Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Understanding how global change is impacting African agriculture requires a full physical accounting of water supply and demand, but accurate, gridded data on key drivers (e.g., humidity) are generally unavailable. We used a new bias-corrected meteorological dataset to analyze changes in precipitation (supply), potential evapotranspiration (Ep, demand), and water availability (expressed as the ratio P/Ep) in 20 countries (focusing on their maize-growing regions and seasons), between 1979 and 2010, and the factors driving changes in Ep. Maizegrowing areas in Southern Africa, particularly South Africa, benefitted from increased water availability due in large part to demand declines driven primarily by declining net radiation, increasing vapor pressure, and falling temperatures (with no effect from changing windspeed), with smaller increases in supply. Sahelian zone countries in West Africa, as well as Ethiopia in East Africa, had strong increases in availability driven primarily by rainfall rebounding from the long-term Sahelian droughts, with little change or small reductions in demand. However, intraseasonal supply variability generally increased in West and East Africa. Across all three regions, declining net radiation contributed downwards pressure on demand, generally over-riding upwards pressure caused by increasing temperatures, the regional effects of which were largest in East Africa. A small number of countries, mostly in or near East Africa (Tanzania and Malawi) experienced declines in water availability primarily due to decreased rainfall, but exacerbated by increasing demand. Much of the reduced water availability in East Africa occurred during the more sensitive middle part of the maize-growing season, suggesting negative consequences for maize production. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd.
Publication Title
Environmental Research Letters
Publication Date
7-1-2014
Volume
9
Issue
7
First Page
1
Last Page
12
ISSN
1748-9326
DOI
10.1088/1748-9326/9/7/075005
Keywords
maize, sub-Saharan Africa, trends, water demand, water supply
Repository Citation
Estes, Lyndon; Chaney, Nathaniel W.; Herrera-Estrada, Julio; Sheffield, Justin; Caylor, Kelly K.; and Wood, Eric F., "Changing water availability during the African maize-growing season, 1979-2010" (2014). Geography. 76.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/76
