Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Identifying hot spots of security vulnerability associated with climate change in Africa

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Given its high dependence on rainfed agriculture and its comparatively low adaptive capacity, Africa is frequently invoked as especially vulnerable to climate change. Within Africa, there is likely to be considerable variation in vulnerability to climate change both between and within countries. This paper seeks to advance the agenda of identifying the hot spots of what we term “climate security” vulnerability, areas where the confluence of vulnerabilities could put large numbers of people at risk of death from climate-related hazards. This article blends the expertise of social scientists and climate scientists. It builds on a model of composite vulnerability that incorporates four “baskets” or processes that are thought to contribute to vulnerability including: (1) physical exposure, (2) population density, (3) household and community resilience, and (4) governance and political violence. Whereas previous iterations of the model relied on historical physical exposure data of natural hazards, this paper uses results from regional model simulations of African climate in the late 20th century and mid-21st century to develop measures of extreme weather events—dry days, heat wave events, and heavy rainfall days—coupled with an indicator of low-lying coastal elevation. For the late 20th century, this mapping process reveals the most vulnerable areas are concentrated in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan, with pockets in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone. The mid 21st century projection shows more extensive vulnerability throughout the Sahel, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, northern Nigeria, Niger, and across Sudan.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. This model does not include indirect effects of climate-related extreme events on mortality through changes in diseases such as malaria or meningococcal meningitis.

  2. The January 2012 special issue of the Journal of Peace Research is dedicated to assessing the links between climate change and conflict.

  3. DARA Climate Vulnerability Monitor is found at http://daraint.org/. The ND-GAIN Index is available at http://index.gain.org. The Maplecroft index is available at http://maplecroft.com/. The OneWorld is found at http://www.oneworldgroup.co.za/. For a survey of hot spot climate mapping exercises, see (de Sherbinin 2014).

  4. See http://ccaps.aiddata.org/climate

  5. In earlier iterations, we relied on the Global Rural–urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). LandScan (2008)TM High Resolution global Population Data Set copyrighted by UT-Battelle, LLC, operator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the United States Department of Energy.

  6. Sources include World Development Indicators, Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network, and USAID Demographic and Health Surveys among others.

  7. For the virtues of equal weights in composite indices, see (Stapleton and Garrod 2006, 2007). For the problems with equal weight-based indices, see (Chowdhury and Squire 2005).

  8. The 9 AOGCMs used are CGCM3.1, CNRM-CM3, ECHAM/MPI-OM, GFDL-CM2.0, MIROC3.2 (medres), MRI-CGCM3.2, NCAR CCSM3, NCAR PCM, UKMO-HadCM3. The process is detailed in (Cook and Vizy 2012).

  9. Climate-mode boundary conditions include seasonality, but filter out shorter timescales. This process has been shown to be an effective approach to understand climate variability over Africa in other studies (e.g., Vizy and Cook 2002; Patricola and Cook 2007, 2010). A detailed description on the climate-mode ensemble design methodology is provided in (Cook and Vizy 2012).

  10. It is possible that some currently unpopulated areas will become habitable as a result of climate change.

  11. This is based on the assumption that fewer dry days and heavy rainfall events would reduce exposure to extreme events. It is important to produce a more regionally focused assessment that better accounts for the direct and indirect consequences of these imperfect “disaster” proxies, as their impacts may vary considerably from region to region over continental Africa.

  12. Wheeler includes windstorms, droughts, floods, wildfires, and extreme heat events in his measures of climate-related disasters.

  13. In addition to the five measures Wheeler identified, we also include storms and mass movement wet landslides in our measures of climate-related disasters.

  14. See http://stg.ccaps.aiddata.org.

References

  • Adger WN, Brooks N, Bentham G, Agnew M, Eriksen S (2004) New indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/it1_11.pdf

  • Alcamo J, Acosta-Michlik L, Carius A, Eierdanz F, Klein R, Krömker D, Tänzler D (2008) A new approach to quantifying and comparing vulnerability to drought. Reg Environ Chang 8(4):137–149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alexander D (2009) Theoretical notes on vulnerability to disaster. http://emergency-planning.blogspot.com/2009/01/theoretical-notes-on-vulnerability-to.html

  • Berenter J (2012) ‘Ground truthing’ vulnerability in Africa. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Austin, http://strausscenter.org/ccaps/climate-vulnerability-publications.html?download=89

    Google Scholar 

  • Boko M, Niang I, Nyong A, Vogel C, Githeko A, Medany M, Osman-Elasha B, Tabo R, Yanda P (2007) Africa. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 433–67. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK

