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While a recent survey by IRIN (IRIN 2018) assesses the coverage of humanitarian crises by mainstream media as “selective, sporadic, simplistic and partial”, it is difficult, when monitoring the many sources listed above to decide which disasters deserve being reported on in the CropWatch bulletin. The annual World Disaster Reports of the IFRC, for instance, is published more than one year after the reporting period, when overall consequences and impacts of disasters are much clearer than immediately after their occurrence. We try to maintain readers informed about long-term emergencies as well other information of general relevance for understanding adverse environmental and man-made impacts. This also includes documents such as the recent FAO report on “ 2017 The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security” (FAO, 2018).

Updates

According to a recent report issued earlier this year by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EACSAC 2018) global floods and extreme rainfall events have increased more than 50% this decade. The increase is more than fourfold compared with 1980. For abnormally high temperature, of which agricultural drought and fires are a usual consequence, the increase over 1980 is more than twofold. Most of the changes can now be clearly assigned to climate change and resulting deep impacts, e.g. on ocean currents.

We also need to mention, according mostly to ReliefWeb, that several Caribbean Islands (Haiti, Dominica, …and even Puerto Rico [Foot-note-2]) are still struggling with the consequences of Hurricanes Irma (September 2017) and especially Maria (September-October 2017) . The damage due to the cyclones is highest in US$ terms in US territories (e.g. 90 billion in Puerto Rico for Maria) because of the high value of lost infrastructure. In terms of long-term deterioration of living conditions, the damage caused by Maria in Dominica, however (1.4 billion US$) is considerably larger.

This section also tends to focus on atmospheric disasters because their impact on food production tends to be larger than the impact of lithospheric disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It remains, however, that the Papua New Guinea 7.5 magnitude earthquake of 25 February needs to mentioned as more that 500,000 people were strongly affected. The tremor was the largest earthquake recorded in the region since a similar event in 1922. Two months after the event, 270,000 people were still in need of assistance across four provinces and close to 45,000 remained displaced. Major problems include water supply as landslides and landslips destroyed many traditional water sources (UNDP 2018).

War and unrest

Wars and unrest and insecurity are continuing to cause suffering from Ukraine to Syria to the Horn of Africa (Figure 5XA), central Africa and Mauritania. This is a huge area with an unprecedented large number of people exposed to violence, displacement, poor health and food shortages. There are also, unfortunately, many situations where food is used as a weapon by either limiting movements of food or even restricting farmers’ access to their fields.

Figure 5.1. Numbers of refugees in Africa at the end of March 2018. Source: UNHCR 2018.

In many insecure and violent situations, we tend to assign the “cause” to well known agents such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, Islamic terrorism and groups fighting over the control of illicit crop cultivation areas in Colombia. It is important, however, to remember that the root causes are often more obvious and, at the same time, more difficult to handle. In some situations the root causes involve a shortage of environmental resources, e.g. arable or grazing lands, but in many others man plays a direct role. Several interesting essays from Nigeria (Essays 2018) list root causes such as poor education, unemployment (especially youth unemployment), imbalanced development with rich states (due to oil revenue) and poor ones, corruption of officials who have little or no interest in developing their community, a weak judicial system, porous coastal borders that allow easy smuggling of weapons into the country. Others add narcotics trafficking, slavery (there are about 40 millions slaves worldwide, according to the Walk Free Foundation WFF 2018), tribalism and weak institutions.

Some of the countries where war and civil unrest continued or erupted during the current CropWatch reporting period include

• Afghanistan with violence and displaced people;

• Cameroon where structural vulnerability, refugees and the re-ignition of the “Anglophone crisis” resulting in 2.6 million people in need of food assistance;

• the Central African republic (CAR) with inter-communal and ethnic violence, as well as clashes and attacks by armed groups against civilians;

• Chad which had a large influx of refugees from CAR;

• Colombia where the demobilisation of armed groups last year resulted in fighting between other groups attempting to take over the control of areas cultivating narcotics;

• Congo DRC (Kasai, Haut-Katanga and Ituri) where displaced people and insecurity have disrupted harvests and planting cycles, and where food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further. The situation affects neighbouring Zambia through refugee movements;

