Putting
the pieces together, this paper gives information about the climate change and
the water use on the African continent, being the basis for the following
chapters. Addressing the impacts and hence the consequences entailed by the
impact of climate change on the very water use in Africa is most crucial, as
the threats and imminence of danger are incontrovertible conditions which the
continent’s society is going to be facing in the future.
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Increased Vulnerability through Climate Change
The Future Consequences Compelled by Climate Change
As the previous chapters discussed the impact of climate change on several aspects of water use in Africa, this concluding chapter aims to illustrate the possible consequences entailed by the same. Since there are various natural disasters in terms of water, the following will be divided into subchapters. The central theme, however, will always concern the compelled altered climate conditions due to climate change in association of water, thus the upcoming challenges which societies in Africa are going to be facing in the future.
The chapter is approaching the topic consequences of the climate change by examining the increased vulnerability, due to the latter, in detail. As the situation in terms of water, especially water scarcity, is quite tense and disastrous in this day and age, the situation will be more threatening in the future, by far (Leichenko & O’Brien, 2002). Furthermore, for clarifying vulnerability itself, the term encompasses the exposition of a society towards a natural hazard, such as floods, and the society’s capacity to react and adapt to the emergency situation (Vincent, 2004). The vulnerability in terms of the climate change or already existing hazards does, of course, vary throughout the whole continent of Africa. As a consequence, this chapter will, due to the limited word count of the paper, only discuss the impact of climate change in general. Nevertheless, I will point out differences in the impact if possible.
Droughts
Despite that the term drought is very detailed on a meteorological scale, this subchapter discusses the socioeconomic impacts emerged by droughts. As droughts are to be found in both Sahel region of western and northern Africa as well as in Southern Africa, the extent of the same could not be vaster and comprehensive (Urama & Ozor, 2010). The continent is already one of the most drought-vulnerable regions worldwide, whereas the most drought-prone areas are to be located in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia (Leichenko & O’Brien, 2002).
As the mentioned countries are one of the most arid ones on the whole continent, they are much more likely to grow more vulnerable due to the climate change: There may be more severe droughts (speaking of which, two severe droughts occurred in Africa in the 1990s, exstinguishing half and one-third of the total cereal production of the whole continent), and the frequency of droughts is going to be increased in comparison to today (Leichenko & O’Brien, 2002). Subsequently as well as being a reason for the foregone explained, the rainfall and the frequency distributions of temperature will change, compelled by the climate change (Leichenko & O’Brien, 2002). The consequences on an economic scale are disastrous, leading to water shortages, crop loss, loss of cattle etc. (Urama & Ozor, 2010). Since the climate change is said to be steered by human actions, or at least exacerbated, the authors furthermore state that it is up to humans as well to adapt to that, for example by using drought resistant seeds (in terms of agriculture). Not every region will be affected in the same way, of course, for example more humid countries as Zambia or Tanzania, but the consequences in the concerned regions will be threatening: As there already is a lack of water quality in regions affected by water scarcity, this issue will get worse, leading to a spread of diseases among people. This issue is addressed in the upcoming chapter.
The temperature is very likely to increase up to 4° Celsius, especially in region in northern Africa, whilst reducing precipitation up to 10% (Boko et al., 2007). According to the authors, and by speaking on an annual basis, even just 1% decrease in temperature would reduce the precipitation that much that the loss of water would be the same as when loosing one large dam. Thus, the situation of water scarcity is going to be exacerbated. Entailed by the increase of temperature is the changes in the content of the water, say concentration of pesticides, pH balance etc. (Urama & Ozor, 2010). Not only will this affect the economic of a region, since the freshwater may be polluted, thus affecting fisheries and aquaculture; it is also going to concern the people (Urama & Ozor, 2010). The authors further state that Africa itself would further on not be able to meet the demand for water of its people, and as the climate change is going to worsen this issue, this is very likely going to be one of the key issues in the future.
