Hello and welcome to my blog! Join me as I post to explore the dynamic between water and food in Africa. 

Africa is a vast terrestrial space with an area of over 61 mil km², hugely diverse in its physical ad social landscapes. As a result I will sadly not be able to explore water and agriculture across the whole continent. I will instead seek to understand a selection of issues and case studies relating to human responses to increased water demands, the changing environment, and the associated nexus (Allan 2012)of water, food and trade through a human ecological lens.

A taste of what’s to come…

Figure 1 - Source: Geofile 

My posts will focus on the Sahel region (see figure 1) as a region of high aridity and highly variable precipitation events largely associated with its position under the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) (Lucio et al. 2011). This has contributed to high numbers of the Sahel population facing food insecurity at 29.2 million, 9.4 million of whom could face food deficits classified as extreme (FOA2019). Large areas in the region are projected to face an increase in the severity of food insecurity over the coming year as seen in figure 2, particularly Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Senegal and Nigeria. 

Figure 2 - Source: RPCA

I seek to understand more about the linkages between water and the aforementioned climatic features and this food scarcity, whilst the region’s population faces rapid growth and accompanying cultural changes that have increased water demands per capita. I will develop my understanding of how populations have sought to design systems at varying scales to provide for these social changes through trans-scalar, interlinking organisational frameworks, such as agricultural technologies or provision of food through trade. I want to understand how this process is impacted by the nature of knowledge and power held by these parties and how these structures are shaped by legacies of historical interventions such as Western colonisation and ensuing global development agendas like the Washington Consensus. 

Whilst such social factors are crucial determinants of water and food access across the Sahel region, I will explore the ways in which environmental and climatological factors interlink with this such as soil degradation and climate change.