scholarly journals Challenges and Opportunities for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into WaSH Development Planning in Ghana

Author(s):  
Salley Alhassan ◽  
Wade Hadwen

Climate change threatens water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) facilities and services, as these are intimately linked to the water cycle and are vulnerable to changes in the quantity and quality of available water resources. Floods and droughts, which pollute and reduce water delivery respectively, have now become a perennial issue to deal with in the northern regions of the country, including the Bolgatanga Municipality. This study aimed to assess the degree to which climate change adaptation measures are mainstreamed into the WaSH development planning process in Ghana. Stakeholders from government and non-government agencies were interviewed to gain perspectives on the threat of climate change, the inclusion of climate change in WaSH planning and the barriers preventing mainstreaming. In general, despite awareness and concern about climate change, adaptation measures have been regarded to be far away from the immediate concerns of WaSH development planning. Most of the current measures are reactive and respond to environmental issues rather than to climate change stressors. In essence, stakeholders expressed the view that the adaptive capacity of the Municipality was low and that mainstreaming has not yet occurred. Despite the lack of progress, there are great opportunities for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into planning through increasing awareness and capacity, legislative and institutional changes and the development of participatory systems to provide early warning systems and disaster risk analyses that will inform future planning.

Author(s):  
Arneil G. Gabriel ◽  
Patrick Neil M. Santiago ◽  
Rosemarie R. Casimiro

AbstractRecent scientific consensus suggests that climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent and destructive. Consequently, increasing importance is given to disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) in global governance. The projected global warming at 1.5 ºC and the climate variability that the Philippine archipelago experiences make DRR-CCA the key priorities of both the national and local government units. In this study, we assessed and measured the degree of mainstreaming of DRR-CCA in the comprehensive development plans (CDPs) of the five component cities in the province of Nueva Ecija in the Philippines. These are among the areas in Central Luzon that are susceptible to hydrometeorological and geologic hazards. We distributed survey questionnaires to 25 employees of the local government units in the five component cities in Nueva Ecija who are directly involved in planning activities. We triangulated their responses using archival data (review of written policies and plans). The main findings of the study indicate that in spite the presence of laws and policies on DRR-CCA, their implementation is only in the preliminary stages. The results also provide insights to policymakers and future researchers on the challenges and opportunities influencing the systemic mainstreaming of DRR-CCA in the province.


Author(s):  
Happwell Musarandega ◽  
Wisemen Chingombe

This article is a synthesis of literature on cross-country experiences on the strategies for adapting to climate change in Southeast Asia (Bangladesh and India) and Southern Africa (South Africa and Zimbabwe). The article shows that each selected country employs unique measures for adapting to climate change. In Bangladesh the specific strategies for adapting to climate change include the establishment of kinship and extended family ties to assist in difficult times.  Other strategies include diversification from the seasonal crop and perennial crop, provision of micro-finance, and adoption of non-farm income generating projects. The adaptation strategies in India include the establishment of farmer groups—examples of such groups are the self-help groups (SHG), the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA), the Pradhan Mantri Gram Rojgaar Yojana (PMGRY), and Public Distribution System (PDS). In South Africa the adaptation measures include rationalising farm expenditure, changing of planting and harvesting dates, water conservation, planting drought-tolerant crops, and agricultural insurance. In Zimbabwe, farmers are adopting conservation agriculture, moving to regions with more rainfall, and investing in irrigation. The essential lessons for climate change adaptation from the countries studied showed that there is a need to rationalise farm inputs, adopt early maturing crop varieties, plant drought-tolerant crops, sound water management practices, and conserving the soil. Equally important is the need to conserve the water bodies, diversify effective weather forecasting, and use of early warning systems.


Author(s):  
Leonardo Zea-Reyes ◽  
Veronica Olivotto ◽  
Sylvia I. Bergh

AbstractCities around the world are confronted with the need to put in place climate adaptation policies to protect citizens and properties from climate change impacts. This article applies components of the framework developed by Moser and Ekström (2010) onto empirical qualitative data to diagnose institutional barriers to climate change adaptation in the Municipality of Beirut, Lebanon. Our approach reveals the presence of two vicious cycles influencing each other. In the first cycle, the root cause barrier is major political interference generating competing priorities and poor individual interest in climate change. A second vicious cycle is derived from feedbacks caused by the first and leading to the absence of a dedicated department where sector specific climate risk information is gathered and shared with other departments, limited knowledge and scientific understanding, as well as a distorted framing or vision, where climate change is considered unrelated to other issues and is to be dealt with at higher levels of government. The article also highlights the need to analyze interlinkages between barriers in order to suggest how to overcome them. The most common way to overcome barriers according to interviewees is through national and international support followed by the creation of a data bank. These opportunities could be explored by national and international policy-makers to break the deadlock in Beirut.


2016 ◽  
Vol 73 (9) ◽  
pp. 2251-2259 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. U. Hasse ◽  
D. E. Weingaertner

As the central product of the BMBF-KLIMZUG-funded Joint Network and Research Project (JNRP) ‘dynaklim – Dynamic adaptation of regional planning and development processes to the effects of climate change in the Emscher-Lippe region (North Rhine Westphalia, Germany)’, the Roadmap 2020 ‘Regional Climate Adaptation’ has been developed by the various regional stakeholders and institutions containing specific regional scenarios, strategies and adaptation measures applicable throughout the region. This paper presents the method, elements and main results of this regional roadmap process by using the example of the thematic sub-roadmap ‘Water Sensitive Urban Design 2020’. With a focus on the process support tool ‘KlimaFLEX’, one of the main adaptation measures of the WSUD 2020 roadmap, typical challenges for integrated climate change adaptation like scattered knowledge, knowledge gaps and divided responsibilities but also potential solutions and promising chances for urban development and urban water management are discussed. With the roadmap and the related tool, the relevant stakeholders of the Emscher-Lippe region have jointly developed important prerequisites to integrate their knowledge, to clarify vulnerabilities, adaptation goals, responsibilities and interests, and to foresightedly coordinate measures, resources, priorities and schedules for an efficient joint urban planning, well-grounded decision-making in times of continued uncertainties and step-by-step implementation of adaptation measures from now on.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itxaso Ruiz ◽  
María José Sanz

<p>Rural areas of the Mediterranean watersheds face great environmental challenges, where climate change impacts the water cycle, the soil, and biodiversity, which are often priority issues for adaptation. These, have been aggravated by historical land management practices trends. In this context, we propose Nature Based Solutions (NBS) in the form of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) actions at the watershed scale to achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation while promoting other ecosystem services.</p><p>SLM actions are local adaptation practices that promote sustainable rural development. Thus, we seek the combination of several actions to achieve regional (watershed scale) more integrated approaches. With this study, we aim at proving that NBS, and thus SLM, is a successful tool for alleviating climate change impacts (i.e. water scarcity, enhanced erosion, biodiversity decline) while promoting the role of land in mitigation and enhancing biodiversity in the rural Mediterranean areas.</p><p>For this, we propose a novel conceptualization of SLM actions that moves from their local application and evaluation to the regional more systemic approaches through their combination. Results show synergies in the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, allow for the upscaling of SLM through systemic approaches and point at direct contributions to several Sustainable Development Goals.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Okuli William Swai

Although various long term adaptation measures are currently implemented by farmers to adapt to the effects of climate change in Tanzania, information regarding factors determining choice of adaptation options between men and women is scarce. A gendered analysis was done to analyze determinants of adaptation to climate change in Bahi and Kondoa Districts, Dodoma Region, Tanzania. A cross-sectional research design was adopted whereby the data was collected from a sample of 360 respondents, 12 focus groups and 18 key informants. Analysis of quantitative data involved descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model using Nlogit 3.0 and qualitative data were summarized by using content analysis. Results revealed that the main occupation and land size were the main factors that determined adaptation options for men during food shortage while for women, the main factor was marital status. The village/location of respondents was the main factor that determined climate change adaptation option for women to adapt crops to climate change whereas, for men, access to agricultural knowledge was the main factor that encouraged men to use improved seeds, manure and deep cultivation, instead of selecting and keeping enough seeds for the next season. It is concluded that factors determining choice of climate change adaptation between men and women are not the same, emphasizing the need for gender differentiated interventions to promote climate change adaptation. Thus, planners and policy makers from Agriculture, Livestock and Environment sectors; Tanzania NAPA and other development practitioners dealing with climate change should use gender sensitive interventions to manage climate change.


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