4.15 MB - Food Security Clusters

More documents

Recommendations

Info

South Sudan: How a new country can feed its peopleThis drought risk pattern is linked to the climateregime of northern Kenya. The regions of SouthSudan where the ITF related rainfall regimedominates have far more reliable seasonalrainfall. As expected, the southwest regionsspanning the Greenbelt have the least variabilityin rainfall.FloodsFlooding is a common natural phenomenain South Sudan and is essential for manylivelihoods. Flood water increases the fishcatch and enriches the soil. Traditionally,communities move to higher grounds whenlowlands are inundated and practice recessioncultivation in the productive flooded fertilefields once the rainy season is over. Recedingfloods create good dry-season grazing areascalled toic. However, excessive flooding can alsocause significant hazards.Flooding becomes hazardous when it exceedswhat is commonly considered as normal interms of frequency, intensity, scale and spatialspread. In the context of South Sudan there aretwo types of flooding:1. Large scale riverine flooding which resultsfrom heavy rainfall in the catchment areasof the major river systems and dependenton rainfall patterns outside of South Sudan,including Central African Republic andDemocratic Republic of Congo for riversfeeding into the Bahr el Ghazal (Juur, Lol),Uganda (Nile) and Ethiopia (Sobat).2. Localized flooding as a consequence of veryheavy and continuing downpours,particularly in areas where soil type andtopography lend themselves toaccumulation of water.These two types of flooding are notindependent: heavy rainfall is more likely inwetter than average seasons and these tend tobe more spread out spatially. Therefore onereinforces the other.The area flooded by overflowing of rivers isdetermined by the broad hydrological riversystem in the country. Localized floods have aless deterministic spatial pattern. Riverineseasonal flooding tends to occur at a slower ratethan the more sudden heavy rainfall floodevents.The situation worsens when the heavy rains inSouth Sudan or neighbouring countries comeearlier than usual when communities are notprepared to move to higher grounds or whenthey come at a critical stage of cropdevelopment, destroying crops such as maize,sorghum, groundnuts and vegetables.Flood hazards become disasters when acommunity’s coping capacities are not able towithstand the impact. Community level copingstrategies include moving people and livestockto higher ground, relocating to friends orrelatives in nearby villages or building dykes andmounds around houses to divert water flow.Many start to rely on fishing and gathering wildfoods or on food they have saved for anemergency or they share food and non-foodresources through traditional networks.<strong>Food</strong> insecurity indicators generally worsenparticularly among the vulnerable members ofthe community and returnees and IDPs. Manysuffer water-borne diseases after drinkingcontaminated flood water while incidences ofdiarrhoea, upper respiratory diseases andmalaria all increase.Access becomes nearly impossible in floodedareas impacting food, medicines and fuelsupplies. Social services including education,40
South Sudan: How a new country can feed its peoplehealth, transport and markets are cut and lackof adequate information from many of the floodaffected areas prevents humanitarian partnersfrom responding effectively. As a consequenceacute malnutrition rates increase sharply inflood affected areas.Mapping the risk of localized floods wouldrequire an analysis of the spatial distribution ofextreme rainfall amounts from daily recordsover the long term from a sufficient number ofrainfall stations. This does not exist for SouthSudan. The risk of seasonal floods is easier tomap with the lowland plains being most proneto flooding. Results are presented in Map 6.7Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Unity, Jonglei, UpperNile and Lakes are the states most at risk offlooding.Factoring in a population estimate based onLandscan information provides an estimate ofthe flood-exposed population (Map 6.8). Highernumbers of exposed population areconcentrated in the Bahr El Ghazal wetlandswhere rural population densities are higher.These regions provide a very rich naturalresource base and hence would be able tosupport larger population numbers (theinfluence of the proximity to better developedinfrastructure and market links to the northernregions may also play a role).41
Page 2 and 3:
Front page image: Lydia Wamala/WFPA
Page 5: Report on Food Security and Nutriti
Page 11 and 12: MAPS/TABLES/FIGURESList of MapsMap
Page 15 and 16: BACKGROUNDFood Security backgroundF
Page 17 and 18: MeasuringFood Insecurity inSouth Su
Page 19 and 20: South Sudan: How a new country can
Page 23 and 24: The hunger indexThe hunger index pi
Page 25 and 26: Underweight (%)South Sudan: How a n
Page 27 and 28: 19971998199920002001200220032004200
Page 29 and 30: 19961997199819992000200120022003200
Page 33 and 34: CaloriesCaloriesSouth Sudan: How a
Page 35 and 36: CaloriesCaloriesSouth Sudan: How a
Page 39 and 40: Figure 3.12 - Wealth quintiles and
Page 53: South Sudan: How a new country can
show all

4.15 MB - Food Security Clusters

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?