From Mauritania to Chad, the vicious circle of droughts and floods has serious consequences on the populations who live mainly from agriculture and livestock. The scarcity of water resources threatens livelihoods. In the Sahel, droughts are becoming more and more intense. Temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than in the rest of the world. But climate change is also causing heavy rains (violent thunderstorms, above-normal rainfall). However, the land is too dry to absorb the rising waters; Destructive river floods and numerous flooding episodes were thus observed in Mali and Niger in 2019. In the Sahel more than elsewhere, these natural disasters are degrading the natural resources that are essential to the agropastoral livelihoods that underpin the economy in much of the area. Two out of three people in the Sahel countries live from agriculture and livestock. Under the combined effect of drought and floods, land is deteriorating and losing its fertility. Insufficient rain-fed irrigation means that crops fail or are destroyed, while livestock struggle to find water for drinking and sufficient pasture.
SOURCE: RELIEF WEB