This exploratory research project is a first step towards the mapping of local knowledge about soils in Niger. Soils constitute a kind of environmental archive underpinning the daily life of everybody living on them. Using two regions of Niger as examples, Sani is trying to understand how local people perceive soils, and what these perceptions can teach us about how soils have evolved over time, how people have used them and are still using them, and how soils are being modified by climate change. In an innovative way, Sani starts from his own position as an “academic” geologist with methods that are available to the “modern scientist,” such as remote sensing, and combines them with local techniques of soil recognition, classification, and use. In this way, he tries to get a larger picture of what we currently understand through de word “soils.”
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Biography: Sani IbrahimSani Ibrahim studied physical geography at the Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey, Niger. He specialised in sedimentology and the study of palaeoenvironments. He is currently working on the transformation dynamics of Sahelo-Saharan environments (arid and semi-arid zones). His PhD, defended at the Institute of Physical Geography and Geology at the Julius Maximilian University in Würzburg, focused current morphological changes in the surface layers of dunes and the potential for regenerating degraded soils and ecosystems.
Sani currently teaches and carries out research at the Geography Department of the University of Niamey in the fields of geomorphology, applied climatology and applied hydrology. He has carried out a wide range of development work on water bodies, farmland as well as degraded land. Furthermore, he provides training for local players in cartography, waste management, sanitation, etc.
Publications
- Ibrahim, S. & E. Schulz. 2019. At the sources of fear. The Guidimouni record (Sud-Est Niger) and the history of the desertification. Zentralblatt der Geologie und Paläontologie, I (2), 11–25. DOI:10.1127/zgpI/2019/0011-0025
- Maman, I., S. Ibrahim, I. Bouzou Moussa. 2018. Femmes et resilience des ménages ruraux à Banizoumbou dans l’ouest-nigérien. Revue des Sciences Environnementales de l’Université de Lomé 15 (2). 131–150.
- S. Ibrahim & B. Sponholz. 2015. Recent modifications in the Sahelian dune landscapes: geophysical & geochemical characteristics and evidence of new sediment input in the subsurface horizons (0-20 cm) of dunes fixed by vegetation in Niger. Mitteilungen der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft 61.30.
- Ibrahim, S. & I. Ousseini. 2009. The Sahelian and Saharan dune system of Niger. A comparison of their granulometric characteristics. Palaeoecology of Africa 29, 239–246.
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