Green Earth Africa

How can we secure a future for the people living on the front line of climate change? In Eastern Africa, environmental scientist Katharine Cross is helping to safeguard water resources that are becoming more and more unpredictable.

Climate change is already taking its toll in Eastern Africa. Even the snow caps of the iconic Mount Kilimanjaro are receding and are projected to disappear by 2025. In many areas, increasing populations and an ever-increasing demand for water are leading to conflicts over resources.

Katharine’s expertise as an environmental scientist, particularly in groundwater and river basin management, is being put to good use in the region. She and her colleagues are involved in a variety of projects across Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Kenya which focus on strengthening institutions to better manage water resources between the different users such as farmers, hydropower companies and pastoralists.

They identify ways to adapt to climate change impacts which can include finding alternative sources of livelihood, rehabilitating river banks and improving dialogue between users to share water resources more equally. The aim is to make sure there is enough water in the region’s rivers to service all needs, as well as sustain the natural environment.

Through close collaboration with IUCN’s Drylands Programme, the Water and Wetlands Programme for which Katharine works uses an integrated approach which considers aspects such as rangeland management within water catchment areas. This means working with governments and communities to plan how water resources are used and shared within a catchment and beyond to the wider ecosystem.

Change takes time, especially when it involves changing the way natural resources are managed and governed. IUCN has worked for many years in the Pangani River Basin which is shared between Kenya and Tanzania and momentum is building.

Katharine says the highlights of her work include working with governments in various countries and being able to influence the way water resources are managed and really helping people cope with climate change in practical ways.

Many of the lessons and best practices from different projects are being applied by the government, specifically in Tanzania and Uganda, in other river basins, and they are also being scaled-up to other projects where IUCN is involved in the wider Eastern and Southern Africa region.

As climate change rears its ugly head, agriculture is becoming harder and harder to sustain. A resident of Faza Island gives his story…

Mr Beltran lives in northern Nicaragua, one of the poorest and driest areas of the country, where a pilot project to harvest rainwater is beginning to transform local agriculture and local people’s lives.

“Farmers have come from other parts of the country to see what is happening here. I no longer depend on seasonal rainfall. I produce three times more maize and have a surplus to trade,” says Mr Beltran.

The project involves building earthen dams to form reservoirs or ponds that can collect surface water run-off from the hills during the rainy season.

The water is then used for irrigation during periods of drought.

“The problem in Nicaragua and the majority of tropical areas in Latin America is that you have a huge contrast between the rainy and the dry season,” says Gonzalo Zorrilla, who is directing the project.

“In Nicaragua’s case, you have a lot of rain for six months and then six months when there is practically none.”

Catching the rain

The idea for the initiative stemmed from work in southern Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay by the Latin American Fund for Irrigated Rice (FLAR) and supported by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

In these countries, more than 1m hectares (2.5m acres) of rice have been irrigated with water collected by the farmers themselves.

“With our partners in Nicaragua, the local rice farmers’ association, we thought it could be possible to use the same technology to help small farmers in the tropics,” said Mr Zorrilla.

“We convinced a UN agency, the Common Fund for Commodities, CFC, to fund the project.”

The idea is to construct the reservoirs as cheaply and simply as possible.

A dam is built between two hillsides to catch the rainwater run-off and create a pool of water.

An outlet tube reinforced with steel bars lies underneath the dam, so all the farmer has to do to irrigate his crops is open the valve.

“If you go anywhere in northern Costa Rica, Panama or Nicaragua, there is massive unemployment during six months of the year. People have no income, no crops, and in severe cases their cattle are dying,” says Edward Pulver, agricultural scientist at FLAR.

When the project started, he says, many farmers were not optimistic about their future.

“But as soon as we started mentioning irrigation, their eyes lit up like Christmas tree lights because they had hope.

“They saw they didn’t have to be poor, there was a way out. It is incredibly impressive to see that.”