• Unrest in Ethiopia near the Kenya border (Moyale);

• Iraq where 3.3 million internally displaced people are attempting to return home;

• in Mali, a relative newcomer in this list, humanitarian workers have been targeted specifically in Timbuktu, Mopti, Gao and Segou regions. Many Malians fled to Mauritania where Poor rains throughout 2017 triggered a severe drought and acute food shortages. Some 380,000 people are facing Crisis (IPC3) food insecurity up from 126,000 at the same time in 2017;

• In Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis people are frequently denied access to field, which will lead to food problems later. Many people from Myanmar are now refugees in Bangladesh, where they constitute huge emergency settlements that are most likely to suffer from the local heavy monsoon once it sets in. At the end of April, Myanmar also witnessed multiple clashes between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the national Army;

• Farmers and herders clashed over land in Benue State in south-west Nigeria, creating a new insecurity area in next to the 130000 IDPs caused by Boko Haram operations in the north-east;

• In Somalia 5.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, including people displaced by drought and conflict.

• Sudan continues struggling with violence and returning refugees in the South, where the number of counties in IPC Phase 4 is likely to increase to 17 between February and April and to 31 from May to July. In the North, food insecurity is worsening in Darfur and parts of Kassala (IPC 3) largely due to poor rainfall during the growing season between November and January which led to crop losses;

• In Syria (Eastern Ghouta and Afrin), fighting continued humanitarian assistance experienced tremendous difficulties to reach populations;

• Uganda continued to suffer from millions of international refugees;

• Food insecurity is deteriorating in Donetsk and Luhansk (Ukraine), where 2.1 million people people live in the non-government controlled areas;

• Yemen, where fighting and air-strikes continue with little hope for a peaceful resolution...

Disasters by category

Globally, the impact of disasters was relatively limited this reporting period.

Heat and fire and drought

Drought, that has been affecting parts of Australia for months continued into the current reporting period with the Tathra (New South Wales) bush-fires destroying many homes.

The most serious drought in terms of agricultural impacts, however, occurred from the beginning of 2018 in parts of Latin America, lasting into March and early April. In Uruguay, the most severely affected Departments are Tacuarembó, Salto, Durazno and parts of Artigas, Paysandú, Rivera and Río Negro. Lack of water has considerably reduced available areas for growing crops and raising livestock, and is likely to continue affecting food supply. The National Emergencies System (SINAE) warns that the drought – which is possibly linked to La Niña – might last until the middle of the year or beyond.

In Argentina, the State of Entre Rios, which borders Uruguay, was declared agricultural disaster area on for one year, on 27 March.

A significant heatwave was reported from parts of Europe but mostly from Asia in March-April, centered over Iran but extending eastward into Pakistan and as far as Japan and westward into north-east Africa. Long term temperature records were broken in many countries, reaching 45.5°C in Pakistan (mostly in Sindh province), 43.8°C in Iraq, 40.2°C in Turkmenistan, 37.2°C in Uzbekistan and 35.3°C in Tajikistan. Thousands are deemed to have died due to heat stress. Some impacts on crops are likely but no early estimates cold be located.

Figure 5.2. "Center" of March-April heatwave. Source: https://mashable.com/2018/04/03/severe-heat-wave-asia-monthly-records/

Cold wave

The United Kingdom and Ireland were affected by a late winter cold that lasted from late February to mid-March. Storm Emma, which caused 93 casualties was part of this event which the media nicknamed “the Beast from the East” (Wikipedia 2018)

Cyclones

Between 3 and 22 February an intense tropical cyclone (Gita, Fgure 5XB) affected Vanuatu, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, American Samoa, Niue, Tonga, New Caledonia, Queensland and New Zealand causing damage for about 200 million US$. The cyclone brought mostly rainfall, floods and strong winds (230 km/h in Tonga), destroying houses and infrastructure, and most seriously affecting Tonga. Crops were damaged in parts of Fiji but mostly in Tonga (75% of the cyclone’s total losses: 150 million US$ ). Gita is the most severe cyclone ever recorded in Tonga. In addition to agriculture, the cyclone caused extensive damage to buildings (private and public) and infrastructure (water supply, transport and communication infrastructure). Some 50,000 people were affected.

