Water and Food in Africa

In Africa, variabilities in rainfall, geologies, seasonality make rainfall distribution extremely uneven. Despite ample freshwater resources on the continent, many countries cannot achieve water of food security due to pre-existing challenges associated with water scarcity, desertification and structural challenges that are exacerbated by threats from climate change. The engineering solutions including water transfer projects and desalination seem economically and ecologically unsustainable for long-term water management. In this blog post, we will explore the idea of virtual water, and would it be a realistic concept for resolving the water crisis in Libya Jamahiriya.  Virtual water, a definition  The term was first identified by Tony Allan (1993) that describes the water needed to produce a commodity. In other terms, it represents the water embedded in the production of an agricultural good. For example, To produce one standard cup of coffee (125ml), the most important agri...

Due to the marked precipitation seasonality in many regions in Sub-saharan Africa, widespread failure of the previous rain season would lead to the occurrence of drought which threatens food security. For instance,  Southern Madagascar has experienced agricultural losses of up to 60% in the most populated provinces , 70% of crops in the capital city of Angola are allegedly affected by drought .  Climate-induced food security is forced towards the top of the political agenda.  In the previous blog, we explored GMMR that transfers from areas of surplus to areas of deficit. However, not all countries have ample groundwater aquifers to allow huge amounts of water to be transported. In this post, we will explore the technology of desalination that turns seawater, into clean, usable water.  What is desalination?  Source: Youtube There are two leading desalination technologies ( Shatat and Riffat, 2012 ), Reverse osmosis, where seawater is fed through a fine membrane...