Sabrina's Blog

Madagascar: Coastal Hazards Madagascar does experience coastal hazards. It is not a secret why so many people want to live in the coastal regions. There is beauty in it, but also great precautions. Although, coastal hazards are prone to many natural hazards such as erosion, big storms, flooding, tsunamis, and sea level rise. Madagascar experiences all of these hazards on their small continent. One of the critical reasons Madagascar experiences coastal issues is due to sea level rising. Sea level rising occurs with the effects of global warming. This happens when water from melting ice sheets and glaciers with the expansion of seawater. Shoreline erosion generated by sea level rise is a substantial issue to the coastal ports and beaches of Madagascar. In Madagascar, the yearlong rise is about 3 mm per year. “Regional variations exist due to natural variability in regional winds and ocean currents, which can occur over periods of days to months or even decades.”  Rising sea levels co...

  Madagascar: Severe Weather Madagascar does experience numerous amounts of severe weather. Thunderstorms are very common during the rainy season in the central highlands. Lightning is considered a critical hazard. The capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, obtains an average of 1.4 meters of rainfall between the months of November and April. That is a total of five whole months. The bare season is enjoyable and sunlit, although it can be cool in the mornings. Madagascar has experienced five storms in two months. Between the months of January and March, more than 200 hundred lives were lost. Families lost their homes, food, drinking water, basic necessities following each storm. There is another issue that an individual wouldn’t consider as severe. The north and eastern regions of the country have conquered flooding and heavy rains. The south has been encountering the worst drought in forty years. Roughly 1.5 million people in the domain are now dangerously food insecure. The communi...