernmost sections of the Sahel transformed into new sections of the Sahara Desert. Even though the levels of drought have decreased since the 1990s, other significant reductions in rainfall have been recorded in the region, including a severe drought in 2012. It is estimated that over 23 million people in the Sahel region are facing severe food insecurity in 2022, and the European Commission projects that the crisis will worsen further amidst rising social security struggles. Now, the goal is to see change take place by   2063,  a year that seems far away but is a start in the efforts to rebuild the Sahel Region. 

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Case Study: Sahel Desertification

What is desertification: It is the term used to describe the changing of semi arid (dry) areas into desert. It is severe in Sudan, Chad, Senegal and Burkina Faso

What are the causes:

• Overcultivation: the land is continually used for crops and does not have time to recover eventually al the nutrients are depleted (taken out) and the ground eventually turns to dust.
• Overgrazing: In some areas animals have eaten all the vegetation leaving bare soil.
• Deforestation: Cutting down trees leaves soil open to erosion by wind and rain.
• Climate Change: Decrease in rainfall and rise in temperatures causes vegetation to die

What is being done to solve the problem?

 Over the past twelve years Oxfam has worked with local villagers in Yatenga (Burkina Faso) training them in the process of BUNDING. This is building lines of stones across a slope to stop water and soil running away. This method preserves the topsoil and has improved farming and food production in the village.

Burkina Faso - desertification

This video shows the Sahel region south of the Sahara is at risk of becoming desert. Elders in a village in Burkina Faso describe how the area has changed from a fertile area to a drought-prone near-desert. The area experiences a dry season which can last up to eight or nine months. During this time rivers dry up and people, animals and crops are jeopardised.

This video showcases the Sahel region

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Supporting Water Programming in the Sahel

Photo: aedkafl/Adobe Stock

Table of Contents

Report by Conor M. Savoy and Alexandra Norris

Published September 27, 2022

Available Downloads

• Download the White Paper 119kb

Introduction

The Sahel region of Africa is one of the most climate-affected regions in the world. Temperatures are rising 1.5 percent faster than the global average rate. Increasing temperatures and irregular rainfall have resulted in regular droughts and floods that disrupt traditional agropastoral patterns and contribute to broader instability and fragility. Lake Chad, a crucial water and livelihood source for 30 million people in the Sahel, has shrunk by 90 percent since 1960, displacing 2.3 million people and creating a humanitarian crisis. Periods of prolonged and intense drought and improper land use have degraded much of the soil in the Sahel. In Burkina Faso, over one-third of farmland is degraded , meaning some land cannot sustain agriculture even when there is enough rainfall. A rapidly increasing population , coupled with the impact of climate change, means more people are competing for diminishing water resources. This results in a vicious cycle of population growth, land degradation, and food instability. The greater the population, the greater the demand for food and the greater the use of unsustainable farming practices, exacerbating food scarcity and demand for additional farmland.

As the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) updates its water strategy, it is important to examine the interplay of economic and conflict fragility, irregular migration, climate change, and water availability in the Sahel to identify interventions for greater resilience. In a region like the Sahel, water is critical to resilience and adaptation to the effects of climate change. While water strategy is not a cure-all, it can improve outcomes for other challenges. The Biden administration recently announced the new Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), an initiative to mobilize private capital investment in infrastructure. The four pillars of this initiative—climate and energy security, digital connectivity, health and health security, and gender equality and equity—could support additional investments in water infrastructure.

The greater the population, the greater the demand for food and the greater the use of unsustainable farming practices, exacerbating food scarcity and demand for additional farmland.

