Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation Research Articles

Measuring community disaster resilience for sustainable climate change adaptation: Lessons from time-series findings in rural Cambodia.

Donor-funded climate and disaster resilience programmes and projects aim to help build the capacities and resilience of communities. Measuring resilience is critical, therefore, in providing feedback, evidence, and accountability. This paper presents recent two-year time-series findings from an ongoing multi-partner academic and practical collaboration pertaining to a climate change adaption project with rural communities in Cambodia. To measure community resilience, the study used the Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities, which measures, using mixed methods, disaster resilience capacities across five key dimensions of resilience: human, social, physical, natural, and financial capitals. The study analysed and reported changes in these areas of resilience in the selected villages, generating insights into the strengths and weaknesses of flood resilience capacities in the region. This paper provides valuable guidance as to where investment can be most effective in different communities, confirming the usefulness of the tool in measuring resilience and assessing the effectiveness of the project concerned.

What drives sustainable climate change adaptation at the local level? Approaching three knowledge gaps

AbstractThis paper investigates three gaps in climate change adaptation research: the drivers of sustainable adaptation efforts, the role of multilevel governance, and how challenges differ by municipality size. Analyzing data from three surveys across Norwegian municipalities and counties, pooling 668 responses, the study statistically assesses drivers of adaptation efforts in 146 municipalities. Key findings show that factors such as political awareness, risk perception, stakeholder collaboration, and municipality size significantly influence adaptation efforts, with effectiveness depending on the conceptualization of adaptation. Political and stakeholder support is essential for mainstreaming, monitoring, and implementing adaptation measures, but not for promoting sustainabilty. This shows that local administrations are free to choose sustainable CCA, but that the quality of participatory processes should be scrutinized. The study also highlights that regional support is crucial for smaller municipalities, and that the intensity of regional engagement is more important than the support method.

Gendered perceptions and adaptations to climate change in Ghana: what factors influence the choice of an adaptation strategy?

Climate change poses a significant threat to various sectors, including agriculture, affecting men and women unevenly. Although gender-based perceptions of climate change have been studied, there remains a gap in understanding how these perceptions influence the adoption of adaptation strategies among men and women smallholder farmers in the production of leguminous crops in sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigated the gender differences in the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among bean and cowpea farmers in Ghana. The findings revealed that socioeconomic and institutional factors significantly influenced the choice of adaptation strategies, with notable differences between men and women. Higher levels of education, farming experience, marital status, access to credit, and education determined the choice of adaptation strategies. On the other hand, women farmers, despite having lower levels of formal education, showed a higher utilization of extension services, possibly due to targeted efforts to reach out to more women farmers. Larger households were less likely to adopt mixed cropping and changing cropping patterns, while married individuals were less likely to use crop rotation. Training and access to credit significantly increased the likelihood of adopting crop rotation, changing cropping patterns, and using improved seeds. The study also found that [f]armers perceptions of the impacts of dry spells and delayed onset of rains influenced the use of climate change adaptation strategies. Furthermore, farmers who participated in climate change planning were more likely to use diverse adaptation strategies, underscoring the importance of a locally focused, inclusive planning process. However, gender differences were observed in the determinants of the use of these strategies. For instance, while access to extension services was found to be more influential for women, men’s decisions were more influenced by their marital status, access to credit, and education. Policy makers and local institutions need to encourage and facilitate farmers’ involvement in climate change planning processes to enable designing of effective, context-relevant, inclusive, and sustainable climate change adaptation strategies. Distinct differences in the factors underlying the use of adaptation strategies by men and women demand creation of and implementation of gender-sensitive programs that effectively reach and benefit both women and women.

Assessing Coastal Erosion and Climate Change Adaptation Measures: A Novel Participatory Approach

This work aims to provide a more complete characterization of coastal erosion mitigation and climate change adaptation measures by presenting a participatory approach that integrates medium- to long-term perspectives, considering simultaneously social, environmental, economic and engineering dimensions to help decision makers implement sustainable climate change adaptation (CCA) strategies. The work lists, explains and characterizes existing climate change mitigation and adaptation measures as well as their costs and positive and negative social, environmental and economic impacts, in three distinct databases. These databases are discussed, complemented and validated in participatory moments with local stakeholders of the Ovar Municipality, Portugal, which represents the case study to support the proposed methodology. Although Ovar is a pilot case, the integrated framework for resilient CCA has a global application with respect to methodologies and concepts. The proposed approach is useful to help coastal management entities to engage in more efficient, effective and beneficial planned action to mitigate coastal erosion and adapt to future climate change effects. The open-source databases and the participatory approach facilitate decision makers and coastal communities to navigate the complexity of solutions and build consensus around collective actions for coastal areas.

