West and Central Africa tackle coastal erosion

Across many parts of Africa’s Atlantic coastline, the sea is advancing several metres inland each year, destroying homes, infrastructure, farmland and heritage sites. Many coastal communities have already been erased from the map. Several factors combine to explain the threatening loss of land along the West and Central African coast. The effects of global climate change, with rising sea levels and warmer waters causing more extreme weather, are multiplied by large and small infrastructure projects that have disrupted coastal ecosystems’ natural resilience to the power of ocean waves and currents.

The Ivorian village of Lahou-Kpanda, standing on a peninsula in a lagoon fed by the Bandama River, has become a dramatic symbol of coastal erosion along Cote d’Ivoire’s 570 kilometers (355 miles) of coastline. Powerful waves, exacerbated by rising sea levels linked to climate change, are undermining the coastline, causing it to erode by more than 2 meters (6.5 feet) per year.

Our village used to stretch over 2 kilometers [1.2 miles]. Today, it s only 200 m [650 ft] wide, reports Emmanuel Idi, a young local guide in his 20s. The construction of the Kossou Dam in the 1970s altered the flow of the Bandama River and disrupted the natural balance that protected the coast, exacerbating erosion.

Several notable colonial-era buildings here, including the district office, the hospital and the prison, have already disappeared. Only the church, built in 1933, with its stone walls and orange-tiled roof, still stands firm against the waves’ onslaught. The most harrowing aspect is the...This article was originally published on Mongabay