Academic literature on the topic 'Drought relief – South Africa'

Recurring agricultural droughts are of concern to smallholder livestock farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study determined the impact of agricultural drought resilience on smallholder livestock farming households’ welfare in the Frances Baard District Municipality (FBDM), in Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Interviews, more specifically survey interviews, were conducted with 207 smallholder livestock farmers. We used compensation variation, resilience index and linear regression models to analyse the data. The findings indicate that smallholder farmers who received drought relief support saw an improvement in their welfare. However, the welfare improvements varied across respondents and different gender categories, with males having higher welfare improvements relative to females. The study also found that economic capital, social capital, human capital and natural capital substantially affected the welfare of smallholder farmers. Furthermore, the study revealed that the smallholder farmers had a moderate agricultural drought resilience index, but low natural resilience capital. The study recommends that governments and non-governmental policymakers aiming to improve the welfare of smallholder farmers should focus on building their economic, social, human and capital resource bases. In this way, the smallholder farmers will be resilient in a time of climatic shock.

Abstract. We propose a composite drought vulnerability indicator (DVI) that reflects different aspects of drought vulnerability evaluated at Pan-African level for four components: the renewable natural capital, the economic capacity, the human and civic resources, and the infrastructure and technology. The selection of variables and weights reflects the assumption that a society with institutional capacity and coordination, as well as with mechanisms for public participation, is less vulnerable to drought; furthermore, we consider that agriculture is only one of the many sectors affected by drought. The quality and accuracy of a composite indicator depends on the theoretical framework, on the data collection and quality, and on how the different components are aggregated. This kind of approach can lead to some degree of scepticism; to overcome this problem a sensitivity analysis was done in order to measure the degree of uncertainty associated with the construction of the composite indicator. Although the proposed drought vulnerability indicator relies on a number of theoretical assumptions and some degree of subjectivity, the sensitivity analysis showed that it is a robust indicator and hence able of representing the complex processes that lead to drought vulnerability. According to the DVI computed at country level, the African countries classified with higher relative vulnerability are Somalia, Burundi, Niger, Ethiopia, Mali and Chad. The analysis of the renewable natural capital component at sub-basin level shows that the basins with high to moderate drought vulnerability can be subdivided into the following geographical regions: the Mediterranean coast of Africa; the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa; the Serengeti and the Eastern Miombo woodlands in eastern Africa; the western part of the Zambezi Basin, the southeastern border of the Congo Basin, and the belt of Fynbos in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The results of the DVI at the country level were compared with drought disaster information from the EM-DAT disaster database. Even if a cause–effect relationship cannot be established between the DVI and the drought disaster database, a good agreement is observed between the drought vulnerability maps and the number of persons affected by droughts. These results are expected to contribute to the discussion on how to assess drought vulnerability and hopefully contribute to the development of drought early warning systems in Africa.

Abstract. Drought vulnerability is a complex concept that includes both biophysical and socio-economic drivers of drought impact that determine capacity to cope with drought. In order to develop an efficient drought early warning system and to be prepared to mitigate upcoming drought events it is important to understand the drought vulnerability of the affected regions. We propose a composite Drought Vulnerability Indicator (DVI) that reflects different aspects of drought vulnerability evaluated at Pan-African level in four components: the renewable natural capital, the economic capacity, the human and civic resources, and the infrastructure and technology. The selection of variables and weights reflects the assumption that a society with institutional capacity and coordination, as well as with mechanisms for public participation is less vulnerable to drought; furthermore we consider that agriculture is only one of the many sectors affected by drought. The quality and accuracy of a composite indicator depends on the theoretical framework, on the data collection and quality, and on how the different components are aggregated. This kind of approach can lead to some degree of scepticism; to overcome this problem a sensitivity analysis was done in order to measure the degree of uncertainty associated with the construction of the composite indicator. Although the proposed drought vulnerability indicator relies on a number of theoretical assumptions and some degree of subjectivity, the sensitivity analysis showed that it is a robust indicator and hence able of representing the complex processes that lead to drought vulnerability. According to the DVI computed at country level, the African countries classified with higher relative vulnerability are Somalia, Burundi, Niger, Ethiopia, Mali and Chad. The analysis of the renewable natural capital component at sub-basin level shows that the basins with high to moderate drought vulnerability can be subdivided in three main different geographical regions: the Mediterranean coast of Africa; the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa; the Serengeti and the Eastern Miombo woodlands in eastern Africa. Additionally, the western part of the Zambezi basin, the south-eastern border of the Congo basin and the belt of Fynbos in the Western Cape should also be included in this category. The results of the DVI at the country level were compared with drought disasters information from the EM-DAT disaster database. Even if a cause effect relationship cannot be established between the DVI and the drought disaster database, a good agreement is observed between the drought vulnerability maps and the number of persons affected by droughts. These results are a valuable contribution to the discussion on how to assess drought vulnerability and should contribute to the development of drought early warning systems in Africa.

