Yangtze warned to prepare for more droughts, floods and storms

Photo: WikimediaTemperatures across the Yangtze River Basin could increase from 1.5 - 2 Degrees Celsius over the next 50 years, while extreme weather events will also become more frequent, according to the largest river basin climate vulnerability assessment yet done.

The Yangtze River Basin Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Report, released in Beijing, not only describes the impact of climate change but also offers specific adaptation strategies for the Yangtze.

"Extreme climate events such as storms and drought disasters will increase as climate change continues to alter our planet," said Professor Xu Ming, the report's lead researcher.

"Given the complexities and uncertainties associated with climate change, adaptation should firstly consider a 'no-regrets' strategy," which does not require additional cost. If we take the right steps now, adaptation measures will pay for themselves." he said.

Specific adaptation measures discussed in the report include strengthening existing infrastructure, such as power supply, transportation as well as river and coastal dike reinforcement. Other steps involve promoting Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM), switching to more flexible cropping systems, and reducing human impact on fragile ecosystems.

Data collected from 147 monitoring stations across the 1.8 million km2 river basin points to a 0.33℃ temperature rise during the 1990s. This hotter weather led to a spike in extreme climate events and flooding across the Yangtze basin, a trend that is expected to become increasingly dire over the next 50 years.

Other findings show that from 2001 – 2005, the basin's climate grew even hotter, increasing by an average of 0.71⁰.

According to the new report, wetlands will be the hardest hit. Lower water levels will reduce the number of aquatic birds in the Central and Lower Yangtze while climate change strips wetland ecosystems of important resources.

Other impacts that could affect the 400 million people whose livelihoods depend on the basin include more frequent snowstorms and drought.

'The Yangtze Vulnerability Assessment is an important symbol of China's commitment to fighting climate change," said Mr. James Leape, Director General of WWF-International.

"Beyond setting out the vulnerabilities, the Yangtze assessment also underlines how investment in climate change adaptation is a prudent investment in safeguarding the continuing functioning of a landscape vital to many millions"

Hungry in Cambodia

Photo: OxfamFlood affected communities are still waiting for food and livelihood assistance

The hunger period has been prolonged, and people in flood affected communities cannot wait any longer, international aid agency Oxfam warns. Food assistance is not being delivered quickly enough to the affected communities, and thousands of families who are in need of urgent food assistance are still marooned in floodwaters.

Oxfam estimates that 15,000 households are waiting for immediate food assistance, and the number is increasing rapidly as floodwaters continue to recede slowly and many more families have used up their food stocks. Some households who received food assistance earlier were also running out of food for weeks.

"People in the flood affected regions needed food a month ago, and they are still waiting," said Francis Perez, Country Lead of Oxfam International in Cambodia. "Food insecurity is getting worse in the affected communities. Government bodies and international aid agencies concerned with the current situation must start delivering food assistance now."

About 100,000 people are affected by typhoon Ketsana which coincided with annual floods in late September and early October. The storm affected both farmers who own farmlands and those who sell their labour to work on those farms, thus depriving both groups of their livelihoods.

Normally people facing disruptions in their livelihoods in the provinces would have family members migrate to Phnom Penh and other provinces to look for work. But the cities are already flooded with unemployed workers due to the global financial storm that has ravaged the country’s economy. So, that kind of coping strategy to stave off hunger may no longer be available as an option to those displaced by the floods.

Oxfam has been distributing non-food items to about 5,000 families in three hard-hit provinces: Kampong Thom, Kratie and Stung Treng. Recognising an eminent danger of food shortages among the affected communities, Oxfam has decided to urgently distribute food items to 1,000 families in addition to its non-food assistance. Oxfam continues to coordinate relief assistance with government authorities and other agencies at the national and local levels.

Risk floods in English coasts as sea levels rise

This image shows flooding at Gurnard on the Isle of Wight, UK. Photo: Centre for Coastal Processes, Engineering and ManagementA new study by researchers at the University of Southampton has found that sea levels have been rising across the south coast of England over the past century, substantially increasing the risk of flooding during storms.

The team has conducted a major data collection exercise, bringing together computer and paper-based records from across the south of England, from the Scilly Isles to Sheerness, to form a single data set of south coast sea levels across the years.

