Flooding in West Africa more likely due to climate change

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  Helen Ekker

  Climate and Energy editor

The possibility of heavy rains and floods that hit West Africa earlier this year has become much higher due to climate change. This is the conclusion of research by the international research group World Weather Attribution.

West African countries such as Nigeria, Niger and Chad were hit by extreme weather from June to October. The floods killed more than 800 people.

The likelihood of such amounts of rain and flooding is now 80 times greater than it was before the industrial era, around 1850. This is a result of climate change, says the new study.

Research shows countries need to prepare quickly and better for such weather events, says climatologist Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, who led the study.

“We will see very heavy rains in West Africa in the next few years,” warns Otto. The floods displaced 1.5 million people from their homes, injured thousands and rendered homes and farmland unusable in large areas.

Research shows that not only climate change plays a role, but also the vulnerability of countries themselves, says Maarten van Aalst of the University of Twente, who participated in the study.

Van Aalst is also director of the International Climate Center of the Red Cross and will attend the conference in Egypt. “If we were to have a flood in the Netherlands that happens once in a hundred years, we might be affected, but hundreds won’t die.” In West Africa, people are very poor and countries are not well prepared, he says. “So it’s the sum of really high vulnerability plus those extreme weather events that have been exacerbated by climate change.”

At the Sharm el-Sheikh climate summit, ‘climate damage’ is one of the hot topics. These are damages caused, for example, by extreme weather conditions that are exacerbated by climate change. It strains negotiations, because developing countries want compensation. After all, they have contributed the least to the cause of climate change, the emission of greenhouse gases.

It is difficult to find a compromise that all countries can agree on. “In any case, such an investigation shows that negotiations are very important,” says Van Aalst. “And that those countries are rightly demanding a solution to the damage they are suffering.”

The researchers looked at how often such heavy rains have occurred in this African region in the past. Furthermore, climate models are used to study the consequences of rising greenhouse gases.

In another report by the same researchers, on extreme drought in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, it is found that no link to climate change can be established.

The fact that the link between climate change and damage caused by extreme weather conditions cannot be established directly is because, according to Van Aalst, other aspects always play a role: “If a city has its water management in order, for example, or if there is a well-functioning warning system, which allows people to save themselves in time.”

Van Aalst: “So you shouldn’t always have to draw that line directly, but it does mean that the negotiators in Egypt have to find a solution to this problem.”