Evaluating spatial scales of climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa

2006 ◽  
Vol 88 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 169-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Jury ◽  
H. Rautenbach ◽  
M. Tadross ◽  
A. Philipp
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan

scholarly journals Conflict and its relationship to climate variability in Sub-Saharan Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 775 ◽  
pp. 145646
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Mack ◽  
Erin Bunting ◽  
James Herndon ◽  
Richard A. Marcantonio ◽  
Amanda Ross ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan

Exploring the link between climate variability and mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 206
Author(s):  
Baishali Bakshi ◽  
Raphael J. Nawrotzki ◽  
Joshua R. Donato ◽  
Luisa Silva Lelis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan

scholarly journals Farmers’ Perceptions on Climate Variability and Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in Cinzana, Mali

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Touré Halimatou ◽  
Zampaligre Nouhoun ◽  
Traoré Kalifa ◽  
Kyei-Baffour Nicholas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Future Economic Development

Several studies predict that climate change will highly affect the African continent. These changes in climate and climate variability may be challenging issues for future economic development of the continent in general, and particularly in the region of sub Saharan Africa. Offering a case study of Sahelian zone of Mali in the present study aimed to understand farmers’ perceptions of climate variability and change and to evaluate adaptation options used by farmers in the Cinzana commune of Mali. One hundred and nineteen farmers were interviewed using a questionnaire designed with six sections. The result showed that all farmers interviewed were aware of climate change and climate variability. The Farmers perceived a decrease in annual rainfall variability and an increase of temperature as main factors of climate change and climate variability. The observed meteorological data, showed a decrease of precipitation distribution during the last 14 years of which was observed by farmers. Several strategies such as selling animals, use of improved crop varieties, new activities (outside agriculture) and credit were the commonly preferred adaptation strategies to deal with climate change and variability. Factors surveyed, age, gender, education, household size, farm size were found to be significantly correlated to self-reported to adaptation.

scholarly journals Food plant diversity as broad-scale determinant of avian frugivore richness

2007 ◽  
Vol 274 (1611) ◽  
pp. 799-808 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Daniel Kissling ◽  
Carsten Rahbek ◽  
Katrin Böhning-Gaese
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Habitat Heterogeneity ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Fruit Size ◽  
Food Plant ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Avian Frugivores ◽  
Sub Saharan

The causes of variation in animal species richness at large spatial scales are intensively debated. Here, we examine whether the diversity of food plants, contemporary climate and energy, or habitat heterogeneity determine species richness patterns of avian frugivores across sub-Saharan Africa. Path models indicate that species richness of Ficus (their fruits being one of the major food resources for frugivores in the tropics) has the strongest direct effect on richness of avian frugivores, whereas the influences of variables related to water–energy and habitat heterogeneity are mainly indirect. The importance of Ficus richness for richness of avian frugivores diminishes with decreasing specialization of birds on fruit eating, but is retained when accounting for spatial autocorrelation. We suggest that a positive relationship between food plant and frugivore species richness could result from niche assembly mechanisms (e.g. coevolutionary adaptations to fruit size, fruit colour or vertical stratification of fruit presentation) or, alternatively, from stochastic speciation–extinction processes. In any case, the close relationship between species richness of Ficus and avian frugivores suggests that figs are keystone resources for animal consumers, even at continental scales.

Processes, Products & Policy: Investigating how drought events are perceived differently across spatial scales

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josie Baulch ◽  
Justin Sheffield ◽  
Jadu Dash
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Scaling Analysis ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
High Resolution Data ◽  
New Era ◽  
Drought Assessment ◽  
Satellite Technology ◽  
Sub Saharan

<p>Traditionally, availability of consistent, high quality, high-resolution data for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been limited, with political barriers, poverty and slow technological advancement all contributing to this issue. Over the past 30 years, a rapid increase in the advancement of satellite technology has led to the new era of ‘big data’, which includes a number of high-resolution, global remote sensing datasets. With an overwhelming amount of data now being downloaded and processed, we need to be sure that the best products are being used, in the most appropriate way, to determine the onset and evolution of extreme hydrological events and to influence policy implementation. This study uses scaling analysis of a number of hydrological and agricultural variables to investigate how spatial resolution influences monitoring of drought events. By studying the 2016/17 drought in Kenya, and assessing the drought footprint at various resolutions, it is evident that the data and its scale largely influences the apparent drought signal. Across all the variables, coarser data showed a significantly reduced drought extent than finer data, with a number of regions appearing to not fall below the drought threshold, when in reality, that area was experiencing drought. The implications of these scale issues could be significant, as drought policies in Kenya are implemented on a county level basis. By understanding the importance of effective scaling between the decision-making scale (policy), the data used for drought assessment (products) and the impacts of drought on the ground (processes), updated drought management and mitigation techniques can be used, with potential to reduce vulnerability to future drought events.</p>

scholarly journals Observed controls on resilience of groundwater to climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa

Nature ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 572 (7768) ◽  
pp. 230-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark O. Cuthbert ◽  
Richard G. Taylor ◽  
Guillaume Favreau ◽  
Martin C. Todd ◽  
Mohammad Shamsudduha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan

scholarly journals PPMaP: Reproducible and Extensible Open-Source Software for Plant Phenological Phase Duration Prediction and Mapping in Sub-Saharan Africa

Agriculture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 515
Author(s):  
Henri E. Z. Tonnang ◽  
Ritter A. Guimapi ◽  
Anani Y. Bruce ◽  
Dan Makumbi ◽  
Bester T. Mudereri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Crop Protection ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Phase Duration ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Landscape Level

Understanding the detailed timing of crop phenology and their variability enhances grain yield and quality by providing precise scheduling of irrigation, fertilization, and crop protection mechanisms. Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) provide a unique opportunity to develop agriculture-related tools that enhance wall-to-wall upscaling of data outputs from point-location data to wide-area spatial scales. Because of the heterogeneity of the worldwide agro-ecological zones where crops are cultivated, it is unproductive to perform plant phenology research without providing means to upscale results to landscape-level while safeguarding field-scale relevance. This paper presents an advanced, reproducible, and open-source software for plant phenology prediction and mapping (PPMaP) that inputs data obtained from multi-location field experiments to derive models for any crop variety. This information can then be applied consecutively at a localized grid within a spatial framework to produce plant phenology predictions at the landscape level. This software runs on the ‘Windows’ platform and supports the development of process-oriented and temperature-driven plant phenology models by intuitively and interactively leading the user through a step-by-step progression to the production of spatial maps for any region of interest in sub-Saharan Africa. Maize (Zea mays L.) was used to demonstrate the robustness, versatility, and high computing efficiency of the resulting modeling outputs of the PPMaP. The framework was implemented in R, providing a flexible and easy-to-use GUI interface. Since this allows for appropriate scaling to the larger spatial domain, the software can effectively be used to determine the spatially explicit length of growing period (LGP) of any variety.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document