John Libbey Eurotext




Climate, water, and health in the West African Sahel
Science et changements planétaires / Sécheresse. Volume 15, Number 3, 233-41, JUILLET-AOÛT-SEPTEMBRE 2004, Synthèse
Résumé Article gratuit
Author(s) : Jean-Pierre Besancenot, Pascal Handschumacher, Jacques-André Ndione, Ibrahima Mbaye, Karine Laaidi
Summary : From the mouth of the Senegal River to the shores of Lake Chad through to the Sudanese Djezireh, the Sahel stands as an ecological transition (wooded steppe, between the Saharan desert and the Sudanian savannah) and a crossroads of civilisations (where nomadic shepherds and Black settled farmers are converging, the latter gradually taking over from the former towards the South). In this “area between two worlds” people’s health is strongly dependent on the natural environment, possibly altered by human action. Simultaneously or in turn, it has something of the nature of both surrounding environments. But the great drought of the 1970s and 1980s deeply altered the health situation, both by its direct effects (resulting in an increased dry area pathology) and by the installations it brought about (and those tended to induce the emergence or re-emergence of diseases which were until then characteristic of more humid areas).
Keywords : Health, Climate, Water, Sahel

Climate, water, and health in the West African Sahel