As mentioned in the foregone chapters, resp. blog posts, the agricultural sector is by far Africa’s most water consuming sector of water usage, with 83%. Imagining there is likely going to be less water, much more polluted water, this is going to have a huge impact on the continent’s most important economic sector. Given the situation that there will be an actual change in precipitation, say water availability, that will influence the productivity of agricultural, fisheries and forestry systems (Urama & Ozor, 2010). Furthermore, countries already facing arid or semi-arid conditions will find themselves being more challenged and threatened by the climate change, as the latter might come along with reducing the length of a growing season for plants as consequences (Boko et al., 2007). According to the authors, the crop net revenue may be decreased up to 90% in some regions by the year 2100, thus affecting the continent’s food security. If one pursues this thought, the human health is going to be affected, most definitely. Since it is very likely that climate change is going to alter the conditions, as shown in the foregone subchapters, this is a dangerous issue which has to be addressed and mitigated.
Saturday, 28 November 2015
Climate Change's Impact on & the Potential of Transboundary Water Resources
A. Introduction to the Different Terms of Transboundary Water Resources
The topic of this particular blog entry is to discuss the impact of climate change on transboundary water resources (TWR) and the potential and possibilities which lie within the term. The post itself is thereby based on the foregone entries, thus please keep in mind the demonstrated problems in water supply as well as the distribution of water use on the African continent.
Transboundary water resources
To start this post off, an introduction to transboundary water resources and the terms associated with it comes in useful. Therefore, a brief description of transboundary water resources themselves. The term has to be considered as the hypernym of every water resource that is shared by two or more countries and serves the affected people as their water source, either a direct (take water directly out of their water source) or indirect one (well that is based on groundwater which is fed by the water resource such as a river, lake etc.). What might start to shine through here is the problem of who is allowed to withdrawal how much from the water resource, based on its transboundary nature. For example, the cultivated agricultural fields close to the Nile are irrigated with a huge amount of water, thus yield profit and hence have an immense economical value (see blog post #3). But who regulates how much water they are allowed to use? And does this huge water resource help societies with water scarcity on the African continent? Gripping questions, that will be discussed in chapter B.
Transboundary river basins
An estimated 90% of Africa's land surface is covered by so called river and lake basins, whereof 62% of these water resources on the African continent can be considered as international river basins (Goulden et al., 2009). At least two or more countries are concerned with such a water resource, thus the description as transboundary. A water basin itself is a surface freshwater resource or a natural reservoir, rivers as well as lakes fall by definition into that category. In this particular case, the emphasis will be put on rivers only. For example, the Nile is shared by eight or even more countries, as well as other comprehensive rivers like the Niger, Congo etc. (Goulden et al., 2009).
Transboundary aquifer systems
An aquifer is a body of groundwater at the subsurface level of rock or unconsolidated materials. It serves as a water source since groundwater can be extracted from it by using a well. There are two terms associated with an aquifer, aquitard and aquiclude. The latter is a layer of very solid and impermeable material, whereas aquitard is the contrary, namely a layer of permeable and fragile material. These futher explanations are now required to understand the meaning of an aquifer system. There are two aquifer systems existing, a confined and an unconfined one. Such a system could consist of two aquifers and one aquiclude, thus separating these groundwater storages. A transboundary aquifer systems now is shared by two or more countries. The obvious problem is thereby the allocated share of such a water resource and the upcoming question which country may withdrawal how much water from it. For example, a large amount of people in East Africa rely on such water resources, therefore frequent conflict is a regular event (Abiye, 2010). To give a brief overview of the spread of transboundary aquifer systems, there is an estimated amount of 40 to 70 in Africa which cover above 40% of the continent's surface (Goulden et al., 2009).
Transboundary water management (TWM)
First of all, transboundary water management takes on an essential role especially in Africa. Nine of the ten the most active actors comprising TWMs are located in Africa (Kim & Glaumann, 2012). Kim & Glaumann (2012) further state, that the most attention is thereby drawn to transboundary rivers, whilst other types of transboundary water resources such as aquifers etc. receive little attention. The authors furthermore give examples of the three most imporant basins, which are the Mekong, the Volta and the Nile. The latter will be further discussed in chapter B. There are three goals of TWM, according to Kim & Glaumann (2012): Firstly, the maximum utilisation of the common good; secondly, the conflict prevention between parties; thirdly, providing an ecological sustainability. To delve further into that topic, TWM shall be scrutinised by examining the example of the Nile in chapter B.
