Climate change is amplifying extreme weather conditions across southern Africa. Dry seasons are getting hotter and drier, while rains are becoming heavier and more concentrated. This means greater swings between production surplus and scarcity for rural communities that make their living from the land.
I’m a scientist who studies the complex interactions of social and ecological processes, and the impacts of decisions about managing natural resources. In a recent study, my co-authors and I sought to understand how changing rainfall patterns might interact with patterns in people’s wealth in southern Africa – specifically, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