CSIS recently conducted a tabletop exercise with a group of development and foreign policy experts to examine the interplay of these issues in the Sahel. The group began with a resource allocation exercise that asked them to allocate different types of water projects to countries in the region. The group tested these allocations and assumptions through two scenarios: (1) a Black Sea cascade, in which the war in Ukraine brought on a food crisis by triggering farmer-pastoralist violence and other unrest due to rising food prices, and (2) the Covid-19 pandemic redux, in which political upheaval followed a spike in Covid-19 cases in the Sahel as governments struggled to respond. The tabletop exercise yielded the following insights:

• develop strong analysis before beginning programming to identify the right local partners, including government, civil society, and other local actors;
• build trust with communities by working through local structures that have communities’ trust and respect; and
• invest early in communities and the broader enabling environment to ensure resiliency of programming and projects.
• Learning and adaptation must be built into projects to ensure they can respond to the unpredictability of a region like the Sahel. These feedback loops are essential, especially during disruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic or conflict in Ukraine.
• Strong local partners and an existing U.S. presence help projects succeed.
• Digitization is important to the feedback loop and sustainability of projects. It helps communities adapt to new crises.

This paper provides an overview of the interplay of water with public health, climate change, migration, economic and conflict fragility, and food security in the Sahel. It also summarizes the CSIS tabletop exercise, insights from the exercise, and policy recommendations for USAID and the U.S. government.

The Sahel Region

The Sahel is an area south of the Sahara desert that stretches from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea. The region includes all or part of Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The region is semiarid, though less dry and desert like than the Sahara to the north. The Sahel is prone to drought and includes nomadic groups, semi-pastoral farmers/herders, mostly settled communities, and, increasingly, urban areas. Climate change has exacerbated these drought conditions, making the region more susceptible to disruptions. This has increased the region’s overall fragility and in turn has destabilized countries, generating conflict, increasing migration, and creating spillover effects in surrounding countries like Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Given the cycle of environmental and man-made disasters in the Sahel, the region is a perennial recipient of humanitarian assistance.

Health Impacts of Water

Access to clean and safe water is essential for human health. According to UNICEF, diarrheal diseases caused by contaminated water are the fourth-leading cause of death for children under five and cause more than 300,000 deaths annually. Clean water has two main dimensions: drinking water and access to sanitation facilities.

Drinking Water

How people access drinking water plays a large role in how clean a water source is. Boreholes (wells) and piped water tend to be much cleaner than surface water (ponds, lakes, streams, etc.), largely because they are less exposed to animals and the many bacteria and diseases animals carry. Additionally, the shorter the distance traveled after water collection, the smaller the risk of contamination and, thus, the safer the water. Access to safe drinking water in the Sahel varies by country, but in most cases the water remains dangerous to human health. In Chad, the country with the least access to safe water, according to the United Nations , nearly 50 percent of the population is exposed to drinking water with very high levels of E. coli, and just 6 percent of the population uses safely managed drinking water.

While Chad fares the worst in safe water access, other Sahel countries have widely varying levels of safe water access. Over 50 percent of people in Burkina Faso and Niger lack access to safe drinking water. One success story comes from Mali, where just 7 percent of the population lacks access. This success is largely credited to numerous humanitarian organizations , specifically UNICEF, which along with other partners provided water supply services to more than 194,500 people .

Sanitation and Health

Broader access to water and sanitation facilities also has important implications for health. One basic aspect of sanitation is the use of handwashing facilities, which depends on the availability of clean water. Access to handwashing facilities ranges from 25 percent of the population in Chad to just 9 percent in Burkina Faso . In addition, suitable sanitation facilities are essential for preventing water contamination. The share of the population with access to safely managed sanitation systems ranges from 22 percent in Burkina Faso to just 10 percent in Chad . Success in one area—access to safe drinking water, handwashing facilities, or suitable sanitation facilities—does not necessarily mean success in another. For instance, significantly more people in Mali have access to safe drinking water than in Chad, but people in Chad have comparatively greater access to handwashing facilities. These discrepancies suggest that success is not necessarily a result of greater capacity, better governance, or even country-level factors but of successful programs devoted to one outcome. It may be fruitful to look to successful programs for best practices to apply throughout the region.

Water Scarcity Externalities

Conflict and violence.

The effects of water scarcity in the Sahel extend beyond drinking water access and sanitation to conflict, food security, and migration. Scholars have widely explored the relationship between irregular rainfall and conflict. One study observed the effects of deviations from average rainfall on various types of conflict, concluding that rainfall variability is associated with increases in all types of political conflict across Africa. Another study supported these findings, arguing that violence in the Sahel can be attributed to water scarcity–induced migration. As the amount of viable land decreases, farmers and herders expand their land use, and conflict arises over both water and land rights.