Abstract The international scientific community has long recognized the need for coordinated drought monitoring and response, but many factors have prevented progress in the development of a Global Drought Early Warning System (GDEWS): some of which involve administrative issues (coordinated international action and policy) while others involve scientific, technological, and logistical issues. The creation of the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) Portal within the United States provided an opportunity to take the first steps toward building the informational foundation for a GDEWS: that is, a Global Drought Information System (GDIS). At a series of workshops sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Group on Earth Observations (GEO) held in Asheville, North Carolina, in April 2010, it was recommended that a modular approach be taken in the creation of a GDIS and that the NIDIS Portal serve as the foundation for the GDIS structure. Once a NIDIS-based Global Drought Monitor (GDM) Portal (GDMP) established an international drought clearinghouse, the various components of a GDIS (drought monitoring, forecasting, impacts, history, research, and education) and later a GDEWS (drought relief, recovery, and planning) could be constructed atop it. The NIDIS Portal is a web-based information system created to address drought services and early warning in the United States, including drought monitoring, forecasting, impacts, mitigation, research, and education. This portal utilizes Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web mapping services (WMS) to incorporate continental drought monitors into the GDMP. As of early 2012, the GDM has incorporated continental drought information for North America (North American Drought Monitor), Europe (European Drought Observatory), and Africa (African Drought Monitor developed by Princeton University); interest has been expressed by groups representing Australia and South America; and coordination with appropriate parties in Asia is also expected. Because of the range of climates across the world and the diverse nature of drought and the sectors it impacts, the construction and functioning of each continental drought monitor needs to be appropriate for the continent in question. The GDMP includes a suite of global drought indicators identified by experts and adopted by the WMO as the necessary measures to examine drought from a meteorological standpoint; these global drought indicators provide a base to assist the global integration and interpretation of the continental drought monitors. The GDMP has been included in recent updates to the GEO Work Plan and has benefited from substantial coordination with WMO on both their Global Framework for Climate Services and the National Drought Policy efforts. The GDMP is recognized as having the potential to be a major contributor to both of these activities.

South Africa is a country that is prone to droughts, earthquakes and other disasters. In this environment, non-governmental stakeholders often provide a substantial part of the relief in affected areas. Non-governmental stakeholders have the experience needed to address the various disaster management challenges currently facing South Africa. This is especially true in the context of local disasters. Therefore an attempt is made in this report to investigate the relevant legal framework, which allows for the formalization of the involvement of non-governmental stakeholders in official disaster management activities in South Africa. Parts of the basic disaster management legislation, i.e. the Disaster Management Act no. 57/2002, contain definitions and requirements for the establishment of the relevant multi-stakeholder crisis management platforms, i.e. the “disaster management advisory forums.” This legislation is analysed in relation to the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Disaster management systems from two cities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, i.e. Knysna and Cape Town, were identified as models for the potential practical execution of these multi-stakeholder platforms at the local government level. Importance of additional aspects of the legal framework, e.g. the role of traditional leaders, are also outlined.

Abstract Purpose Following the urgency to curb environmental impacts across all sectors globally, this is the first life cycle assessment of different wine grape farming practices suitable for commercial conventional production in South Africa, aiming at better understanding the potentials to reduce adverse effects on the environment and on human health. Methods An attributional life cycle assessment was conducted on eight different scenarios that reduce the inputs of herbicides and insecticides compared against a business as usual (BAU) scenario. We assess several impact categories based on ReCiPe, namely global warming potential, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial toxicity, freshwater toxicity, marine toxicity, human carcinogenic toxicity and human non-carcinogenic toxicity, human health and ecosystems. A water footprint assessment based on the AWARE method accounts for potential impacts within the watershed. Results and discussion Results show that in our impact assessment, more sustainable farming practices do not always outperform the BAU scenario, which relies on synthetic fertiliser and agrochemicals. As a main trend, most of the impact categories were dominated by energy requirements of wine grape production in an irrigated vineyard, namely the usage of electricity for irrigation pumps and diesel for agricultural machinery. The most favourable scenario across the impact categories provided a low diesel usage, strongly reduced herbicides and the absence of insecticides as it applied cover crops and an integrated pest management. Pesticides and heavy metals contained in agrochemicals are the main contributors to emissions to soil that affected the toxicity categories and impose a risk on human health, which is particularly relevant for the manual labour-intensive South African wine sector. However, we suggest that impacts of agrochemicals on human health and the environment are undervalued in the assessment. The 70% reduction of toxic agrochemicals such as Glyphosate and Paraquat and the 100% reduction of Chlorpyriphos in vineyards hardly affected the model results for human and ecotoxicity. Our concerns are magnified by the fact that manual labour plays a substantial role in South African vineyards, increasing the exposure of humans to these toxic chemicals at their workplace. Conclusions A more sustainable wine grape production is possible when shifting to integrated grape production practices that reduce the inputs of agrochemicals. Further, improved water and related electricity management through drip irrigation, deficit irrigation and photovoltaic-powered irrigation is recommendable, relieving stress on local water bodies, enhancing drought-preparedness planning and curbing CO2 emissions embodied in products.

The Vegetation Health Index (VHI) is widely used for monitoring drought using satellite data. VHI depends on vegetation state and thermal stress, respectively assessed via (i) the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) that usually relies on information from the visible and near infra-red parts of the spectrum (in the form of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI); and (ii) the Thermal Condition Index (TCI), based on top of atmosphere thermal infrared (TIR) brightness temperature or on TIR-derived Land Surface Temperature (LST). VHI is then estimated as a weighted average of VCI and TCI. However, the optimum weights of the two components are usually not known and VHI is usually estimated attributing a weight of 0.5 to both. Using a previously developed methodology for the Euro-Mediterranean region, we show that the multi-scalar drought index (SPEI) may be used to obtain optimal weights for VCI and TCI over the area covered by Meteosat satellites that includes Africa, Europe, and part of South America. The procedure is applied using clear-sky Meteosat Climate Data Records (CDRs) and all-sky LST derived by combining satellite and reanalysis data. Results obtained present a coherent spatial distribution of VCI and TCI weights when estimated using clear- and all-sky LST. This study paves the way for the development of a future VHI near-real time operational product for drought monitoring based on information from Meteosat satellites.

During the Cold War, military and economic tensions between the US and the Soviet Union shaped the process of war in conflict regions in different parts of the world. The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s reshaped the balance of power in global politics, as new actors appeared on the global scene and global foreign policy shifted to mediating and providing humanitarian assistance in conflict regions zones. Humanitarianism became the method of conflict resolution, which provided humanitarian organizations, especially the religious ones among them, with the opportunity to have more influence in the outcomes of sociopolitical events occurring in the world. These dynamics impacted conflicts in Africa, especially within Sudan. This is because that era coincided with Sudan’s Second Civil War (1983-2005) between the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Government of Sudan (GofS). During the Cold War, both the US and Russia intervened in the civil war in Sudan by providing military and economic assistance to different parties, but, again, in the post-Cold War era humanitarianism was used in relation to the civil war. Transnational religious organizations provided humanitarian assistance in the war-torn and drought-afflicted regions in Southern Sudan, and sought to help implement peace initiatives to end the war. The organizations included Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), a consortium of UN agencies and NGOs1 which was created in 1989. In addition, transnational religious groups based in the United States and Canada such as the Christian Solidarity International (CSI), the Canadian Crossroads, Catholic Relief Service, Mennonite Central Committee and the Lutheran Church got involved in humanitarian relief in Sudan. The global focus on religious humanitarianism extended to Southern Sudan as the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) was founded in 1989-1990 to coordinate the humanitarian assistance. Because SPLA has led the civil war on behalf of Southern Sudan and had suzerainty over territories there, the humanitarian organizations had to build relationships with the SPLA to deliver relief through Southern Sudan and negotiate peace initiatives. This article analyzes how the transnational activities of the religious humanitarian groups shaped the evolution of SPLA from 1990 to 2005, with a particular focus on the US and Canadian organizations. We will see that the organizations influenced SPLA in a manner that impacted the civil war both in positive and negative ways. The organizations were ambivalent as, on one hand, they aggravated the conflict and, on the other hand influenced the development of both Church and non-Church related peace initiatives. Their humanitarian work was intricate as the civil war itself became more complex due to political issues that involved slavery, and oil extraction in Southern Sudan by US and Canadian multinational oil companies. All the parties involved took action to help end the civil war, but they all sought to serve their own interests, which jeopardized the possibility of a lasting peace. Thus, the interpretation of that history provides ways to help solve the current armed conflict in South Sudan.

The spatial-temporal variability of drought characteristics and propagation mechanisms in the hydrological cycle is a pertinent topic to policymakers and to the diverse scientific community. This study reports on the analysis of drought characteristics and propagation patterns in the hydrological cycle over South Africa. In particular, the analysis considered daily precipitation and streamflow data spanning from 1985 to 2016, recorded from 74 weather stations, distributed across South Africa and covering the country’s 19 Water Management Areas (WMAs). The results show that all the WMAs experience drought features characterized by an inherent spatial-temporal dependence structure with transition periods categorized into short (1–3 months), intermediate (4–6 months), long (7–12 months) and extended (>12 months) time-scales. Coupled with climate and catchment characteristics, the drought propagation characteristics delineate the WMAs into homogenous zones subtly akin to the broader climatic zones of South Africa, i.e., Savanna, Grassland, Karoo, Fynbos, Forest, and Desert climates. We posit that drought evolution results emanating from the current study provide a new perspective of drought characterization with practical use for the design of drought monitoring, as well as early warning systems for drought hazard preparedness and effective water resources planning and management. Overall, the analysis of drought evolution in South Africa is expected to stimulate advanced drought research topics, including the elusive drought termination typology.