Livelihood Security: Climate change, conflict and migration in - UNEP

These events undermine crop yields and lead
to reductions in food availability within individual
households, as well as at the national level. This
decline also impacts the income of farmers – and
that of States – who depend on the sale of agricultural
goods. 120 This was exemplified in Niger’s
2005 food crisis, where drought combined with an
invasion of locusts led to both a reduction in food
availability and an inability of poor households to
purchase food. 121 In combination with changing
rainfall patterns, seasonal droughts have already
contributed to changes in livelihoods. Agropastoralism,
for example, has become increasingly popular.
This livelihood combines both farming and livestock
breeding and is considered to be a strategy used
to mitigate increasing climate uncertainties. 122 This
has decreased the interdependency between
farmers and herders, but increased the competition
for suitable land.
3.5 Occurrence of flooding
Map 9 depicts the areas affected by flooding from
1985 to 2009. Unlike the data for Map 7, which is
limited to the seasonal rainy period, flood data is
Livelihood Security: Climate Change, Migration and Conflict in the Sahel
based on annual information. Historical data from
the Dartmouth Flood Observatory was used to calculate
when a flood had occurred and whether the
frequency had increased over the 24-year period.
The map shows that central Sahel was most
affected by flooding during the study period, with
significant areas of southern Burkina Faso, northern
Nigeria and south-western Niger experiencing
between nine and ten floods, and the border
between Benin and Niger, as well as small pockets
of Nigeria facing up to twelve. Virtually the entirety
of Burkina Faso, most of Southern Niger, northern
Ghana, Benin and Togo, as well as northern Nigeria
and southern Chad experienced between seven
and eight floods, representing 36 per cent of the
population and more than 11 per cent of the land
area of the CILSS countries. Over the same period,
large parts of Mali, Ghana, Senegal, Benin, Niger,
Nigeria and Chad – including an estimated 18 per
cent of the population and 15 per cent of the land
area of the CILSS countries – saw five to six floods.
The remainder of the region experienced a smaller
incidence of flooding, with zero to two floods in most
of the countries along the Atlantic coast, from the
Gambia to Côte d’Ivoire.
Flooding has had a significant impact on livelihoods in the region, destroying infrastructure and crops,
and often leading to massive displacement. In recent years, the region has experienced an increase in the
frequency and severity of flooding
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