In a separate study, McGuirk and Nunn (2021) explored the relationship between rainfall and farmer-herder violence in Africa, finding that a decrease in rainfall of one standard deviation in an area occupied by pastoralists results in a statistically significant increase in violence in neighboring farming communities but only when the farmers and herders are of different ethnicities. 1 These results were seen for both state and nonstate violence, meaning that water scarcity–induced conflict can involve national militaries and police forces, in addition to farmers and herders. The authors suggested that conflict is driven by lack of water resources but also factors like the ethnicity of farmer and herder communities.

Agriculture and Food

Agriculture and water are extremely interrelated. Agriculture is the economic backbone of many nations in the Sahel, making up 45 percent of the region’s GDP and employing over 50 percent of the labor force . Increasing temperatures, unsustainable land-use practices, and irregular rainfall have created a perfect storm for desertification or degradation of farmland. Desertification can make farming nearly impossible. Coupled with a rapidly increasing population, this creates a situation of food insecurity.

Desertification also has contributed to conflict in the region. To feed the growing population, farmers have expanded their land use northward, encroaching on land traditionally occupied by nomadic herders, resulting in deadly conflicts. Additionally, desertification has contributed to a food crisis in the Sahel. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of children under five suffering from severe malnutrition rose by 50 percent to a 10-year high of 1.3 million. The Covid-19 pandemic and rising grain prices have exacerbated this food crisis . In May 2022, the United Nations warned that 18 million people in the Sahel were on the brink of starvation.

Violence and climate-related factors have resulted in a tenfold increase in the number of displaced people in the region, from just over 200,000 in 2013 to 2.1 million in early 2021. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cites a circular relationship between drought, migration, and conflict: climate change forces people to migrate in search of better opportunities, migration causes conflicts over territory and water rights, and conflict increases migration.

UNHCR cites a circular relationship between drought, migration, and conflict: climate change forces people to migrate in search of better opportunities, migration causes conflicts over territory and water rights, and conflict increases migration.

Climate migration is a significant factor in the region, though it is not unique to the Sahel. As global temperatures continue to rise, environmental factors compel people to leave their homes and migrate to better opportunities. Climate migration is driven largely by three mechanisms: temporary climate-related shocks, permanent changes to the area, and indirect effects precipitated by preceding factors. All three mechanisms are at play in the Sahel. Temporary climate shocks, like the flooding in 2020 , displace people by making places uninhabitable for a short time. After the initial displacement, some choose not to return and instead migrate elsewhere. Permanent or longer-term changes to the area like drought and desertification make life in an area difficult. Without the tools to be resilient, many choose to migrate in search of better opportunities and easier lives. Finally, migration can sometimes result in conflict and violence, which further incentivizes migration.

Water availability also has implications for gender equality. When water is not easily accessible, the burden of traveling to collect it often falls on girls and women. A 2016 UNICEF report shows that, globally, girls and women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water. This presents a high opportunity cost to obtaining education or employment. With more accessible, local clean water options, girls and women can spend their time on more productive pursuits. Additionally, access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities can affect girls’ education . Inadequate facilities, particularly at schools, can result in girls missing significant instruction time and even choosing to drop out.

U.S. Government Water Programming in the Sahel

While more action is needed to mitigate the current water crisis, governments and multilateral aid agencies are already taking action on water policy. The U.S. government, through USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), has an extensive footprint across the Sahel, including significant water-focused programming. USAID, under its water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program, has identified 21 high-priority countries for targeted water programs, including two in the Sahel: Mali and Senegal . In both countries, the WASH program has focused on improving access to clean drinking water, building sanitation systems, and developing small-scale rural irrigation systems to improve drought resilience.

More specifically, USAID has provided significant support for using water programming to develop long-term resilience in the Sahel. This includes the Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) program, which seeks to mitigate climate shocks and food insecurity in the region through increased access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation practices. In addition, USAID and the MCC have invested money to support construction of new irrigation systems for agriculture across the region in Senegal , Mali , Niger, and other countries. Programming includes support for improved water resource management and WASH projects.

