<
 
 
 
 
×
>
You are viewing an archived web page, collected at the request of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) using Archive-It. This page was captured on 15:48:19 Sep 28, 2020, and is part of the UNESCO collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page.
Loading media information hide

Adaptation in an age of uncertainty: tools for climate-resilient water management approaches

24/09/2020
06 - Clean Water and Sanitation
13 - Climate Action

Over the last decade, climate change is accelerating and disrupting national economies and affecting livelihoods, particularly through the impact on water and water-related hazards. Adequate planning for water resources management has been integrated in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Paris Agreement highlights the role of sustainable development in reducing the risk of loss and damage. It also requests the UN agencies to support their Member States in order to enhance action on adaptation, highlighting adequate planning for policy making, as well as the identification of adaptation strategies.

In this context, UNESCO and various other organizations have developed a set of complementary resilient water management tools and approaches addressing climate risk and other uncertainties through innovative adaptation strategies. As highlighted in the 2020 edition of the World Water Development Report, these “bottom-up approaches” constitute a new generation of methodologies that embrace a participatory approach to identify water security hazards and pursue locally embedded solutions. As such, they facilitate robust, context-specific and flexible decision-making in water resources management, differing from the dominant paradigm guiding water management for the past half-century — namely the assumption that we can use past hydrological and climatic data to confidently predict (and plan for) the future.

UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP), together with the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) and the International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management (ICIWaRM), is hosting a series of webinars introducing the technical and practical components of bottom-up approaches, spanning a range of topics and underscored by examples of real-world applications.

Webinars take place on a monthly basis in the lead up to a global conference on Climate-Resilient Water Management Approaches being organized by the same institutions and tentatively set for November 2020. They are intended for technical water management professionals as well as individuals working in climate / water policy and planning. 

Webinar #1

An Introduction to Bottom-Up Approaches

The first webinar in the series took place on 16 July. It introduces bottom-up approaches for resilient water management — their evolution, their potentials for application, and examples of successful implementation. Presenters discuss the means by which decision makers, policymakers, and even practitioners can better address uncertainties through the use of new frameworks such as Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA), published by UNESCO and ICIWaRM, and the World Bank’s Decision Tree Framework. Case studies from Thailand and Mexico are highlighting key elements of these complementary approaches and the wide-ranging stakeholders involved. Following a set of presentations, participants join the conversation through a moderated panel discussion.

Presentations:

 

Webinar #2

Incorporating Climate Risks into Decision Making Through CRIDA: Perspectives from Zambia and Chile

The second webinar in the series took place on 24 September. It introduces participants to real-life examples of case studies that were performed within Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) - a collaborative framework meant to help decision makers, stakeholders, and water managers assess and address the risk and impacts of climate change on water resources. The CRIDA case study from Zambia explores the approaches that would increase the Iolanda Water Treatment Plant's ability to deliver acceptable levels of water supply to the utility that serves Zambia’s capital of Lusaka while incorporating plausible climate change risks into decision making. In Chile, water managers have used CRIDA in the Limarí river basin to identify specific climate-related risks and chart a path towards developing adaptation strategies at a watershed scale that ensure continued performance of key systems. Q&A sessions are run after each case study presentation, featuring interventions and questions from local project partners. The Q&A also feature questions from the audience in order to facilitate an open discussion and provide for an interactive webinar.

Presentations: