HyCRISTAL: Integrating Hydro-Climate Science into Policy Decisions for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure and Livelihoods in East Africa
Lead Research Organisation:
MET OFFICE
Department Name: Climate Science
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Planned Impact
HyCRISTAL will have a positive impact on 7 groups of beneficiaries through the process and research outcomes.
1) COMMUNITIES IN THE LAKE VICTORIA BASIN
Communities will have the opportunity to access, input to, and benefit via their livelihoods from the research. Development options and pathways for climate-smart fisheries/agriculture, sustainable water use, access & distribution, will enhance productive and WASH outcomes in the region with such measurable livelihood improvements as greater levels of savings or tradeable assets. At least 400 households will participate in the adaptation trials. Wider engagement will occur via community exchanges, district workshops and regional learning platforms.
2) WATER PLANNERS/MANAGERS IN GOVERNMENT & POLICY
Close links with resource planners and government policymakers (East African Community, Lake Victoria Basin Commission, Uganda National Water and Sewerage Co, Local Authorities) will facilitate the 2-way flow of information, tools & guidance needed to support livelihoods & water management. Training will be tailored to user needs and through inclusive participation, empower women & youth to co-design and better apply planning tools. These stakeholders will act as researcher-advocates and contribute to policy uptake via "fit-for-purpose" evidence of the pilot outcomes. Value-added impact of such interventions on the local economy & livelihoods will result from investments to Treasury & donors. Local/sub-national governments in the region now have devolved responsibilities for climate services and will also benefit from improved evidence of benefits.
3) INTERNATIONAL & BILATERAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
These will benefit from robust quantitative & qualitative evidence to inform programmes of support to national innovation support systems (including advisory services, SME promotion, regulatory frameworks). USAID & EU, World Bank, UNEP, UNDP, WFP, WHO and others are active in this region and will be invited to participate in the high-level Learning Platforms.
4) NGOs
Close collaboration with international (Practical Action) & local NGOs (Rural Environment & Development Organisation, OSIENALA, Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern & Southern Africa) will inform their livelihood and WASH programs development and provide evidence of their own interventions and modes of working with pilot communities.
5) CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) & MEDIA
CSOs, national/sub-national farmer/fisher & urban organizations will benefit from evidence supporting lobbying for improved water services and climate-smart fisheries/agriculture management. Some CSOs already provide innovation support services (Uganda National Farmers Federation) and will be able to use the project findings to enhance such service provision. Engagement with CSOs & the media (local FM stations) will raise awareness of the research process and outcomes (planning information & decision tools). Wider coverage of the research & analytical methods will help to showcase benefits & attract future investment, stimulating collaborations beyond HyCRISTAL
6) RESEARCH INSTITUTES & MET SERVICES
HyCRISTAL will work with weather forecasters, hydrologists, hydrogeologists & users of medium-long-range forecasts, through project partnerships. These partners benefit via access to improved climate risk information and by strengthening utility of their climate services at regional to community levels.
7) PRIVATE SECTOR
African companies (Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company) will benefit from exposure to the knowledge products helping to inform their future business plans. Communities across the region will indirectly benefit from improved innovation support policies and interventions that are evidence based and tuned to the ways in which they seek support in their innovation & livelihood decision-making resulting in increased household capacity to invest in new livelihood options as current ones become unsusustainable
1) COMMUNITIES IN THE LAKE VICTORIA BASIN
Communities will have the opportunity to access, input to, and benefit via their livelihoods from the research. Development options and pathways for climate-smart fisheries/agriculture, sustainable water use, access & distribution, will enhance productive and WASH outcomes in the region with such measurable livelihood improvements as greater levels of savings or tradeable assets. At least 400 households will participate in the adaptation trials. Wider engagement will occur via community exchanges, district workshops and regional learning platforms.
