A study of the climate of the Sudan with special reference to agriculture

Abstract

The study of the climate of the Sudan is important as it helps in understanding many socio-economic activities, particularly agriculture, as well as helping to understand the role of climate in the formation of physical features. Chapter one outlines the scope of the study and the methods and techniques used. Chapter two describes the physical environment of the Sudan to provide a background for the study of climate and its relationship with agriculture. The climate of the Sudan is described in Chapter three and the different climatic elements, together with the factors affecting them are analysed. Distribution maps of the climatic phenomena over the Sudan are shown. Following the description of the individual climatic elements over the Sudan, climatic regionalizations of the Sudan are attempted in Chapter four. Amongst these classifications factor analysis is applied to the Sudanese climatic data. Chapter five deals with the assessment of daily rainfall in the Sudan from satellite imagery. The importance of daily rainfall to many aspects of life in the Sudan, particularly agriculture, led to this trial. This study pays a special consideration to the relationships between climate and agriculture. The importance of agricultural phenomena and the key role played by climate in it necessitate the investigation of such relationships. Chapter 6 explores agriculture in the Sudan as an introduction to the detailed study of the climate-agricultural relationships made in the consecutive chapters. Chapters seven, eight and nine give a detailed study of the relationships between climatic variables and cotton, sorghum, sesame and groundnut yields as examined by using a variety of statistical methods.