Thursday 8 December 2016

How valuable are Africa’s wetlands?

Wetlands are of enormous importance to Africa. They are economic hotspots, primarily because of the food the people living in them are able to produce. They are also sensitive to ecological change and are attractive to other land users such as intensive agriculture and industrialization (Adams 1992) - a tricky combination. Wetlands constitute roughly 4.7% of the continental area of Sub-Saharan Africa (Lehner and Döll 2004, quoted in Rebelo et al 2010), but, as suggested by Adams and as I have learned in writing this post, this relatively small figure is dwarfed by the significant benefits they provide to millions of people, livestock and wildlife, not to mention whole unique ecosystems. Here, I want to take a general look at the benefits of wetlands (primarily floodplains) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and find that the difficulty of quantifying benefits derived from them is a key problem facing their successful management.

There are various services provided by African wetlands which we might call economically ‘valuable’, and quantifying these can help wetlands to be taken more seriously by planners in a neoliberal world, where economic value increasingly trumps all other values. Barbier et al. (1991) attempted to calculate the total value of agricultural, fishing and fuelwood benefits to the people of the Hadeji-Jama’are wetlands. They calculated its value at N850-1280 per hectare, or N240-370 and N375-565 per 103m3 of water for ‘maximum’ and ‘minimum’ flood input values respectively. However, as they concede, most aspects of wetlands in Africa resist easy quantification.

Many African wetlands and their catchments are strongly influenced by the Inter-tropical convergence zone, or ITCZ, and therefore experience highly seasonal rainfall, and thus seasonal flooding. This flooding is a vital ecosystem and agricultural service. Floodwaters rich with nutrients ideal for growing crops and grass for cattle grazing deposit their loads across vast areas (at one time up to 3000km2 of the Hadejia-­Jama'are Floodplain in Nigeria flooded annually). This silt and solid mineral deposition usually means farmers have no need to fallow their fields. Not only this, but floodwaters go some way to meeting evaporative demand, and therefore plants in floodplains are able to use more of the available solar energy, yielding better crops with less effort.

Given this, it’s no surprise that agriculture thrives in wetlands, sustaining populations generally much denser than those found elsewhere. The Niger Inland Delta alone supports 550,000 people, grazing for about 1-1.5 million cattle, 1 million sheep and goats and 0.7m camels. Although not the focus of this post, I shouldn’t brush over the fact that all this agricultural productivity isn’t just handed to wetland residents on a plate; it has required decades and centuries of the gradual improvement of indigenous knowledges and practises that, as Adams demonstrates, often make phenomenally efficient use of the land and of the water.

In the drier months, wetlands take on an importance far beyond their size. Adams points out that a relatively small area of fertile wetland can help support nomadic pastoralists (such as the Fulani) and large amounts of their accompanying cattle at a critical juncture in the year, when surrounding rangelands are drying out. These pastoralists in the wet season may be nowhere near the wetlands, but it is only through the existence of the wetlands that they can survive the driest months.


Additionally, floodplains rich in nutrients are excellent at sustaining huge amounts of aquatic vegetation, microorganisms and invertebrates, come the seasonal floods. This makes fishing in African wetlands a productive activity and one that can be practised most of the year using simple ‘bunds’ to cut off flooded areas from the retreating floodwaters. The harvesting and exportation of fuelwood, echinochloa and other plants can also be of ‘considerable economic significance’(Barbier et al. 1991). Given the necessary infrastructural investment, wetlands in Africa are also capable of providing scientific, educational and tourism benefits.

Seasonal flooding of wetlands also recharges groundwater-supplying aquifers in areas far outside their own surface extent, for example Lake Chad is recharged by flooding in the Hadeji-Jama'are basin hundreds of kilometres away. In this way, the benefits of wetlands are more far-reaching than the wetlands themselves. Exact measuring of recharge is however a difficult, albeit ‘not insurmountable’ challenge (Barbier et al 1991).

Wetlands are incredibly biodiverse places and are valued by the conservation community, as demonstrated by the Ramsar convention of 1971 that designates special international importance to specific wetland areas, of which there are now hundreds in Africa alone. However, the ecosystem services of wetlands are almost impossible to attach a monetary value to, although all sorts of methods and categorisations have been tried (Robertson 2012).

I've skirted around the problems facing African wetlands in this post, but I hope to get back to them in future posts. I will say this; that as capitalism and cultures of quantification, growth and development have largely been imposed upon Africa by a hegemonic Global North, and as it is these systems that frequently lead to the undervaluation of many of the significant benefits provided by wetlands, it is likely that without a (incredibly unlikely) global overthrow of the market-oriented neoliberal paradigm, the wide-ranging benefits of wetlands (and so many more ecosystems) described above will continue to be undervalued.