Other donors have also recently supported water programming, such as Agence Française de Développement (AFD), France’s development agency, which devoted 8 percent of its commitments in 2021 to financing water-related projects. Burkina Faso and Chad were key areas of focus. Hoping to address some of the causes of desertification in the region, the agency financed projects to improve water governance and access to drinking water in crisis situations. The World Bank is also involved in the sector, devoting $1.4 billion to water projects in Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Nigeria, and Senegal.

CSIS Tabletop Exercise and Recommendations

Investing in safe water systems can increase resilience to climate shocks, allowing crops and livestock to survive periods of insufficient rainfall. Boreholes, well-built wells, and piped water systems are generally much safer than surface water. Investing in these technologies can prevent people from relying on contaminated water sources. Having water close to one’s home or village reduces the amount of time the water must be carried, decreasing both the likelihood of water contamination and the burden placed on women and girls responsible for retrieving water.

In June 2022, the Biden administration announced the PGII, aimed at improving international infrastructure through high-quality financing and technical support. The PGII focuses on four key priorities: climate and energy security, digital connectivity, health and health security, and gender equality and equity. While water-related projects are not explicitly part of the program, access to clean water is a critical component of three of the four priorities. Further, water services can be enhanced under the pillar of digital connectivity.

CSIS conducted a tabletop exercise to explore how to make USAID programming relevant to PGII and refine USAID’s approach to water issues in the Sahel. The tabletop exercise convened a group of think tank fellows, military professionals, and development practitioners with both government and nongovernment experience to conduct a stress test of water program priorities in the Sahel. The group divided into two teams of five to six people to recommend a mix of WASH, water resource management (WRM), and water productivity (WP) projects that could either (1) attract support from other G7 partners or public-private partnerships consistent with the goals of PGII or (2) support larger interagency strategies, ranging from countering violent extremism to reducing the impact of malign foreign actors (including great power competitors) across the Sahel.

To start, each group member was asked to recommend three water projects, specifying the country, relevant PGII pillar, and type of water intervention (WASH, WRM, or WP). Then each group developed a consolidated team strategy, created recommendations for three programs, and assessed the likelihood these projects would attract additional support from G7 partners or the private sector.

• Team 1 focused on the strategic objectives that the water programs would help fulfill, such as deterring China, building closer partnerships with countries facing increasing indebtedness to China, and building local capacity to maintain resilient programs. The team decided to focus investments on countries deemed “preferred partners” for the United States, such as Nigeria, South Sudan, and Senegal, believing that strong bilateral relations would yield more resilient programs. The group also discussed the need for local ownership of programs through co-ops or governments.
• Team 2 focused on how to organize its strategy: whether to concentrate on a geographic country grouping or existing U.S. government priorities in the region. The group decided to focus on a specific area (Burkina Faso and Mali) so water programming would support broader countering violent extremism (CVE) efforts and counter malign actors (e.g., Russia and China) in the region. The team agreed that understanding local dynamics is central to success, as is integrating local stakeholders into the program design to provide monitoring and resilience.

In making allocations across the region, the two teams agreed that water programming was fundamental to addressing more complex human security challenges in the region. At a macro level, players identified access to improved data and enhanced contracting capability and capacity as necessary to enable more dynamic water programming in the Sahel. Potential challenges to effective water policy in the region stem largely from the region’s instability and fragile governance. While water services are much needed, country conditions can make both the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure difficult.

In making allocations across the region, the two teams agreed that water programming was fundamental to addressing more complex human security challenges in the region.

Following this initial exercise, the two teams responded to two crisis scenarios by deciding whether to shift their initial allocations. The first scenario dealt with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its effect on global food prices. This, combined with persistent drought in the region, created a complex humanitarian emergency, setting off violent farmer-herder conflict that triggered additional migration. The second scenario dealt with a resurgence of Covid-19, which caused a spike in hospitalizations and deaths in the region. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were compounded by political unrest, with Chad delaying presidential and local elections, Senegal experiencing unrest associated with its national assembly elections, and contested elections in Osun State in Nigeria.

