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This paper addresses two fundamental questions on climate change and variability: to what extent has climate changed and/or varied over years in two districts of different agro-ecological regions or zones and how do any changes differ between the zones or districts? Given the rural-rural migration pattern observed between the districts, understanding climate change risk to rural livelihoods cannot be overemphasised. To assess change and variability, we utilise rainfall data-records over a 36-year period from 1980 to 2016. Results show that there are wide variations and differences within and between the districts. Evidence suggests a general reduction in both annual rainfall and wet days. There is also ground to suggest that the rainy season duration is becoming shorter, given that rainfall onset is increasingly starting late, while cessation is increasingly coming early. Dry spells frequency and duration trends within rainy season show an increase over the period examined. We conclude that local climate in both areas has changed over the period investigated. However, while Livingstone seems to have experienced more droughts and unreliable rainfall, Kabwe experienced a bigger change in both rainfall and rainy season duration. We further conclude that migrants into Kabwe and other inhabitants are not any safer from climate change risk.

We describe the nature of recent (50 year) rainfall variability in the summer rainfall zone, South Africa, and how variability is recognised and responded to on the ground by farmers. Using daily rainfall data and self-organising mapping (SOM) we identify 12 internally homogeneous rainfall regions displaying differing parameters of precipitation change. Three regions, characterised by changing onset and timing of rains, rainfall frequencies and intensities, in Limpopo, North West and KwaZulu Natal provinces, were selected to investigate farmer perceptions of, and responses to, rainfall parameter changes. Village and household level analyses demonstrate that the trends and variabilities in precipitation parameters differentiated by the SOM analysis were clearly recognised by people living in the areas in which they occurred. A range of specific coping and adaptation strategies are employed by farmers to respond to climate shifts, some generic across regions and some facilitated by specific local factors. The study has begun to understand the complexity of coping and adaptation, and the factors that influence the decisions that are taken.

Environmental change poses risks to societies, including disrupting social and economic systems such as migration. At the same time, migration is an effective adaptation to environmental and other risks. We review novel science on interactions between migration, environmental risks and climate change. We highlight emergent findings, including how dominant flows of rural to urban migration mean that populations are exposed to new risks within destination areas and the requirement for urban sustainability. We highlight the issue of lack of mobility as a major issue limiting the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy and leading to potentially trapped populations. The paper presents scenarios of future migration that show both displacement and trapped populations over the incoming decades. Papers in the special issue bring new insights from demography, human geography, political science and environmental science to this emerging field.

This paper examines the success of small-scale farming livelihoods in adapting to climate variability and change. We represent adaptation actions as choices within a response space that includes coping but also longer-term adaptation actions, and define success as those actions which promote system resilience, promote legitimate institutional change, and hence generate and sustain collective action. We explore data on social responses from four regions across South Africa and Mozambique facing a variety of climate risks. The analysis suggests that some collective adaptation actions enhance livelihood resilience to climate change and variability but others have negative spillover effects to other scales. Any assessment of successful adaptation is, however, constrained by the scale of analysis in terms of the temporal and spatial boundaries on the system being investigated. In addition, the diversity of mechanisms by which rural communities in southern Africa adapt to risks suggests that external interventions to assist adaptation will need to be sensitive to the location-specific nature of adaptation.

Globally, we are facing an emerging climate crisis, with impacts to be notably felt in semiarid regions across the world. Cultivation of drought-adapted succulent plants has been suggested as a nature-based solution that could: (i) reduce land degradation, (ii) increase agricultural diversification and provide both economic and environmentally sustainable income through derived bioproducts and bioenergy, (iii) help mitigate atmospheric CO2 emissions and (iv) increase soil sequestration of CO2. Identifying where succulents can grow and thrive is an important prerequisite for the advent of a sustainable alternative ‘bioeconomy’. Here, we first explore the viability of succulent cultivation in Africa under future climate projections to 2100 using species distribution modelling to identify climatic parameters of greatest importance and regions of environmental suitability. Minimum temperatures and temperature variability are shown to be key controls in defining the theoretical distribution of three succulent species explored, and under both current and future SSP5 8.5 projections, the conditions required for the growth of at least one of the species are met in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. These results are supplemented with an analysis of potentially available land for alternative succulent crop cultivation. In total, up to 1.5 billion ha could be considered ecophysiologically suitable and available for succulent cultivation due to projected declines in rangeland biomass and yields of traditional crops. These findings may serve to highlight new opportunities for farmers, governments and key stakeholders in the agriculture and energy sectors to invest in sustainable bioeconomic alternatives that deliver on environmental, social and economic goals.

The dune thing Desert dunes cover some 5% of Earth's land surface, including almost 30% of Africa, where vegetated dunes are widely used in agriculture, but the potential impact of global warming on dune systems is not well understood. New climate modelling studies suggest that for a range of CO 2 emissions scenarios, extensive dune systems from South Africa to Angola will be activated as a consequence of future global warming by 2010. This shift in desert dunes could have drastic effects on the environment, and marked socio-political implications for the countries in which the dune systems fall. Although desert dunes cover 5 per cent of the global land surface and 30 per cent of Africa, the potential impacts of twenty-first century global warming on desert dune systems are not well understood 1 . The inactive Sahel and southern African dune systems, which developed in multiple arid phases since the last interglacial period 2 , are used today by pastoral and agricultural systems 3 , 4 that could be disrupted if climate change alters twenty-first century dune dynamics. Empirical data and model simulations have established that the interplay between dune surface erodibility (determined by vegetation cover and moisture availability) and atmospheric erosivity (determined by wind energy) is critical for dunefield dynamics 5 . This relationship between erodibility and erosivity is susceptible to climate-change impacts. Here we use simulations with three global climate models and a range of emission scenarios to assess the potential future activity of three Kalahari dunefields. We determine monthly values of dune activity by modifying and improving an established dune mobility index 6 so that it can account for global climate model data outputs. We find that, regardless of the emission scenario used, significantly enhanced dune activity is simulated in the southern dunefield by 2039, and in the eastern and northern dunefields by 2069. By 2099 all dunefields are highly dynamic, from northern South Africa to Angola and Zambia. Our results suggest that dunefields are likely to be reactivated (the sand will become significantly exposed and move) as a consequence of twenty-first century climate warming.

Identifying the environmental drivers of the global distribution of succulent plants using the Crassulacean acid metabolism pathway of photosynthesis has previously been investigated through ensemble‐modeling of species delimiting the realized niche of the natural succulent biome. An alternative approach, which may provide further insight into the fundamental niche of succulent plants in the absence of dispersal limitation, is to model the distribution of selected species that are globally widespread and have become naturalized far beyond their native habitats. This could be of interest, for example, in defining areas that may be suitable for cultivation of alternative crops resilient to future climate change. We therefore explored the performance of climate‐only species distribution models (SDMs) in predicting the drivers and distribution of two widespread CAM plants, Opuntia ficus‐indica and Euphorbia tirucalli. Using two different algorithms and five predictor sets, we created distribution models for these exemplar species and produced an updated map of global inter‐annual rainfall predictability. No single predictor set produced markedly more accurate models, with the basic bioclim‐only predictor set marginally out‐performing combinations with additional predictors. Minimum temperature of the coldest month was the single most important variable in determining spatial distribution, but additional predictors such as precipitation and inter‐annual precipitation variability were also important in explaining the differences in spatial predictions between SDMs. When compared against previous projections, an a posteriori approach correctly does not predict distributions in areas of ecophysiological tolerance yet known absence (e.g., due to biotic competition). An updated map of inter‐annual rainfall predictability has successfully identified regions known to be depauperate in succulent plants. High model performance metrics suggest that the majority of potentially suitable regions for these species are predicted by these models with a limited number of climate predictors, and there is no benefit in expanding model complexity and increasing the potential for overfitting. Using two different algorithms and five predictor sets, we created distribution models for two example succulent species and produced an updated map of global inter‐annual rainfall predictability. High model performance metrics suggest that the majority of potentially suitable regions for these species are predicted by these models with a limited number of climate predictors, and there is no benefit in expanding model complexity and increasing the potential for overfitting.

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) annual Medals and Awards recognise achievements in researching, communicating, and teaching a wide range of geographical knowledge. The speeches and citations are a record of the 2019 celebration, with contributions from Professor Trevor J. Barnes, Professor Mark Birkin, Dr Ayona Datta, Dame Fiona Reynolds, and Professor David S. G. Thomas. The speeches include comments on: the continued relevance and importance of geography and geographers for finding solutions in today's divided, threatened, and uncertain world; impactful and well-motivated work; the importance of curiosity-driven investigations; capacity building and empowerment; inspirational students and teachers; and celebrating plurality.

This article examines the problems of elite capture in community-driven development (CDD). Drawing on two case studies of non-governmental organisation (NGO) intervention in rural Mozambique, the authors consider two important variables – (1) the diverse and complex contributions of local elites to CDD in different locations and (2) the roles that non-elites play in monitoring and controlling leader activities – to argue that donors should be cautious about automatically assuming the prevalence of malevolent patrimonialism and its ill-effects in their projects. This is because the ‘checks and balances’ on elite behaviour that exist within locally defined and historically rooted forms of community-based governance are likely to be more effective than those introduced by the external intervener.

It has been hypothesised that in sand seas where multiple dune generations occur, each generation represents a distinct terrestrial response to contrasting palaeoatmospheric circulation conditions (Lancaster N, Kocurek G, Singhvi A, Pandey V, Deynoux M, Ghienne J-F et al. (2002) Late Pleistocene and Holocene dune activity and wind regimes in the western Sahara Desert of Mauritania. Geology 30: 991–994). However, reconstructing dunefield accumulation and preservation chronologies has often utilised a limited suite of samples because of the difficulties realised in accessing unconsolidated aeolian sands, which has limited the capacity to test this hypothesis. In the eastern United Arab Emirates, artificial excavation for quarrying and construction have generated a unique opportunity to examine and sample the internal structures of dune systems, and to generate data to test the hypothesis of dune generational development. This paper presents new data and chronologies from a multigenerational analysis of dune accumulation in the northeast dunefield of the Rub’ al-Khali. A complex developmental history during the Holocene is revealed, which does not fully conform to the notion of each dune generation forming in distinct palaeoclimatic phases, since the age ranges represented in the accumulation of secondary dunes is also found within a longer suite of accumulation ages from the underlying megaridges.