Thread by @IIED

When unprecedented rainfall hit a small village in Mali in late August, it brought devastation.

Now, thanks to Dlonguebougou villagers & @camillatoulmin, we can show you the impact. And how #ClimateChange has affected weather patterns over the last 40 years.

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The WhatsApp message from Makono Dembélé was urgent & alarming.

"The rain! It's reached over 160mm [6.5 inches] in less than 24 hours. It's extraordinary – there’s water everywhere!"

The rain started on 25 August: a deluge no one had ever seen or heard of before in the area. 2/

"The rain is causing a lot of damage; houses are falling down," continued Makono's message.

"But thanks be to God, no one has been hurt.”

Nevertheless, the consequences for Dlonguebougou and its villagers were immense... 3/

A 'mud village' in Central Mali, Dlonguebougou has 50 households and around 1,600 people.

The resulting floods led to the collapse of 107 houses (each married woman has their own house), 17 kitchen blocks, 10 granaries, 2 shops and 5 storerooms. 4/

Also affected were 137 toilets (deep pits dug in the ground).

And while villagers contemplated the loss of their homes, there was little to eat because their food stocks had been washed away.

@reliefweb reported on the rain across Mali --> reliefweb.int/disaster/fl-20… 5/

For @camillatoulmin, who has visited and lived in Dlonguebougou since the 1980s, the sight was heartbreaking.

And as a climate change expert, she is perfectly positioned to reflect on how increasingly extreme weather events are affecting such villages... 6/

While total rainfall has increased from an average of 400mm (16 inches) a year in the 1980s to over 500mm today, that's not the full story, she says.

"Now it’s concentrated in a shorter period and falls in a few massive storms, instead of the longed-for gentle showers." 7/

These charts showing the amount of rainfall in each month illustrate the change: in the early 80s, although there were months with heavy rainfall, it was spread from April through October.

For the last 3 years, heavier rainfall has been condensed into a much shorter period. 8/

"There was a huge rainfall in 2016, bringing more than 100mm in a 24-hour period," continues @camillatoulmin.

"But even that was *nothing* compared to the flood of August 25th.

"It’s hard enough making a living in the Sahel without floods devastating your prospects." 9/

The water took 3 days to subside, leaving Makono and fellow villagers to rebuild their homes & lives - from the collapsed buildings/grain stores to the ruined millet fields.

Their experience provides further evidence of how the #ClimateCrisis affects the West African Sahel. 10/

There has been a 3x increase in the number of powerful convective storms generated on the edge of the Sahara, as a consequence of the desert areas heating far more rapidly than the crop and grazing lands of the neighbouring Sahel --> nature.com/articles/natur… 11/

The villagers have longstanding ways of coping with rainfall variability: cultivating crops with different rainfall requirements, keeping livestock as a store of value, and diversifying their income.

But this is different. They've *never* faced a flood of this enormity. 12/

They will have to build houses and storerooms differently, perhaps using cement instead of mud bricks, says @camillatoulmin.

And learn/share lessons with other settlements facing the same challenges, as shown in this #ThankYouForTheRain film /13

https://twitter.com/KisiluMovie/status/1006918708437143553

There may be benefits for Dlonguebougou and its villagers should IIED - with our partners @NearEastFdn Mali - extend resilience-building activities into the fourth region of Mali as hoped --> neareast.org/where-we-work/…

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.@camillatoulmin has been studying issues such as #ClimateChange, land tenure and farming practice in the village of Dlonguebougou for almost 40 years.

Here's a blog from after a visit in 2016, with 5 observations about the changes she's witnessed -> iied.org/rainfall-grazi… /15

Credits:

All photos/videos from Dlonguebougou used in this thread were supplied by Makono Dembélé, Dlonguebougou villagers and @camillatoulmin.

Tweet 12/ used a Creative Commons image by Peter Casier from Flickr.

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