8. Water and Food under Climate Change

In this post I want to focus upon water, food and development in Africa under the conditions of climate change. As a consequence, this post will firstly address how climate change impacts water supply, followed by this change’s implications to agriculture and food production. Following this I should be able to offer some interpretations on how this change will impact development and what can be done to adapt development strategies to the impacts of climate change. 

Climate change will have profound impacts upon water supply in time and space and this is reflected within the precipitation projections for Africa. For example, ‘by the year 2050 rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa could drop by 10% leading to major water shortages’ (deWit, M. 2006: 1918). Furthermore, across the continent ‘there is a projected increase in the number of heat wave days over the 21^stCentury’ (Niang, I. et al. 2014: 1210) as well as ‘an increase in the number of extreme rainfall days’ (Niang, I. et al. 2014: 1211). This change in spatial and temporal precipitation will have further implications for the volume of water supplied from groundwater sources as ‘the variability of annual recharge is strongly influenced by rthe daily rainfall distribution’ (Carter, R. 2009: 683). Consequently ‘future access to water, especially in rural areas that depend on low-order streams for surface supply, needs to be seriously addressed’ (deWit, M. 2006: 1920). As a result, increasing climate change will significantly impact water distribution and supply across time and space consequently, profoundly affecting Africa’s agricultural industry, food supply and development. 

The primary reason that climate change has this profound an effect is due to the fact that ‘Africa’s food production systems are among the world’s most vulnerable because of extensive reliance on rainfed crop production’ (Niang, I et al. 2014: 1217). As a result, the increasing frequency of extreme events predicted by climate change models will significantly impact African agriculture’s capacity to consistently supply food. Furthermore, more variable precipitation leads to more variable soil moisture which impairs crop yields. Consequently, further compounding the difficulties farmers face when trying to maintain a consistent supply. This is evidenced in Figure 1 in both 1975 and 1981 the total volume of rainfall was relatively equitable (394mm compared to 389mm, respectively) however, the yield in 1975 was 1360kg/ha. Comparatively, the yield in 1981 was 901kg/ha evidencing that temporally uneven precipitation negatively impacts crop production. 

One further factor that impacts this is the Clausius-Clapeyron relation (Figure 2), which demonstrates that the amount of water air holds rises exponentially with air temperature, therefore the water holding capacity of the air has a greater relative increase than compared with other regions. This leads to further intensification of precipitation events, which again exacerbates what is stated above. 

The impacts of increasingly variable rainfall are felt differently in different parts of Africa. For example, ‘Northern Africa is highly dependent on winter precipitation and would be negatively impacted if total precipitation and the frequency of wet days decline across North Africa, as has been indicated in recent studies’ (Niang, I. et al. 2014: 1217). This is demonstrated in Morocco where ‘the profitability of irrigated agriculture… is expected to decline… owing to increased pumping of groundwater and increased salinization risk for aquifers’ (Niang, I. 2014: 1218). Furthermore, in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa where ‘<5% of the arable land is under irrigation (Taylor, R. 2013: 659) the impacts of variation in rainfall will be worse as the region is more reliant upon rain fed agriculture than other parts of the world. Furthermore, across the continent as a whole ‘suitable agro-climatic zones for growing economically important perennial crops are estimated to significantly diminish (Niang, I. et al. 2014: 1219). 

As a consequence, climate change has significant implications for development in Africa. Food security has been established as an effective pathway to development as a result of its ability to satisfy a number of millennium development goals as well as achieve social goals. Consequently, the impacts of climate change upon agricultural capacity and production will be reflected in individuals economic and social conditions. Therefore, as agricultural production is diminished and increasingly inconsistent so too will individuals’ ability to earn money, maintain their health etc. This, subsequently, hinders the achievement of development and overall climate change is an obstacle to advancements in water and food as a vehicle for development. 

As a result, in order to continue to move toward general development by making advancements in water and food the agricultural industry will need to adapt to climate change. A number of suggestions for how agriculture can adapt have been made. For example, in the ‘substitution of cereals’ (Niang, I. et al. 2014: 1219) for a crop that is more suited to inconsistent rainfall and worse soil quality. Comparatively, many agricultural bodies have made call for substantial increases in irrigation in order to mitigate the variation in rainfall by storing water in these systems. However, the agricultural adaptions that have been suggested to climate change are not necessarily the most impactful. The majority of the literature stresses that the impact factors outside of climate change will have more profound effects on water, food and development and consequently most agricultural adaptions are focused upon these. However, as time passes and climate change worsens it is hard not to wonder that focusing adaptions to the short-term may lead to climate change having more damaging impacts later on.