We had a very interesting discussion this week about climate vulnerability and risk assessments in cities across our regions. I would like to thank you once again for sharing your experiences and interacting with others. If you did not yet have a chance to take part in this discussion, please visit the site and add your comments to this post.
We saw a range of responses to the question on whether or not exercises like the climate vulnerability mapping of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were being implemented in your countries. We saw that some cities had indeed carried out specific climate change vulnerability mapping exercises, some cities had carried out a range of mapping exercises but without a climate change focus or without covering the whole city, others still showed to have no signs of meaningful mapping.
From what participants shared with us this week we could see that:
- The cities that showed clear climate vulnerability maps were: Guwahati, Indore and Surat (India), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), Kampala (Uganda), La Paz (Bolivia).
- The cities that had maps in some regions were: Chennai (India), and Harare (Zimbabwe).
- The cities that had maps for certain issues were: Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kathmandu (Nepal), Khulna (Bangladesh), Lusaka (Zambia), Makurdi (Nigeria), Sekondi & Accra (Ghana).
A large proportion of participants converged on the suggested components necessary for successful climate assessments in cities:
- Involvement of multi-stakeholder groups
- Involvement of local communities
- Mobilisation of policy makers to support such exercises
- Inclusion of results in climate change plan for the city
- Public-private funding mechanisms
- Constant updating of climate vulnerability and risk maps
A very interesting discussion occurred regarding the utilisation of quantitative or qualitative data. Many participants stated that there is often lack of quantitative data coming from communities in very academic studies. Some participants gave examples of cases that utilised purely qualitative data- such as cities in the Caribbean. It was generally agreed that a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative data would lead to the most meaningful maps. Quantitative data is helpful when it comes to monitoring and evaluation, and is the kind of data that is best received by local authorities; qualitative data is necessary because the local communities are the ones that best understand the reality of risks, and local knowledge is highly valuable.
The barriers to risk assessments being done, or to risk assessments being translated into meaningful actions were generally attributed to the following:
- Lack of political concern for climate change (Ghana, India, Mozambique, Nigeria)
- Lack of climate change funding from local authorities (Bangladesh, India, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria)
- Lack of expertise/capacity (Bangladesh, India, Mozambique, Nigeria)
- Lack of interaction between institutions and agencies (Bangladesh, Brazil, India)
- Studies are seen as academic exercises, and are not put to practical use (Brazil, Ghana, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda)
- Informal settlement dwellers do not follow advice of resultant plans
- Climate change is considered a rural issue and mapping is more common in rural areas (Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Zambia)
It was interesting to see that once again this week the fact that rural areas are more commonly mapped for climate vulnerability. The impacts of climate variability are certainly different in cities and due to increasing urbanisation, these kind of mapping exercises might be considered increasingly important for urban areas.
It was very encouraging to see some specific examples of cities that have used climate vulnerability mapping to implement specific programmes and actions to increase urban climate resilience. The ACCCRN and TERI initiatives in India, are particularly interesting, as is the example of Ho Chi Minh city, and we would encourage you seek more information on these. Additionally we saw a very interesting example from the Caribbean that was not city specific, but spoke of a participatory approach to mapping climate vulnerability. Our participants kindly shared various links and documents – some of which are annexed here below.
If you would like to comment upon, or add to this summary, we would like to encourage you to do so.
Thanks once again for the fruitful discussion!
Charlotte and the ELLA Team
We saw a range of responses to the question on whether or not exercises like the climate vulnerability mapping of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were being implemented in your countries. We saw that some cities had indeed carried out specific climate change vulnerability mapping exercises, some cities had carried out a range of mapping exercises but without a climate change focus or without covering the whole city, others still showed to have no signs of meaningful mapping.
From what participants shared with us this week we could see that:
- The cities that showed clear climate vulnerability maps were: Guwahati, Indore and Surat (India), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), Kampala (Uganda), La Paz (Bolivia).
- The cities that had maps in some regions were: Chennai (India), and Harare (Zimbabwe).
- The cities that had maps for certain issues were: Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kathmandu (Nepal), Khulna (Bangladesh), Lusaka (Zambia), Makurdi (Nigeria), Sekondi & Accra (Ghana).
A large proportion of participants converged on the suggested components necessary for successful climate assessments in cities:
- Involvement of multi-stakeholder groups
- Involvement of local communities
- Mobilisation of policy makers to support such exercises
- Inclusion of results in climate change plan for the city
- Public-private funding mechanisms
- Constant updating of climate vulnerability and risk maps
A very interesting discussion occurred regarding the utilisation of quantitative or qualitative data. Many participants stated that there is often lack of quantitative data coming from communities in very academic studies. Some participants gave examples of cases that utilised purely qualitative data- such as cities in the Caribbean. It was generally agreed that a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative data would lead to the most meaningful maps. Quantitative data is helpful when it comes to monitoring and evaluation, and is the kind of data that is best received by local authorities; qualitative data is necessary because the local communities are the ones that best understand the reality of risks, and local knowledge is highly valuable.
The barriers to risk assessments being done, or to risk assessments being translated into meaningful actions were generally attributed to the following:
- Lack of political concern for climate change (Ghana, India, Mozambique, Nigeria)
- Lack of climate change funding from local authorities (Bangladesh, India, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria)
- Lack of expertise/capacity (Bangladesh, India, Mozambique, Nigeria)
- Lack of interaction between institutions and agencies (Bangladesh, Brazil, India)
- Studies are seen as academic exercises, and are not put to practical use (Brazil, Ghana, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda)
- Informal settlement dwellers do not follow advice of resultant plans
- Climate change is considered a rural issue and mapping is more common in rural areas (Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Zambia)
It was interesting to see that once again this week the fact that rural areas are more commonly mapped for climate vulnerability. The impacts of climate variability are certainly different in cities and due to increasing urbanisation, these kind of mapping exercises might be considered increasingly important for urban areas.
It was very encouraging to see some specific examples of cities that have used climate vulnerability mapping to implement specific programmes and actions to increase urban climate resilience. The ACCCRN and TERI initiatives in India, are particularly interesting, as is the example of Ho Chi Minh city, and we would encourage you seek more information on these. Additionally we saw a very interesting example from the Caribbean that was not city specific, but spoke of a participatory approach to mapping climate vulnerability. Our participants kindly shared various links and documents – some of which are annexed here below.
If you would like to comment upon, or add to this summary, we would like to encourage you to do so.
Thanks once again for the fruitful discussion!
Charlotte and the ELLA Team
No comments:
Post a Comment