Introduction Conclusions References

Increased clouds and precipitation normally decrease the diurnal temperature range (DTR) and thus have commonly been offered as explanation for the trend of reduced DTR observed for many land areas over the last several decades. Observations show, however, that the DTR was reduced most in dry regions and especially in the West African Sahel during a period of unprecedented drought. Furthermore,...

The acceleration of ice sheet melting has been observed over the last few decades. Recent observations and modeling studies have suggested that the ice sheet contribution to future sea level rise could have been underestimated in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The ensuing freshwater discharge coming from ice sheets could have significant impacts on global climate, ...

The Sahel has been the focus of scientific interest in environmental-human dynamics and interactions. The objective of the present study is to contribute to the recent debate on the re-greening of Sahel. The paper examines the dynamics of barren land in the Sahel of Burkina Faso through analysis of remotely-sensed and rainfall data from 1975–2011. Discussions with farmers and land management st...

Local vegetation trends in the Sahel of Mali and Senegal from Geoland Version 1 (GEOV1) (5 km) and the third generation Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS3g) (8 km) Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) time series are studied over 29 years. For validation and interpretation of observed greenness trends, two methods are applied: (1) a qualitative app...

The NGO Terre Verte pursues the realisation of bocage perimeters (wégoubri in the mooré language) in Burkina Faso. They are an innovative concept of rural development that has been established in the 1990s in the experimental farm of Guiè and is now adopted in other experimental farms in Burkina Faso. The deterioration of the rural landscape in the Sahel region has worsened in the last decades,...

Article history: We review the evidence th Received 29 February 2008 Accepted 26 May 2008 Available online 19 October 2008 at connects drought and desertification in the Sahel with climate change past, present and future. Advances in climate modeling point to the oceans, not land, as the cause of the recent persistence of drought in the Sahel. The current generation of global climate models rep...

Background Meningococcal meningitis has been a terrifying public health threat in countries of the Sahel and sub-Sahel over the past 100 years. This geographical area has been named the “African meningitis belt”. Older children and young adults are particularly at risk during epidemics. The mortality rate is usually 5% 10%. A serogroup A meningococcal conjugate vaccine was licensed in 2009. Mas...