B. Transboundary Water Management with Reference to the Example of the Nile
The Nile with its catchment area of of more than 3 million km2 is a river with an immense extent, thereby providing water for many people and populations. The problem is, as brought up earlier, who is allowed to withdrawal how much water from the Nile? The discussion is exacerbated by the fact that this river is a transboundary water resource shared by ten countries. Since these countries discovered that it is crucial to use this resource, which serves more than 230 mill. people as their main water source, very wisely on a transboundary basis (Grossman, 2014), they therefore founded the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 1999. Its aim is “to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.” (Grossman 2014, p. 5). A project that has been launched in 2010 by the NBI with the title "Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin", for example.
According to Goulden et al. (2009), the impact of climate change requires adaption to the same in river basins. The following paragraph aims to scrutinise the actions which take place in terms of the Nile based on Goulden et al. their statements on how to adapt to climate change in river basins. Firstly, a serious factor, that has been discussed in the blog post 'Introduction to Climate Change' in this very blog, is uncertainty. Since there is no profound knowledge of what the impact of this natural phenomenon is going to be, a precise prediction of the upcoming challenges is hard to make, thus one can only venture a prognosis. The mentioned project, "Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin", aims to build resilience for the ecosystems and economies hosted by the Nile. This approach shall be realised by building adaptive capacity and adaption itself, based on financial, technical and policy interventions (UNEP, 2012). As Goulden et al. (2009) suggest, an auspicious approach to reacting to the climate change is to analyse the different sources of uncertainty, based on various climate and impact models. According to UNEP (2012), they pursue a very similar approach of planning. Inception meetings regarding that issue have taken place in 2012 as well as other measures have been adopted in that regard.
Secondly, money is obviously an issue. The adaptive capacity is more or less determined by the financial resources, thus basins with weaker means are less likely to be able to adapt to upcoming challenges. The emerging question here is if that is going to lead to an aggravation of the issues of the distribution of water and the issue that is going to be addresses in the following:
Thirdly, there still is the confusion of who is allowed to use the water resource to which extent. Which of the ten countries is supposed may withdrawal the most water from the Nile, which the the fewest of all? Populations claim to have to right to use the resource based on their hydrography, i.e. what are the proportions of the river basin within a country's territory. Another claim is based on the chronology, meaning for how long has a country been using that particular river basin. The issue regarding the water rights has to be addressed by upcoming treaties or the like. Whilst delving further into the subject, I found a huge debate which unfortunately would go beyond the constraints of this blog post. The impression of that issue shall remain and also mark the conclusion of chapter B. The following and concluding chapter is supposed to discuss the TWR potential.
C. The Potential of Transboundary Water Resources regarding the Climate Change
Since the challenges that Africa is going to face in the future have been discussed, the emphasis is put on the possible benefits of TWR in the following. At first, it has to be abundantly clear that the role of such resources is poorly understood regarding their key role they are going to play in the future (Goulden et al., 2009). The key factor for a successful adaption to the changing conditions is going to be cooperation. Every river basin is unique and different, and so are the states using the resource. The authors futher state, cooperation includes multiple benefits that would take every participating state further. Through a cooperative alliance, a share of knowledge, measures and projects is possible, thus enhancing the adaption to the climate change. Fortunately, cooperation is one of the key points of the NBI.
In my opinion, a functioning and flexible alliance would form a great force to address water scarcity issues. If the same would be functioning, there would be possibilities of helping countries and populations which suffer from a lack of water by providing overage water storages to them. This notion might not appear very likely, but its powerful potential should encourage one to give it at least second thought.
References
Goulden, M., Conway, D., Persechino, A., 2009, Adaption to climate change in international river basins, Hydrological Sciences, 54, 5, pp. 805-823.
Grossman, M., 2014, Transboundary Water Management, Support to cooperation on shared waters, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, pp. 5-6.
Abiye, T.A., 2010, An overview of the transboundary aquifers in East Africa, Journal of African Earth Sciences, 58, 4, pp. 805-823.
Kim, K., Glaumann, K., 2012, Transboundary Water Management, Who Does What, Where?, Swedish Water House, xy, x, pp.xx-xx.