References

Adams, W., (1992) Wasting the Rain, London: Earthscan.

Barbier, E.B., Adams, W.M. and Kimmage, K., 1991. Economic Valuation of Wetland Benefits: The Hadejia-­Jama’are Floodplain, Nigeria , London Environmental Economics Centre Discussion Paper DP 91-02. International Institute for Environment and Development, London.


Lehner and Döll (2004) Development and validation of a global database of lakes, reservoirs and wetlands. J Hydrol (Amst) 296(1–4):1–22. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2004.03.028

Robertson, M. (2012) 'Measurement and alienation: making a world of ecosystem services', Transactions of the institute of British geographers, NS 37., 386-401. 

Monday 21 November 2016

COP22 focuses on water and agriculture in Africa

Last week (November 18th), the 22nd Conference of the Parties of the United Nation Climate Change Conference (better known as COP22) came to an end. The conference was held in Marrakech, Morocco and thus had a particular focus on African nations. Excitingly, for the first time at a COP, this year the links between climate change, water issues and agriculture took centre stage.

The Wednesday of the conference was entirely to devoted to action on water issues; scarcity, cleanliness, sustainability, all within the broader climate change framework. The ‘Water for Africa’ initiative was launched, which aims to mobilise global institutions to improve water and sanitation services to those countries most affected by climate change (UN 2016). I couldn't, however, find out much about this initiative online.

The Moroccan government also used the occasion to launch the 'Adaptation of African Agriculture Initiative' (AAA), which aims to invest $30 billion in improving the resilience of agriculture to climate change (AAAInitiative 2016). Under 'Agricultural-water control', the initiative's website lists 5 aims. I have listed these below.
  1. Reinforce water-potential mobilisation: rehabilitate existing structures to optimise their capacity and build new structural facilities;
  2. Proactively develop complementary irrigation between (a) large-scale irrigation based on the development of great plains, (b) lowland and flood-recession agriculture, (c) small-scale rural irrigation, and (d) individual irrigation;
  3. Continue to strengthen the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approach, particularly for cross-border water management;
  4. Modernise and promote more water-efficient and more productive irrigation and production systems;
  5. Proactively support irrigation development through capacity building.
It remains to be seen how effective these initiatives will be, but nevertheless, it's good to see water and agriculture in Africa receiving the attention it deserves from the World's governments.

Friday 18 November 2016

Hello!

Hello and welcome to my blog about water, development and agriculture in Africa. I’ve been fretting about making my first blog post; I’m not sure where to start! There’s a lot that can be said when looking at a whole continent through such a broad lens. I cannot hope to provide a comprehensive analysis of all the issues surrounding water, agriculture and development in Africa. Instead what I do write will hopefully find a balance between breadth and depth.

I’m coming into this blog with a background in human and development geography, rather than hydrology. I hope to bring in as much of this knowledge as I can, while also embarking on a (hopefully steep) learning curve in hydrology, and in all things agriculture.

Figure 1. Raster map of average rainfall 1995-2001 in SSA
Agriculture employs over 60% of Africa’s working population (UNEP 2009), making it an important vehicle of African development. Agriculture in Africa also accounts for 88% of total annual water withdrawals, and demand is increasing. Water scarcity and water stress are predicted to increase by 2025. Degradation of water resources including watersheds, wetlands and groundwater is also occurring (UNEP 2009).

One thing to note before I start is that Africa is a heterogenous continent. Groundwater levels, rainfall, vegetation, farming methods, levels of development...  these all differ hugely from one part of Africa to another. For this reason, I will try to avoid the pitfall many 'Westerners' fall into referring to Africa as if it was one uniform place of poverty and drought. Figure 1 illustrates, by way of example, the differences in rainfall in Africa from 1901-2005.

As a starting point, I want to learn about wetlands. I expect this blog will get more specific over time, perhaps narrowing its focus onto a specific area or theme. However, while I’m still learning the basics, I will keep it general.

References

HarvestChoice, 2011. 'Longterm Average Annual Rainfall (mm).' International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC., and University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN. Available online at http://harvestchoice.org/node/4963.

United Nations Environment Programme (2009) 'Agriculture at a Crossroads: International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development' (WWW) Island Press: Washington (http://www.unep.org/dewa/agassessment/reports/subglobal/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Volume%20V_Sub-Saharan%20Africa_Subglobal_Report.pdf: 22nd November 2016)