2) WATER PLANNERS/MANAGERS IN GOVERNMENT & POLICY
Close links with resource planners and government policymakers (East African Community, Lake Victoria Basin Commission, Uganda National Water and Sewerage Co, Local Authorities) will facilitate the 2-way flow of information, tools & guidance needed to support livelihoods & water management. Training will be tailored to user needs and through inclusive participation, empower women & youth to co-design and better apply planning tools. These stakeholders will act as researcher-advocates and contribute to policy uptake via "fit-for-purpose" evidence of the pilot outcomes. Value-added impact of such interventions on the local economy & livelihoods will result from investments to Treasury & donors. Local/sub-national governments in the region now have devolved responsibilities for climate services and will also benefit from improved evidence of benefits.
3) INTERNATIONAL & BILATERAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
These will benefit from robust quantitative & qualitative evidence to inform programmes of support to national innovation support systems (including advisory services, SME promotion, regulatory frameworks). USAID & EU, World Bank, UNEP, UNDP, WFP, WHO and others are active in this region and will be invited to participate in the high-level Learning Platforms.
4) NGOs
Close collaboration with international (Practical Action) & local NGOs (Rural Environment & Development Organisation, OSIENALA, Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern & Southern Africa) will inform their livelihood and WASH programs development and provide evidence of their own interventions and modes of working with pilot communities.
5) CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) & MEDIA
CSOs, national/sub-national farmer/fisher & urban organizations will benefit from evidence supporting lobbying for improved water services and climate-smart fisheries/agriculture management. Some CSOs already provide innovation support services (Uganda National Farmers Federation) and will be able to use the project findings to enhance such service provision. Engagement with CSOs & the media (local FM stations) will raise awareness of the research process and outcomes (planning information & decision tools). Wider coverage of the research & analytical methods will help to showcase benefits & attract future investment, stimulating collaborations beyond HyCRISTAL
6) RESEARCH INSTITUTES & MET SERVICES
HyCRISTAL will work with weather forecasters, hydrologists, hydrogeologists & users of medium-long-range forecasts, through project partnerships. These partners benefit via access to improved climate risk information and by strengthening utility of their climate services at regional to community levels.
7) PRIVATE SECTOR
African companies (Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company) will benefit from exposure to the knowledge products helping to inform their future business plans. Communities across the region will indirectly benefit from improved innovation support policies and interventions that are evidence based and tuned to the ways in which they seek support in their innovation & livelihood decision-making resulting in increased household capacity to invest in new livelihood options as current ones become unsusustainable
Organisations
Publications
Ascott M
(2023)
On the application of rainfall projections from a convection-permitting climate model to lumped catchment models
in Journal of Hydrology
Bornemann F
(2019)
Future changes and uncertainty in decision-relevant measures of East African climate
in Climatic Change
Degefu M
(2016)
Teleconnections between Ethiopian rainfall variability and global SSTs: observations and methods for model evaluation
in Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics
Evans B
(2020)
The future-climate, current-policy framework: towards an approach linking climate science to sector policy development
in Environmental Research Letters
Finney D
(2019)
Implications of Improved Representation of Convection for the East Africa Water Budget Using a Convection-Permitting Model
in Journal of Climate
Finney D
(2020)
Effects of Explicit Convection on Future Projections of Mesoscale Circulations, Rainfall, and Rainfall Extremes over Eastern Africa
in Journal of Climate
Jack C
(2021)
Climate Risk in Africa - Adaptation and Resilience
Jorge Bornemann
(2019)
Future changes and uncertainty in decision-relevant measures of East African climate
Jorge Bornemann
(2019)
Future changes and uncertainty in decision-relevant measures of East African climate
Kendon E
(2019)
Enhanced future changes in wet and dry extremes over Africa at convection-permitting scale
in Nature Communications
