2012 had a very severe drought in the Sahel, the semiarid region of Africa that lies between the Sahara and the savannas. Countries included in this region are

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 ...

, Mauritania,

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesNigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.

Droughts A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

in the Sahel occur quite often and tend to reduce the already meager water supply and stress the economies of developing countries in that region.

Future droughts of the Sahel region

The droughts are becoming increasingly more common, worse and more threatening due to

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. A possible explanation to the aridity trend is the supplements of an oceanography phenomenon called

El Niño El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date ...

. An idea is that evaporation is occurring at higher rate due to the change in

Sea surface temperature Sea surface temperature (SST), or ocean surface temperature, is the ocean temperature close to the surface. The exact meaning of ''surface'' varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between and below the sea surface. Air mas ...

, this then impacts the amount of rain the Sahel region receives Another factor to keep into consideration is the response of our atmosphere to stimulants like greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. Sahel Map-Africa rough

Societal impacts

Mass famine

Valerie Amos Valerie Ann Amos, Baroness Amos, (born 13 March 1954) is a British Labour Party politician and diplomat who served as the eighth UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Before her appointment to ...

, UN Humanitarian Chief during 2012, released a statement during the year stating that over 15 million people were malnourished in West Africa and the Sahel region. The main contributor to the famine was the drought of Sahel, ensued from a combination of failing crops and

. Mauritania and Chad recorded a loss in crop yield of over 50% when compared to 2011. Food reserves in the areas affected were very low and combined with corn prices soaring by 60-85% compared to averages over the last five years. In Chad alone this food crisis affected some 3.6 million people. In places like

over 2.8 million were suffering from famine and in Senegal over 800,000 did not have enough to eat.

External links

* FAO,
the 2012 Sahel Crisis
' * SOS Children 2012,
Sahel drought
' * ''The Guardian''s Poverty Matters Blog May 2012
Baaba Maal: people in the Sahel region need food and water now
* ABC News, May 2012
UN: 18 Million in West Africa to Go Hungry in 2012
* CNN, June 2012

References

2012 meteorology 2012,Sahel Drought,Sahel Drought,Sahel Drought,Sahel Drought,Sahel Drought,Sahel Drought,Sahel Sahel Climate change Climate change and the environment {{Disaster-stub