Under both scenarios, the teams debated whether to adapt their programming choices to meet the new crises or remain focused on long-term results. There was a general sense that if projects proved at least somewhat resilient, sustaining investments would provide stability in the face of mounting crises. Both teams felt that adapting the projects would help shift funding to meet the humanitarian impact of the crises in both scenarios. They noted that partnering with local groups would make it easier to shift funds because local organizations would have a better sense of where adapted funds could make the most impact. Under the Covid-19 scenario, both teams agreed there was a clear need to shift some programming toward WASH activities to help stem the increase in infections.

Recommendations

The tabletop exercise produced several recommendations to help USAID and the U.S. government improve their water interventions in a complex region like the Sahel, which often faces overlapping crises. As listed above, recommendations to consider include the following:

Several of these recommendations align well with the Biden administration’s current approach. USAID and other U.S. government agencies should work to incorporate them into future programming in the Sahel and other complex regions.

Conor M. Savoy is a senior fellow with the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Alexandra Norris is a former research intern with the CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development.

This report is made possible by the generous support of USAID.

This report is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).  © 2022 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Please consult PDF for references.

Conor M. Savoy

Alexandra norris, programs & projects.

Drought recurrence in Africa's Sahel region: nature-based adaptive solutions and implications for smallholders' livelihoods

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Analysis: Understanding the Sahel drought

Scientists say that the current drought in the Sahel began as far back the 1960s.

Between the vast Sahara Desert and the dense foliage of the African Rainforest is a band of semi-arid grassland. Known as the Sahel, this hardy landscape is one of Africa’s most productive crop regions.

But the crops in the Sahel are grown close to their limits of tolerance, and rely on natural rainfall. This means that even small changes to the amount of rain can have disastrous effects.

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Unfortunately, this is a region which often suffers highly erratic rainfall.

Droughts in the Sahel don’t last a month or a year, they last for decades. And these long droughts have occurred regularly over the past 12,000 years. 

The region is in one of these droughts now – scientists say it started in the 1960s.

Between the 1950s and 1960s, there was plenty of rain across the Sahel, but just before 1970, a new drought started.

With the exception of a period of five years, all years since have seen a deficiency of rain.

The most severe drought was in the 1980s and, since then, levels of rainfall have recovered a little. However, rainfall remains significantly below the average for the past century.

The rain across the Sahel spreads up from the south during the summer months. The onset is usually in June, with the majority of the rain falling between July and September.

Overall, the amount of rain received in the 2011 monsoon was near normal, but this doesn’t tell the whole story: the rains were patchy and irregular, slow to get going, and retreated very quickly. This left many regions facing water and food shortages.

Reasons for the drought

Compiling reasons for the drought is difficult, but what is known is that the rainfall across the Sahel is driven by three factors:

• Tropical convection: the huge towering thunderstorms that build quickly in tropical places.
• The West African Monsoon: rains which starts to spread across the Sahel in June.
• El Niño: the effects of the warming of the Pacific, which also affects the weather around the globe.

But there is little understanding of how these factors link together and how they are affected by the changing climate.

In the 1970s it was widely believed that the drought was caused by the farmers in the regions, blaming them for the degradation of the land and the desertification. However, subsequent studies have disproved this idea.

Currently, the most convincing theory is that the recent drought could be due to the change in temperature of the surrounding oceans.

At the end of the 1900s, the south Atlantic and the Indian Ocean warmed quickly, which reduced the difference in temperature between the land and the sea. This may have caused the monsoon to weaken and the thunderstorms to remain to the south.

When the rains do fail, there is concern that this could trigger a knock-on effect in the years to follow.

Less rain means less vegetation, which will lead to a change in colour of the ground. Instead of lush fields of plants colouring the earth in a deep green, which absorbs sunlight, the ground instead would be a lighter, barren beige, which reflects more sunlight.

This, in turn, would mean the temperature difference between the land and the sea was diminished, and would lead to further weakening of the monsoon.