“I’m Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Gets in, and Stops My Mind from Wandering”: Approaching Sustainable Climate Change Adaptations

Abstract Sustainable development is a challenging field of research, colored by the paradoxes of modernity and development, and the trade-offs involved in balancing the “sustainable” and “development” sides of the various sustainable development goals. We must take these overarching challenges into account when entering a more specific discussion of what a concept of sustainable climate change adaptation may entail. This article reviews the history of this concept, including insights provided by the recent publications composing a special collection of Weather, Climate, and Society on the topic of sustainable climate change adaptation. This collection reflects on why and how the term sustainable development should be included in our understandings of and efforts toward climate change adaptation and proposes a preliminary framework for distinguishing between conventional and sustainable adaptation. Significance Statement This article reviews the history of the term “sustainable climate change adaptation” and reflects on the relationship between sustainable development and climate change adaptation efforts. It ends by proposing a framework for distinguishing between conventional and sustainable adaptation.

Indigenous Beliefs, Knowledge and Practices on Fishing and Climate Change Adaptation

San Sebastian, one of the four fishing villages in the Eastern part of the Municipality of Lagonoy in the Philippines stays susceptible and at threat from weather-related disasters. Altering the fishery systems in Lagonoy Gulf (Pacific) where local artisanal and subsistence fishers are totally structured for their economic enterprise, require sustainable climate change adaptation measures. In achieving this end, the present study explored the indigenous fisheries practices of fishers, in phases of production, process, marketing, and management plan; determined adaptive strategies towards perceived influence of climate change in the habits of fishing activities; and assessed the knowledge and awareness of climate change adaptation amongst fishers and local officials. The qualitative methodology supplied the main instrument for this study. For the statistics presentation on adaptive techniques, and knowledge and awareness on climate change, quantitative methodology have been considered. A whole of 25 experts participated in the focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant interview (KII). The manual coding of information frequency was carried out by indicating the wide variety of text that the respondents made for a specific statement. For the analysis, solely eight most recorded modifications have been considered. Finally, informants expressed pastime and aid to any local weather alternate initiative, and believed they are prepared to put up bayanihan efforts (a spirit of communal cooperation) to help hold the environment. On the contrary, informants expressed claims of unfair treatment of local fishers when authorities failed to take action towards transient fish poachers who overfish and fished destructively.

Agro-Pastoralists Viable Options towards Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation in West Pokot County, Kenya

Climate change and variability is one of the most important developmental and environmental challenges on sustainable agricultural productions threatening small scale agro pastoral community livelihoods. This study examines how the agro pastoral community respond to the current and future weather and climate risks and recommend viable options towards sustainable climate change adaptation by small scale agro pastoralist community in West Pokot County, Kenya. The study adopted mixed research design combining both quantitative and qualitative data sources using stratified, purposive and random sampling techniques. Primary data was collected from a sample of 384 household heads and validated through focused group discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews (KIIs) and general observations. Data collected on perception to climate change were coded and analysed using descriptive and qualitative content analysis. The study found that the community have a thorough knowledge and understanding of their environment with perceptions revealing degradation of the available natural resources largely due to deforestation arising from agricultural land expansion. Drought, deforestation, landslides, floods and soil erosion are some of the major events adversely affect crop and livestock and contribute to vulnerability presently and in the future. The viable options recommended to reduce the present and improve future weather and climatic risks are awareness creation, tree planting, good agricultural practices, government support and agricultural insurance. The findings are key in guiding state and non-state actors together with the community in local level decision making for the conservation and restoration of degradation hotspots towards sustainable management of natural resources, resilience building, poverty reduction, food nutrition and livelihood security.

