**5. Discussion and implications**

In this chapter, we examine the occurrence of climate shocks across the Sahel based on reports in the primary peer review literature. The work also examines the

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

role of climatic and non-climatic drivers of the climate shocks and their evolution over time. These results provide a basis for assessing where shocks are occurring and to design adaptation actions based on the latter.

An analysis of where climate change shocks are occurring, what climate change shocks researchers are focusing on and their evolution over time goes a long way in providing insights that can enhance the ability to cope with the shocks. Already, this work has shown that in the Sahel, current adaptation strategies must be tailored to cope against droughts which are the most frequently reported climate shock in the Sahel. Invariably, droughts should be followed by floods and winds in any policy strategies aimed at cubbing shock and enhancing climate resilience in the Sahel. Even though floods have gained importance in the scientific scholarship over time, droughts remain the dominant climate forcing in the Sahel around which most adaptation actions should be drawn. Basing adaptations on site specific drivers is consistent with the systematic approach described by [53] and [11] describing the drivers of forest degradation in Bolivia and Cameroon respectively and using these drivers to propose policy options. This approach provides room for sustainability and accuracy and is a departure from the approach that is based on generalizations the copy pasting of what has worked elsewhere. This chapter provides a snapshot of the frequency in which climate change shocks are reported in the scientific literature, the affiliations of the authors, when and where the shocks occurred and the relative contributions of climatic and non-climatic drivers of these shocks.

Furthermore, this chapter has found out that Southern Niger and West African Sahel recorded the highest number climate change shocks in the Sahel. Kenya however recorded the highest number of reported droughts, while Cameroon recorded the highest number of floods. On the other hand, Niger recorded the highest number of winds. Researchers, and other decision-making stakeholders must prioritize these dominant shocks. Most of the peer review studies reported here argue both climatic and non-climatic drivers are driving these climate shocks in the Sahel. For a long time, the scientific literature has noted that many of the environmental problems faced across Africa were caused by climate change. However, this current chapter notes that non-climatic drivers are gaining importance. There is scientific evidence across Africa and the Sahel that illustrates that most of the environmental issues facing the region are driven by non-climatic drivers such as deforestation, population growth, wars and unsustainable approaches of land tenure and use like shifting and slash and burn cultivation inter alia while climate change only playing a reinforcing role [1, 7, 44, 54–58].

The decade 1975–1985 recorded the highest number of shocks in the Sahel. This surge has been attributed to the ravaging droughts that impacted most sub-Saharan African countries in the 1970s and early 1980s [50, 59–64]. At the dawn of the mid 1980s, the droughts that ravaged the continent had reduced in intensity giving rise to a surge in other climate shocks such as floods. Recent normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) studies across the Sahel show that from the mid-1980s onwards, the Sahel has witnessed increasing precipitation and greening of the landscape [7, 54, 60, 61, 65–71]. This work is unique in that it is the first to use the systematic approach to verify the temporal and spatial distribution of climate shocks in the Sahel as well as their drivers. This approach has previously been used in tracking adaptations around the world as reported in the following studies, [1, 41, 43, 63, 64, 67–72]. It is important to caution that, this work provides a proxybased approach offering a baseline from which climate change can be evaluated and monitored in the Sahel.

As this work is a first attempt to track climate change adaptations in the Sahel, going forward, the following recommendations are made: 1. similar systematic reviews across larger scales across Africa such as African continent. 2. Inclusion of both peer review and gray literature to better capture the shocks that might have been reported in non-standardized studies 3. Providing further insights into the leverage of research in the context of who is researching what and where are they affiliated. This option will help is encouraging a higher leverage of research funding for the region. Though this work is based on proxies, it has also been verified that through ground truthing that these results are generally valid as ground truthing has not resulted in any new information that can contradict these findings.
