What is the significance of the Sahel region?
Indeed, the region represents a physical and cultural border between the Sahara Desert to its north and the more fertile savannah region to its south. Since the region is very long and wide, it also acts as a buffer or a zone of transition between the Sahara and the southern savannahs.
What is happening in Africa's Sahel?
Africa's semi-arid Sahel region is a crucible of climate change, population movement and jihadist attacks. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this month called it a "microcosm of cascading global risks converging in one region."
What caused the Sahel to become so dry?
From 1951 to 2004, the Sahel experienced some of the most consistent and severe droughts in Africa. The 1960s saw a large increase in rainfall in the region, making the northern drier region more accessible. There was a push, supported by governments, for people to move northwards.
What is the UN doing to help the Sahel region?
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency is scaling up efforts to meet the urgent needs of refugees and internally displaced people in the Sahel region. UNHCR’s is delivering lifesaving shelter, clean water, healthcare assistance and psychological support to SGBV victims.
What do people use the Sahel for?
Traditionally, most of the people in the Sahel have been semi-nomads, farming and raising livestock in a system of transhumance, which is probably the most sustainable way of utilizing the Sahel.
What is the Sahel in Africa?
Sahel, Arabic Sāḥil, semiarid region of western and north-central Africa extending from Senegal eastward to Sudan. It forms a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the belt of humid savannas to the south.
What are 2 facts about Sahel?
The Sahel forms a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the more fertile belt of humid savannas to the south. The Sahel is semiarid steppe, a type of dry grassland. It has low-growing grass, thorny shrubs, and scattered acacia and baobab trees.
What economic activities does the Sahel support?
In the Sahel region agriculture is the main economic activity, with about 80- 90% of the population actively engaged in agriculture. Land degradation in the Sahel is characterized by soil degradation and is a major environmental issue affecting the region, with negative consequences on agriculture.
Which statement best describes the Sahel?
Which statement BEST describes the Sahel? it is an area of thick rainforest that prevent people from entering West Africa.
Why was the Sahel a key region in the ancient world?
Why was the Sahel a key region in the ancient world? It was involved with an important trade route as well as having a lot of gold resources.
Why is the Sahel one of the poorest regions in the world?
The Sahel region receives limited annual rainfall and experiences frequent droughts. This poses enormous obstacles to poverty reduction and food security. Severe droughts that have occurred between 1970 and 1993 have caused major losses in agricultural production and livestock, according to UNEP.
What happens in the Sahel?
Armed conflicts, dramatic climate change and little opportunity to receive an education or find a job, are an everyday reality for many in Africa's Sahel region. With the region's rapidly expanding population compounding these challenges, the hope of a future is vanishing for millions of young people.
Why is the Sahel so poor?
The region, frequently struck by drought and food insecurity, is projected to be one of the areas most severely affected by global climate change in the coming years. With up to 80% of its people living on less than $2 a day, poverty is more widespread in the Sahel than in most other parts of Africa.
What is the biggest problem facing Sahel?
The area is particularly vulnerable to climate change, according to the United Nations, with temperatures increasing at 1.5 times the rate of the global average. In recent years, droughts have been more frequent in the already-arid conditions and increasingly posing challenges for crop production.
Is there a future for the Sahel?
Those sources expect the combined populations of the six Western Sahelian countries and northern Nigeria to grow from today's estimate of about 181 million to somewhere between a projected high, in 2045, of about 415 million, and a projected low of about 370 million people.
Why is the Sahel such a harsh place for agriculture?
The Sahel is particularly vulnerable to rainfall variability, land degradation, and desertification due to its high dependence on rain-fed agriculture and livestock, according to a study by the UN Environment Program. Climate change is introducing even more unpredictability in water and food availability.
Which countries are in Sahel?
Unfortunately, several factors hinder its development: The G5 Sahel countries—Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad—face many challenges, including chronic insecurity, a lack of economic prospects, and poor access to education, employment and essential services such as water and electricity.
Is the Sahel a grassland?
Africa's Sahel region, a margin of semi-arid grassland around the southern limit of the Sahara Desert, gets most of its rainfall between June and September.
How many countries make up the Sahel region of Africa?
10 countriesThis article focuses on the 10 countries that make up the Sahel region—Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Sudan (see map). These 10 countries span over 7 million square kilometers and have close to 135 million inhabitants.
Where do people live in Sahel?
Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Chad have the largest population in the Sahel, but the highest densities are in Cape Verde (98/sq km), Gambia (83/sq km), Senegal (38/sq km), and Burkina Faso (35/sq km). Over 65% of the Sahel population is rural.
What is the Sahel region?
Africa's semi-arid Sahel region is a crucible of climate change, population movement and jihadist attacks. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this month called it a "microcosm of cascading global risks converging in one region.". In pure geographic terms the Sahel, or Sahil in Arabic, meaning coast or shore, ...
Where is the Sahel?
In pure geographic terms the Sahel, or Sahil in Arabic, meaning coast or shore, is a vast region that stretches along the Sahara desert's southern rim from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.
How many people will live in the Sahel region in 2050?
The population of the G5 Sahel region is expected to more than double to around 170 million by 2050, according to the United Nations. Amid the unrest, poverty and climate change, the UN said internal displacement had increased 20-fold in less than two years and the number of families facing hunger has tripled.
What countries are part of the Sahel?
There are many different political definitions of which countries actually belong to the Sahel. But a core group -- Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania -- is known as the G5 Sahel. Other definitions take in parts of Senegal, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea.
When did the Mali conflict start?
Jihadist violence erupted after a rebellion in northern Mali in 2012. The conflict has since spread to the centre of the country, as well as to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, claiming thousands of lives and displacing more than 3.5 million people.
Is the Sahel region warming?
As the world battles climate change, global warming is around 50 percent greater in the Sahel. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the region suffered the worst droughts of anywhere on the planet.
Is the Sahel desert difficult to control?
With vast stretches of inhospitable desert, the central Sahel is notoriously difficult to control and has become a hunting ground for armed groups, rebels and jihadists roaming freely between countries.
Why are the Sahel wetlands important?
The seasonal wetlands of the Sahel are important for migratory birds moving within Africa and on the African-Eurasian flyways.
Where is the Sahel?
Sahel. For other uses, see Sahel (disambiguation). The Sahel ( / səˈhɛl /; ساحل sāḥil [ˈsaːħil], "coast, shore") is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south.
What animals live in the Sahel?
The Sahel was formerly home to large populations of grazing mammals, including the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), dama gazelle (Gazella dama), Dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas), red-fronted gazelle (Gazella rufifrons), the giant prehistoric buffalo ( Pelorovis) and Bubal hartebeest (Al celaphus busephalus buselaphus), along with large predators like the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), the Northwest African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki), the Northeast African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus soemmeringii), the lion (Panthera leo). The larger species have been greatly reduced in number by over-hunting and competition with livestock, and several species are vulnerable (Dorcas gazelle, cheetah, lion and red-fronted gazelle), endangered ( Dama gazelle and African wild dog ), or extinct (the Scimitar-horned oryx is probably extinct in the wild, and both Pelorovis and the Bubal hartebeest are now extinct).
How much rain does the Sahel receive?
The precipitation is also extremely irregular, and varies considerably from season to season. Most of the rain usually falls during four to six months in the middle of the year, while the other months may remain absolutely dry. The interior of the Sahel region generally receives between 200 mm and 700 mm of rain yearly. A system of subdivisions often adopted for the Sahelian climate based on annual rainfall is as follows: the Saharan-Sahelian climate, with mean annual precipitation between around 100 and 200 mm (such as Khartoum, Sudan), the strict Sahelian climate, with mean annual precipitation between around 200 and 700 mm (such as Niamey, Niger) and the Sahelian-Sudanese climate, with mean annual precipitation between around 700 and 1,200 mm (such as Bamako, Mali). The relative humidity in the steppe is low to very low, often between 10% and 25% during the dry season and between 25% and 75% during the rainy season. The least humid places have a relative humidity under 35%.
How much sun does the Sahel have?
Everywhere in the Sahel, the average mean temperature is over 18 °C (64 °F). The Sahel has a high to very high sunshine duration year-round, between 2,400 hours (about 55% of the daylight hours) and 3,600 hours (more than 80% of the daylight hours).
Why are the Sahel mountains and plateaus separate ecoregions?
Several isolated plateaus and mountain ranges rise from the Sahel, but are designated as separate ecoregions because their flora and fauna are distinct from the surrounding lowlands. Annual rainfall varies from around 100–200 mm (4–8 in) in the north of the Sahel to around 700–1,000 mm (28–39 in) in the south.
Where did the word "sahel" come from?
