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Final Thoughts

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In my last blog, I would like to sum up my previous contents and make a self-reflection based on my idea.  In this topic, I have put my focus on the impact of climate change on Africa countries, specifically via extreme events. My overall contents are around Africa’s flood, which is the most common natural disaster and has become one of the biggest challenges on the continent. However, this continent also suffers from severe droughts every year, which shall also draw our attention to it. At the same time, I placed my focus on the physical cause of these extreme events, such as the unusual climate phenomenon (positive Indian Ocean Dipole) these years. On the other hand, the human-triggered causes behind them, such as deforestation, should also be discussed in more detail. In my first two blogs, I talked about water and environmental change from a broad perspective. From the relationship between climate change and extreme events, I focused on its overall impact on the weather and water c
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Climate Change Resettlement -- Living With Flood or Forced to Move?

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I n my first blog,  I said  “environmental change” is a wide concept  that  we shall not limit to climate change only. So this week’s focus will be more on the human side, which is the resettlement of people for adapting  environmental change .  It  is a controversial topic  throughout history , and  I will  discuss it from different  perspectives   using some examples  from Africa, and link its impact on water.   Planned resettlement in Africa has a long tradition as it is commonly used as a political approach for increasing resilience to climate change and natural disasters( Artur et al. 2013 ), or simply for reordering the poor and vulnerable population from the government’s interests ( Arnall, 2013 ). Resettlement provides opportunities for the production and human settlement to be reconstructed , thus  improving  the standard of living of people affected and their regional economy ( Dwivedi, 1999:44 ). In the current world, resettlement has become an “overriding legitimization” fo
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The Indian Ocean Dipole Part II -- The Future Concerns Behind Climate Change and Future Uncertainty for Africa

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Last time we have talked about the reason behind extreme events -- the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which contributed to Africa’s precipitation in the eastern region via its positive phase. Under the current situation, the effects of IOD in the future  could be worse off due to climate change , especially for Africa. Thus, today I want to continue with this topic and extend our focus to the bigger picture of the future, which is associated with Africa’s resilience to any changes regarding climate change.   In a warmer world, there will be more strong positive IODs, such as the one in 2019 that caused devastating floods in east Africa (eg: Mozambique), to bring more extreme events. The climate extremes in 2019 tend to occur more frequently under global warming in the future ( Cai et al., 2021 ). Also, it has been illustrated that pIODs are becoming more common. The occurrence and effects of pIODs are expected to increase with greenhouse warming from the modelling reconstruction and predic
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Indian Ocean Dipole: The Key Culprit Behind the Recent Intensive Floods in Africa

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In   past  blogs we have talked about how does climate change affect Africa’s countries via extreme events at different locations. So, today’s focus will be the driver of these events, which is a climate phenomenon  that is similar to   El Niño  called “Indian Ocean Dipole”. It has been   declared  that there has been a negative Indian Ocean Dipole   in  July of 2021 --   the first negative event in five years .  In this blog, I will explain what is this and how does this affect Africa’s water system.   The frequent flooding and landslides in East Africa each year have caused catastrophic damages to the region. This has been linked to  the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) - the difference in  sea-surface temperatures in opposite parts of the Indian Ocean  (the western Indian Ocean and the eastern Indian Ocean south of Indonesia), which results in changes in the air moisture and contributes to the rainfall variability in all countries around the Indian Ocean Basin. It can be considered as “the
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Tropical Cyclone Idai -- “A Humanitarian Disaster of Great Proportion“

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Hello and welcome back! Following the blog last week, I would like to share you with the case study of a flood event in East Africa.    Today’s case study is about the scenic country in southeastern Africa -- Mozambique. It is the coast area that separates mainland Africa from the island of  Madagascar  by the Mozambique Channel, which creates its extensive coastline and natural harbours ( figure 1 ). The great Zambezi River has provided large water resources for irrigation and thus an important basis for agriculture and hydroelectric power in the region.  Figure 1  Location of Mozambique, Africa However, climate-related disasters are considered to be one of the most serious challenges in Mozambique ( INGC , 2009 ). It is a country that suffers a lot from tropical cyclones due to climate change and its low-lying location, which brings  strong winds, storm surge,   and rain-fall triggered floods  to the land.   The situation becomes even worse with the severe impacts and uncertainties b
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Climate Change Impacts to Africa and The Extreme Weathers

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  Hi and welcome back to my blog!   Since I have talked about the general situation of Africa’s water under the influence of climate change in my last blogs, I would like to share you more with the elaboration of a few case studies of extreme events around Africa starting from this blog , which then shows the physical and humanitarian impacts to the affected area from different extent.   A series of problems associated with water in Africa has been triggered by climate change. Rising temperature and variations in rainfall across Africa lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events —  heatwaves, droughts, floods, and storms, among others , which  continues to hit Africa’s water condition and affect human well being to a great extent over past four decades.   The rate of temperature rise for Africa in recent decades has been recorded at a rapid trend (faster than global mean temperature) that can be comparable to most other continents, with the latest predi
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An Introduction: The Water Concern in Africa and its Impact from Environmental Change

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Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Fansiyuan yang, and I am an international undergraduate student who is studying at the UCL geography department. The major interest of my blog is on the water and environmental change in Africa, which will be presented and explained from different  topic s  in the following weeks . For my first blog, I  will  talk about  the water problems in Africa, t he need for exploring  its  relationship  with environmental change, and  the importance of  recognizing  complexity for  this continent . Water is one of the most valuable resources on earth, especially freshwater. With the rocketing growth of the world’s population over the past 50 years, the ' water crisis ' has been raised on every continent, with the fact that "2.3 billion people live in water-stressed countries, of which 733 million live in high and critically water-stressed countries” ( UN-Water 2021 ), and “700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarc
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