A perspective on the future of Africa’s water resources

Without water, life on earth would cease to exist. While this seems drastic, a rise in water scarcity is quickly becoming the reality. As a continent facing the highest rates of malnutrition, a critically low water supply, and a growing population, Africa is especially vulnerable to the extremes of a changing climate. This is projected to continue increasing, while impacting water and food security.

Efforts made by the Paris Agreement aim towards the 2° target for water resources within Africa, but its method is a contentious topic. For instance, there is a lack of modelling the effects that climate change scenarios could have on Africa’s water resources. Most scenarios focus on the land component and leave out an analysis of the hydroclimate. Thus, a predictive vision of the effects of climate change scenarios on African water resources is missing.

Centre researchers Luigi Piemontese, Ingo Fetzer, Johan Rockström, and Fernando Jaramillo recognise this challenge in a new article published in the journal Earth’s Future. The study offers a more predictive perspective into the future of Africa’s water resources.

Losing water, losing resources

The researchers highlight how an excess of water evaporating from land and into the atmosphere poses a major threat to food and water accessibility, considering 95% of agriculture in Africa relies on rainwater.

These facts demonstrate the detrimental impact of water loss on major resources. But in order to measure this loss, researchers point out the significance of applying a more holistic view of water loss overtime. Using a method to measure changes in the cycles of precipitation and evaporation helps with tracking fluctuations between wet and dry conditions.

The study’s authors applied this to two Representative Greenhouse Gas Concentration Pathways: the Paris Agreement (RCP4.5) and the business as usual (RCP8.5) in order to follow how the patterns of change within water resources could reflect the changes in these scenarios.

A roadmap to hydroclimatic change

The four groups of hydroclimatic change represent different regions within Africa and their respective changes in water conditions. Researchers note that predicted changes in the African hydroclimate could exacerbate water scarcity, especially in the driest regions north and south of the continent.

The results highlight four regions of projected changes for water resources in Africa:

1) Southern Africa will experience increased aridity (higher evapotranspiration) at rates similar to Northwestern Africa

2) The Niger, Chad, and Nile basins along with the Sahel strip will experience decreasing aridity

3) The Congo and tropical coast of the western region becomes more humid with increased precipitation and no change in aridity

4) Sub-Humid basins in Southeastern Africa become more arid with less precipitation.

The researchers say that “This result highlights the potential of our hydroclimatic assessment to provide a roadmap to understand the major implications of hydroclimatic change on water resources and plan for effective and sustainable adaptation strategies at the regional level.”

Overall, the four regions are expected to experience similar fluctuations in water resources, but the degree of this change varies. In the business as usual scenario, higher levels of hydroclimatic change are predicted to occur compared to the scenario aligned with the Paris Agreement. However, both scenarios predict similar shifts within the hydroclimate despite complying with the Paris Agreement.

Rather, the study’s authors suggest that “African countries can instead have more jurisdiction on local land management plans and thus directly contribute to preserve freshwater resources using water harvesting and other sustainable agricultural practices.”