18 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Heatwaves: an invisible risk in UK policy and research
In 2019, a heatwave – an unusual extended period of hot weather – broke the UK’s highest recorded temperature of 38.7 °C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5 °C hotter by 2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes now and to come. Yet it remains unclear what actions are needed and by whom. In response, a systematic literature review of UK heatwaves peer-reviewed publications, inclusive of keyword criteria (total papers returned = 183), was conducted to understand what lessons have been learnt and what needs to happen next. Our research shows that heatwaves remain largely an invisible risk in the UK. Communication over what UK residents should do, the support needed to make changes, and their capacity to enact those changes, is often lacking. In turn, there is an inherent bias where research focuses too narrowly on the health and building sectors over other critical sectors, such as agriculture. An increased amount of action and leadership is therefore necessary from the UK government to address this
Recommended from our members
Assessing the impact of climate change on sweet potato in Uganda
Sweet potato is a mainstay of household food security and a major source of vitamin A across sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Uganda. Understanding how climate change is likely to impact on sweet potato would be useful for policymakers in Uganda making decisions to improve food security and increase resilience to climate shocks. However, sweet potato is an under-researched crop and the impacts of climate change have not been systematically analysed. The Sweet Potato Catalyst Project aims to assess the impacts of climate change on sweet potato in Uganda and develop ways for local stakeholders to access and assess this information to strengthen governance. This policy briefing note provides an overview of the research, the approach being taken and anticipated outcomes that will feed into the UNFCCC Koronovia Joint Work on Agriculture
Recommended from our members
Event attribution science in adaptation decision-making: the context of extreme rainfall in urban Senegal
Event attribution assesses the effect of climate change on individual extreme events. While scientists have suggested that results could be relevant for climate adaptation policy, this has had little empirical investigation, particularly in developing regions. Taking the case of Senegal, the national adaptation policy context regarding extreme precipitation and flooding in urban areas, and the scientific information needed to support this policy, is investigated using key informant interviews, a workshop and document analysis. Flooding in Senegal was found to be viewed primarily as an urban planning concern rather than a climate change issue, with actions to address the impacts focussing on current vulnerabilities of urban communities without considering changing climate risks. While stakeholders thought event attribution might be useful to inform about climate change impacts and future risks of extreme events, it is unclear whether there would be opportunity for this at present, due to the limited role climate information has in adaptation decision-making. While addressing vulnerability to extremes is necessary whether or not the risk is climate change-related, if long-term planning is to be resilient then knowledge about future changes in risks of extremes will need to be considered, even if individual events are not attributed to climate change
Recommended from our members
Sweet potato production in Uganda in a changing climate: what is the role for fertilisers
This policy brief for the Ugandan Government covers the use of manure and inorganic fertilisers in sweet potato production, including how fertiliser use in sweet potato production can contribute to boosting yields, livelihood resilience, improving diets and fighting malnutrition in Uganda in the face of climate change
Recommended from our members
Storylines for decision-making: climate and food security in Namibia
Storylines are plausible descriptions of past or future events and can be used to characterise uncertainty through discrete possible futures. They thereby bridge the gap between global-scale future projections and local-scale impacts, providing decision-makers with useful information about potential impacts in multivariate systems despite large swathes of missing data. Here we demonstrate the storyline approach using the case of household food security in the Caprivi region of Namibia, an example of a complex system with multiple interacting drivers. We develop a network characterising influences on household food security, highlighting drivers that are affected by the local weather (with climate understood to constitute the collection of possible weather states). The network is used to understand the storyline leading to household impacts in 2013-14, a consumption year affected by flooding, and the effects of a range of interventions across wealth groups. Counterfactual storylines are also developed to characterise potential impacts under different local and national conditions. Through this we demonstrate how a storyline approach can embed local contextual information to provide decision-makers with comprehensible and assessable information about possible futures and interventions. We also highlight the importance of identifying common drivers, in this case the local weather, in producing plausible impact storylines
Recommended from our members
Possible futures for groundwater in Burkina Faso under a changing climate
This narrative describes three possible future scenarios for water resources in Burkina Faso and the human and socio-economic impacts that might be experienced by people living in rural areas. The narratives aim to stimulate discussion towards realistic policy responses and the decision support tools needed to assist future planning needs. It is important to recognise that the scenarios do not represent every possible outcome projected by hydroclimate models, and resulting impacts will be contextualised by local circumstances. See here for information about BRAVE (www.walker.ac.uk) and the UPGro programme: upgro.org/consortium/brave2/
Recommended from our members
The first Forecasters Handbook for West Africa
Bridging the gap between rapidly moving scientific research and specific forecasting tools, Meteorology of Tropical West Africa: The Forecasters' Handbook’, gives unprecedented access to the latest science and combines this with pragmatic approaches to forecasting. It is set to change the way forecasters, researchers and students learn about tropical meteorology and will serve to drive demand for new forecasting tools. The Handbook builds upon the legacy of the AMMA project, making the latest science applicable to forecasting in the region. By bringing together, at the outset, researchers and forecasters from across the region, and linking to applications, user communities and decision-makers, the Forecasters’ Handbook provides a template for finding much needed solutions to critical issues such as building resilience to climate change in West Africa
Recommended from our members
Scientific understanding of East African climate change from the HyCRISTAL project
Integrating Hydro-Climate Science into Policy Decisions for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure and Livelihoods in East Africa (HyCRISTAL) is a Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) project funded to deliver new understanding of East African climate change and its impacts, and to demonstrate use of climate change information in long-term decision-making in the region. Here, we briefly summarise key findings from HyCRISTAL so far on climate change, as well as key findings from the pan-African FCFA project “IMPALA” relevant to East Africa, both in the context of previous literature on the topic