Transcript "Adaptation Baselines Through V&A Assessments" by

Adaptation Baselines Through V&A
Assessments
Prof. Helmy Eid
Climate Change Experts
(SWERI) ARC
Egypt
Material for : Montreal Workshop
2001
ADAPTATION BASELINES
General Recommendations on Adaptation Baselines
■
- Baseline (reference). The baseline is any datum against which change
is measured. It might be a “current baseline,” in which case it
represents observable, present-day conditions.
- It also might be a “future baseline,” which is a projected future set of
conditions, excluding the driving factor of interest.
- Alternative interpretations of reference conditions can give rise to
multiple baselines.
■
Adaptation baseline of policies and measures could be defined as the
set of policies and measures already taken by various concerned
authorities, and NGOs within the frame of the precautionary principle,
to help agriculture, water resources and demand, human health and
coastal zones as well as minimize adverse impacts of warming and sea
level rise.
■
It is recommended that the V&A assessments need to develop
dataset and baseline, and this could be done by identifying data
needs and availability and establishing dataset and baselines
as follows:
■
Identify climatological and sea-level rise that are relevant to
studied method(s).
■
Identify non-climatic data required for method development,
calibration and testing (e.g. river flow data, maps of
crop distribution), for methods application (e.g. soil data,
beach profile data, country GDP), and any additional data
(e.g. population density statistics).
■
Assess availability of data; sources, forms, problems of
obtaining data (cost, accessibility, status of data,
documentation, compatibility and uncertainty)
■
Evaluate available data to establish their stability for
selected methods by determining; time resolution,
completeness of records, quality, sites number and their
spatial distribution (for spatial interpolations).
■
Develop the baseline climate dataset:
■ Identify stations with a good length of record (ideally 30
years), check data for errors, missing data, clean data,
availability at appropriate time resolution, spatial or
temporal interpolation.
-
Daily data can be derived from monthly values by
simple interpolation or using a weather generators.
-
Spatial datasets can be developed by tools available
(GIS, and UNUSPLIN).
■ Additional non-climatic data may be required for method
development (calibration and application, specific data
relating to sector and exposure unit will be required
(observed crop phenology and yield, soil data, river
discharge, health statistics, historical changes in relative sealevel.
■
Interpret results and Synthesis:
A range of climatic and non-climatic data may be required;
geographical, technological, managerial, legislative, economic,
social and political.
■
Interpret data to describe baselines:
Having developed a good quality datasets to complete the
assessment, it is necessary to interpret data for describing climatic
and non-climatic baselines, which
- Need to meet the specific requirements of sector and exposure
unit.
- Need to full the requirements of the entire assessment including
cross-sectoral dependencies.
■
In any adaptation plan, a survey of adaptation baseline policies,
measures, environmental conditions, available technical tools and
past experience is necessary to ensure suitability of the adaptation
measure to be taken.
■
It could be recommended that a strategic environmental impact
assessment must be carried out for any policy of adaptation and an
environmental impact assessment of any measure.
■ The use of linked model approach uses GCM results and results from
simple climate models to obtain regional projections of climate change.
(SCENGEN, CLIMPACTS VANDACLIM) are suitable for a multiple sectors
impact assessment and allow the user to explore a wide range of uncertainty
and introduce a time dimension.
■ It is recommended to assess availability of input data for an RCM to
improve climate change scenarios.
■ The use of the process-based models (Simulation models (e.g. DSSAT, COTTAM,
SORKAM, and CROPSYST) is more efficient in the V&A assessments especially
in the agricultural sector.
■ It could be recommended that the use of the cost-benefit models and
the General equilibrium models (Basic Linked System; BLS) as
socioeconomic models is more efficient in the V&A assessments
especially in the agricultural sector. Recardian (Cross sectional)
Model could be used also.
■ Adaptation baselines could be established in the agriculture, water
resources, coastal zones and human health sectors through the
experiences detected from the general current presentation on V&A
methodologies.
■ ■ Improving Assessments of Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation
The following are only three from high priorities for narrowing gaps
between current knowledge and policymaking needs:
(The IPCC WG II report).
-
Quantitative assessment of the sensitivity adaptive capacity and
vulnerability of natural and human systems to climate change.
-
Assessment of opportunities to include scientific information on impacts,
vulnerability, and adaptation in decision-making processes.
-
Improvement of systems and methods for long term monitoring and understanding.
Can you add more to the list?
■ The Egyptian V&A assessment study on the agricultural sector can
be followed in the near countries with similar conditions (an outline
for the case study is available in the current presentation)
Do you want to see?
Socio-economic
scenario
Steps of Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment
Experiments/
Technology
options
MAGICC
Daily
Climatic
Data
Other
Simulation
models
developed in
Crystal Ball
Adaptation Options
Monthly
Climatic
Data
Climatic
Data in
DSSATS
Model
Format
Impact Assessment
Select GCM
CLIMATE DATA GENERATOR
SCENGEN
Develop
scenarios
Experiments/
Technology
options
Socio-economic
scenario