Sahel

Sahel, semiarid region of western and north-central Africa extending from Senegal eastward to Sudan. It forms a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the belt of humid savannas to the south. The Sahel stretches from the Atlantic Ocean eastward through northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, the great bend of the Niger River in Mali, Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), southern Niger, northeastern Nigeria, south-central Chad, and into Sudan.

The semiarid steppes of the Sahel have natural pasture, with low-growing grass and tall, herbaceous perennials. Other forage for the region’s livestock (camel, pack ox, and grazing cattle and sheep) includes thorny shrubs and acacia and baobab trees. The thorny scrub once formed a woodland, but the country is now more open and relatively traversable by motor vehicle. The terrain is chiefly of the savanna type, with little continuous cover and a dangerous tendency to merge into desert because of overstocking and overfarming. At least eight months of the year are dry, and rain, confined to a short season, averages 4–8 inches (100–200 mm), mostly in June, July, and August. There are also wide areas of pasturage watered by the flooding Niger and Sénégal rivers. Modest crops of millet and peanuts (groundnuts) can be raised in many areas.

In the second half of the 20th century, the Sahel was increasingly afflicted by soil erosion and desertification resulting from growing human populations that made more demands upon the land than previously. Town dwellers and farmers stripped the tree and scrub cover to obtain firewood and grow crops, after which excessive numbers of livestock devoured the remaining grass cover. Rainfall runoff and the wind then carried off the fertile topsoils, leaving arid and barren wastelands.

The fragile nature of agriculture and pastoralism in the Sahel was strikingly demonstrated in the early 1970s, when a long period of drought, beginning in 1968, led to the virtual extinction of the crops there and the loss of 50 to 70 percent of the cattle. In 1972 there was practically no rain at all, and by 1973 sections of the Sahara had advanced southward up to 60 miles (100 km). The loss of human life by starvation and disease was estimated in 1973 at 100,000. Severe drought and famine again afflicted the Sahel in 1983–85, and desertification progressed despite some government reforestation programs. The Sahel continued to expand southward into neighbouring savannas, with the Sahara following in its wake.

In northern Africa the term Sahel is applied to the coastal band of hills in Algeria and to the steppelike eastern coastal plain of Tunisia.