Water in Africa

In many African countries, water is mainly used for agriculture like livestock watering and cropland irrigation. Why is this important? Inconsistent and scarce water supply directly impacts the continent’s agriculture and food production. Addressing this core issue can increase self-sufficiency and result in lower food scarcity levels in Africa (Taylor 2004). Water consistency is especially important in areas with irregular or low rainfall. If irrigation systems are implemented, these areas would not be as susceptible to the vagaries of the changing climate. This is especially important as the impacts of climate change become more drastic. During the El Niño years, poor climate conditions often result in significant declines in agricultural production in parts of Africa. This negatively impacts standard of living and economic growth (Baudoin et al. 2017).

Figure 1: Water availability by country in Africa and expected availability for 2025 (UNEP).

Water availability and droughts induced by climate change are not the only factors impacting food insecurity, but they play a major role on crop yield. Lack of harvesting supplies and lack of access to a good supply chain are other factors that play a huge role in the lack of water and food availability in Africa (Adenle et al. 2017). All of these factors are interconnected and worsen living conditions. For the purpose of this post, I will focus on drought. Drought is the largest threat to food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Figure 2 demonstrates the probability of failed crop growing seasons in sub-Saharan Africa when drought conditions exist.

Figure 2: Probability of a failed growing season resulting from a drought by area in sub-Saharan Africa (Shiferaw et al. 2014). 

To close off this blog post, I leave you with this video by the FAO of the United Nations that discusses the negative impacts of droughts on people, the economy, and the agricultural sector. Between 2005 to 2014, 84 droughts occurred across Africa in roughly 30 countries. It highlights that in developing countries, 80% of the damage from droughts is to the agriculture sector, which often results in a shortage of food availability and leads to increased food insecurity. Many countries in Africa are still currently being negatively impacted by droughts and action must be taken to mitigate these consequences. In a future post, I will discuss how irrigation can be used to regulate water availability to sustain crop yields.