Fourteen dams have been completed or are being built in Nicaragua, and similar projects are under way in Costa Rica and southern Mexico.

“We are getting the same yields of maize in Nicaragua that you get in the Midwest in the US,” says Mr Pulver.

“Fresh corn was not available in the dry season. Now, because of irrigation, some farmers sell their whole production as fresh corn for human consumption,” says Mr Zorrilla.

This means a potential income of several thousand dollars per hectare, an amount that was “completely unimaginable in the past”, according to Mr Zorrilla.

The project has also helped farmers to vary their diet, as some of them have introduced a small fish, tilapia, to the reservoirs.

Farming’s future?

Many countries in Latin America, including Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Costa Rica have the right topography and conditions to harvest water, says Mr Pulver.

“In Latin America we have excess water. Our problem is we have flooding, so if we can just capture this water, store it and plant crops during the dry season, we can feed ourselves very easily.

“This technology can work in the poorest of countries, and the CFC wants us to take the idea to Africa.”

A key aim of the pilot project, which ends in 2012, is to train local people and officials so they can build their own dams and reservoirs.

“If we finish with just 14 dams in Nicaragua, nothing would have change there because too few farmers would have benefited,” says Mr Zorrilla.

“Globally, despite the challenges of growing populations, water is really under used.

“The intelligent, sustainable use of water could give rise to a water revolution, a blue revolution,” he says.

One key factor seems already guaranteed: the conviction of the farmers themselves.

“If you expand access to this technology, you can help to lessen the impact drought has in Nicaragua,” says Mr Beltran.

“Farmers can have a balanced diet, money for their farm and for their children’s education. On my farm, there’s now work for four of us.

“This project has really changed the way we think.”

17th November 2011.
The fortnightly Extreme Weather series features the latest reports and analysis on extreme weather events around the world. If there’s a drought, hurricane, freak snowstorm or severe flooding, Extreme Weather will cover the story and the science behind the headlines – with expert analysis from leading meteorologists and weather data from Vestas.

In the first episode of Extreme Weather we take a look at the devastating floods which have hit Thailand, claiming 500 lives and costing the country an estimated $4 billion. We turn our attention to freak snow storms in the US, the coldest places on earth, dust storms in Texas and the likelihood of climate change bringing on more extreme weather.
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Foreign investors aren’t just after land in Africa. Access to water is essential – which can bring them into direct competition with the needs of local communities

Passengers in a pirogue watch Fulani herders cross the Niger river with their cattle on the outskirts of Mopti, Mali. Photograph: Florin Iorganda/Reuters

Climate change skeptics would have you believe that global warming is an abstract theory, a dispute between scientists with differing interpretations of computer models, temperature data and ice measurements. So when the conversation turns to real people facing real hardship on the frontlines of climate change, it’s no surprise that they redirect the conversation back to the abstract.

Take a look at the 171 arguments of climate skeptics compiled by Skeptical Science. You can count on the number of fingers it takes to make a peace sign the arguments about the immediate directly observable impacts of climate change (and one of these is about polar bears).

Today is World Food Day, a perfect moment to reflect on what the very real impacts of climate change mean for those who suffer from hunger and malnutrition. It comes at a time when millions of people are struggling to survive in East Africa where the worst drought in 60 years is devastating millions of lives and livelihoods.

Those on the frontlines are convinced that climate change is responsible.

As UN Humanitarian Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, says, “We have to take the impact of climate change more seriously… Everything I’ve heard has said that we used to have drought every 10 years, then it became every five years and now it’s every two years.”

A 2009 report by the World Food Programme, which describes itself as the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger, explains:

By 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger as a result of climate change is expected to increase by 10 to 20 percent more than would be expected without climate change; and the number of malnourished children is expected to increase by 24 million – 21 percent more than without climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to be the worst affected region.

Think about it. 24 million additional kids — that’s roughly equivalent to a third of US children.

