Environmental change in Sub-Saharan Africa

The following four papers constitute a thematic issue that examines the evidence for and implications of environmental changes in Africa south of the Sahara Desert. It arises from a session convened at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) 2009 General Assembly in Vienna entitled ‘Environmental change in Sub-Saharan Africa’. This session was convened by Simon Carr (Queen Mary University of London), Stefan Grab (University of the Witwatersrand), Koen Martens (Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences) and Benjamin Sames (University of Vienna). The session was a great success with both oral and poster presentations and offered a good opportunity to bring papers together.

Sub-Saharan Africa is in a critical position with regard to the study of climate shifts, yet relatively little is known about such changes compared to much of the rest of the world. This thematic issue synthesises recent work that has been undertaken in this region in an attempt to add to the growing body of literature emerging from this area. The four papers span the African continent from western equatorial Africa (Cameroon), through to Lesotho and the Eastern Cape Drakensberg, South Africa and examine environmental change over multi-millennial timescales.