| Description | WP1.1 Research (Jorge): Aim: Assess the risks of change in decision-relevant metrics using CMIP5 projections • Calculation of grid-point changes in almost all user-relevant climate metrics in all available CMIP5 models • Various approaches to plotting these changes and their uncertainty • Formed clusters of metrics with common cross-ensemble behaviour of future change • Results presented at AGM in Kisumu • Distributed processed multi-model CMIP5 data to HyCRISTAL colleagues to drive impacts models • Started working towards a peer-reviewed paper • Departed for a new life in New Zealand WP2.1 Research (Dave): Aim: Understand the mechanisms that drive the uncertainty in CMIP5 projections over East Africa, leading to an informed assessment of the models' projection reliability • Analysis of CMIP5 idealised forcing AGCM experiments (and similar refined pilot for CMIP6). Shows that CO2 forcing dominates the uncertainty in RCP8.5 projections (ie. CO2-only exps are useful for understanding), the dominant contribution to uncertainty is from a uniform SST increase, and smaller roles are played by the atmos response to multi-model mean SST pattern (less small in OND) & the direct impact of increasing CO2 . • Defined new analysis regions/seasons, for which the relative behaviour of CMIP5 models' ?P is spatially coherent. • Further studied the association between E.Africa rainfall change and other aspects of remote/local climate change, using cross-ensemble correlations. Shows that inter-model variability in ?P is at least partly driven by inter-model variations in the feedbacks associated with local moisture change and projected changes in Pacific SST patterns (only Lake Victoria in OND), with little of the inter-model variability in ?P seems to be explained by inter-model variability in ?SST. • Continued learning of Python and Iris coding • Begun processing CORDEX data to use as an independent assessment of the relative roles of remote/local processes for driving the uncertainty in future E.African rainfall change. March 2018: • Model sensitivity exps suggest that improved air quality in industrialised nations may delay the onset of the Short Rains but intensify them once they arrive. • Indepth analysis is beginning to understand the reasons why different CMIP5 models provide rather different projections. • Support for a key project hypothesis that 'Non-intuitive metrics of model present-day performance are required to derive observational constraints for regional climate change', suggesting the need for new approaches from the climate science community similar to those being used in HyCRISTAL. • Contribution to further analysis of the role of resolution and convective representation in providing reliable simulations of user-relevant rainfall characteristics. • Interdisciplinary work: 1) Ongoing discussions with Pillars 2&3 regarding approaches to best utilise climate model data to drive impacts models. 2) Provision of climate narratives to contribute to a developing cross-project communication tool for decision-makers. 3) Provision of data, analysis and advice for DFID partner projects, CI4Tea and HyTPP. Two outlying projections of the East African Long Rains suggest the seasonal total may double by the late-21st century. Previous work has linked these extremes - found in the IPSL-CM5A model - to an exceptional March to May (MAM) warming of the southern Indian Ocean. The current study shows a strong feedback between the sea-surface temperature (SST) increase and reduced low-level cloud cover (with similar behaviour in other southern subtropical oceans). An observational constraint is developed by demonstrating a correlation across 28 models between the strength of present-day interannual SST-cloud sensitivity and future SST response, ie. that the strength of feedback is broadly independent of timescale. Verification of the present-day sensitivity finds that IPSL-CM5A's feedbacks are very likely overestimated. It is therefore suggested its projections should be downweighted for the MAM southern Indian Ocean and East African Long Rains. This narrows the CMIP5 plausible range of Long Rains totals by a third. Historical changes in global industrial aerosol emissions have played a significant role in historical shifts in African rainfall and yet assessment of the potential future impact in Africa in the next 10-40 years remains unexplored. Using idealised experiments, this work shows that removing SO2 emissions across the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes results in a northwards shift of the tropical rain-bands. In East Africa, there is evidence of a delayed onset of the October-November-December rains, while, in West Africa, there is an increase in precipitation in the northern shoulder of the rain-band during the summer monsoon season. Revised future emissions suggest aerosol emissions to range between little change and cuts of close to 90%. Simulations with bespoke air quality scenarios (from ECLISPE, (Evaluating the Climate and Air Quality Impacts of Short-Lived Pollutants)) show that rainfall impacts occur on similar timescales to which future aerosol emissions diverge and demonstrate that these scenarios are capable of driving leading order climate impacts, greater than changes expected from natural variability. However, comparisons across models suggest that only certain aspects of the model responses may be robust, given model uncertainties. This work motivates the need for wider exploration of air quality scenarios in the climate science community to assess the robustness of these projected changes and to provide evidence to underpin climate adaptation in Africa. In particular, revised estimates of emission impacts of legislated measures every 5-10 years would have a value in providing near term climate adaptation information for African stakeholders. |
| Exploitation Route | Ultimately this work is intended to enable better informed long-term decision making for climate resilience |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Environment Healthcare |