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Land use changes are known to account for over 20% of human greenhouse gas emissions and tree cover losses can significantly influence land-climate dynamics. Land-climate feedbacks have been identified and evaluated for a long time. However, in addition to the direct effect of climate change on forest biomes, recent sparse evidence has shown that land use changes may increase as a result of weather shocks. In Western and Central Africa, agriculture is the main source of income and employment for rural populations. Economies rely on agricultural production, which is largely rainfed, and therefore dependent predominantly upon seasonal rainfall. In this article, I explore the impact of seasonal rainfall quality on deforestation, by combining high-resolution remotely-sensed annual tree cover loss, land cover, human activity and daily rainfall data. I show that in poor regions that are mainly reliant on rainfed agriculture, a bad rainy season leads to large deforestation shocks. These shocks notably depend on the proportion of agricultural land and on the remoteness of the areas in question, as remoteness determines the ability to import food and the existence of alternative income sources. In areas with significant forest cover, a short rainfall season leads to a 15% increase in deforestation. In unconnected areas with small proportions of crop area, the increase in deforestation reaches 20%. Findings suggest that a refined understanding of the land use changes caused by rainfall shocks might be used to improve the design and effectiveness of development, adaptation and conservation policies.

Mitigating the impact of bad rainy seasons in poor agricultural regions to tackle deforestation