Back to back droughts in East Africa
Eastern Africa, comprising large areas of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are facing their worst drought in (1) 40 years after going through four seasons with no rainfall. Almost (2)17 million people will face acute food insecurity because of this.
This is called a ‘meteorological drought’, where dry weather patterns dominate an area. This has dried up the soil, water channels and led to the death of millions of livestock.
The Horn of Africa generally faces two rainy seasons in the year - ‘short rains’(September to December) and ‘long rains’ (March to May) which contribute (3)70% to the total rainfall in the region. Forecasts suggest that Sep-Dec rains could also fail this year leading to a 5-season long drought. But, this is perhaps not the worst drought in recent history.
There are public records from the last 150 years (1870s onwards) tracing the drought history of the region.
(4)2016 might be the driest for Eastern Africa in the last 4 decades where 16 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia were affected following a strong El Nino event.
From 1983-1986 the famine in East Africa which is officially attributed to drought was exacerbated by internal rebellions and human rights abuses especially in Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya.
The 1950s was also a period which was almost as dry as 2016 for East Africa.
A study by the American Meteorological Society also showed that Eastern Africa faced severe droughts throughout the 1820s, 1830s, 1880s and around 1900. The ones between 1820-1830 were the worst in the last two centuries, with (5)Lake Baringo completely drying up affecting Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Around 1900, Kenya faced the ‘lwaya’ or ‘crocodile famine’ where people had to hunt crocodiles for food. Eventually, the colonial government had to distribute Indian rice to the starving population in 1902. So, while it can be said that the current drought is severe…the droughts of the 1820s and 1830s had a more magnified impact especially because they came at a time when humanitarian aid did not exist.
In addition to human impacts, the severity of drought also needs to be calculated in terms of its impact on natural vegetation and landscapes. According to a (6)study done in the Gulf of Eden spanning the last 2000 years, there is a close relationship between warming temperatures and drying in Eastern Africa. As global warming raises temperatures of the Pacific Ocean, it is creating heavy rainfall deficits in the Horn of Africa, leading to back-to-back droughts.
While it is not possible to prevent droughts in an arid region especially, it is possible to predict food insecurity caused by it. The Famine Early Warning System Network predicts this in a way that governments can supply emergency provisions before a drought onset. As these mechanisms improve, it is imperative that countries move from providing aid to drought-affected citizens to taking enough measures so that the human impact of drought can be averted.
SOURCES
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/...
https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/...
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/...
https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...