Abstract
Wetlands face threats from climate change and human activities worldwide, yet the status of African wetlands remains unknown. This study mapped African wetlands and assessed area loss, drivers, and future trends under climate change using 270,000 sampling points, 810,000 Landsat images, and soil moisture data from 14 CMIP6 models. The results reveal no large-scale loss of wetlands in Africa from 1984 to 2021 (0.51% net loss), with the loss concentrated in coastal areas (9.64% net loss), while inland wetlands show a slight increase in area (0.50% net increase). A comparison of the time series of wetland area and related drivers showed that the change of inland wetland area is closely related to climate change, and human activities have exacerbated the loss of coastal wetlands. TOPMODEL projections suggest an upward trend in inland wetland area by 2100, but uncertainty persists and inland wetlands remain at risk of loss in the future.
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Data availability
All data used in this study are freely available from public repositories. The Landsat images used in this study are available from the US Geological Survey (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov) and Google Earth Engine (https:// earthengine.google.com). The data of African national boundaries and 6-meter water depth boundaries are available from https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/USDOS_LSIB_SIMPLE_2017 and https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/NOAA_NGDC_ETOPO1. Human Footprint dataset (HFP) can be accessed freely at the figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16571064). Temperature data are available from https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/ECMWF_ERA5_MONTHLY. Precipitation data are available from https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/IDAHO_EPSCOR_TERRACLIMATE, https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/NASA_FLDAS_NOAH01_C_GL_M_V001, and https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/global-precipitation-climatology-project-gpcp-monthly/access/. PDSI is available from https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/IDAHO_EPSCOR_TERRACLIMATE. Soil moisture is available from https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/NASA_FLDAS_NOAH01_C_GL_M_V001. CTI data is available from https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/6b0c4358-2bf3-4924-aa8f-793d468b92be. Africa watershed vector data is available from https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/WWF_HydroSHEDS_v1_Basins_hybas_8. CMIP6 data is available from https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/. The wetland maps for ten historical periods and the wetland simulation results for future periods produced in this study have been deposited in the Zenodo database and are provided as open data (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17865977).
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Acknowledgements
This research was jointly funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFA0714103), which supported S.C. and A.L.; the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42494821), which supported A.L. and D.M.; and the Science and Technology Development Program of Jilin Province (YDZJ202501ZYTS579), which supported A.L.
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A.L., S.C. and Y.Z. conceptualized the project, acquired funding. A.L. developed wetland classification, conducted the model simulations and analysis with support from D.M., K.S. and Z.W., and drafted the manuscript with contributions from all co-authors. S.C., K.S., Y.Z., Z.W. and D.M. participated in the discussion and analysis of the results and edited the manuscript. All authors reviewed the results, revised, and approved the manuscript.
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Li, A., Chen, S., Song, K. et al. African inland wetland area on the rise during the 21st century. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70480-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70480-6
