An international, Penn State-led consortium aims to improve drought risk analysis and management and increase societal resilience in Africa, funded by a three-year, $1.1 million grant from the Belmont Forum.
Due to a changing climate, Africa is projected to experience hotter temperatures, more severe storms and increased droughts — and few of the countries on the continent are prepared to deal with the coming crisis, according to consortium leader Michael Jacobson, Penn State professor of forest resources. This project aims to boost preparedness for drought to reduce food insecurity, poverty, health problems and the displacement of people.
To accomplish these goals, consortium partners Penn State, University of São Paulo, Brazil, and Cranfield University, U.K., will work closely with four African partner institutions: Rural Polytechnic Institute of Training and Applied Research, Mali; Makerere University, Uganda; Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco; and University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
“The countries and institutions that we are working with are intended to be proxies for the other counties on the continent because, obviously, we can’t work with all of them on this project,” said Jacobson, who has been conducting research in Africa for nearly four decades. “Hopefully, with these four biophysical and socioeconomic regions, we are getting a pretty fair representation of the drought scenario in Africa.”
The researchers will operationalize the management of disaster risk and societal resilience related to drought in Africa, explained Abdullah Konak, distinguished professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State Berks, a co-leader of the consortium. He noted that they intend to eliminate the ambiguity in the relationship between drought hazards, vulnerability and resiliency, developing a decision-support system for African leaders to accurately gauge drought disaster risk.
Original source can be found here
Alerts Sign-up