Thank you

Source

Unfortunately, my blog is now coming to a close. Anyone who's followed it I hope you've learnt something about the challenges climate change will present to Sub-Saharan African water supply and development, I certainly have.

The main conclusions I have taken from my research are:

Climate change is going to impact SSA hugely through rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and a lack of adaptive capacity. All the while, SSA has played next to no part in inducing such climate change. 

Groundwater does offer a potential solution where it is viable and sustainable over a number of decades. Each groundwater scenario must be judged independently and a one-size-fits-all technique will not be successful in the long term, the diversity and variety of water supply within SSA is just too large. With this mapping and measurement of groundwater (and all water) resources is paramount to successful, sustainable management. 

It will require a global effort to help SSA deal with climate change, and it is likely that mass migration will occur at some point. This could be an areas carrying capacity decreases, and therefore a proportion of a population has to move, or an area becoming completely inhospitable. 

The challenges climate change will bring for SSA are very much real, but with global cooperation and a willingness to solve problems internationally a lack of clean water in SSA can be a thing of the past. 

Relationship with Population Density

So far in my blog I haven't touched upon rainfall and it's relationship with population density. For populations to increase, water is necessary. In poorer regions, such as most of SSA, this water needs to be local. Le Blanc and Perez studied the relationship between rainfall and human density in conjunction 

Le Blanc and Perez found that a threshold of 900mm/year of rainfall existed when considered a relationship with population density. When rainfall is below 900mm/year, rainfall becomes a limiting factor on population densities. If above, then density and rainfall do not have any spatial correlation.

Then they apply future population change scenarios and climate change scenarios on rainfall. With projected population growth the areas limited by rainfall, and experiencing increasing water stress, are set to increase. Le Blanc and Perez concede that the impacts of rainfall are harder to predict as different climate models differ locally, especially intermediary areas fed by the ITCZ such as the Sahel and East Africa. Predictions expect Sahelian rainfall to increase, offsetting some demographic pressures but not all. Contrastingly, East African precipitation is projected to fall. Will population increase, this will increase water stress in the region. Regarding Southern Africa, le Blanc and Perez note that population stagnation will clearly help any water stress situations.

Changing rainfall and demographic concentration and spatial distribution will play a major role in dictating which areas experience relative water stress, and which relative water security.