By Nellie Kapatuka:
A new study report indicates that rainfall pattern in Malawi has significantly decreased since the 1970s with temperatures rising, affecting drought occurrences and hydrological drought on Lake Malawi.
A study under Focus on Africa and led in the country by the Director of Climate Change and Metrological Services, Lucy Mtilatila, indicates that with a further 2 Degrees Celsius increase in the temperatures, Lake Malawi water levels would decrease by 0.6m with Shire river decreasing by 30.5%.
Mtilatila shared the findings on Monday at an event on the co-development of tailored climate services for multiple socio economic sectors and stakeholders in Sub Saharan Africa at the ongoing 27th session of the conference of parties dubbed COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt.
She said, dry season has also extensively extended in the country which she said would negatively affect the agriculture sector which highly depends on rainfall for production saying wet season has also lessened.
“The increase in drought is not only in intensity but also in space, there are more and more places being affected which already shows that apart from the hydro power and the water resources, the agricultural sector is also going to be affected more particularly because Malawi heavily relies on rain fed agriculture,” she said.
She said the alarming figures also threatens the countrys hydropower system which heavily relies on the Shire River to generate over 80% of power available on the national grid.
According to Mtilatila, to partially address the threats particularly in the agriculture sector, a deliberate program on participatory integrated climate services for agriculture has been rolled out across Malawi where farmers are being mentored to master the climate of their areas for better planning of agricultural activities.
She said through the program, farmers are provided with climate change information as well as seasonal forecasts.
However, an agriculture expert and Chief Executive Officer for the National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (NASFAM), Bettie Chinyamunyamu, in an earlier interview emphasized on the need for the country to not totally ignore indigenous climate change information but to integrate both scientific and indigenous knowledge saying some traditional practices are resilient to climate change.
Commenting on Malawis situation, Michael Singer, a Hydrologist and Professor at Cardif University, said there is an urgent need for the country to re-plan and come up with new strategies of dealing with what he described as the new normal, in the face of climate change suggesting provision of tailor made climate service information as a crucial component in ensuring that the rural communities have access to climate forecasts information.
Malawi is highlighted as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the effects of climate change.
