The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported that at least 60,000 animals have been lost to starvation, and milk production is 80 percent below average. Successive rain shortfalls in eastern Africa have had a cumulative effect: smaller crop harvests shortages of forage depleted water supplies and weakened and depleted livestock herds. The data come from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite and the analysis comes from the USGS FEWS NET Data Portal. The map compares NDVI from December 2021 with the long-term average from 2000 to 2013. Healthy vegetation reflects more infrared light and less visible light than stressed vegetation. NDVI measures the health, or “greenness,” of vegetation based on how much red and near-infrared light the leaves reflect. The map at the top right shows anomalies in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a satellite-derived product used to assess crop conditions. Measurements come from the Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) data set. The map on the top left shows precipitation anomalies for the 2021 deyr season, or how much rainfall was above or below average for the October through December period. In its December 2021 report, FEWS NET declared: “A poor March-May 2022 season would result in an unprecedented (since 1981) sequence of four below-normal rainfall seasons.Even if March-April-May rains are normal, the region will experience lingering long-term rainfall deficits.” Many areas in the Horn of Africa are expected to face “crisis” and “emergency” levels of food insecurity. The challenge is not just the soil moisture or the rainfall anomalies it is the resilience of the population to drought.” “We are heading into a dry season, and the seasonal outlook does not look favorable either. “These back-to-back blows are hard for the farmers to take,” said Ashutosh Limaye, a scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and a close collaborator with the SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa Hub (a NASA-USAID collaboration). Kenya and Somalia have declared drought emergencies similar conditions have also prevailed in southern and eastern Ethiopia. Levels of precipitation have been the lowest on record in some areas the Shabelle-Juba river basins have seen their lowest rainfall totals since 1981. The 20 deyr seasons were both substantially drier than normal, and the 2021 gu also came up short. Tropical countries within the Horn of Africa tend to have two rainy seasons: the gu in March, April, and May, and the deyr in October, November, and December. Several U.S agencies support FEWS NET NASA provides satellite imagery and climate and weather data. FEWS NET assembles global and regional analyses of food security (particularly conditions for farming and livestock husbandry) to help governments and relief agencies plan for and respond to humanitarian crises. Agency for International Development (USAID). The warnings come from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), a program supported by the U.S. Climate change and ongoing La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, half a world away, have contributed to the persistent dry weather and might bring more of it during the next rainy season. Climate and agriculture experts are advising governments and relief agencies to expect a significant need for food assistance in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Following three consecutive failed rainy seasons, more than 20 million people in eastern Africa now face some of the worst food security risks in 35 years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |