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Climate change

Flooding impacts on African food security

Nature Food volume 3, page 889 (2022)Cite this article

Africa has been increasingly affected by extreme weather events as a result of climate change. Flooding, specifically, has led to deaths, massive displacements, infrastructure damage and particularly pronounced economic losses since 2020 — mainly in West African countries. Pathways through which flooding can impact food security are known, but more research is needed to understand how and to what extent food availability and access can be impaired at different spatial scales — especially under shifting flooding patterns and seasonality, as projected by the IPCC1.

Now, Connor Reed, from New York University, and colleagues have used the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification levels2 as well as flood metrics from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (including frequency, affected area and cumulative duration) to investigate links between the two. Granger causality tests revealed whether high occurrence of floods was linked to high variance of food security metrics. Regional- and country-specific statistical models were also compared to qualitative descriptions of key flood events compiled from humanitarian reports issued by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), the Red Cross, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other national organizations.

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References

  1. IPCC Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021).

  2. Final Evaluation of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Global Strategic Programme (GSP) (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2019); https://go.nature.com/3U9ETL1

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  1. Nature Food https://www.nature.com/natfood

    Juliana Gil

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  1. Juliana Gil
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Correspondence to Juliana Gil.

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Gil, J. Flooding impacts on African food security. Nat Food 3, 889 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00653-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00653-1

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