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Project

Deltas, Vulnerability, and Climate Change: Migration as an Adaptation
 

Bangladesh
Egypt
Ghana
India
Project ID
107642
Total Funding
CAD 12,181,003.00
IDRC Officer
Michele Leone
Project Status
Completed
End Date
Duration
57 months

Programs and partnerships

Climate Change

Lead institution(s)

Project leader:
Belal El Leithy
Egypt

Project leader:
Munsur Rahman
Bangladesh

Project leader:
Prof. Robert Nicholls
United Kingdom

Project leader:
Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe
Ghana

Summary

Deltas in Africa and South Asia have some of the highest population densities in the world. Many residents along the deltas live in poverty and depend on livelihoods that are sensitive to a changing climate. This research project will examine the issue.Read more

Deltas in Africa and South Asia have some of the highest population densities in the world. Many residents along the deltas live in poverty and depend on livelihoods that are sensitive to a changing climate. This research project will examine the issue. Specifically, it will assess migration as a climate change adaptation option in delta areas dealing with a changing climate. It will also deliver policy support to create the conditions for sustainable adaptation which respond to both men's and women's needs.

Why migration?
Migration is a common adaptation strategy used to cope with environmental and economic change in deltas. It can increase the ability of migrant households to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune. However, it can also perpetuate the vulnerability of people left behind or in locations of temporary or permanent resettlement. The impacts men and women experience differ.

Project area and team
The project area covers four deltas: the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta in Bangladesh and India, the Nile delta in Egypt, the Mahanadi delta in India, and the Volta delta in Ghana. A consortium of five institutions with expertise in the different regions will conduct the research. They will study migration in deltas in Africa and South Asia to inform policy on the potential role it can play in promoting sustainable options to adapt to a changing climate.

Different impacts of climate change
Climate change has various types of impacts in these regions: biophysical, economic, political, and social. The research teams will assess how different types of impacts and drivers of change affect vulnerability in deltas. They will evaluate the different impacts on men and women.

The teams will use a model that integrates climate and socio-economic aspects to assess when migration is an appropriate adaptation option, especially for the most vulnerable. Working with stakeholders, they will also contrast migration with other available options.

How the research will be used
The research outcomes will help stakeholders rethink climate change adaptation policies and practices. The results will also serve to mobilize resources to support conditions for more sustainable temporary, periodic, or permanent migration between now and 2100.

By taking a comprehensive interdisciplinary and comparative approach, this project will generate lessons on migration as an adaptation option from the local to the international levels. It will also promote knowledge-sharing across regions and continents, increasing capacity to understand the issues and articulate solutions.

Research outputs

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Report
Language:

English

Summary

The DEltas, Vulnerability, and Climate Change: Migration as an Adaptation (DECCMA) workshop provided opportunities for participants to express and discuss feedback about the ongoing work of DECCMA while raising awareness among the stakeholders. Topics included identification of autonomous and planned adaptations; a survey for identification of successful adaptation criteria; governance approaches to climate change, migration and adaptation; and, barriers to policy implementation.

Author(s)
DECCMA
Paper
Language:

English

Summary

This working paper describes the method used to collate the evidence of observed adaptations (section 2); presents the data collected within the Deltas, Vulnerability and Climate Change: Migration and Adaptation (DECCMA) project (section 3), as well as its limitations (section 4), followed by some general conclusions (section 5). Agricultural adaptations and risk management initiatives predominate the inventory of adaptations. Risk management in terms of water resources management initiatives relate to the frequency of hydro‐meteorological hazards: droughts, floods, storms, tidal waves and tropical cyclones. There is lack of evidence regarding building ecosystem resilience as a form of adaptation.

Author(s)
Tompkins, Emma L.
Paper
Language:

English

Summary

Displacement of people in India, is largely triggered by factors such as, development projects, political conflict, setting up Protected Area Networks and Conservation areas and natural disasters, amongst others. The International Displacement Monitoring Centre in 2007 reveal that about 50 million people in India had been displaced due to development projects in over 50 years. A study conducted in six states estimated the figure at around 60 million between 1947-2000 (Fernandes, 2007; Negi &Ganguly, 2011). ...Although, these approximate figures for displacement in India may be staggering, there remains no reliable data on the total number of people actually displaced nor the number of people that have been resettled and rehabilitated. This review highlights issues relating to resettlement and rehabilitation, majorly focusing on the following causes, political/ethnic conflict, and developmental projects.

Author(s)
Ghosh, Ashish K.
Paper
Language:

English

Summary

This document describes an initial validation of the Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations for the DEltas, Vulnerability, and Climate Change: Migration as an Adaptation (DECCMA) project. Maps and climate modelling simulations are presented and compared. A summary table is included which provides comparison of the output of the DECCMA RCM simulations for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin and northern India, with temperature and precipitation observations.

Author(s)
Macadam, Ian
Article
Language:

English

Summary

This paper introduces a new method to compute weights of indicators in climate modelling for composite hazard, vulnerability, and risk assessment. To develop this ’matrix based statistical framework’ method (MSF), valuation of correlation matrix and Eigenvector associated with Eigenvalue is considered from Pearson correlation coefficients. Findings show that the vulnerability map prepared by using MSF with 15 socio-economic indicators has the maximum similarity (49%) with the prototype compared to other weight methods. Selection of relative weights for different indicators in climate modelling is a critical step during assessment of composite hazards.

Author(s)
Kabir, Rubaiya
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About the partnership

Partnership(s)

Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia

Some parts of the world are especially vulnerable to the extreme effects of climate change.