18.3 - africa human environment

Human-EnvironmentHuman-EnvironmentInteractionInteraction

Desertification

• The process by which dry conditions move into moist areas next to deserts, i.e. they turn into deserts.

• This process is currently affecting the Sahel, a dry grassland that runs along the southern edge of the Sahara.

Nigerian Oil

• Nigeria’s economy is centered around oil… unfortunately.

• Because oil was so profitable, all effort was put into developing the resource and other economic sectors, like agriculture and mining, were severely neglected.

• This meant that when the price of oil tanked, so did the economy since it had nothing else to fall back on.

• The country also wound up being heavily in debt to other nations and with a corrupt government that mismanaged funds (those that weren’t embezzled anyway).

• Only in the last few years has a new government started making reforms to get the country out of debt and restructure the economy.

• Another problem with the oil is pollution.

• There are both oil spills and oil fires.

• The fires usually occur because people (bandits, military, and corrupt government officials) have tapped the pipelines in order to siphon off oil or gas that they then sell.

• Once they’re done, poor people come along to collect the oil in anything they can find so they can resell it.

• All it takes is a spark or somebody being careless with a cigarette.

Aswan High Dam

• This dam is located on the Nile River. Lake Nasser forms behind it.

• The dam has seriously reduced flooding further down the Nile, produces around 15% of Egypt’s electricity, and even spawned some commercial fishing on the lake.

• It’s also increased the amount of farmland and farm production since the agricultural cycle is no longer tied to the annual flooding.

• The downside

• There used to be people living where Lake Nasser is. They were displaced. There were also valuable archeological treasures that are now at the bottom of Lake Nasser.

• Before the dam, the annual flooding would deposit silt along the banks of the Nile and especially in the Nile Delta. This made the areas incredibly fertile.

• Now, though, that silt is settling in Lake Nasser.

• This is making the farmland down river less fertile naturally (they uses fertilizer to make up the difference).

• It also means that soil erosion is occurring in the Delta since silt is no longer replacing it.

• As the silt settles in the Lake, the water capacity of the lake decreases.

• It even goes so far as to decrease the fish stock in the Mediterranean Sea as well as increase its salinity since the nutrients and fresh water from the Nile are no longer flowing into it in as great a concentration as before.