  • Brenkert AL, Malone EL (2005) Modeling vulnerability and resilience to climate change: a case study of India and Indian States. Clim Chang 72(1–2):57–102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks N, Adger WN, Kelly PM (2005) The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Glob Environ Chang 15(2):151–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buhaug H (2010) Climate not to blame for Africa’s civil wars. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107(38):16477–16482

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burg J (2008) Measuring populations’ vulnerabilities for famine and food security interventions: the case of Ethiopia’s chronic vulnerability index. Disasters 32(4):609–630

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke MB, Miguel E, Satyanath S, Dykema JA, Lobell DB (2009) Warming increases the risk of Civil War in Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106(49):20670–20674

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busby JW, Smith TG, White K (2011) Locating climate insecurity: where are the most vulnerable places in Africa. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Austin, http://strausscenter.org/ccaps/publications/research-briefs.html?download=97

    Google Scholar 

  • Busby JW, Smith TG, White K, Strange SM (2012) Locating climate insecurity: where are the most vulnerable places in Africa? In: Scheffran J et al. (ed) Climate change, human security and violent conflict. Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, 8. Springer, pp. 463–512

  • Busby JW, Smith TG, White K, Strange SM (2013) Climate change and insecurity: mapping vulnerability in Africa. Int Secur 37(4):132–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell KM, Gulledge J, McNeill JR, Podesta J, Ogden P, Fuerth L, Woolsey RJ et al. (2007) The age of consequences. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071105_ageofconsequences.pdf

  • Cardona OD (2004) The need for rethinking the concepts of vulnerability and risk from a holistic perspective: a necessary review and criticism for effective risk management. In: Bankoff G, Frerks G, Hilhorst D (eds) Mapping vulnerability: disasters, development and people. Earthscan, London, pp 37–51

    Google Scholar 

  • Chowdhury S, Squire L (2005) Setting weights for aggregate indices: an application to the commitment to development index and human development index. J Dev Stud 42(5):761–771

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook KH, Vizy EK (2006) Coupled model simulations of the west african monsoon system: twentieth- and twenty-first-century simulations. J Clim 19:3681–3703

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook KH, Vizy EK (2012) Impact of climate change on mid-twenty-first century growing seasons in Africa. Climate Dynamics

  • CNA Corporation (2007) National security and the threat of climate change. http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/

  • CRED, Centre For Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (2012) EM-DAT: the OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database. www.emdat.net

  • Crétat J, Vizy EK, Cook KH (2013) How well are daily intense rainfall events captured by current climate models over Africa? Clim Dyn 1–21

  • de Sherbinin A (2014) Climate change hotspots mapping: what have we learned? Clim Chang 123(1):23–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feng S, Krueger AB, Oppenheimer M (2010) Linkages among climate change, crop yields and Mexico–US cross-border migration. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107(32):14257–14262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fingar T (2008) National intelligence assessment on the national security implications of global climate change to 2030. http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080625_testimony.pdf

  • Frich LA, Della-Marta P, Gleason B, Haylock M, Tank AK, Peterson T (2002) Observed coherent changes in climatic extremes during the second half of the twentieth century. Clim Res 19(3):193–212. doi:10.3354/cr019193

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman L (2010) Which nations are most vulnerable to climate change? The daunting politics of choosing. http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/02/24/24climatewire-which-nations-are-most-vulnerable-to-climate-95690.html?ref=energy-environment

  • Füssel H-M, Klein RJT (2006) Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking. Clim Chang 75(33):301–329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guha-Sapir D, Below R, Hoyois P (2012) EM-DAT: International Disaster Database. Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, www.emdat.be

    Google Scholar 

  • Hsiang SM, Burke M, Miguel E (2013) Quantifying the influence of climate on human conflict. Science 1237557

  • IPCC (2007) Summary for policymakers. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 7–22

  • Kalkstein LS, Smoyer KE (1993) The impact of climate change on human health: some international implications. Experientia 49(11):969–979

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kanamitsu M, Ebisuzaki W, Woollen J, Yang S-K, Hnilo JJ, Fiorino M, Potter GL (2002) NCEP–DOE AMIP-II reanalysis (R-2). Bull Am Meteorol Soc 83(11):1631–1643

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LandScan (2008)™ High resolution global population data set copyrighted by UTBattelle, LLC, operator of Oak Ridge Laboratory under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the United States Department of Energy.

