Dust variability and land degradation in the Sahel

Since the late 1960s, West-Africa is affected by the most severe and prolonged drought of the 20th century. In addition intensified anthropogenic environmental degradation processes are progressively leading to a widespread desertification of the study area. This paper presents and discusses the evolution of dusty events and deflation events variability since 1951. Deflation events frequency is proposed as a climatic indicator to assess the trend of land degradation in arid and semi-arid areas within the Sahelian context.