Geology topics

Research about Africa, Middle East

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Africa, Middle East.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2024

Minerals Yearbook, volume III, Area Reports — International — Africa and the Middle East

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Minerals Yearbook discusses the performance of the worldwide minerals and materials industries and provides background information to assist in interpreting that performance. Content of the individual Minerals Yearbook volumes follows: Volume I, Metals and Minerals, contains chapters about virtually all metallic and industrial mineral commodities important to the U.S. economy. Chapters on survey methods, summary statistics for domestic nonfuel minerals, and trends in mining and quarrying in the metals and industrial mineral industries in the United States are also included. Volume II, Area Reports: Domestic, contains a chapter on the mineral industry of each of the 50 States and Puerto Rico and the Administered Islands. This volume also has chapters on survey methods and summary statistics of domestic nonfuel minerals. Volume III, Area Reports: International, is published as four separate reports. These regional reports contain the latest available minerals data on more than 180 foreign countries and discuss the importance of minerals to the economies of these nations and the United States. Each report begins with an overview of the region’s mineral industries during the year. It continues with individual country chapters that examine the mining, refining, processing, and use of minerals in each country of the region and how each country’s mineral industry relates to U.S. industry. Most chapters include production tables and industry structure tables, information about Government policies and programs that affect the country’s mineral industry, and an outlook section. The USGS continually strives to improve the value of its publications to users. Constructive comments and suggestions by readers of the Minerals Yearbook are welcome.

Minerals Yearbook↗

USGS2020

Climate has contrasting direct and indirect effects on armed conflicts

There is an active debate regarding the influence that climate has on the risk of armed conflict, which stems from challenges in assembling unbiased datasets, competing hypotheses on the mechanisms of climate influence, and the difficulty of disentangling direct and indirect climate effects. We use gridded historical non-state conflict records, satellite data, and land surface models in a structural equation modeling approach to uncover the direct and indirect effects of climate on violent conflicts in Africa and the Middle East (ME). We show that climate–conflict linkages in these regions are more complex than previously suggested, with multiple mechanisms at work. Warm temperatures and low rainfall direct effects on conflict risk were stronger than indirect effects through food and water supplies. Warming increases the risk of violence in Africa but unexpectedly decreases this risk in the ME. Furthermore, at the country level, warming decreases the risk of violence in most West African countries. Overall, we find a non-linear response of conflict to warming across countries that depends on the local temperature conditions. We further show that magnitude and sign of the effects largely depend on the scale of analysis and geographical context. These results imply that extreme caution should be exerted when attempting to explain or project local climate–conflict relationships based on a single, generalized theory.

Environmental Research Letters↗

USGS2020

The NASA hydrological forecast system for food and water security applications

Many regions in Africa and the Middle East are vulnerable to drought and to water and food insecurity, motivating agency efforts such as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) to provide early warning of drought events in the region. Each year these warnings guide life-saving assistance that reaches millions of people. A new NASA multi-model, remote sensing-based hydrological forecasting and analysis system, NHyFAS, has been developed to support such efforts by improving the FEWS NET’s current early warning capabilities. NHyFAS derives its skill from two sources: (i) accurate initial conditions, as produced by an offline land modeling system through the application and/or assimilation of various satellite data (precipitation, soil moisture, and terrestrial water storage); and (ii) meteorological forcing data during the forecast period as produced by a state-of-the-art ocean-land-atmosphere forecast system. The land modeling framework used is the Land Information System (LIS), which employs a suite of land surface models, allowing multi-model ensembles and multiple data assimilation strategies to better estimate land surface conditions. An evaluation of NHyFAS shows that its one-to-five month forecasts successfully capture known historic drought events. The system also benefits from strong collaboration with end-user partners in Africa and the Middle East, who provide insights on strategies to formulate and communicate early warning indicators to water and food security communities. The additional lead time provided by this system will increase the speed, accuracy and efficacy of humanitarian disaster relief, helping to save lives and livelihoods.

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society↗