  • Levy MA, Thorkelson C, Vörösmarty C, Douglas E, Humphreys M (2005) Freshwater availability anomalies and outbreak of internal war: results from a global spatial time series analysis. http://www.cicero.uio.no/humsec/papers/Levy_et_al.pdf

  • Low PS (2005) Climate change and Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Patricola CM, Cook KH (2007) Dynamics of the West African monsoon under mid-Holocene precessional forcing: regional climate model simulations. J Clim 14:1337–1359

    Google Scholar 

  • Patricola CM, Cook KH (2010) Northern African climate at the end of the twenty-first century: an integrated application of regional and global climate models. Clim Dyn 35:193–212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raleigh C, Jordan L, Salehyan I (2008) Assessing the impact of climate change on migration and conflict. The Social Dimensions of Climate Change. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/SDCCWorkingPaper_MigrationandConflict.pdf

  • Skamarock WC, Klemp JB, Agard J, Gill DO, Barker DM, Wang W, Powers JG (2005) A description of the advanced research WRF version 2. Boulder, CO: NCAR/TN-408+STR. http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/docs/arw_v2.pdf

  • Solana J (2008) Climate Change and International Security: Paper from the High Representative and the European Commission to the European Council. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/reports/99387.pdf

  • Stapleton L, Garrod GD (2006) The commitment to development index: an information theory approach. Ecol Econ 66(2–3):461–467

    Google Scholar 

  • Stapleton L, Garrod GD (2007) Keeping things simple: why the human development index should not diverge from its equal weights assumption. Soc Indic Res 84(2):179–188

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steadman RG (1979) The assessment of sultriness. Part I: a temperature-humidity index based on human physiology and clothing science. J Appl Meteorol 18(7):861–873

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steadman RG (1984) A universal scale of apparent temperature. J Clim Appl Meteorol 23(12):1674–1687

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tebaldi C, Hayhoe K, Arblaster JM, Meehl GA (2006) Going to the extremes: an intercomparison of model-simulated historical and future changes in extreme events. Clim Chang 79:185–211

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UN Security Council (2007) Security council holds first-ever debate on impact of climate change on peace, security, hearing over 50 speakers. United Nations, New York, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sc9000.doc.htm

    Google Scholar 

  • USGS (2009) GTOPO30. http://eros.usgs.gov/#/Find_Data/Products_and_Data_Available/gtopo30_info

  • Vizy EK, Cook KH (2002) Development and application of a mesoscale climate model for the tropics: influence of sea surface temperature anomalies on the West African monsoon. J Geophys Res 107(D3). 10.1029/2001JD000686

  • Vizy EK, Cook KH (2012) Mid-21st century changes in extreme events over northern and tropical Africa. J Clim 25:5748–5767

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weichselgartner J (2001) Disaster mitigation: the concept of vulnerability revisited. Disaster Prev Manag 10(2):85–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler D (2011) Quantifying vulnerability to climate change: implications for adaptation assistance. Center for Global Development. http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424759/

  • Zhang X, Fang F (2004) RClimDex (1.0) user manual. Climate Research Branch Environment Canada. http://precis.metoffice.com/Tutorials/RClimDexUserManual.doc

Download references

Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by, or in part by, the U.S. Army Research Office contract/grant number W911NF-09-1-007 under the Minerva Initiative of the U.S. Department of Defense. We also acknowledge the AOGCM modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 and CMIP5 multi-model dataset. Support of this dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. We thank Kaiba White for her contributions to the development of the maps in earlier iterations.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Joshua W. Busby, Todd G. Smith & Mesfin Bekalo

  2. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas-Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Kerry H. Cook & Edward K. Vizy

Authors
  1. Joshua W. Busby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kerry H. Cook
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Edward K. Vizy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Todd G. Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mesfin Bekalo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joshua W. Busby.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Fig. S1

(GIF 1692 kb)

Fig. S2

(GIF 1367 kb)

Fig. S3

(GIF 1361 kb)

Fig. S4

(GIF 1275 kb)

Fig. S5

(GIF 1349 kb)

Fig. S6

(GIF 1369 kb)

Fig. S7

(GIF 1304 kb)

Fig. S8

(GIF 1177 kb)

Fig. S9

(GIF 1192 kb)

Fig. S10

(GIF 1170 kb)

Fig. S11

(GIF 25 kb)

Fig. S12

(GIF 685 kb)

Fig. S13

(GIF 180 kb)

Fig. S14

(GIF 209 kb)

Fig. S15

(GIF 1430 kb)

Fig. S16

(GIF 1717 kb)

Fig. S17

(GIF 206 kb)

Fig. S18

(GIF 1418 kb)

Fig. S19

(GIF 1344 kb)

Fig. S20

(GIF 1401 kb)

Fig. S21

(GIF 388 kb)

Fig. S22

(GIF 137 kb)

Fig. S23

(GIF 3085 kb)

Fig. S24

(GIF 3218 kb)

Fig. S25

(GIF 3146 kb)

Fig. S26

(GIF 3126 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

(DOC 36 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

(DOC 31 kb)

ESM 1

(DOC 63 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Busby, J.W., Cook, K.H., Vizy, E.K. et al. Identifying hot spots of security vulnerability associated with climate change in Africa. Climatic Change 124, 717–731 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1142-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1142-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation