Perceptions et adaptations des populations à L’augmentation de la température dans la ville de Yaoundé au Cameroun

Abstract

The city of Yaoundé (political capital of Cameroon) has long been characterized by its classic equatorial climate tempered by altitude. However, several studies indicate an increase in temperatures as one of the manifestations of climate changes observed in Yaoundé as throughout Cameroon and the whole world for several decades. Starting from the reflection that it would be interesting for several reasons to know if this trend based on data from stations and satellites is actually felt or experienced by local populations, the general objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the perceptions and the adaptation measures of the population to the increase in temperature in the city of Yaoundé for better resilience to this risk. To achieve this objective, the methodology used was qualitative, quantitative and cartographic. So, relying on various information taken from newspapers, organizations, other bibliographic sources, direct field observations, targeted interviews and mainly a survey carried out among 2,514 people aged over 40 and living in Yaoundé since at least 30 years in 2022), statistical, spatial and content analyzes were carried out using software such as EXCEL, SPSS, QGIS. The results clearly show that for 2 to 3 decades, the increase in temperature in the city of Yaoundé has been a reality perceived, experienced and felt by the majority of the populations, i.e. 85.2% of those questioned. The causes of this increase in felt heat are mainly anthropogenic (64.2% of those questioned), compared to 27.8% and 8% who respectively indicate natural and supernatural (divine) causes. This climatic risk is manifested by heat waves increasingly observed during the long dry season (57.3% of responses). In descending order of importance, the hottest months are January (26.7% of responses), February (16.9%), December (13%) and March (11.4%). Heat waves are declared more important during the day (at 67.2%), especially between 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. (60%), than at night (23%), mainly between 8 p.m. and midnight (16.2%). The hottest municipalities are central (former urban core, Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé 4 and Yaoundé 5); while the less hot municipalities are peripheral or much more marked by hills and marshy valleys with low urbanization (Yaoundé 7, Yaoundé 3, Yaoundé 2 and Yaoundé 6).The statistical climatological analysis carried out between 1990 and 2021 corroborates the results of surveys on population perceptions, indicating for example that the average temperature of Yaoundé increased from 22.8°C in 1990 to 23.4°C in 2021 in Yaounde. During the same period, the maximum temperature increased from 30.5°C to 32.4°C while the minimum temperature increased from 16.7°C to 17.85°C. Also, the evolution of the humidex index and the heat index result in an increase in the feeling of temperature discomfort during the study period. Climatological forecasts as well as the predictions of the populations surveyed also indicate a trend towards an amplification of the increase in heat for the coming years or decades. The chain impacts of the heat increasingly felt in Yaoundé are numerous and of several types: biological (rise in body temperature, dehydration, death, etc.); psychological (stress, discomfort, madness, loss of sexual appetite, etc.); sociological (decline in fertility, drop in birth rate, emergence or increase in delinquency and new diseases, etc.); economic (decline in productivity at work, drop in income, etc.); cultural (decrease in sport activities and performances, reduction in certain cultural activities such as dancing, etc.); political (discontents and socio-political demands). Reactive or preventive adaptation measures are very insufficient, which results in numerous adaptation needs of these populations in terms of weather information and alerts, finances, housing, technical, materials, attitudes, developing urban ecosystem potential of Yaoundé, etc.