Climate, Water and Land in Africa: Research Trends and Challenges

The African continent is highly vulnerable to the impacts of global warming, albeit it has contributed little to global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to increased risks of hydrometeorological extreme events like heavy precipitation, floods and droughts, it faces water availability challenges due to further significant population increase. Research urgently needs to support decision making. This requires the improved understanding of the interlinked consideration of climate-, water cycle and ecosystem processes. This Research Topic investigates how climate and water interacts in the 21st century. We address climate change analyses, land use/ landcover evaluations and, focus on water management challenges, ways to improve water access, waste less, and recycle more, while on the other hand meeting water demands for various purposes including for human life, sanitation, and ecosystems. This collection explores scientific advances in water-land-climate research, focusing on drought- and flood mitigation and -adaptation, e.g. via integrated modelling approaches. It discusses modelling approaches for coupling biophysical and social responses with climate change scenarios across various scales. It also involves numerous step-by-step procedures and applications for integrated assessment of climate change on agriculture, water resources, land-use and aquatic ecosystems in Africa. Using state-of-the art topical papers for piloting, learning and out scaling for practitioners, the topic presents opportunities for presenting contemporary and special case study results and experiences from different parts of Africa. The topic shall provide a platform for scientists, academicians and decision makers to promote, share, and discuss emerging issues and developments in the interlinked field of climate, water and land research.

The goal of the Research Topic is to present frontiers and insights that solve interlinked climate, water and land challenges by providing valuable analytical perspectives that ensure water and food security, as well as ecosystem health An emphasis is placed on the innovation and applicability of water-, climate and land science and -technology in the African landscape. It addresses surface water research, regional climate modelling, and land use studies. We aim to advance the understanding of Africa’s regional climate-, water and land resources on regional scales. This includes the further development of methods to obtain higher spatial resolution for predictions and projections of meteorological, hydrological and ecosystem variables and their uncertainties. We explicitly aim at the presentation of field studies conducted in African catchments and environments.
In this Research Topic, we invite both experienced as well as young researchers to submit original research- and review articles on exploring climate-, water and land interactions and -changes in Africa.

The following topics and subtopics will be covered:

Observations of hydrological variability and change in Africa:
• Local and catchment scale measurements of surface water fluxes

• Changes in river flow due to anthropogenic interference in water resources

• Irrigation: Extent, development and consequences

• Water abstraction for mining and hydrological consequences: case studies

Regional studies on the hydrological cycle and water budget:
• Hydrological and climatological peculiarities in sub-Saharan Africa

• Quantifying hydrological processes: evapotranspiration, soil-moisture, runoff processes in Africa: in-situ observations, remote sensing and modelling

• Sensitivity of hydrological models to vegetation dynamics and meteorological data

Environmental change impacts on hydrological systems:
• Impacts of climate and land-use change on agricultural productivity in Africa

• Catchments and land-use/cover change effects on long term water budget and on extreme conditions

Sustainable water resources use:
• Particular successful case studies of sustainable water resources use

• Interfaces of modelling for water- food – energy - society nexus

• Risk quantification and reductions approaches

• Water quality – ecosystem health – human health at different scales

Predictability of hydrometeorological variability:
• Latest regional climate projections

• Sub-seasonal to seasonal predictions

Case studies hydrological extremes in Africa and analysis of methodologies:
• Analysis of recent severe drought and flood events

• Extreme floods and droughts and teleconnection with inter-annual variation of ocean-atmosphere system such as the El Nino/ ENSO phenomenon

• Modelling of rainfall-runoff processes under uncertain / scarce data conditions in Africa.

• Stochastic hydrological processes and modelling studies

• The potential of seasonal climate and hydrological conditions

• Potential of remote sensing, large scale data fusion and other novel techniques