But it’s not just a question of changing climate and weather patterns; it’s also about the resilience of communities to withstand such changes. As Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to the Huffington Post in July, “There’s no question that hotter and drier growing conditions in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced the resiliency of these communities. Absolutely the change in climate has contributed to this problem, without question.”

On that front, it’s not all bad news. Investments in community resilience projects show a promising way forward. See for example the success of the Morulem irrigation project in Kenya originally funded by World Vision more than 10 years ago.

If you’ve ever looked at the labels identifying the origin of the food on the shelves of your local supermarket (grapes from Chile, apple juice from China, rice from Thailand) you’ll know that the global food supply system is complex. In a warming world there will be winners and losers across a range of factors. Higher temperatures and more CO2 in the atmosphere may lead to higher crop yields in some parts of the world, and lower in others. But in an increasingly interconnected world other factors will be equally important and the net result doesn’t bode well.

Creative Commons: International Foundation of Red Cross

Consider these three for example:

1) There is increasing competition for arable land: A new report by Oxfam International shows that foreign investors are grabbing up land in developing countries at an alarming pace. These land deals are often designed to provide food for international trade or biofuels, at the expense of local food production. Quite apart from the morally dubious implication that we are stealing food from the mouths of babes, let’s not forget the riots which erupted in Egypt, Bangladesh and Haiti in 2008 when food prices reached their all-time high. The global security implications are obvious, especially considering that vulnerable communities will increasingly be hit by other impacts from climate change as well.

2) Price of food: Earlier this year, the World Bank announced that food prices had risen by 36% since 2010, on par with the peak reached in 2008. According to the report, “The recent food price volatility is in the context of several other factors that have driven prices higher over the past year. These drivers include: (i) severe weather events in key grain exporters such as the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, and Argentina in the second half of 2010; (ii) the broadbased increase in agricultural commodity prices in 2010, which increased the competition for land and other inputs; and (iii) the link between higher oil prices and biofuels.”

3) Water for irrigation: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that water for agricultural purposes will become increasingly scarce due to climate change. Increased drought, the loss of glaciers, reduced snowmelt, and salt water intrusion into aquifers as a result of sea level rise will all have an impact on food production.

So as you sit down to dinner tonight, please spare a thought for where that food came from, and a blessing for those who produced it.

Creative Commons: Kelly Rigg, 2011

Food prices have hovered near an all-time peak since late 2010 sending tens of millions of people into poverty. Oxfam’s new interactive map shows how poor communities across the world are being hurt by high and volatile food prices. This ‘food price pressure points map’ provides a global snapshot of the impacts of the global food price crisis.

What causes food price spikes?

Failed crops – often caused by our changing climate – hit food prices hard. So does the rising cost of oil – used to grow, fertilize and transport food.

Short-sighted biofuels strategies play a part too – taking food off of people’s plates and putting it into car tanks. And dysfunctional commodities markets mean that food prices go up faster and higher than they should.

But despite all these complex causes, the effects on poor people are painfully simple. Parents choose between feeding their children and feeding themselves.

Whole communities face an uncertain future, because all anyone can think about is where their next meal will come from.

It’s time to grow out of food price spikes.

The way to GROW

Food price spikes happen because of things like climate change and rising oil prices – so a major part of the solution involves getting those root causes under control.

But what’s also needed is more effective global handling of food price crises when they do happen. That way, the poorest families have somewhere to turn even when things do get desperate – and when they suddenly can’t afford even the meager amount they could afford a week earlier.

For our world to GROW together, we need to get food price spikes under control.

photo: Oxfam East Africa/CC BY

Some background on one factor contributing to the severity of the famine in the Horn of Africa, from the Center for International Forestry Research: Deforestation

CIFOR‘s Frances Seymour say, “Forests and trees frequently form the basis of livelihood diversification, risk-minimization and coping strategies, especially for the most vulnerable households such as those led by women. However, deforestation and land degradation have hindered capacities to cope with disasters and adapt to climate variability and change in the long term.”