Climate–Urban Nexus: A Study of Vulnerable Women in Urban Areas of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

Abstract The changes in climatic conditions and their associated impacts are contributing to a worsening of existing gender inequalities and a heightening of women’s socioeconomic vulnerabilities in South Africa. Using data collected by research methods inspired by the tradition of participatory appraisals, we systematically discuss the impacts of climate change on marginalized women and the ways in which they are actively responding to climate challenges and building their adaptive capacity and resilience in the urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We argue that changes in climate have both direct and indirect negative impacts on women’s livelihoods and well-being. Less than one-half (37%) of the women reported implementing locally developed coping mechanisms to minimize the impacts of climate-related events, whereas 63% reported lacking any form of formal safety nets to deploy and reduce the impacts of climate-induced shocks and stresses. The lack of proactive and gender-sensitive local climate change policies and strategies creates socioeconomic and political barriers that limit the meaningful participation of women in issues that affect them and marginalize them in the climate change discourses and decision-making processes, thereby hampering their efforts to adapt and reduce existing vulnerabilities. Thus, we advocate for the creation of an enabling environment to develop and adopt progendered, cost-effective, transformative, and sustainable climate change policies and adaptation strategies that are responsive to the needs of vulnerable groups (women) of people in society. This will serve to build their adaptive capacity and resilience to climate variability and climate change–related risks and hazards.

Integrating Adaptation to Climate Change into Sustainable Development Policy and Planning

Adaptation to climate change and sustainable development have become core elements of international, European, and national policies and strategies. At worst, adaptation to climate change can trigger negative responses—maladaptation—in terms of raising greenhouse-gas emissions and exacerbating the vulnerability of specific groups of people, which both run counter to sustainable development principles. Thus, the integration of sustainable climate change adaptation objectives into a sustainable development framework can pave the way for planning scenarios, in which resilience intertwines with sustainability. Studies concerning this issue are quite lacking, and methods useful for assessing the relationship ‘adaptation-sustainable development’ are scarcely investigated. In this study, we focus on environmental sustainability and aim at proposing and applying a method for assessing the coherence between climate change adaptation objectives and sustainable development objectives (i.e., national strategic goals) included in the Italian National Adaptation Plan to Climate Change and, respectively, in the National Sustainable Development Strategy. We found that most adaptation objectives appear to be unrelated with national strategic goals, while none of them clearly hinder environmental sustainability, that is, the adaptation objectives are not inclined to promote maladaptation. There is still plenty of room to work on sustainable adaptation objectives to be consistent with sustainable development ones.

Local knowledge and practice in disaster relief: A worldwide cross-cultural comparison of coping mechanisms

There is a growing interest and urgency in understanding and incorporating local knowledge and strategies into sustainable climate change adaptation. This is particularly important because as populations age and new technologies come on the scene, much local knowledge is lost to newer generations. For this reason, we have systematically examined 90 societies from the ethnographic record to explore and document the strategies that people in the past have implemented in response to serious natural hazards. Our review reveals a rich diversity of coping mechanisms and contingency plans used by societies around the world in response to different hazards, particularly floods and droughts. We collect, classify, and compare different types of coping mechanisms, focusing on four major types: technological, subsistence, economic and religious. We find that most societies employ multiple types of coping mechanisms, although our data suggest that technological coping mechanisms are the most common coping mechanisms in response to fast-onset hazards, whereas religious coping mechanisms are the most common mechanism used in response to slow-onset hazards. We also find that religious and nonreligious coping strategies are not antithetical to each other. In fact, an increased number of religious coping mechanisms is associated with an increased number of “practical”, nonreligious coping mechanisms.

Climate Change Impact Chains: A Review of Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities for Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessments

Abstract Shifting from effect-oriented toward cause-oriented and systemic approaches in sustainable climate change adaptation requires a solid understanding of the climate-related and societal causes behind climate risks. Thus, capturing, systemizing, and prioritizing factors contributing to climate risks are essential for developing cause-oriented climate risk and vulnerability assessments (CRVA). Impact chains (IC) are conceptual models used to capture hazard, vulnerability, and exposure factors that lead to a specific risk. IC modeling includes a participatory stakeholder phase and an operational quantification phase. Although ICs are widely implemented to systematically capture risk processes, they still show methodological gaps concerning, for example, the integration of dynamic feedback or balanced stakeholder involvement. Such gaps usually only become apparent in practical applications, and there is currently no systematic perspective on common challenges and methodological needs. Therefore, we reviewed 47 articles applying IC and similar CRVA methods that consider the cause–effect dynamics governing risk. We provide an overview of common challenges and opportunities as a roadmap for future improvements. We conclude that IC should move from a linear-like to an impact web–like representation of risk to integrate cause–effect dynamics. Qualitative approaches are based on significant stakeholder involvement to capture expert-, place-, and context-specific knowledge. The integration of IC into quantifiable, executable models is still highly underexplored because of a limited understanding of systems, data, evaluation options, and other uncertainties. Ultimately, using IC to capture the underlying complex processes behind risk supports effective, long-term, and sustainable climate change adaptation.

