Sierra Leone Environment - 2022

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Environment - current issues

rapid population growth pressuring the environment; overharvesting of timber, expansion of cattle grazing, and slash-and-burn agriculture have resulted in deforestation, soil exhaustion, and flooding; loss of biodiversity; air pollution; water pollution; overfishing

Environment - international agreements

party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping-London Convention, Marine Dumping-London Protocol, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands

signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification

Air pollutants

particulate matter emissions: 20.63 micrograms per cubic meter (2016 est.)

carbon dioxide emissions: 1.09 megatons (2016 est.)

methane emissions: 3.16 megatons (2020 est.)

Climate

tropical; hot, humid; summer rainy season (May to December); winter dry season (December to April)

Land use

agricultural land: 56.2% (2018 est.)

arable land: 23.4% (2018 est.)

permanent crops: 2.3% (2018 est.)

permanent pasture: 30.5% (2018 est.)

forest: 37.5% (2018 est.)

other: 6.3% (2018 est.)

Urbanization

urban population: 43.8% of total population (2022)

rate of urbanization: 3.02% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)

total population growth rate v. urban population growth rate, 2000-2030

Revenue from forest resources

forest revenues: 6.92% of GDP (2018 est.)

Revenue from coal

coal revenues: 0% of GDP (2018 est.)

Major infectious diseases

degree of risk: very high (2020)

food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever

vectorborne diseases: malaria and dengue fever

water contact diseases: schistosomiasis

animal contact diseases: rabies

aerosolized dust or soil contact diseases: Lassa fever

note: on 21 March 2022, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Africa; Sierra Leone is currently considered a high risk to travelers for circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV); vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus; this means it can be spread more easily to people who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or respiratory secretions, such as from a sneeze, of an “infected” person who received oral polio vaccine; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, the CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine

Food insecurity

severe localized food insecurity: due to high food prices and reduced incomes - about 1.6 million people are estimated to be severely food insecure between June and August 2022 on account of high food prices and low purchasing power, resulting in acute constraints on households’ economic access to food (2022)

Waste and recycling

municipal solid waste generated annually: 610,222 tons (2004 est.)

Major watersheds (area sq km)

Atlantic Ocean drainage: Niger (2,261,741 sq km)

Total water withdrawal

municipal: 111 million cubic meters (2017 est.)

industrial: 55.5 million cubic meters (2017 est.)

agricultural: 45.7 million cubic meters (2017 est.)

Total renewable water resources

160 billion cubic meters (2017 est.)

NOTE: The information regarding Sierra Leone on this page is re-published from the 2022 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Sierra Leone 2022 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Sierra Leone 2022 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.