There are a number of pressing areas for climate change and global change research and development in Africa. The highest priority areas fall at the intersection of global change science, natural resource management, and policy making. There are significant gaps in our understanding and major research areas that warrant attention. The major gaps are interdisciplinary and in most cases have strong policy and societal relevance. Building on the success and results of the NOAA ENSO Applications program, it is highly desirable to examine the impacts of ENSO events on environmental, social, and economic systems.
Continued development is needed in the areas of human health, food security and drought management.
In addition, new sectoral studies are needed in the areas of water resources, forestry, and conservation on how to manage resources under different ENSO evolutions and with different prediction accuracies. Strengthening of the Regional Climate Outlook Forum program is needed to provide an improved information flow to decision makers. Climate change, biodiversity, and conservation Historically, large conservation areas in southern Africa have been allocated in areas determined to be inhospitable for human habitation based on conditions such as low rainfall, poor soils, and endemic human and animal diseases. As these reserve spaces were not selected based on a criteria of suitablity, it is reasonable to postulate that the environments in these conservation areas are fragile relative to their function. In addition, scientific evidence indicates that areas with marginal rainfall and an already high degree of climate variability will be most strongly affected by enhanced climate variabilty resulting from global climate change.