Traditional village roles and gender shape Samoan perceptions of climate change

Climate change poses a significant threat to indigenous societies and cultures in the South Pacific. Within these societies, women and indigenous cultures need increased representation in climate change assessment and adaptation strategy development. To capture the diversity of effects and maximize creative approaches to address climate change we studied how gender influences perceptions of climate change in response to climate-related environmental change, adaptation strategies, and the perception of adaptation strategies that are currently in place. To explore diverse perceptions, we conducted semi-structured interviews in four villages in Savaii, Samoa. The interviews were analyzed and quantified around three main themes: climate-related environmental changes, adaptation strategies, and perceptions of existing adaptation approaches. Each participant's response was quantified based on perceived priority ranging from 0—no priority/no mention, to 3—highest priority/frequent mention. We found that each participant was aware of climate-related environmental changes and gender and village roles bring variation in perceptions of climate change. We found that men felt high temperatures and marine management were of greatest concern while women cared about storms and related danger and pollution control. Our results indicate that females and female village roles had significantly lower understanding and enthusiasm for in-place adaptation strategies due to a lack of involvement in the implementation and upkeep of adaptation strategies. This study argues that climate-related adaptation strategies should put village role and gender-based perceptions into consideration and increase representation in policymaking for sustainable climate change adaptation.

Traditional knowledge and institutions for sustainable climate change adaptation in Ethiopia

Local values, institutions and knowledge have enabled people to understand the happenings and changes in their environment. Local perceptions and knowledge provide a crucial foundation for community-based climate change adaptation measures and natural resource conservation. This paper is specifically focused on the assessment of the opportunities and challenges of traditional knowledge and institutions for community's sustainable climate change adaptation in Ethiopia. We used knowledge products form journal articles, policy documents, working papers, policy briefs, and other gray literature. In addition, two case studies were conducted in central and eastern Ethiopia by interviewing 251 randomly selected households. This helped to determine the state-of-the art for knowledge co-products for community's sustainable climate change adaptation and natural resource management. Regardless of the challenges from global change, cultural erosion and transformation, traditional knowledge still serve as the bases for weather forecasting, agricultural and natural resource management thereby sustain community's livelihoods and landscape resilience against the impacts of climate change and variability. Traditional knowledge and institutions in Ethiopia have maintained landscapes for millennia: Konso cultural landscapes and Gedeo Agroforestry systems are some to mention. The knowledge systems have also contributed for the large diversity of crops and livestock breeds in Ethiopia which play roles in community's climate change adaptation. From this assessment, it can be concluded that both scientific and traditional knowledge have their own gaps and what will be better is the integration of the two to give an additive impact that can foster sustainable development and build livelihood and landscape resilience in times of climate change.

Gender Influence on Access to and Control of Resources for Coping to Climate Variability. A Case of Mbita Fisher Community, Homa Bay County, Kenya

