Climate change and food-water supply from Africa's drylands: local impacts and teleconnections through global commodity flows

This article uses the WaterWorld Policy Support System, coupled with a global database for commodity flows, to examine the impacts of AR4 SRES climate change scenarios on Africa's drylands and the commodity flows that originate from them. It shows that changes to precipitation and, to a lesser extent, temperature in Africa's drylands can significantly affect the potential to supply water-for-food locally and internationally. By comparing the geographical distribution of climate change with the supply chain-connected distribution of climate change, it shows how food-water impacts of climate change may affect local dryland populations but also those dependent on these flows from afar.