ESSIC Research Associate Amy McNally recently contributed to a Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) Special Report on drought in Southern Africa. The report, titled “Illustrating the extent and severity of the 2015-16 drought,” details the impacts of the recent drought on water availability, crop production, food prices, and food security.
As part of the FEWS Land Data Assimilation System, McNally’s surface water availability model helped illustrate the severe surface water deficits in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Taking into account rainfall, humidity, winds, soil type, and temperature, the map used in the report shows which areas saw the most profound declines in surface water availability per capita in January 2016.
The full report can be found at the following:
![Figure 3. Monthly TPW anomaly time series shown in red for ERA5 and blue for MiRS SNPP, 2012-2021. The straight lines are the linear regression fits. [a] is for global, [b] for Tropics, and [c] for mid-latitude regions, respectively.](https://essic.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/grassotti-zhou-150x150.png)
