SEACRIFOG project

African societies face growing global change risks, with rapidly changing patterns of human settlements and intensity of use of ecosystem services. At the same time, climate variability and climate change are intensifying stress on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems that ensure environmental security, both locally (e.g. ecosystem services), regionally (e.g. sustainable development options) and internationally (e.g. carbon sequestration). Approaches that can address this challenge in an integrated and multidisciplinary way are urgently needed in many places in Africa where there is a close relationship between societal well-being and environmental condition, relating particularly to biomass for energy and food production, and hydrological considerations such as water availability and water quality. Long-term terrestrial and marine observational systems and research infrastructures have been identified to be indispensable elements of knowledge generation to serve climate change adaptation, food security, and climate change mitigation both on land and in the ocean.

The goal of the SEACRIFOG project is to promote the EU-Africa cooperation dialogue at different levels (policy, science, society) on the following themes: land use change, climate-smart agriculture, carbon cycle and greenhouse gases observations, in order to support mitigation and adaptation to climate change. SEACRIFOG overall aim is to build an integrative network for long-term and sustainable cooperation among African and European environmental research infrastructures. Among the project’s outcomes will be the production of an assessment of the situation in Africa on the above topics and as well as a road map on the way forward. The individual sub-aims of SEACRIFOG are tackled in eight work packages.