Sudan | EPFL Graph Search

Sudan (suːˈdɑːn or suːˈdæn ; Sūdān), officially the Republic of the Sudan (Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Egypt to the north, Eritrea to the northeast, Ethiopia to the southeast, Libya to the northwest, South Sudan to the south, and the Red Sea. It has a population of 45.7 million people as of 2022 and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres (728,215 square miles), making it Africa's third-largest country by area and the third-largest by area in the Arab League. It was the largest country by area in Africa and the Arab League until the secession of South Sudan in 2011; since then both titles have been held by Algeria. Its capital city is Khartoum, and its most populous city is Omdurman (part of the metropolitan area of Khartoum). History witnessed the Kingdom of Kerma ( 2500–1500 BC), the Egyptian New Kingdom ( 1500 BC–1070 BC), and the Kingdom of Kush ( 785 BC–350 AD). After the f

South Sudan - Building Resources & Shelter Practices

Edisson Xavier Estrella Arcos, André Ullal

Seasonal floods are a common and extended problem across several regions in South Sudan, causing considerable damage to houses, crops, and livelihoods. In this context, new housing and shelter solutions, besides being flood resilient, should take into account the native construction customs and locally available materials so as to better fit into the building culture in South Sudan. This report presents information about the housing construction in the country, including the building materials and skills that are available in local markets in South Sudan and the forms and functions of local housing. This information is useful for construction projects developed by NGOs, researchers, and practitioners. The methodology employed for the study comprised surveys in local markets and households, analysis of photographic records of shelters and tukuls, and consultation with on-site experts. The results provide insights into the most common construction techniques, materials, solutions, and average prices in the local markets. Besides, data was also gathered regarding cultural customs that shape the development of the shelters. Finally, although the data might be only representative of certain regions in South Sudan, it provides a comprehensive glimpse of the overall construction environment across the country.

2022

South Sudan - State-of-the-Art on Flood Resilient Shelters

Edisson Xavier Estrella Arcos, André Ullal

One of the most observable consequences of climate change is the abrupt increment in the number and intensity of seasonal floods. This has a special impact on vulnerable communities and developing countries that experience a strong impact on their housing infrastructure, leading to the displacement of communities on a seasonal basis. As a consequence, there is an imperative need for developing flood resilient solutions for housing in flood-prone areas. Therefore, this report presents the results of a comprehensive analysis of the current literature on flood resilient solutions so as to provide the basis for further research and development on the topic. Academic and practice reports were covered, aiming at providing a wide glance over the current developments on flood-resilient housing. The main aim of the work presented in this report is to provide an extensive review of constructions solutions developed to deal with seasonal floods, as well as common materials and detailings to reach such an objective. Besides, this document aims at presenting a first general glance to researchers and practitioners before developing specific solutions for a given region, acknowledging that due to cultural and material constraints, one-fits-all proposals are not a realistic solution in humanitarian scenarios.

2022

Rainfall as a driver of epidemic cholera: Comparative model assessments of the effect of intra-seasonal precipitation events

Joseph Chadi Benoit Lemaitre, Damiano Pasetto, Francisco Javier Perez Saez, Andrea Rinaldo, Carla Sciarra

The correlation between cholera epidemics and climatic drivers, in particular seasonal tropical rainfall, has been studied in a variety of contexts owing to its documented relevance. Several mechanistic models of cholera transmission have included rainfall as a driver by focusing on two possible transmission pathways: either by increasing exposure to contaminated water (e.g. due to worsening sanitary conditions during water excess), or water contamination by freshly excreted bacteria (e.g. due to washout of open-air defecation sites or overflows). Our study assesses the explanatory power of these different modeling structures by formal model comparison using deterministic and stochastic models of the type susceptible-infected-recovered-bacteria (SIRB). The incorporation of rainfall effects is generalized using a nonlinear function that can increase or decrease the relative importance of the large precipitation events. Our modelling framework is tested against the daily epidemiological data collected during the 2015 cholera outbreak within the urban context of Juba, South Sudan. This epidemic is characterized by a particular infra-seasonal double peak on the incidence in apparent relation with particularly strong rainfall events. Our results show that rainfall-based models in both their deterministic and stochastic formulations outperform models that do not account for rainfall. In fact, classical SIRB models are not able to reproduce the second epidemiological peak, thus suggesting that it was rainfall-driven. Moreover we found stronger support across model types for rainfall acting on increased exposure rather than on exacerbated water contamination. Although these results are context-specific, they stress the importance of a systematic and comprehensive appraisal of transmission pathways and their environmental forcings when embarking in the modelling of epidemic cholera.

2019

Rainfall as a driver of epidemic cholera: Comparative model assessments of the effect of intra-seasonal precipitation events

Joseph Chadi Benoit Lemaitre, Damiano Pasetto, Francisco Javier Perez Saez, Andrea Rinaldo, Carla Sciarra

2019