Which is perhaps an NGO-speak way of saying that when you chop down too many trees–something which has happened in Somalia, where the effects of the drought are most acute–you make it more difficult for people, particularly the poor and those dependent on agriculture, to cope when natural disaster strikes.

Let’s remember that the Horn of Africa is one of those places where water availability is only going to be further severely restricted due to climate change–one of the roots of UNEP head Achim Steiner warning of a “exponential” increase in climate related disasters.

And also let’s remember that population growth plays a part here too, in that the high population growth rates in the region makes the very low per-capita ecological footprint of the average person in the Horn of Africa a nevertheless environmentally destructive force.

All that said, while the director general of the World Agroforestry Centre notes, “There is a mistaken view that because these are dry areas they are destined to provide little in the way of food and are simply destined to endure frequent famines. But drylands can and do support significant crop and livestock production. In fact, the famine we are seeing today is mainly a product of neglect, not nature.”

CIFOR cites some successes in dryland crop production:

For example, in Niger, a program launched in 1983 has transformed 5 million hectares of barren land into agroforests. ICRAF experts found that during the drought that hit the country in 2005, farmers who embraced agroforestry were able to sell trees for timber and use the money to buy food. They also were able to supplement their diets with fruits and edible leaves harvested from drought-resistant trees.

As the Earth warms and the world’s population grows, competition for dwindling supplies of fresh water will intensify. As the biggest industrial user of water, the energy sector can either fight to maintain its share, or learn to conserve.

The stakes are high. As Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, put it, “water is the new oil.”

For utilities especially, water is precious. They use it most of all to cool steam generators that may be driven by coal, natural gas, nuclear or even solar energy.

In 2008, at least one nuclear reactor, inAlabama, shut down briefly because water supplies dried up during the great Southeast drought that summer. Reactors in Western Europe shut down during the 2006 heat wave and were threatened by asharp drop in river levels again this year.

Most climate models predict that the drought-stricken Southwestern United States will grow even drier and hotter–like Texas–as global warming progresses. That will harm the energy sector along with agriculture, tourism and recreation, and many other kinds of industry.

“The competition between water and energy needs represents a critical business, security, and environmental issue, but it has not yet received the attention that it deserves,” said Diana Glassman, co-author of a report by the World Policy Institute and EBG Capital on “The Water-Energy Nexus.”

“Energy production consumes significant amounts of water, and vice versa. In a world where water scarcity is a major and growing challenge, water deserves a place on the energy agenda alongside cost, carbon and security considerations.”

The report notes that coal- and oil-fired power plants use twice as much water as natural gas-fired plants. Nuclear plants use three times as much.

Some of the biggest water hogs are oil extractors, according to the report. Mining the thick tar sands of Canada may require 20 times more water than conventional oil drilling. In parts of parched south and west Texas, natural gas fracking may be curtailed due to lack of water.

Renewable energy isn’t exempt from this problem. Although wind and solar photovoltaic plants use little or no water, water-cooled solar thermal plants use five times as much as gas-fired plants. (Some solar thermal producers, like BrightSource Energy, have switched to air cooling to save water at their desert sites, despite the loss of some generating efficiency.)

And biofuels fermented from soybeans or corn “can consume thousands of times more water than traditional oil drilling, primarily through irrigation,” according to the World Resources Institute.

The best solutions—because they carry so many benefits—are programs to conserve energy and water consumption. Water-related users in California account for about 19 percent of the state’s electricity consumption, so every gallon saved through drip irrigation or improved industrial processes saves energy. Similarly, every kilowatt-hour saved means less need to build or operate power plants that use precious water.

PG&E and other utilities are also installing new air or “dry” cooling systems on their power plants that save more than 90 percent of the water required by traditional “wet” cooling.

Last but not least, wind and solar photovoltaic plants will help out as they replace traditional fossil generation. A thousand megawatts of wind power can save 1.3 billion gallons of water annually, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.