To the future

It is most important to predict what will happen in the future, but currently it is almost impossible.

The difficulty is due mostly to the scant availabilty of historical data from across the region. Therefore, discovering how the climate is changing is an uphill struggle.

The current thought is that the Horn of Africa will become wetter, but what will happen across the Sahel is unknown: will it become wetter or drier? No one can be sure.

What is expected is that the rainfall will become more sporadic, bringing an increase in the number of both droughts and floods across the region.

The 2012 forecast

The monsoon forecast for the Sahel region has just been issued by the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for development (ACMAD). This is the consensus forecast for the region, drawing together forecasts from many different countries.

The forecast focuses on the months of July to September, when the majority of the rain falls across the region.

This year, the forecast suggests that the majority of the Sahel will experience average rainfall, or even above average in some locations.

The exception is the Western Sahel, which is only estimated to receive 70 – 90 per cent of their annual rainfall, and here the onset of the rains is likely to be delayed.

This means that Senegal, southeastern Mauritania, Western Mali and Gambia are all likely to face severe disruptions.

Farmers in these regions are being encouraged to prioritise crops and sow water-stress resistant seeds.

What happens next

Clearly more research is desperately needed – because even small changes in rainfall, both timings and amounts, can have dire impacts on the people who live in the Sahel.

To try to ensure that national governments have access to the best scientific information available, Africa Climate Exchange (Afclix) has recently been launched by a team led by the University of Reading’s Dr Rosalind Cornforth.

Not only does the site help ensure that policy makers have direct access to the latest forecasts, but Afclix helps different research teams with varying expertise connect with each other, enabling collaborations and cross-disciplinary research.

The more studies carried out, the greater the chance there is of discovering the secret of the Sahel rains.

As the knowledge grows, the forecasts will improve and the impacts on the local population can be minimised.

Steff Gaulter is Al Jazeera’s senior meteorologist. Follow her on Twitter: @WeatherSteff

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A persistent fact: reflections on drought severity evaluation over Nigerian Sahel using MOD13Q1

• Original Paper
• Published: 13 September 2021
• Volume 14 , article number  1997 , ( 2021 )

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• Isreal Ropo Orimoloye 1 , 2 ,
• Adeyemi Oludapo Olusola   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2295-5214 3 , 4 ,
• Olusola Ololade 1 &
• Samuel Adelabu 3  

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Drought severity and its associated impacts remain persistent in the water-stressed regions of the world including the Sahel of Africa. Across the Sahel, there exist limited ground stations monitoring weather observations. This limitation has created an uphill task in trying to understand the role of climate in drought conditions across the entire Sahel of Africa; hence, the use of Earth observation satellite data for environmental events monitoring such as droughts. To determine the drought status of the Nigerian Sahel in a cost-efficient way, this study used Earth observation (EO) data (MODIS) and CORDEX precipitation flux. For accurate outcomes, the proposed algorithm by Kogan was explored in the study using R programming, which offers some appropriate characteristics for filtering cloud and other disturbances. The processing yields reliable drought indicators over the Sahel for various aggregate years and state zones. Drought severity index evaluated for the distinct Sahel region of Nigeria reflects how severe to extreme droughts characterised the period of 2001 to 2019 during late dry seasons, while the region observed mild droughts, such as years 2001 and 2003–2018 where the region observed no to moderate drought events during the wet seasons. As established in this study, the Sahel experiences severe droughts with a significantly higher water deficiency than elsewhere, especially during the late dry seasons.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank the University of the Free State for creating an enabling environment for research and AppEEARS and Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for providing data for this study.

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Isreal Ropo Orimoloye & Olusola Ololade

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Isreal Ropo Orimoloye

Department of Geography, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

Adeyemi Oludapo Olusola & Samuel Adelabu

Department of Geography, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

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Orimoloye, I.R., Olusola, A.O., Ololade, O. et al. A persistent fact: reflections on drought severity evaluation over Nigerian Sahel using MOD13Q1. Arab J Geosci 14 , 1997 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08369-5

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Received : 12 May 2021

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Published : 13 September 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08369-5

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