Water and Environmental Change

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

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