Monitoring Agricultural Drought in Southern Africa - Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought: A Global Study - page 267

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Norm
PgEn

Figure 20.1 Mean annual rainfall for southern Africa.

the worst drought years were 1911-12, 1923-24, 1946-47, 1972-73,
1981-82, 1982-83, 1986-87, and 1991-92 (Zimbabwe Department of
Meteorological Services, personal communication, 2002).
During the severe and recurrent droughts of the 1980s and 1990s, the
impact on vulnerable communities and the environment was catastrophic.
Agricultural production in the smallholder-farming sector fell by up to
70% during the 1991-92 drought in most countries in the subregion and
threatened about 30 million people with starvation, requiring an estimated
U.S. $4 billion in food aid (IFPRI, 1998). In Zimbabwe alone, 5.6 million
people out of a population of 12 million received drought relief at a cost of
about Zimbabwe $3 billion (U.S. $0.3 billion) (Ngara and Rukobo, 1999).
Because of the strong dependence of Zimbabwe's economy on rain-fed
agriculture, gross domestic product (GDP) for 1992 registered a negative
growth rate of 6% (Franklin, 1998) as a direct result of the severe 1991-92
drought. In this chapter, the significance of drought and monitoring sys-
tems in southern Africa are reviewed with specific reference to Zimbabwe.
No objective, operational definition of drought exists in Zimbabwe.
However, drought conditions are said to be occurring when rainfall is
below 75% of the long-term average for a prolonged period during the
rainfall season. Declaration of drought is made only when agricultural pro-
duction and water supplies have been adversely affected to the extent that
smallholder-farming communities cannot cope without state assistance.

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