Where We Work

In Saint-Louis, where the Senegal River meets the Atlantic, the delta bears witness to a changing world. The rains that once nourished its fields have weakened, slipping away by 10 to 15 millimeters each decade since the 1960s. Here, as the sky gives less, the sea takes more, claiming a meter or two of coastline every year. Also, most of the forests that once shielded the land have all but vanished, replaced by invasive reeds like typha, stretching across more than a million hectares of wetland.

Rice, the lifeblood of the delta, now falters—scientists warn yields could fall by nearly half under the heat of the coming century. And when floods come, as they did in 2012, displacing over a quarter of a million people, they don’t bring renewal, instead they bring ruin and destruction, they mix with saltwater, seep into homes, polute wells, and overwhelm sanitation systems.

Even the Senegal River, which powers the 800 gigawatt-hour Manantali Dam and supplies much of the region’s hydroelectricity is faltering, as river itself grows weaker, and its flows diminishes, For the people of Saint-Louis, this delta is both heritage and home, but it now speaks a language of decline, its waters and soil carrying both memory and warning.

Further to the south, in Ziguinchor, the Casamance delta, although still breathing with greenery, also tells a story of loss. like Saint-Louis, rainfall here was once abundant, but since the 1960s it has fallen by 10 to 15 millimeters each decade, only to swing violently in recent years between drought and downpour.

Projections suggest an increase of 50 to 100 millimeters by 2050, but this offers little comfort, since rain storms often arrive with destructive force, washing away topsoil and leaving fields bare. Mangroves, that were once the region’s shield and sanctuary, have shrunk by nearly a quarter since 1980. Their disappearance lets salt creep inland, flooding rice paddies and stunting crops.
Fishermen feel the loss too: over 70 percent say fishes like groupers and mullets have vanished from their nets, as breeding grounds are stripped away.

Families who rely on mangrove wood for cooking now face dwindling supplies, forced to look further and further afield. Forest loss compounds the crisis—by 2013, forest covered just 1.28 percent of Senegal’s land, and in 2024 alone, Casamance lost nearly 1,400 hectares, releasing over 340,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. Fires rage across the landscape, with almost 250,000 hectares burned in 2018, further hollowing out the region’s natural defenses.

Rivers shrink, groundwater falls, and 42 percent of residents now say wells produce less than before. Today, nearly half of households face food insecurity in what was once Senegal’s most fertile land, a cruel irony in a region long celebrated as the nation’s breadbasket.

In Fatick, at the heart of the Sine-Saloum Delta, climate change reveals itself in quieter, steadier blows. The rains here are sparse – just 400 to 500 millimeters a year – and each decade they recede by another 10 to 15 millimeters. Without this lifeline, the soil hardens and whitens with salt.

Already, 63 to 67 percent of the arable land is degraded, much of it beyond easy recovery. Millet and groundnut, the crops that once filled granaries, now struggle to grow; in recent years, harvests have slumped so sharply that nearly half of Fatick’s 400,000 residents live with food insecurity. Temperatures climb too, often reaching 35 degrees Celsius in the hottest months, with predictions of worse to come.

Forests, thinned by cutting and forest fires, shrink each year, leaving families scrambling for firewood, their main source of cooking energy. Across Senegal, fires consume up to 250,000 hectares annually, and Fatick is not spared. Water, the foundation of life, is growing fragile: the Continental Terminal aquifer, on which villages depend, grows ever saltier as seawater intrudes and pollutes it.

Irrigation systems, where they exist, are inefficient—over 90 percent operate at less than 50 percent capacity—wasting water that is already scarce. For rural communities, sanitation is even more precarious, as shallow wells dry or turn brackish.

In Fatick, there are no singular disasters to point to, no sudden floods or dramatic storms, only the slow wearing away of abundance, the erosion of soil, the fading of crops, the thinning of forests, and the salting of water. It is here, in the silence of dry fields and the steady retreat of resources, that climate change shows its most relentless face.