New Report Offers Insights and Guidance on Approaching Climate and Disasters in an Age of Uncertainty
How do we get ready for extreme events beyond our experience, whose timing and magnitude are difficult to predict over public policy timescales? If science tells us there are limits to our knowledge, how do we design measures to reach tangible disaster response and recovery systems to protect our communities, ecosystems, and economies? Do we face new risks by failing to imagine what may yet emerge this century?
Tackling these issues and more, UNESCO has published a new flagship report intended to provide insights to the High-Level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) and others involved in national climate planning and decision-making. AGWA served a leading role in writing the publication alongside UNESCO and contributions from a global set of collaborators involved in implementing adaptation and disaster preparedness/response interventions.
Approaching Climate and Disasters in an Age of Uncertainty aims to bridge the gap between climate and disasters, in the face of the uncertainties that climate change poses to water managers and policymakers. Composed of a compilation of worldwide case studies, it provides examples of innovative water management and climate risk assessment approaches — notably focusing on the use of bottom-up approaches to adaptation such as CRIDA that have been gaining popularity over the past decade or more. The publication also highlights Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) with the aim of identifying links between these high-level frameworks, DRR and water issues, and describing how the policy-practice linkages can be turned into action.
Translating lessons learned from the case studies, the report concludes with tangible, policy-oriented steps towards creating “triple-win” actions that simultaneously promote disaster resilience, climate adaptation, and sustainable development.
The report is available as open access through the UNESDOC Digital Library.