Global warming effects have far reaching impacts of livelihoods of many rural communities including fishers. It is in record that fishing accounts for world’s 36 million fishers nearly 1.5 billion consumers who rely on fish for their dietary animal protein. Past studies have concentrated on fisher communities and climate variability in marine waters and oceans; mainly investigating the impact of climate variability on fish distribution and production. Limited focus has addressed the interaction between impacts of climate change on the fishing activities on inland and fresh waters such as in Lake Victoria and the fishers coping and adapting with changes and variability of climate. The discussions in this article focused on Lake Victoria shore location of Mbita where the livelihood of local community is largely fishing. The objectives were to: Determine the influence of gender on access and control of fisher resources for climate adaptation in Mbita sub-county; Document the current coping strategies and constraints to Climate variability/change in Mbita sub-county. The study used a constructivist epistemology and the mixed methods research design to help it achieve its findings. Yamane’s formula (1964) is used to get the sample size of 388 respondents out of a population of 13191. Primary data was collected through use of questionnaires, interview schedules for KII and FGDs. Secondary data collection was collected through document reviews of relevant past studies reports and working papers on (temperature/rainfall data) of Mbita for the last 30 years data to get the trend of these elements and to determine climate variability and change. The instruments were validated using experts’ content validity with the supervisors. Piloting was used to ascertain reliability of the instruments Analysis was accomplished using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences. Presentation was done in descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that there was gender discrimination in access and control of resources which support adaptive activities that makes women more vulnerable to Climate Variability/Change hazards and disasters. The study further found that adaptation requires access and control of factors of production which were traditionally under the control of male fishers making women more vulnerable and susceptible to surviving through chamas and table banking activities. Statistically access to and control was significant to adaptation at p-value of 0.000. Under coping strategies the study found that adaptation required transformation of mind set that called for bigger investment which required the collaboration and consultation of entire Mbita community and county government to address environmental and conservative resource utility. The study concluded that lack of alternative livelihood opportunities/options is the major constraints to adaptation for people living in the Lake Victoria region escalated with limitation of skills outside fishing industry, limitation of other employable professional skills including lack of capital. The study recommends a transdiciplinary concientization of adaptive strategies which can translate into flexible and sustainable climate change adaptation and gender inclusive livelihood activities. Future research should explore participatory action research on environmental influences affecting CCA by comparing findings across other beaches and livelihoods to see if gendered resources have any role in their adaptation.

Projected Drought Events over West Africa Using RCA4 Regional Climate Model

This study presents projected drought trend by Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The Rossby Center Atmospheric Regional Model (RCA4) datasets obtained from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment over West Africa were used for the study for projected period between 2011 and 2100. The ability of the RCA4 to reproduce the past climate was evaluated using Climate Research Unit (CRU) dataset. Drought classification and trends in seasonal and annual variability using Mann–Kendall trend test at 95% confidence level were also examined. The results show that RCA4 replicates observed climate of West Africa, evident by strong correlation between the output of the model and CRU dataset. Strong correlation exists between SPI and SPEI at 95% confidence level. The RCA4 model projects a distinct humid period between 2011 and 2060 and drier period from the early 2060s till the year 2100 under RCP4.5 and 8.5 pathways. Projected drought events by the two indices show that areas north of 12°N of West Africa will be hot spot area for mildly and moderately dry events, while the southern part of West Africa will witness pronounced severe and extreme dry events under the two RCPs. Under RCP4.5, SPI trend shows an insignificant increase in almost all the seasons, while the increase is significant in SPEI. At RCP8.5 scenario, SPEI projects a significant decreasing trend in drought events over the three climatic zones and in almost all seasons. The result may be applied to a sustainable climate change adaptation plan.

Toward sustainable climate change adaptation

AbstractIndustrial ecology (IE) has made great contributions to climate change mitigation research, in terms of its systems thinking and solid methodologies such as life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, and environmentally extended input–output analysis. However, its potential contribution to climate change adaptation is unclear. Adaptation has become increasingly urgent in a continuously changing climate, especially in developing countries, which are projected to bear the brunt of climate‐change‐related damages. On the basis of a brief review of climate change impacts and adaptation literature, we suggest that IE can play an important role in the following two aspects. First, with the emphasis on a systems perspective, IE can help us determine how climate change interacts with our socio‐economic system and how the interactions may aggravate (or moderate) its direct impacts or whether they may shift burden to other environmental impacts. Second, IE methodologies can help us quantify the direct and indirect environmental impacts of adaptation activities, identify mitigation opportunities, and achieve sustainable adaptation. Further, we find that substantial investment is needed to increase the resilience of infrastructure (e.g., transport, energy, and water supply) and agriculture in developing countries. Because these sectors are also the main drivers of environmental degradation, how to achieve sustainable climate‐resilient infrastructure and agriculture in developing countries deserves special attention in future IE studies. Overall, IE thinking and methodologies have great potential to contribute to climate change adaptation research and policy questions, and exploring this growing field will, in turn, inspire IE development.

