By Elizabeth Basauri Bryan, IFPRI
A workshop held in December last year explored future climate projections for South Asia and East Africa's food and water security while discussing ways farmers are coping with climate variability in the two regions.
Extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, cause enormous damage to food production all over the world and especially so in South Asia and East Africa. Climate projections suggest that more frequent and severe weather extremes are expected in the future under climate change.
Enhancing farmers’ coping capacity and improving agricultural and water policies will increase the resilience of rural communities towards both today’s and future climate extreme events.
On December 6 last year IFPRI hosted a workshop in Washington, DC to present preliminary research results from the CCAFS-supported project “Investigating the Impact of Climate Extremes on Future Water and Food Security” and to get feedback from senior researchers and policymakers working on issues related to climate extreme events from India and East Africa.
Several presentations focused on the severity and frequency of drought in South Asia, using statistical and biophysical models to identify vulnerable areas and prioritize drought mitigation measures. Results for Pakistan show that droughts exhibit cyclical behavior in which periods of intensive droughts, covering key agricultural areas of the country, appears to occur approximately every 16 years, followed by multi-year wet periods.
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