**3. Frequently reported climate change shocks in the Sahel**

This study has found out that three key shocks are recorded in the Sahel of Africa. These shocks include droughts, floods, and winds/sandstorms. Droughts are reported as the most frequent among these shocks (n = 219) (**Figures 3** and **4** and

#### *The Nature, Causes, Effects and Mitigation of Climate Change on the Environment*

**Figure 4.**

*Composite frequencies per region of reported/tracked climate shocks in the Sahel from 1975 to 2020.*

**Table 1**). The other shocks in order of importance are floods (n = 123) (**Figure 2**) and winds/sandstorms (n = 46) (**Figures 3** and **4**). It can be inferred that the Sahel is a zone of climatic extremes with droughts topping the chart during the dry periods and with floods taking over during periods of prolonged precipitation which confirms the fact that one of the consequences of climate change is the amplification of extreme events.

In terms of the distribution of these shocks in various countries, the following countries recorded the highest number of shocks in order of importance: in term of droughts, Kenya recorded 28, Ethiopia recorded 26 and Niger recorded 24. In the domain of floods, Cameroon was the highest with 27 shocks, Niger with 24 shocks, and Ethiopia with 20 shocks. In the case of winds/sandstorms Niger observed the most shocks with the highest of 14 shocks, Senegal recorded 10 shocks and Mali recorded 5 shocks (**Figure 3**).

*Recent Climate Shocks in the Sahel: A Systematic Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98882*


#### **Table 1.**

*Examples of Sahel countries with drought studies.*

Regionally, West African Sahel witnessed the highest number of droughts of about 100 cases while East African Sahel had 78 shocks. As concerns floods, West African Sahel recorded the highest of about 56 cases while East African Sahel recorded 35 shocks and Central African Sahel recorded 28 shocks. As concerns winds/sandstorms, West African Sahel witnessed 370 shocks, while East and Central African Sahel recorded East 3 and 2) shocks respectively (**Figure 4**).
