environmental degradation as a cause of conflict in - Steiner Graphics

and reaches 1000mm in Jabal Marrah highlands.Accordingly, the vegetation cover increases in a southward direction. The variationin the climate – rainfall, soil and temperature, resulted in six ecological zoneswith varying farming and livestock systems and livelihoods. Ecologically Darfur suffersfrom environmental variability, recurrent droughts, grain shortages, desertification,and biodiversity loss and water poverty in parts of the Region.Soils and water resourcesSoilsSoils in Darfur are predominantly (sixty percent) sandy (qoz) generally suitable forcrops like Dukhun, groundnuts, watermelon and sorghum. There are some scatteredgardud soils (clay) and gravel rock soils. It is estimated that less than fifty percentof the cultivable land is used. There are, for example, about twenty-four million feddanssuitable for cultivation in South Darfur of which only 7.2 million are utilizedfor rainfed farming, in addition to seventy-six thousand feddans in horticulture.Sandy soils suitable for agriculture in North Darfur amount to about seven millionfeddans, but less than half is farmed. Clay soils in North Darfur amount to abouttwo million feddans with only ten to fifteen percent utilized. Land tenure presentsa major constraint for agriculture in Darfur.WaterIn addition to rainfall, the water resources in Darfur include the wadis and groundwater.There are in Darfur 12 identified wadis, 3 in North Darfur and 9 in SouthDarfur, with a total amount of discharge of 993.8 million cubic meters. Water fromthe wadis is collected by dam and hafirs and used for human and livestock consumption.There is some limited water harvesting. The long-term strategy (2000-27) targets some three hundred thousand feddans to be irrigated from wadi waterestimated at 0.9 milliard cubic meters.The groundwater in Darfur is found in the Nubian sandstone aquifer and othersestimated at 2,400 billion m3. There is a large potential of groundwater to irrigateone million five hundred thousand feddans in Sag Al Naaim, Wadi Hawar etc…Water development in Darfur is constrained by inadequate evaluation of the watersources (Hydrology and geology), inadequate financing and the sandy nature ofthe soil with high rate of evaporation which limits water harvesting, in addition tothe geo-morphological changes caused by the recurring droughts.In spite of these constraints, the water program for Darfur 2000 – 2003 revealsnotable progress (Table 1).87