Climate and coconuts – a Sri Lanka story
The full story is available on the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) web site.
IRI’s first Q&A
We just kicked off a new series on our home page. Over the next year, I’ll be interviewing many of the luminaries that pass through our halls here at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. My goal is to give a big picture perspective from big thinkers in the field of climate risk management and adaptation. Rather than write a full story, I’ll post Q&As, which I think can be effective tools for time-strapped science communicators. I also think serve as good resources for journalists, because the content is primary–straight from the scientists’ mouths.
Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Graeme Hammer…
It isn’t the climate forecast, stupid!
Audio slideshow about Ethiopia’s water resources
My colleague Jason and I put together an audio slideshow about an IRI scientist’s trip to Ethiopia. The scientist, Paul Block, is trying to help he country better manage its scant water resources. He came back with a nice collection of photos for us to sift through and frame out a story. We sat him down in front of our trusty Edirol digital recorder (pictured in the “reporter’s toolkit” section to the right) and had him narrate the piece. We were lucky in that Paul can speak quite eloquently off-the-cuff, so the whole thing took only a few tries.
In areas where Paul didn’t have appropriate photos to tie in with what he was saying, we went to outside sources, including Flickr. NGOs and universities also usually make many images freely available. Click on the image to view the slideshow. Hope you enjoy, and as always, feedback is appreciated.
Index Insurance: a tool against poverty
This week’s web story on the IRI site gives an update to our work on using index insurance to protect farmers against some of the climate risks they face.
Index insurance remains a promising new tool to help alleviate poverty by reducing the impacts of climate shocks in the developing world. It may even increase the poor’s resiliency to climate change. In October, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society co-hosted a workshop to discuss the technical challenges that currently preclude the use of index insurance on a large scale.
“During the workshop, we learned about some of the scientific innovations that could help overcome the hurdles to scaling up insurance programs,” says IRI’s Molly Hellmuth, one of the event’s organizers and editor of the Climate and Society Publication. “However, the innovations must be balanced with the reality on the ground: we need simple, understandable and trustworthy products if impoverished communities are to use index insurance successfully.”
More than 30 experts from fields as diverse as reinsurance, climate science, economics and food security participated in the two-day workshop, which was co-hosted by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. Among them were representatives from the World Food Programme, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the United Nations Development Programme and Oxfam America.
Click to get a more detailed description of index insurance.
Read the rest of the story on the IRI features page.
[Image designed by Jason Rodriguez/IRI]
Disasters: Shifting from Response to Prevention
I posted a web story on the IRI home page about the wonderful work of a few of our interns completed during assignments in West Africa and Central America…
Torrential rains lashed West and Central African countries this rainy season, setting off flooding and causing considerable damage. On the evening of June 26th alone, nearly 200 millimeters of rain fell on the villages of Malem Hoddar and Malem Thierigne in eastern Senegal. The ensuing flash floods killed at least one person, displaced dozens of families and destroyed hundreds of homes and livestock. As usual, the regional Red Cross office in Dakar mobilized its vast network of donors and volunteers to respond to this and other events. But this season, the organization also did something fundamentally different in its operations.
“It’s a revolution,” says Pablo Suarez, Associate Program Director at the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Center. “Not only was this the first time a particular zone in West Africa used a particular forecast, it was the first time in the history of the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement that science-based information about something likely to happen was used to ask for aid,” he says.
A key player in this transformation was an IRI intern and Climate and Society masters student named Arame Tall. In early June, Tall went to work with the Disaster Management Unit of the Red Cross office for West and Central Africa (IFRC-WCAZ), based in Dakar, to find ways to incorporate forecasts and other climate information into Red Cross decision making.
Halfway across the globe, Tall’s classmates, Sarah Abdelrahim and Lisette Braman, were on a similar mission in Panama, working with forecasters at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC).
The internships were the latest example of the ongoing, expanding partnership between the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the IRI.
Complete story on the IRI features page.
Photo: Courtesy IFRC
Reducing peatland fires in Indonesian Borneo
In early August, the provincial governor of Central Kalimantan, located on the Indonesian part of Borneo Island, issued a decree that had the Asia Program folks at IRI jumping for joy. Ok, scientists at IRI aren’t really in the habit of jumping about their work. But they did get quite excited about the governor’s statement.
“The decree is a landmark document on at least two counts: it moves away from previous government approach that banned the use of fire by farmers to one of controlled burning, and, it specifically mentions the use of climate information beyond weather–both of which we advocated in our work,” says Shiv Someshwar, head of IRI’s Asia and Pacific program. “Our efforts have translated into changed policy.”
Indonesia has faced increasing pressure from other Southeast Asian countries to get its fire problem under control. In turn, it has put pressure on its provinces to act. As a result, the Central Kalimantan government banned farmers from using fires in 2006. But the strategy, sporadically enforced, imposed serious burdens on poor farming communities, who claim the ban significantly decreased their livelihoods.
Now that the ban has been lifted, tensions should ease. But challenges remain. The decree doesn’t give details on what “controlled burning” entails, which authority will monitor or oversee the burning and how exactly climate information will be incorporated into decision making. There are other issues as well, which I will get to shortly. But first, some background on the situation.
Filed under IRI related, photography, travels | Comment (0)The climate-food security connection in Indonesia
Nusa Tenggara Timur, or East Nusa Tenggara, is a remote province located 1,200 miles from Jakarta (map). It is home to more than four million people, spread across 550 islands. The province is among the poorest in Indonesia–at least a third of its population earns below the poverty line.
Not surprisingly, NTT faces real development challenges, including periods of serious food insecurity. Since irrigation systems are virtually nonexistent, farmers here are almost wholly dependent on monsoon rains to supply water to their crops. But even in years of normal rainfall, the province can expect to distribute between 20 and 25 thousand tons of food aid to families. During El Niño years, which typically result in significantly less rainfall, the aid figure can be twice that. Rates of malnutrition, especially in children, can reach 25% during these periods.
Scientists at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society want to reduce these impacts by using seasonal climate forecasts to alert government authorities about periods when below-average rainfall is expected. Indonesia has a good system in place to respond to food insecurity, but the challenge is generally one of timing. From the moment a problem is declared to the moment the first shipments of rice and other aid is unloaded, half a year may pass. The hope is to give agencies and humanitarian organizations such as CARE Indonesia months of lead time to stock up on food supplies, jump-start their monitoring activities and set aside funds and other resources in case the food problems materialize.
We’ve organized a workshop for tomorrow in NTT’s capital, Kupang, with CARE Indonesia, Bogor Agriculture University (IPB) and the provincial food-security agency in order to share the latest research findings and discuss their potential use in food-security planning. This latter goal is critical. We can issue the best forecasts in the world, but if there’s no institutional system in place to understand and act on them, they’re essentially useless.
Filed under IRI related, journalism, travels | Comment (1)Water Demand in the Philippines
The population of Manila has increased sharply in recent decades, and so has its demand for water. Right now, about 97% of metro Manila’s water comes from the Angat reservoir, located north of the city in Bulacan Province (map). The reservoir also serves farmers in Bulacan, who rely on irrigation water to grow their palay (unmilled rice) and vegetables, and it is a critical source of back-up hydroelectric power for the region.
Everything runs smoothly in years of normal rainfall. But when the region gets below-normal rainfall-as is typically the case during an El Niño–the situation gets contentious. Continue reading »
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