Possible climate change/variability and human impacts, vulnerability of drought-prone regions, water resources and capacity building for Africa

This review article discusses the climate, water resources and historical droughts of Africa, drought indices, vulnerability, impact of global warming and land use for drought-prone regions in West, southern and the Greater Horn of Africa, which have suffered recurrent severe droughts in the past. R...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Hydrological sciences journal Vol. 61; no. 7; pp. 1209 - 1226
Main Authors:	Gan, T.Y., Ito, Mari, Hülsmann, S., Qin, X, Lu, X.X., Liong, S.Y., Rutschman, P., Disse, M., Koivusalo, H.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Abingdon Taylor & Francis 18-05-2016 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:	capacity building climate anomalies droughts impact of climate change land-use changes uncertainties vulnerability water resources of Africa Africa
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	This review article discusses the climate, water resources and historical droughts of Africa, drought indices, vulnerability, impact of global warming and land use for drought-prone regions in West, southern and the Greater Horn of Africa, which have suffered recurrent severe droughts in the past. Recent studies detected warming and drying trends in Africa since the mid 20th century. Based on the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), both northern and southern Africa are projected to experience drying, such as decreasing precipitation, runoff and soil moisture in the 21st century and could become more vulnerable to the impact of droughts. The daily maximum temperature is projected to increase by up to 8°C (RCP8.5 of CMIP5), precipitation indices such as total wet day precipitation (PRCPTOT) and heavy precipitation days (R10 mm) could decrease, while warm spell duration (WSDI) and consecutive dry days (CDD) could increase. Uncertainties of the above long-term projections, teleconnections to climate anomalies such as ENSO and the Madden-Julian Oscillation, which could also affect the water resources of Africa, and capacity building in terms of physical infrastructure and non-structural solutions are also discussed. Given that traditional climate and hydrological data observed in Africa are generally limited, satellite data should also be exploited to fill the data gap for Africa in the future. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor N. Ilich
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0262-6667 2150-3435
DOI:	10.1080/02626667.2015.1057143