Peripherality as key to understanding opportunities and needs for effective and sustainable climate-change adaptation: a case study from Viti Levu Island, Fiji

ABSTRACT A study of various defining aspects of 11 rural communities along the cross-island road on Viti Levu (Fiji) shows diversity attributable largely to their peripherality, proxied by distance along this 200-km long road. Strong relationships are found between peripherality and both community size and the dependency ratio (percent of young/old dependents), as well as traditional medicine usage (and percent traditional healers), and autonomous community coping after disasters. Two measures are calculated to capture community autonomy, both of which proxy peripherality. Results show the usefulness of peripherality as a way of measuring community diversity in developing-country contexts. Peripherality also correlates with community autonomy, more-peripheral communities having greater autonomous coping abilities/capacity than near-core (less-peripheral) communities. Results also show the unhelpfulness of the default ‘“one-size-fits-all’” approach to communities implicit in many external assistance programs. Yet while traditional coping in such communities may not be able to fully overcome future climate-change challenges, the conservation of the traditional knowledge underpinning this should be encouraged, mainly because of the likelihood that external funding for future adaptation in such communities will be inadequate. The best hope for effective and sustainable adaptation to future climate change, focused on sustaining livelihoods, lies in strengthening autonomous community coping.

Assessment on Climate Change Adaptation: A Study on Coastal Area of Khulna District in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is likely to be one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change due to geographical location and geo-morphological conditions. Bangladesh experiences extremely disastrous situations like a cyclone, flood, saline water intrusion, water logging, heavy rainfall, river erosion, storm surge, etc. that occur frequently in the coastal part of Bangladesh. This results in a huge loss of lives, damages properties and degrades the integrity of the environmental components. This study was conducted on 2 villages (Chotta Chalna and Shivnagar) of Dacope Upazila of Khulna district with the purpose of assessing existing climate change adaptation scenarios and techniques for mitigating climate change-related risks. Necessary data were collected from various sources namely direct household survey, focus group discussion, and key informants interview and from various journals, related thesis papers. About 46% of the respondents cited cyclone is the most terrific type hazard and 17.33% of respondents cited salinity intrusion is the second devastating type hazard that they faced. The results show that the study area climate change risks are very high and existing climate change adaptation techniques are not effective enough to mitigate the risks. Sustainable climate change adaptation strategies are much needed to mitigate the climate change risks of the study area.

Process-oriented assessment of RCA4 regional climate model projections over the Congo Basin under $$1.5 \ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ 1.5 ∘ C and $$2 \ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ 2 ∘ C global warming levels: influence of regional moisture fluxes

Understanding the processes responsible for precipitation and its future change is important to develop plausible and sustainable climate change adaptation strategies, especially in regions with few available observed data like Congo Basin (CB). This paper investigates the atmospheric circulation processes associated with climate model biases in CB rainfall, and explores drivers of projected rainfall changes. Here we use an ensemble of simulations from the Swedish Regional Climate Model (RCM) RCA4, driven by eight General Circulation Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), for the $$1.5 \ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ and $$2\ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ global warming levels (GWLs), and under the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. RCA4 captures reasonably well the observed patterns of CB rainfall seasonality, but shows dry biases independent of seasons and large scale driving atmospheric conditions. While simulations mimic observed peaks in transition seasons (March–May and September–November), the rain-belt is misplaced southward (northward) in December–February (June–August), reducing the latitudinal extent of rainfall. Moreover, ERA-Interim reanalysis driven RCM simulation and RCM–GCM combinations show similar results, indicating the dominance of systematic biases. Modelled dry biases are associated with dry upper-tropospheric layers, resulting from a western outflow stronger than the eastern inflow and related to the northern component of African Easterly Jet. From the analysis of the climate change signal, we found that regional scale responses to anthropogenic forcings vary across GWLs and seasons. Changes of rainfall and moisture divergence are correlated, with values higher in March–May than in September–November, and larger for global warming of $$2.0 \ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ than at $$1.5 \ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ . There is an increase of zonal moisture divergence fluxes in upper atmospheric layers ( $$> 700\,{\text {hPa}}$$ ) under RCP8.5 compared to RCP4.5. Moreover, it is found that additional warming of $$0.5 \ ^{\circ }{\text {C}}$$ will change the hydrological cycle and water availability in the CB, with potential to cause challenges to water resource management, agriculture, hydro-power generation, sanitation and ecosystems.

Sustainable and appropriate climate change adaptation strategies for hydropower developments in the Sondu Miriu River Basin

Sustainable and appropriate climate change adaptation strategies for hydropower developments in the Sondu Miriu River Basin