Urban Poverty & Climate Change in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania:

indicate a slight increase in rainfall over the entire northern coast of Tanzania, including
the Dar es Salaam region. According to Watkiss et al. (2011), however, it is unclear
whether rainfall in Tanzania will increase or decrease with climate change, with some
models projecting that precipitation may increase in the late summer, with some signs of
drying in early summer. Figure 15 shows monthly precipitation projections to the 2050s
for a B1 scenario.
If annual rainfall does increase over coming years, the current observed declining trend in
number of rainy days for Dar es Salaam over the past several decades (refer to Figures 7-
10), should it continue into the future, indicates a potentially grim situation from the
perspective of severe flooding in the city, as it suggests that rainfall intensity is rising.
Increase in rainfall intensity is in agreement with general expectations that variability is
increasing with climate change, and that both droughts and floods are likely to increase in
magnitude and frequency.
Figure 14: Projected mean rainfall (mm) change during long rains season (March – May)
S
2
4
6
8
10
12
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
E
Source: (Matari et al., 2008)
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