Few countries are as destitute as Mozambique. More than three-quarters of its population earn less than $2 dollars per day. Its infant mortality is 15 times that of the United Sates. It ranks 154th in per capita gross national product. Mozambique is also plagued with erratic rainfall, complicating agriculture. Computer climate models predict that global [...]

Few countries are as destitute as Mozambique. More than three-quarters of its population earn less than $2 dollars per day. Its infant mortality is 15 times that of the United Sates. It ranks 154th in per capita gross national product. Mozambique is also plagued with erratic rainfall, complicating agriculture. Computer climate models predict that global warming will cause drier conditions there during each year’s dry season and more intense floods, changes that will make life for Mozambique’s largely rural population even tougher.

Mozambique experienced a devastating flood in 2000 that killed 1,800 people and caused massive property damage; which the country is still repairing. Inundations of such scale are rare there—the torrential rains that preceded the 2,000 floods had not occurred for several decades—but extreme rainfall is rising in Mozambique.

Ironically, parts of Mozambique also experience perennial drought. The last several years, including 2009, have been dry in some places. Such periods of low rainfall, combined with ominous predictions of future droughts, have convinced the international assistance organization CARE International to begin testing water programs in Mozambique to help farmers to adapt to drier conditions.

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Daniel Grossman’s reporting was supported by the Kendeda Fund, Alicia Patterson Journalism Foundation; Barbara Smith Fund; Whole Systems Foundation; Abby Rockefeller & Lee Halprin and 7th Generation Incorporated.