Analyzing Agriculture and Biodiversity Trade-offs in Three Sub-Saharan Countries at the Watershed Scale

With the onset of climate change and an ever-increasing human population, Sub-Saharan Africa faces a three-pronged sustainable development dilemma: how to increase food security while also conserving biodiversity and reducing social inequality. Given the importance of agriculture in Sub-Saharan economies, agricultural intensification and expansion will likely comprise the main course of action to address food security in most Sub-Saharan countries. Yet, agricultural expansion is the leading cause of biodiversity loss around the world and its effects on ecosystems will likely be exacerbated by those of climate change. Thus, from an ecological perspective, one of the greatest challenges will be to identify areas where trade-offs between agricultural development and biodiversity will be greatest. While such efforts are ongoing to ensure the protection of terrestrial biodiversity, less attention is being paid to trade-offs between agricultural development and freshwater ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Jan Adamowski

Student:

Partner:

University College London

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

McGill University

Program: