Caribbean Disaster Risk Management & Climate Change
Adaptation:
Data to Decision Making Workshop
A Region at Risk
Average Annual Losses as a % of GDP
Source: Germanwatch, 2012
Losses from disasters are fiscal shocks, which often
result in budgetary deficits & increased debt
Select Damages from Disasters as a % of GDP
200%
Hurricane:
Ivan
Hurricane:
Hattie
Hurricane:
Georges
Hurricanes:
David & Frederick
Hurricanes:
Luis & Hurricane:
Marilyn
Luis
Hurricane: Hurricane: Hurricane:
Luis
Allen
Gilbert
100%
Flood
Hurricane:
Tomas
Guyana 2005
St Lucia 2010
0%
Belize 1961
Dominica - St Lucia 1979
1980
Jamaica 1988
AB - 1995 Dominica - St. Kitts & St. Kitts & Grenada 1995
Nevis Nevis 2004
1995
1998
Data to Decision Making
Problem Definition
Visualization &
Interpretation
Decision
Making
Data Need
Identification
& Data Development
(Field Collection)
Data/Risk
Analysis
NHS-0144-2DM-4N
Risk Analysis is Data Intensive
Hazard
Exposure
Vulnerability Functions Risk Analysis Output
Challenges Persist
• Not enough data to carry out relevant
analysis
• Existing data not readily available
• Numerous data format
• Poor or questionable data quality
• Scale of the data not sufficient
• Metadata non-existent or scant
• Lack of a data sharing mechanism
• Lack of capacity to generate and/or
interpret risk analysis
Building Capacity to
Perform the Data to
Decision Making
Continuum
Open Data for Resilience
The Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI) is
a global partnership that aims to encourage and
facilitate the sharing and use of climate and
disaster data to enable more effective decisionmaking by providing the rationale, technical
assistance, and tools for data sharing.
Data/Risk Analysis
Territorial planning
Visualization of
hazard and risk
Scenario analysis for
emergency
preparedness
Infrastructure Design
Climate Change
Adaptation
Set of Tools to Assist
Decision Making
Immediate damage
assessment
Land Use Planning and Zoning
Seismic hazard map
Landslides hazard map
Flood hazard map
Scenario Analysis for Emergency
Preparedness - # of injured
DAY
NIGHT
Specifications for Infrastructure Design
The Caribbean Cannot Build its’ Way
Out of Risk
Immediate Damage Estimation
Physical damage
Human losses
Surface Response
Spatial Distribution
Damage Distribution
Calculation
Working Together
•
Working with governments in the OECS
•
Complementing existing efforts
•
Building partnerships at a global level and with
regional institutions like the CCRIF & UWI
•
Making the case for open data
•
Participatory technical assistance
•
Free open source software & tools
•
Community of Practitioners
A Global, Country-Led Effort
UWI
DRRC
Education
Governments
Seismic RC
Capacity
Regional
Institutions
MDBs/
Donors
CDEMA
CCRIF
Data
Management
Communities
Climate Change Adaptation
• The UNFCCC defines it as actions taken to help communities and
ecosystems cope with changing climate condition.
• The IPCC describes it as adjustment in natural or human systems in
response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects,
which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
• The UN Development Program calls it a process by which strategies
to moderate, cope with and take advantage of the consequences of
climatic events are enhanced, developed, and implemented.
• The UK Climate Impacts Program defines it as the process or
outcome of a process that leads to a reduction in harm or risk of
harm, or realization of benefits associated with climate variability
and climate change.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Early warning/early action
Life-saving
measures
Environmental
protection
Livelihood
protection
Capacity
development of
national/local
authorities and
communities
Disaster Preparedness
Response
capacity
Stockpiling
Community-based disaster risk
management/reduction
Temporary
shelters
Urban Planning
•
Construction
norms
Natural resource
management
Income
diversification
• Socio-economic
stabilization
• Livelihoods
Greening the
economy
Time
DRM
DRR
CCA
Adapted from: http://www.iom.int/Template/migration-climate-change-environmental-degradation/interactive-factsheet/index.html
Adaptation Thematic Areas
Adaptation Processes
Policy/planning
Public health
Water
security
Capacity building/awareness
Livelihoods
Food security
Information management
Investment decisions
Coastal zones
Land
Practices/resource
management
Adapted from UNDP
Adaptation Dimension
• Adaptive capacity – building the capacity for a
population to adapt provides a foundation for
anticipating and adjusting to climate conditions that
will continue to change
• Adaptive action – adaptive capacity must be applied to
specific decisions and actions to directly reduce or
manage the biophysical impact to CC or actions may
address non-climatic factors contributing to
vulnerability
• Sustained development – successful sustainable
development in spite of continuing changes posed by
climate change
Broadening the climate adaptation toolkit to
include protecting and restoring natural resources
to help people
The definition of EBA from the Convention on Biological Diversity :
• “Ecosystem-based adaptation may be described as the use of ecosystem management
activities to support societal adaptation. Ecosystem-based adaptation identifies and
implements a range of strategies for the management, conservation, and restoration of
