Impacts of global change in Benin

Abstract

Under the present climate conditions, physical water scarcity does not appear to be a major limiting factor for food and livelihood security in Benin. Rather, the fast demographic growth arising from high fertility rates and immigration causes a high pressure on natural resources such as soils, forests, water as well as on biodiversity, and challenges the assurance of food security and economic development. The projected climate warming and drying trend occurs in addition to these developments. In parts of the sub-humid tree savannah of Central Benin, particularly in the Haute Vallée de l'Ouémé (HVO), farmland expanded considerably at the expense of natural forests during the IMPETUS project period 2000-2009. In the HVO, some of the highest population growth rates in Benin in excess of 5% p.a. also occurred due to immigration mainly from the Atakora mountain area in northwest Benin. The increasing population and the prevailing extensive, labor-intensive cropping and animal husbandry systems were the major drivers of the rapid land use change that was monitored by IMPETUS in the HVO. Migrants were strongly involved in the process of agricultural colonization. In some villages in the HVO, rural migrants without secure land rights already constitute the majority of the population. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.