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Abstract
The need for the development of adaptation strategies for climate change in Africa is becoming critical. For example, infrastructure with a long lifespan now needs to be designed or adapted to account for a future climate that will be different from the past or present. There is a growing necessity for the climate information used in decision making to change from traditional science-driven metrics to decision-driven metrics. This is particularly relevant in East Africa, where limited adaptation and socio-economic capacity make this region acutely vulnerable to climate change. Here, we employ an interdisciplinary consultation process to define and analyse a number of such decision-oriented metrics. These metrics take a holistic approach, addressing the key East African sectors of agriculture, water supply, fisheries, flood management, urban infrastructure and urban health. A multifaceted analysis of multimodel climate projections then provides a repository of user-focused information on climate change and its uncertainties, for all metrics and seasons and two future time horizons. The spatial character and large intermodel uncertainty of changes in temperature and rainfall metrics are described, as well as those of other relevant metrics such as evaporation and solar radiation. Intermodel relationships amongst metrics are also explored, with two clear clusters forming around rainfall and temperature metrics. This latter analysis determines the extent to which model weights could, or could not, be applied across multiple climate metrics. Further work must now focus on maximising the utility of model projections, and developing tailored risk-based communication strategies.
Highlights
East Africa is vulnerable to extreme weather and climate events, due to a socioeconomic situation characterised by limited resources and low adaptation capacity
We focus on metrics relevant to urban water, flooding and sanitation provision, and to rural livelihoods, all of which are important for East Africa, noting that many are applicable to other sectors and other regions of Africa
This process considered a number of decisions currently being taken that will impact East African livelihoods over the few decades, which are partly dependent on climate change information for that period (Table 1, central column), for example the specification of the size of a drainage channel or the selection of suitable crop species
Summary
East Africa is vulnerable to extreme weather and climate events, due to a socioeconomic situation characterised by limited resources and low adaptation capacity. Natural resources are under pressure from an increasing population with regional constraints on water availability (Calow et al 2010; MacDonald et al 2012), and stocks for alternative livelihoods such as fisheries (LVFO 2016) Rapid urbanisation is another feature of East Africa, with the share of the urban population increasing from 21 to 27% during 2000 to 2015, and expected to reach 34% by 2030 (UNDESA 2018). We focus on metrics relevant to urban water, flooding and sanitation provision, and to rural livelihoods, all of which are important for East Africa, noting that many are applicable to other sectors and other regions of Africa This will contribute to the foundations of other studies that will utilise the output of the impact models forced by the climate projections analysed here.
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