Figure 5.3. Track of cyclone Gita. At the beginning of February, the precursor of Gita "looped" over Vanuatu and then moved east and back west passing north of Fiji on 8 Feb and south of the island on 11 Feb. It collapsed on 22 Feb south-east of New-Zealand. Source: Wikipedia 2018

Additional cyclones occurred in the Pacific area but did not cause serious damage.

Floods

Significant floods are reported from Europe and Asia, seriously affecting the east of the continent at mid-March, for instance Belarus and the southern part of European Russia (Volgograd Region), as a result of rapid snow thaw and run-off of meltwater into riverbeds. In Russia, 11,550 people were assisted by the Russian Red Cross Society. Still in Russia, at the end of March, floods were reported from the the Altai Krai.

The most serious floods are those that occurred in Africa, affecting large areas in the Horn of Africa, starting at the beginning of March heavy rain fell over the centre and south causing floods, flash floods and killing 15 people. In Mandera county, at least 750 homes were swept away and an estimated 4,500 people have been displaced. The above-normal precipitation constitutes an early start to the March to May “long rains” and, in spite of the damage caused, provides badly needed relief after a long period of drought. The same rains also caused concern and some damage in neighbouring Rwanda.

In early April flooding and landslides occurred in Burundi. A week later, heavy rains resulted in flash floods in Somalia creating damage and stressing refugees living under difficult conditions but resulting in few casualties. About 30,000 people were displaced. In Ethiopia flash flood left hundreds of thousands of people in need of immediate humanitarian support in Afar, Oromia and Somali regions. Several villages lost their crops at flowering stage, far too late for replanting. Many people’s houses and livestock have been washed away. Kenya was affected by floods in April too, mostly in the semi-arid eastern parts bordering Somalia. In the south, abundant rain fell over the northern half of Tanzania from mid-April. ,

Floods are ALSO reported from southern African in Botswana at the end of February.

References

CRISIS GROUP 2017 Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis at the Crossroads. International Crisis Group, Brussels. 38 pp. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/250-cameroons-anglophone-crisis-at-the-crossroads_0.pdf

EASAC 2018 Extreme weather events in Europe, Preparing for climate change adaptation: an update on EASAC’s 2013 Study . 6 pp. Available from the EASAC website at https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Extreme_Weather/EASAC_Statement_Extreme_Weather_Events_March_2018_FINAL.pdf

Essays 2018 https://nigerianfinder.com/top-5-causes-of-insecurity-in-nigeria/, http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/insecurity-in-nigeria-causes-and-resolutions.html, https://www.naija.ng/1106626-10-causes-insecurity-nigeria-the-way-out.html#1106626, http://www.hotvibesmedia.com.ng/2017/12/top-10-causes-of-insecurity-in-nigeria.html, http://www.nairaland.com/1027585/remote-immediate-causes-crimes-insecurity

FAO 2018 2017 The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security. FAO, Rome, 143 pp. http://www.fao.org/3/I8656EN/i8656en.pdf.

IRIN 2018 Mainstream media coverage of humanitarian crises falls short, new survey finds http://www.irinnews.org/about-us/2018/05/01/mainstream-media-coverage-humanitarian-crises-falls-short-new-survey-finds-0

UNDP 2018 Papua New Guinea: Highlands Earthquake Situation Report No. 8 (20 April 2018). PNG Disaster Management Team https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/operations/papua-new-guinea

UNHCR 2018 East, Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region - Refugees and asylum-seekers - 31 March 2018 http://maps.unhcr.org/en/resource?download&id=3724

WFF 2018 https://www.walkfreefoundation.org

Wikipedia 2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Gita, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Great_Britain_and_Ireland_cold_wave

[Foot-note-1] For instance https://www.theguardian.com/world/natural-disasters

[Foot-note-2] An estimated 13 million schooldays have been lost since Maria

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