United Nations Environment Programme, 2012, Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin, United Nations Environment Programme, http://www.unep.org/climatechange/adaptation/EbA/NileRiverBasin/tabid/29584/Default.aspx.
A. Introduction to the Different Terms of Transboundary Water Resources
The topic of this particular blog entry is to discuss the impact of climate change on transboundary water resources (TWR) and the potential and possibilities which lie within the term. The post itself is thereby based on the foregone entries, thus please keep in mind the demonstrated problems in water supply as well as the distribution of water use on the African continent.
Transboundary water resources
To start this post off, an introduction to transboundary water resources and the terms associated with it comes in useful. Therefore, a brief description of transboundary water resources themselves. The term has to be considered as the hypernym of every water resource that is shared by two or more countries and serves the affected people as their water source, either a direct (take water directly out of their water source) or indirect one (well that is based on groundwater which is fed by the water resource such as a river, lake etc.). What might start to shine through here is the problem of who is allowed to withdrawal how much from the water resource, based on its transboundary nature. For example, the cultivated agricultural fields close to the Nile are irrigated with a huge amount of water, thus yield profit and hence have an immense economical value (see blog post #3). But who regulates how much water they are allowed to use? And does this huge water resource help societies with water scarcity on the African continent? Gripping questions, that will be discussed in chapter B.
Transboundary river basins
An estimated 90% of Africa's land surface is covered by so called river and lake basins, whereof 62% of these water resources on the African continent can be considered as international river basins (Goulden et al., 2009). At least two or more countries are concerned with such a water resource, thus the description as transboundary. A water basin itself is a surface freshwater resource or a natural reservoir, rivers as well as lakes fall by definition into that category. In this particular case, the emphasis will be put on rivers only. For example, the Nile is shared by eight or even more countries, as well as other comprehensive rivers like the Niger, Congo etc. (Goulden et al., 2009).
Transboundary aquifer systems
An aquifer is a body of groundwater at the subsurface level of rock or unconsolidated materials. It serves as a water source since groundwater can be extracted from it by using a well. There are two terms associated with an aquifer, aquitard and aquiclude. The latter is a layer of very solid and impermeable material, whereas aquitard is the contrary, namely a layer of permeable and fragile material. These futher explanations are now required to understand the meaning of an aquifer system. There are two aquifer systems existing, a confined and an unconfined one. Such a system could consist of two aquifers and one aquiclude, thus separating these groundwater storages. A transboundary aquifer systems now is shared by two or more countries. The obvious problem is thereby the allocated share of such a water resource and the upcoming question which country may withdrawal how much water from it. For example, a large amount of people in East Africa rely on such water resources, therefore frequent conflict is a regular event (Abiye, 2010). To give a brief overview of the spread of transboundary aquifer systems, there is an estimated amount of 40 to 70 in Africa which cover above 40% of the continent's surface (Goulden et al., 2009).
Transboundary water management (TWM)
First of all, transboundary water management takes on an essential role especially in Africa. Nine of the ten the most active actors comprising TWMs are located in Africa (Kim & Glaumann, 2012). Kim & Glaumann (2012) further state, that the most attention is thereby drawn to transboundary rivers, whilst other types of transboundary water resources such as aquifers etc. receive little attention. The authors furthermore give examples of the three most imporant basins, which are the Mekong, the Volta and the Nile. The latter will be further discussed in chapter B. There are three goals of TWM, according to Kim & Glaumann (2012): Firstly, the maximum utilisation of the common good; secondly, the conflict prevention between parties; thirdly, providing an ecological sustainability. To delve further into that topic, TWM shall be scrutinised by examining the example of the Nile in chapter B.
B. Transboundary Water Management with Reference to the Example of the Nile
The Nile with its catchment area of of more than 3 million km2 is a river with an immense extent, thereby providing water for many people and populations. The problem is, as brought up earlier, who is allowed to withdrawal how much water from the Nile? The discussion is exacerbated by the fact that this river is a transboundary water resource shared by ten countries. Since these countries discovered that it is crucial to use this resource, which serves more than 230 mill. people as their main water source, very wisely on a transboundary basis (Grossman, 2014), they therefore founded the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 1999. Its aim is “to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.” (Grossman 2014, p. 5). A project that has been launched in 2010 by the NBI with the title "Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin", for example.
