User:PirateShip6/sandbox/ClimateChangeAdaptationGovernanceInWestAfrica

Climate change adaptation governance in West Africa
West Africa is a region that is anticipated to experience major changes within its climate. Because of its economic and infrastructural vulnerabilities, climate change creates a serious issue that demands policy intervention to ensure the region's climate resilience and adaptive capacity. In response to the threat of climate change, the West African region has created new systems of governance as a key adaptation measure.

West Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. It includes the countries Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte D'Ivoire (i.e., Ivory Coast), Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. As, Saint Helena, Acension and Tristan da Cunha is a geographic outlier, it is not subject to typical climate change trends expected within the overall region of West Africa.

Overview of region
West Africa is the area of Africa located approximately within the latitudes of 5-20ºN and the longitudes of 15ºE and 17ºW. It can be divided into five East-West regions, also known as bioclimatic zones. From north to south, these five regions are the Sahara, Sahel, Sudan, Guinean, and Guineo-Congolian. Typically, as the latitude increases, the length of the dry season increases and annual rainfall decreases. Maximum temperatures and temperature variability also increase as latitude increases.

Climate
Main article: Bioclimatic Regions Map

The Saharan Region is the northernmost region of West Africa, and it consists of mainly arid landscapes. Here, average annual rainfall ranges anywhere from 0 to 150 mm.

The Sahelian Region is a semiarid area that follows the Sahara. Rainfall is highly variable, with a regional average annual rainfall ranging from 150 to 600 mm. This region experiences both the rainy and dry seasons; the dry season lasts from 8 to 9 months.

The Sudanian Region follows the Sahel. Like the Sahel, the Sudan experiences both rainy and dry seasons, with a slightly shorter dry season of 5 to 7 months. Average annual rainfall ranges from 600 to 1,200 mm.

The Guinean Region follows the Sudan and experiences both a rainy and dry season. During the rainy season, the region experiences much larger volumes of precipitation than the Sahel and the Sudan, with average annual rainfall ranging from 1,200 to 2,200 mm. With that, the dry season can still last up to 7 or 8 months in this region.

The Guineo-Congolian Region follows the Guinean, and it is the wettest out of the five West African regions. It receives an average annual rainfall of anywhere from 2,200 to 5,000 mm. This rainfall can occur throughout the year, or it can be distributed across two distinct rainy seasons. The Guineo-Congolian can be split into two separate East and West sections, with the Dahomey Gap resting in between. The Dahomey Gap resembles the bioclimatic zone of the Guinean.

Ecosystem characteristics
Stretching across northern Africa is the Sahara Desert, which is the world’s largest hot desert. The Sahara extends approximately covering 3.3 million square miles, and encompasses about 25 percent of the African continent.

Some topographical features of the regions include mountains, plateaus, sand- and gravel-covered plains, salt flats, basins and depressions. While West Africa is home to the Niger River, the region is water scarce and biota in the Sahara region are well adapted to extremely dry conditions.

South of the Saraha, the Sahel is a semi-arid, transitional zone. The area is home to herbaceous vegetation as well as many small wetlands. The biome transitions into savanna, characterized by tall grasses, trees and fires, which commonly burn through the woody vegetation. As latitude decreases, the biome becomes seasonally wet-and-dry deciduous or semi-deciduous forest. Areas have dense forest cover and there is a rich diversity in the fauna and flora.

Regional climate
Global climate change is predicted to have a significant impact on the West African region. Average maximum surface air temperatures are predicted to be greater than the 99.9th percentile of all current air temperature values, with overall increases in warming estimated at 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade. The number of precipitation events is predicted to decrease across the region, but for the fewer times that it does rain, the rainfall rate is expected to increase by more than 95% of current levels. Sea level is expected to rise by a range of 1.3 to 1.7 mm/year, with the Gulf of Guinea in particular having already experienced a rise in its sea level by 3.05 mm.

Many surface waters span across multiple national borders and governing jurisdictions; however, climate change has caused these flows to shift and decline, removing water accessibility from areas that had historically relied on the resource.

Risk of desertification
As the changing climate is posing increasing effects on Western Africa, environmental degradation is a growing concern. Specifically, desertification, which is defined as, "land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities", is a prominent threat. Droughts related to climate change, have begun to accelerate desertification, which in turn contributes to the persistence of drought. Across Western Africa, desertification has already reduced agricultural productivity and incomes (high confidence) and contributed to the loss of biodiversity in some dryland regions.

Agriculture
The agricultural industry will be subject to major shocks in its production. With climate change, Western Africa is increasingly vulnerable to episodic climate shocks and exacerbated droughts. There will be risk of crop failures, reduced agricultural productivity, and food scarcity issues. This will result in food crises for the region, with drier areas enduring the most severe stresses.

Crop farming
Many crop farms in West Africa will be negatively impacted by changes in temperature and precipitation levels. More specifically, crops are expected to be more susceptible to heat stress. Heat stress can be divided into three different aspects: the degree to which heat stress exposes crops to temperatures beyond what they are traditionally adapted for, the length of time that a crop undergoes heat stress, and the speed at which heat stress ensues. In the case with West Africa, higher and more long-lasting temperatures will put unfamiliar heat stress on domestic crop production, and this can decrease overall crop yields and even cause overall crop failure. One study predicts median crop yields to decrease by 0 to 2% per decade as a result of climate change ; however, decreases in production have been modeled to range from anywhere between 0 to 40 percent.