The term "Sahel" is borrowed from the Arabic name for the region, الساحل al-sāḥil. Sāḥil literally means "coast, shore", which has been explained as a figurative reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara. However, such use is unattested in Classical Arabic, and it has been suggested that the word may originally have been derived from the Arabic word سهل sahl "plain" instead.
What is the Sahel region?
The Sahel, a region that borders the southern fringe of the Sahara in Africa, experienced a number of devastating droughts during the 1970s and ’80s, which can be compared with a much wetter period during the 1950s.
What is the Sahel landscape?
Sahel. Sahelian landscape near Zinder, Niger. A.G.E. FotoStock. In the second half of the 20th century, the Sahel was increasingly afflicted by soil erosion and desertification resulting from growing human populations that made more demands upon the land than previously.
What are the natural habitats of the Sahel?
The semiarid steppes of the Sahel have natural pasture, with low-growing grass and tall, herbaceous perennials. Other forage for the region’s livestock (camel, pack ox, and grazing cattle and sheep) includes thorny shrubs and acacia and baobab trees. The thorny scrub once formed a woodland, but the country is now more open and relatively traversable by motor vehicle. The terrain is chiefly of the savanna type, with little continuous cover and a dangerous tendency to merge into desert because of overstocking and overfarming. At least eight months of the year are dry, and rain, confined to a short season, averages 4–8 inches (100–200 mm), mostly in June, July, and August. There are also wide areas of pasturage watered by the flooding Niger and Sénégal rivers. Modest crops of millet and peanuts (groundnuts) can be raised in many areas.
How many people died in the Sahara in 1973?
The loss of human life by starvation and disease was estimated in 1973 at 100,000.
Where is the Sahel?
Sahel, Arabic Sāḥil, semiarid region of western and north-central Africa extending from Senegal eastward to Sudan. It forms a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the belt of humid savannas to the south. The Sahel stretches from the Atlantic Ocean eastward through northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, ...
Why did the town dwellers and farmers strip the tree and scrub cover to obtain firewood and grow crops?
Town dwellers and farmers stripped the tree and scrub cover to obtain firewood and grow crops, after which excessive numbers of livestock devoured the remaining grass cover. Rainfall runoff and the wind then carried off the fertile topsoils, leaving arid and barren wastelands.
What does the Sahel mean?
The Sahel literally means "edge" or "border" in Arabic.
Where is the Sahel?
The Sahel is a band of territory in Africa that stretches the length of the continent, from the Atlantic coast of Senegal and Mauritania to the Red Sea coast of Eritrea.
What countries are in the Sahel?
The Sahel passes through 10 African countries. It begins on the Atlantic coasts of Senegal and Mauritania, and passes east through the central parts of Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan into northwestern Eritrea, ending at Eritrea’s Red Sea coast. Part of the Sahel also reaches into the extreme northern parts of Burkina Faso and Nigeria, and the extreme south of Algeria. Nigeria is the most populous of the Sahelian countries, with a population of more than 212 million, which also makes it the most populous country in all of Africa, though only a minority portion of that population lies in the Sahelian zone. In fact, most of the Sahel is sparsely populated. There are, however, a few large cities that are situated in the Sahel, including the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott; the Nigerien capital, Niamey; the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
What is the climate of the Sahel?
The Sahel has a tropical climate. Summers are very hot. The maximum mean temperature in the summer can range from 33°C to 36°C. Lows in the region’s temperature average between 18°C and 21°C. The amount of rainfall in the Sahelian south is different from the north. In the southern zone of the Sahel, rainfall can average 600mm per year. In contrast, average rainfall in the north is just 200mm per year. The Sahel also has a rainy season and a dry season. The former lasts from May to September, while the latter lasts six to eight months afterwards. The amount of rainfall in the Sahel is effected by what is known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which is a belt of low pressure surrounding the Earth at the Equator. Whenever this zone is far to the north, it creates a long rainy season, but when it does not, rainfall is limited.
How long is the Sahel?
The Sahel is approximately 5,900 km long. Its width differs depending on location, though its average width is 300 km. The total land area of the Sahel is 3,053,200 sq. km. In terms of topography, the Sahel tends to be quite flat. Elevations in the region average between 200 and 400 meters above sea level. The region is home to isolated plateaus and mountain ranges. The highest peak in the Sahel is known as Koel, and is located in Burkina Faso. It is not much of a peak, as it only stands at 448 meters above sea level. Plant life in the Sahel consists of semi-arid grasslands, savanna, and thorn shrub lands.