According to Goulden et al. (2009), the impact of climate change requires adaption to the same in river basins. The following paragraph aims to scrutinise the actions which take place in terms of the Nile based on Goulden et al. their statements on how to adapt to climate change in river basins. Firstly, a serious factor, that has been discussed in the blog post 'Introduction to Climate Change' in this very blog, is uncertainty. Since there is no profound knowledge of what the impact of this natural phenomenon is going to be, a precise prediction of the upcoming challenges is hard to make, thus one can only venture a prognosis. The mentioned project, "Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin", aims to build resilience for the ecosystems and economies hosted by the Nile. This approach shall be realised by building adaptive capacity and adaption itself, based on financial, technical and policy interventions (UNEP, 2012). As Goulden et al. (2009) suggest, an auspicious approach to reacting to the climate change is to analyse the different sources of uncertainty, based on various climate and impact models. According to UNEP (2012), they pursue a very similar approach of planning. Inception meetings regarding that issue have taken place in 2012 as well as other measures have been adopted in that regard.
Secondly, money is obviously an issue. The adaptive capacity is more or less determined by the financial resources, thus basins with weaker means are less likely to be able to adapt to upcoming challenges. The emerging question here is if that is going to lead to an aggravation of the issues of the distribution of water and the issue that is going to be addresses in the following:
Thirdly, there still is the confusion of who is allowed to use the water resource to which extent. Which of the ten countries is supposed may withdrawal the most water from the Nile, which the the fewest of all? Populations claim to have to right to use the resource based on their hydrography, i.e. what are the proportions of the river basin within a country's territory. Another claim is based on the chronology, meaning for how long has a country been using that particular river basin. The issue regarding the water rights has to be addressed by upcoming treaties or the like. Whilst delving further into the subject, I found a huge debate which unfortunately would go beyond the constraints of this blog post. The impression of that issue shall remain and also mark the conclusion of chapter B. The following and concluding chapter is supposed to discuss the TWR potential.
C. The Potential of Transboundary Water Resources regarding the Climate Change
Since the challenges that Africa is going to face in the future have been discussed, the emphasis is put on the possible benefits of TWR in the following. At first, it has to be abundantly clear that the role of such resources is poorly understood regarding their key role they are going to play in the future (Goulden et al., 2009). The key factor for a successful adaption to the changing conditions is going to be cooperation. Every river basin is unique and different, and so are the states using the resource. The authors futher state, cooperation includes multiple benefits that would take every participating state further. Through a cooperative alliance, a share of knowledge, measures and projects is possible, thus enhancing the adaption to the climate change. Fortunately, cooperation is one of the key points of the NBI.
In my opinion, a functioning and flexible alliance would form a great force to address water scarcity issues. If the same would be functioning, there would be possibilities of helping countries and populations which suffer from a lack of water by providing overage water storages to them. This notion might not appear very likely, but its powerful potential should encourage one to give it at least second thought.
References
Goulden, M., Conway, D., Persechino, A., 2009, Adaption to climate change in international river basins, Hydrological Sciences, 54, 5, pp. 805-823.
Grossman, M., 2014, Transboundary Water Management, Support to cooperation on shared waters, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, pp. 5-6.
Abiye, T.A., 2010, An overview of the transboundary aquifers in East Africa, Journal of African Earth Sciences, 58, 4, pp. 805-823.
Kim, K., Glaumann, K., 2012, Transboundary Water Management, Who Does What, Where?, Swedish Water House, xy, x, pp.xx-xx.
United Nations Environment Programme, 2012, Adapting to climate change induced water stress in the Nile River Basin, United Nations Environment Programme, http://www.unep.org/climatechange/adaptation/EbA/NileRiverBasin/tabid/29584/Default.aspx.
Thursday, 19 November 2015
The Change of Water Supply
Commencing with this particular blog post, I will start to delve further into the thematic and connect 'climate change' with 'water use in Africa'. This entry will be focussing on water supply on the African continent under the influence of the climate change and the changing conditions that it comes along with. The question that could reasonably come up here is why start with water supply? I want to reply to that by illustrating the most crucial importance of water supply as a brief introduction.
