A&W is pleased to present the website https://sahelrainindex.info/
Rain is the lifeline for humans and animals in the Sahel region. It falls during only a few months of the year, and its patterns shape the food security and livelihoods of millions of people in the Sahel. Information on annual rainfall helps illuminate daily life, community livelihoods and biodiversity throughout the region. But rain is not a certainty in the Sahel. Due to erratic rainfall patterns, there is large variation in rainfall from place to place and between seasons, regions and years. This makes calculating average annual rainfall a challenge, with information from many weather stations needed to arrive at reliable estimates. The Sahel Rainfall Index, as presented on the website, helps solve this issue by annually summarising data from numerous Sahel weather stations into a single index.
Along with rainfall, the extent of annual flooding in the Sahel’s main floodplains is also important information. It is presented on the website as the Maximal Flood Extent of the two main floodplains in West Africa: the Senegal River (including valley and delta) and the Inner Niger Delta. These areas have flood-dependent ecosystems and economies on which several million people—fishermen, pastoralists, rice farmers—rely, and they are of paramount importance for biodiversity.
The Sahel Rainfall Index and Maximal Flood Extent can be used as indicators for annual food production as well as related issues. Both parameters are highly informative in terms of biodiversity, for both resident species and migratory birds. For example, population fluctuations of Eurasian bird species that winter in the Sahel are strongly related to the region’s rainfall and flooding.
The site is updated annually. Data can be downloaded for free, but we encourage you to consider a voluntary donation, which will help us to maintain and update the site annually. We would appreciate that you share this news with your colleagues.