ecosystems to provide services that enable people to adapt to the impacts of climate
change. It aims to increase the resilience and reduce the vulnerability of ecosystems and
people in the face of climate change. Ecosystem-based adaptation is most appropriately
integrated into broader adaptation and development strategies”
Definition
In the context of TNC’s work, this means:
• EBA is the protection, sustainable management and restoration of natural
systems to help human communities respond to climate change and to adapt to
adverse impacts
•
•
Hypothesis
EBA is:
– A critical part of overall climate adaptation and climate-ready development strategies
that include a suite of climate change adaptation responses, typically involving
multiple sectors
– A practical example of the benefits of conservation and restoration for human
communities in the face of climate change
– An opportunity to align conservation objectives with development objectives
EBA is not:
– Simply an attempt to “climate proof” biodiversity in our sites or build climate
resilience into conservation planning
– A repackaging of our existing work to be more appealing to funders
Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) is a viable and cost effective way to reduce the
vulnerability of human communities to climate change impacts and ensure the sustainability
of our limited natural resources
Source: CBD, second ad hoc technical expert group on biodiversity and climate change, second meeting, Helsinki 18-22 April 2009; Document:
UNEP/CBD/AHTEG/BD-CC-2/2/6, 27 May 2009
EBA projects must:
1. be implemented in a
climate change-vulnerable
place with socioeconomically vulnerable
communities and
biologically significant
ecosystems
2. address and offer solutions
to specific human
vulnerabilities to climate
change
3. engage key communities,
decision-makers,
stakeholders
Coastal and Marine EBA
• Coasts present a stark intersection of human needs and climate change effects
• Coastal adaptation is more than one third of the total adaptation cost (1)
• Coastal ecosystems include marshes, mangroves, coral and bivalve reefs, seagrasses, barrier
islands and dunes which provide multiple and essential benefits to communities and have already
been seriously lost and degraded. This measurably affects benefits to humans and the ability of
these systems to help humans adapt
– Both the impacts of climate change and potential responses to them have the potential for further degrading
these systems and reducing or eliminating essential services to vulnerable human communities
• In the Caribbean, flooding is of particular concern because a majority of people reside within a
narrow coastal strip. A significant amount of tourism and fishing also occurs along this same
strip.
Source: (1) “The Costs to Developing Countries of Adapting to Climate Change,” World Bank Aug 2010; (2) “Convenient Solutions to an Inconvenient
Truth: Ecosystem-based Approaches to Climate Change.” Environment Department, The World Bank, June 2009; America’s Climate Choices: Adapting to
the Impacts of Climate Change, National Research Council
Mainstreaming of Coastal EBA
• Enhance the understanding of and capacity to implement
EBA through building the scientific and economic
foundation, decision support tools and approaches and
policy guidelines for EBA
• Execute projects like “At the Water’s Edge”
• Assist local communities with EBA by providing EBA
guidelines and best practices documentation and outreach
• Increase awareness and influence policy and public funding
to incorporate EBA into policies and standards
• Engage the hazard mitigation community (FEMA, insurance
agencies, etc.) to use EBA approaches to jointly achieve
hazard mitigation and conservation objectives
Coastal Defense
Grey Infrastructure
• Seawall
• Revetments
Spectrum of Adaptive Action
Ecologically Active (Grey)
Infrastructure
http://www.econcretetech.com/
Coastal Defense
Grey Infrastructure
• Seawall
• Revetments
Ecologically Active
Infrastructure (Grey/Green
Infrastructure)
Spectrum of Adaptive Action
Turenscape
http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/projects/
Turenscape
http://inhabitat.com/moma-exhibit-offers-real-solutions-to-nyc-rising-tides/
Multiuse Design
• Ecosystem services
• Coastal defense
• Recreation
• Providing food
• Climate adaptive coastal management
• DRM/DRR
Coastal Defense
Community Vulnerability
High
Grey Infrastructure
• Seawall
• Revetments
Ecologically Active
Infrastructure (Grey/Green
Infrastructure)
Eco engineering
Green Infrastructure
• Vast mangrove tracts
• Barrier reef
• Large dune systems
• Littoral forest – coral
reef complex - beach
Spectrum of Adaptive Action
Low
Ecosystem base adaptation
Adaptation Decisions Being Made
Nationally
• Integrated Coastal Zone Management/National
Adaptation Programmes of Action
• What is the potential loss and where?
• How much loss can be averted and with what actions?
• Where can adaptation actions be placed?
Locally
• How adaptation sites are designed?
• How the community capacity and awareness is
increased?
Role of Spatial Data
• Underpins and facilitates adaptation work
• Outcome/output is not a GIS product
• Multi-sector/themed layers needed
– Assess risk and vulnerability
– Raise awareness
– Site EBA locations
• Communicates issues of scale
• Mapping ecosystem services