Firstly, people in Africa rely on natural water sources like local rivers which obviously are fed by rainfall or melting glaciers, for example the Mount Kilimanjaro. Any decrease of these sources would exacerbate the already very tense situation on the African continent.
Secondly, climate change poses an immerse threat and risk for the poverty eradication in Africa, which would be even more compounded once a decrease of natural water sources takes place.
For a better comprehension of the diverse situation in Africa, and according to de Wit and Stankiewicz (2006), there are three regimes the continent can be divided into:
Dry regime: The most prevalent type of regimes in Africa covering 41% of the continent. These are areas with no perennial surface water drainage receiving less than 400mm precipitation per year.
Intermediate regime: Surface water supply is directly affected by a change in climate, which is why this regime can also be described as 'unstable'. Areas receiving between 400 – 1000mm per year. This type covers approximately 25% of the continent.
Wet regime: Hereby, the drainage density decreases slightly when rainfaill is increasing due to factors like vegetation. Areas receiving over 1000 mm per year.
To emphasise the importance of understanding the regimes and to give a propect on the situation in Africa over the next decades, two figures of the paper of de Wit and Stankiewicz (2006) prove to be very useful.
 |
| Figure A and C: 'Annual rainfall in a region' and 'Predicted change'. De Wit and Stankiewicz (2006), p. 1919. |
Figure A shows the implications of a 10% drop in rainfall on perennial drainage density. The black line curve hereby shows the predicted change in perennial drainage. The red section represents the dry regime, yellow the intermediate regime and green the wet regime, divided by the amount of precipitation. For example, if a region would receive a precipitation drop of 10% from 550mm per year (intermediate regime) to 495mm per year, it would be considered as being part of the dry regime. The most crucial issue hereby would be the impact on the drainage: the same would drop by 25%!
As to be seen in Figure C, the worst affected and thus most endangered areas would be southern and northern Africa with a predicted rainfall drop of 10% and more. Such a drop would lead to a reduced drainage of 17% by 2050 (de Wit and Stankiewicz (2006)). East Africa is to be considered as mostly intermediate, due to the immense influence of the Nile.
All things considered, the influence of climate change on the water supply in Africa has been elucidated abundantly clear. The danger that the upcoming changes entail require comprehensive examination. The next blog post will discuss the possibilities of transboundary water resources and basin management regarding their upcoming challenges and potential approach to help regions facing increasing water scarcity.
References
De Wit, M., Stankiewicz, J. (2006) "Changes in Surface Water Supply Across Africa with Predicted Climate Change", Science 311, pp. 1917-1920.
Friday, 6 November 2015
A Brief Introduction to the Water Use on the African Continent
As mentioned in the foregone blog post, the intention of this particular entry will serve as preface to the topic of the blog by giving a brief introduction to the use of water on the African continent. As a reminder, this is so to say part two of the title of the blog 'the impact of climate change on the use of water on the African continent'.
Water Use on the African continent. Focus of this particular blog post.
Africa is obviously a very diverse, variegated and a huge area of varying land encompassing continent. As a consequence, there is a great variety in the hydrology and therefore different availability levels of water itself. Mainly influenced by the tectonics, one could speak of a division of the African continent based on that very fact as well as others, such as rainfall variability, the geology of a region etc.
The question now shall be: What is the actual situation in terms of the water use in Africa?
At first, it would make sense to know who is actually using water, wouldn't it? So with reference to Taylor (2004), let's begin:
1. Agricultural Water Use (83%)
This major part is diverted into two parts, the commercial and the traditional one. Comparing the 83 percent to the world's average of agricultural water use, Africa's use is higher by 13 (world: 70%).
2. Industrial Water Use (4%)
Industrial activity is very limited in Africa. World: 18%.
3. Domestic Water Use (13%)
The domestic water use is basically the same as the world's average.