Livestock farming
Livestock is a dominant sector across Western Africa. In the Sahelian region, livestock accounts for about 35% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While livestock is responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, the secor will be impacted in numerous ways by climate change. Both the increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns will affect farmer’s ability to raise livestock. Cattle native to tropical regions, such as the zebu cattle, are able to adapt to increasing temperature conditions through undergoing enhanced perspiration. However, this adaptation requires increased water uptake by the cattle, which is problematic given the environment of growing water scarcity. Additionally, the projected increasing severity and decreasing frequency of precipitation events will impact the ability to rear livestock, especially in nomadic communities.

Fisheries and aquaculture
The fisheries of Western Africa are a vital aspect of food production and food security. Approximately 200 million people depend on the sector for their nutritional needs. Anticipated changes associated with climate change are expected to impact fundamental aspects of the fishery industry. Projected effects include changes in the seasonal timescales of coastal plankton and fish populations, and reductions in floodplain zones, which are used for inland fishing. Additionally, as issues of water scarcity escalate, the construction of dams for water management or energy production, will further reduce available fishing areas.

Forestry
Western Africa is home to over 66 million hectares of forests and it is estimated that forest services support nearly 234 million people. The forest ecosystems across West Africa are biodiversity hotspots and the management of these forests has critical implications for soil and water conservation. As communities face the environmental and socioeconomic stresses related to climate change, there is a potential for activities harming forest integrity, such as encroachment and illegal logging to increase.

General policy
Many West African countries have developed and implemented a National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA), which exclusively focuses on determining appropriate policy decisions for improving a country’s adaptability and resilience to climate change. Initial National Communication (INC) plans also serve to help West African countries anticipate and adapt to future changes in the climate.

Farmer insurance
Index based insurance is one way countries in West Africa have adapted to predicted changes in its climate and crop production capacity, which is a type of insurance model that uses farmer production as its source of measurement. One type of index based insurance is rainfall insurance, and this option is commonly used within the district-level scale. Another type of insurance includes the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Program (GAIP), which protects Ghanaian farmers against losses in crop production that are caused by climate change.

Crop management
One way farmers have begun to adapt to climate change is by adjusting the planting and harvesting dates of their crops. During the planting season, crops can be planted more densely together. The reuse of crop residues for mulch has also been employed as an economical way of containing moisture within soils. As another alternative, national governments have been advocating for the adoption of genetically engineered crop varieties that are more resilient to regional changes in climate.

Water management
Currently, the West African Vision for Water, Life, and the Environment for 2025 is one of the principle frameworks for determining appropriate water resources policy within the agriculture industry, and one of its focus areas include the expansion of water conservation technologies and systems. Two options include drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting. Low-cost drip irrigation systems are both more water resource efficient and resilient to prolonged periods of drought. However, these systems have not been widely adopted throughout the region, so work is being done to make these technologies more financially feasible. Rainwater harvesting technologies help farmers prepare and adapt to future precipitation changes, and many areas across the Sahel have promoted the construction of these systems through non-governmental organization cash-for-work (CFW) programming.

Soil conservation
Soil conservation practices look different across West Africa depending on the bioclimatic zone. For the more arid areas, emphasis is placed on retaining soil moisture. For the wetter regions, a balance between avoiding water-logging and erosion from stormwater runoff is prioritized. Zaï farming and the use of demi-lunes are also two types of soil conservation practices that are growing in popularity across the region.

Urban migration policies
Main article: Strengthening Climate Change Adaption

Across Western Africa, there is currently a considerable urban migration trend. Urban residents are vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to the increasing density of cities, exposure to climate risks as well as due to insufficient urban infrastructure. Climate change’s effects will be unavoidable, and thus social and economic adaptation policies are vital for urban centers.

Currently, there is not a country in West Africa with a distinct policy for urban adaptation. Adaptation policies are taking place on a local level and there are numerous policies implemented at regional levels focusing on shaping resilient cities. It has been identified that such policies may weakly connect the key actors in governance and planning and is suggested state and local governments need to coordinate in constructing and implementing adaptation policies.

Creating new forms of governance
Due to the variability of potential climate change impacts, strong adaptation strategies and policies must be able to evaluate diverse factors, account for different timescales, and readjust to ever-changing research. An emerging governance strategy is Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP), which is a community based approach to gather useful information about different potential futures and to facilitate the implementation of new findings. The goal of PSP is to ultimately strengthen the adaptive capacity of communities, specifically for disaster risk reduction and climate-resilient development.

There are many regional collaboration initiatives for climate change adaptation among nations in Western Africa, and nations have worked collectively to identify vulnerabilities, weigh possible adaptation strategies, and evaluate methods of implementation.

Institutions engaged in climate change adaptation governance in West Africa:

 * Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
 * Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS)
 * Organization for the Development of the Senegal River Basin
 * Niger Basin Authority (NBA)
 * Global Water Partnership West Africa