Why did people flee the Sahel region?
People began fleeing the central Sahel region in 2011 after an outbreak of violence in Northern Mali. Poverty, unemployment and the presence of armed groups in rural areas of Northern Mali all contributed to an increase in forced displacement.
How many people have fled the Sahel?
The central Sahel region, which includes the countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, is facing one of the fastest growing displacement crises in the world – yet one of the most forgotten. More than 2.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes and at least 13.4 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
What are the challenges facing the region?
Armed conflict, economic insecurity, and the adverse effects of climate change are some of the biggest challenges affecting the region. Indiscriminate attacks against civilians and public infrastructure -including schools and health facilities- have threatened the lives of millions of people and their livelihoods.
How many people have been displaced by the conflict in Burkina Faso?
As a result of the conflict, millions of families have been displaced across the region, including 650,000 people uprooted in the past year alone. 2.
Where Is It ?
Jihadist Hunting Ground
- With vast stretches of inhospitable desert, the central Sahel is notoriously difficult to control and has become a hunting ground for armed groups, rebels and jihadists roaming freely between countries. Jihadist violence erupted after a rebellion in northern Mali in 2012. The conflict has since spread to the centre of the country, as well as to nei...
Climate Change
- As the world battles climate change, global warming is around 50 percent greater in the Sahel. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the region suffered the worst droughts of anywhere on the planet. This has contributed to a staggering 90 per cent decline of the surface of Lake Chad over the past 40 years and a race is on to stop the main source of fresh water to 40 million people ac…
Population Pressure
- The region, which is broadly very poor, has one of the highest demographic growth rates in the world. The population of the G5 Sahel region is expected to more than double to around 170 million by 2050, according to the United Nations. Amid the unrest, poverty and climate change, the UN said internal displacement had increased 20-fold in less than two years and the number of fa…
Overview
The Sahel is a region in Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea.
The Sahel part of Africa includes - from west to east - parts of northern Senegal, …
Flora and fauna
The Sahel is mostly covered in grassland and savanna, with areas of woodland and shrubland. Grass cover is fairly continuous across the region, dominated by annual grass species such as Cenchrus biflorus, Schoenefeldia gracilis and Aristida stipoides. Species of acacia are the dominant trees, with Acacia tortilis the most common, along with Acacia senegal and Acacia laeta. Other tree species include Commiphora africana, Balanites aegyptiaca, Faidherbia albida, and Boscia seneg…
Geography
The Sahel spans 5,900 km (3,670 mi) from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, in a belt that varies from several hundred to a thousand kilometers (c. 600 miles) in width, covering an area of 3,053,200 square kilometers (1,178,850 sq mi). It is a transitional ecoregion of semi-arid grasslands, savannas, steppes, and thorn shrublands lying between the wooded Sudanian …
Climate
The Sahel has a tropical semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh). The climate is typically hot, sunny, dry and somewhat windy all year long. The Sahel's climate is similar to, but less extreme than, the climate of the Sahara desert located just to the north.
The Sahel mainly receives a low to very low amount of precipitation annually. …
Culture
Traditionally, most of the people in the Sahel have been semi-nomads, farming and raising livestock in a system of transhumance, which is probably the most sustainable way of utilizing the Sahel. The difference between the dry North with higher levels of soil nutrients and the wetter South with more vegetation, is utilized by having the herds graze on high-quality feed in the North during the …
Etymology
The term "Sahel" is borrowed from the Arabic name for the region, الساحل al-sāḥil. Sāḥil literally means "coast, shore", which has been explained as a figurative reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara. However, such use is unattested in Classical Arabic, and it has been suggested that the word may originally have been derived from the Arabic word سهل sahl "plain" instead.
History
Around 4000 BC, the climate of the Sahara and the Sahel started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink rather significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and caused migrations of farming communities to the more humid climate of West Africa.
Recent droughts
For hundreds of years, the Sahel region has experienced frequent droughts and megadroughts. One megadrought lasted from 1450 to 1700, 250 years. There was a major drought in the Sahel in 1914 caused by annual rains far below average, leading to large-scale famine. From 1951 to 2004, the Sahel experienced some of the most consistent and severe droughts in Africa. The 1960s saw a large increase in rainfall in the region, making the northern drier region more accessible. Ther…