A point that is becoming very obvious here: The majority of water is being used by the agricultural sector. For example, Cultivated fields need irrigation. At first glance, that might not be too far off. But think of it this way (and this is something that came up in one of the lectures of 'Water and Development in Africa' at UCL, so it is not a scientificly documented fact but still very interesting): Take the Nile as an example. The highest use of water of the whole African continent is to be found there because the people simply have access to water and use it without any further thoughts.
What is beginning to shine through here is something very important: the distribution of water. The reason for water scarcity is not only based on the nature itself; it is also something that emerged from anthropogenic actions.
A basic overview of the two key phrases of this blog's topic has hereby been given. The next blog posts will start to go deeper into the thematic. As I am very much looking forward to exploring an immensely interesting part of science, I'll close this entry with an outlook. Within the next posts, I want to leave this basic level of introductions and connect 'climate change' with 'use of water on the African continent' in terms of the upcoming changing conditions caused by the climate change itself. I am not quite sure where this is going to take me as the author and you as the reader of this blog, but I have numerous ideas and I am very eager to associate them and elaborate as much as possible on the topic!
References
Taylor, R.G., 2004. Water Resources and development challenges in eastern and southern Africa . In: T. Bowyer-Bower and D. Potts (Eds.), East and Southern Africa . Regional Development Text, RGS-IBG Developing Areas Research Group, Addison-Wesley Longman (London), Chapter 7, pp. 198-228.
Tuesday, 3 November 2015
An Overview of Climate Change
To start this blog off, an overview of the two phrases which are the main components of this blog, 'climate change' and 'water use on the African continent', would come in very handy.
Climate Change. Focus of this particular blog post.
At first, the definition of the term climate itself is necessary. It stands for the the long-range average of a region's weather conditions and events. So what has already been given away by that fact: climate change describes a process which encompasses decades.
According to Islam & Sikka (2010), climate change has always played a key role in the history of our earth. That reflects a fact which is largely unknown or is, respectively, considered very little: there has been such a thing as climate change in the past, there has always been changes in the climate of the earth. The difference to nowadays is the influence of us humans. Through our actions and technologies we are increasing the intensity of the climate change, especially in terms of the greenhouse effect. This anthropogenic influence requires further explanation:
According to Islam & Sikka (2010), climate change has always played a key role in the history of our earth. That reflects a fact which is largely unknown or is, respectively, considered very little: there has been such a thing as climate change in the past, there has always been changes in the climate of the earth. The difference to nowadays is the influence of us humans. Through our actions and technologies we are increasing the intensity of the climate change, especially in terms of the greenhouse effect. This anthropogenic influence requires further explanation:
The greenhouse effect 'is the rise in temperature that the earth experiences because certain gases (e.g. water vapor, carbon dioxide [..]) in the atmosphere trap energy from the sun' (Islam & Sikka 2010, p. 386). The effect is also known as 'global warming'.
 |
| Figure of climate change in the last 800,000 years, regarding the CO2-concentration in relation to time. Source: https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/question-7/ |
Putting the pieces together, climate change is a phenomenon that had influenced earth before mankind even existed. What the figure shown above illustrates is the fact that we are currently by far at a peak of the CO2-concentration. As you can see, variations in the concentration were always to be found. But the that very peak is repeatedly caused by anthropogenic influence.
Coming to a conclusion of this introductory blog post, close attention should be paid to climate change, its origin for a better understanding and especially the changing conditions that it entails. So much for this theoretical approach of the term climate change for now. I will soon talk about the water use on the African continent and furthermore illustrate the link to climate change.
References
Islam, A., Sikka, A.K. (2010): 'Climate Change and Water Resources in India: Impact Assessment and Adaption Strategies', Natural and Anthropogenic Disasters, 386-411.
Saturday, 10 October 2015
Welcome to the blog!
Welcome to this blog, written and administrated by me, Felix Schmedes.
As for me, I am an affiliate geography student at the University College London in my third year of the studies.
During the upcoming term I am going to pursue this blog in the following way: 'the impact of climate change on the use of water on the African continent'. The research area, which is obviously going to be based on specific literature, is going to be the African continent.
For now, I don't now where exactly this journey will take me to, but I'm very eager to find that out, as well as studying and exploring an incredibly fascinating and future-oriented topic.
So long,
Felix
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