Climate Change Adaptions for Urban Water Infrastructure in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Mohammed Aljoufie,Alok Tiwari

doi:10.5539/jsd.v8n3p52

Abstract

Cities play a crucial role in the planning of climate change adaptions. Although these actions are largely guided by global negotiations and national policies their consequences are usually felt by individual cities. Reconfiguring of urban infrastructure is the first step to ensure resilience to extreme weather events triggered by climate change. Many coastal cities are already begun to suffer because of climate change impacts; frequent flooding in Jeddah (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) is an example. This paper attempts to investigate preparedness of urban water infrastructure in Jeddah for future climate change adaptions. It founds that the city has been lagging behind in action such as continuous & consistent reporting of relevant data, capacity building, research, education and awareness building, reconfiguration and expansion of grey & green infrastructure. We propose to formulate a three point policy for climate change adaption at local level with proper attention to grey, green and soft infrastructures.

Highlights

1.1 Climate Change and Urban InfrastructureClimate change is anticipated to accelerate average temperatures as well as to transform strength and occurrence of extreme precipitations (Cubasch et al, 2001) causing either overstress or total failure of urban infrastructures such as water supply and electricity that may transpire into loss of people's health, lives and property
We argue that actions for climate change adaption at local level are driven by national level policies while the existing practices and scenario at local level determine the degree of infrastructure vulnerabilities
This section in beginning examines national level preparations for climate change, later it scrutinise current ongoing practices in the city pertinent to city level climate change management and propose policy solutions. 3.1 Climate Change Discourse in KSA Despite its progress in responding climate change (Darfaoui & Al-Assiri, n.d) Saudi Arabia is often the most misunderstood nation in the climate change regime; it is believed that country's policies are against mitigations and adaptions to climate change that is a misconception

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is anticipated to accelerate average temperatures as well as to transform strength and occurrence of extreme precipitations (Cubasch et al, 2001) causing either overstress or total failure of urban infrastructures such as water supply and electricity that may transpire into loss of people's health, lives and property. This paper investigates resilience of urban water infrastructure towards climate change adaptions in KSA's second largest city Jeddah that is stressed with rapid urbanisation and population growth. While the Climate Change is triggering alterations in ecosystems two major strategies have been emerged as solution: Adaption and Mitigation; both are persuasive issues of concern the later must be synchronised worldwide, the earlier demands local actions (Sharp, 2011). Integration of anticipated actions at various scales (global to local) creates hardships for climate change management

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