Effect of Climate Change on environment in Rwanda

Rwanda is in the central-eastern part of Africa. The Rwandan relief is hilly and mountainous with an altitude varying between 900 m and 4507 m. It is in a tropical temperate climate due to its high altitude and receives about 1250 mm average annual rainfall. Rainfall is abundant although it has some irregularities. The average annual temperature ranges between 16°C and 20°C, without significant variations.

Weather in Rwanda mostly is determined by the rainfall patterns. Thus, the climate of the country is characterized by an alternation of four seasons of which two are wet and the other two are dry. However, one can notice that rainfall is generally well distributed throughout the year, despite some irregularities. Eastern and South‐Eastern regions are more affected by prolonged droughts while the northern and western regions experience abundant rainfall that usually causes erosion, flooding, and landslides and they have aggravated the impacts of floods on people, agriculture and the physical infrastructure as results of human activities like poor farming practices, deforestation and other environmental degradation activities. The ‘flood and landslide risk zones’ derived from the analysis of frequencies of daily rainfall exceeding 50 mm, are in the Southern, Northern and Western Province. Cases of floods and landslides are often associated with outbreaks of water-borne and water-related diseases like malaria, diarrhea, cholera and viral infections mainly through the contamination of wells and boreholes. Cities located in low-land areas are also at great risk of floods.

As future leaders and agents of change, there are some things we can do to solve those problems of drought like planting trees which can attract rain, digging wells to solve water deficiency and protect water sources like lakes and rivers to avoid misusing and contaminating them. On the side of flood and other effects caused by high amount of rainfall, we can plant more trees to capture running water, avoiding overgrazing hence a solution to soil erosion and land slide.

Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (2013). Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture in Rwanda Phase III. Pp. 83

WFP/FEWS-NET (2003). Rwanda vulnerability baseline report. World Food Program of the United Nations (WFP)/ Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET), Kigali. Pp. 103.