Their work has added collectively about 150 years worth of historic data to the existing record of English Channel sea-level change and extended the data along the south coast. Their findings are published in the latest edition of the journal Continental Shelf Research.

The data shows that both average sea levels and extreme sea levels have been rising at a similar rate through the 20th Century. The rate of rise is in the range 1.2 to 2.2 mm per year, with 1.3 mm per year recorded at Southampton.

Coastal engineering expert Professor Robert Nicholls, of the University's School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, who conducted the study, comments: "While these changes seem small, over a century they accumulate and substantially increase the risk of flooding during storms, unless there have been corresponding upgrades to flood defences.

A water level that had an average likelihood of occurring once every 100 years in 1900 now has an average likelihood of occurring on average every 10 to 25 years, depending on the site considered. As sea levels continue to rise and probably accelerate, this increase in the likelihood of flooding will continue."

The most significant extension to the records is that of sea level changes at Southampton where the record now begins in 1935.

Paper-based records at St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly, Weymouth, Southampton and Newhaven have been used to greatly extend existing computer-based records, while the records at Devonport and Portsmouth have both been extended and corrected for pervious errors of interpretation.

This new data is feeding into ongoing efforts to increase the understanding and management of flooding.

Food aid rushed to typhoon-hit families in Laos

WFP is providing first emergency food assistance to families in southern Laos where Typhoon Ketsana, the same one that hit the Philippines on September 26, has caused more severe floods, this time affecting some 250,000 people.

WFP has provided eleven metric tons of rice and 3,200 cans of fish to meet the energy and nutritional needs of more than 3,000 flood victims in the worst hit areas of southern Laos . More rice and canned fish are already on the way to the crisis zone.

These initial food distributions will be followed by a larger scale emergency response to meet the needs of all affected families.
Sekong and Attapeu areas were hit hardest by the Ketsana, which arrived in Laos on Wednesday, destroying crops, depleting vital food stocks and impacting some 250,000 people.

"Lost everything"

“People have lost everything: shoes, clothes, food, household items,” said Hyunjung Kim, WFP Head of Sub-office in Saravane, after joining a government helicopter flight over Kaleum and Lamarm districts on Friday.

In Attapeu, more than 90 per cent of land has been flooded. Out of a total population of 117,000 people, 110,000 are affected and hundreds of homes are submerged.

“There is water as far as the eye can see. Rivers are converging across roads now,” reported Caitlin Makin, Head of WFP sub-office in the provincial capital. “We are ready to provide food stored at our office as soon as the flood waters recede,” she added.

Latest disaster for region

WFP is working in close cooperation with the Lao government to assess the emergency needs and provide food assistance quickly. The agency is also soliciting funding from donors to assist in this urgent relief effort.

This is the latest natural disaster in South East Asia after weeks of heavy rains and tropical storms continue to plummet several countries in the region, including the Philippines, where an estimated 3 million people have been affected by severe flooding and more than a million have fled their homes.

“We are extremely concerned about people getting back on their feet following such devastating destruction,” said WFP’s executive director, Josette Sheeran.

Is Philippines flooding a wake-up call?

Flooded Philippine villages Photo: MarconarajosRich countries should take the lead in climate leadership

The worst flooding the Philippines has seen in decades highlights the urgent need for US leadership to push UN climate change negotiations in Bangkok forward to help ensure the best chance of securing a global climate treaty in Copenhagen.

In the Philippines, with many dead and 330,000 displaced by flooding in Manila, climate-related factors are blamed for an increased burden on the health budget, which is struggling to keep up with increased cases of nutritional deficiencies and diseases such as dengue, malaria and cholera.

According to a research by Oxfam, the number of people affected by climate crises is projected to rise by 54 per cent to 375 million over the next six years, threatening the world’s ability to respond.

Oxfam International senior climate policy adviser Antonio Hill said the content of the new US Climate Change and Energy Bill due to be introduced in the Senate this week, and moves from US officials in Bangkok from yesterday, would provide a stronger picture of whether the US was willing to step up and provide the momentum desperately needed in the negotiations.

Hill said recent announcements by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the EU on climate financing, and Japan and China’s stronger language last week on emissions reductions and finance, would put extra pressure on the US to step up and signal its intentions on its role in a global deal.

“Despite good intentions and warm words over the past six months, the US didn’t deliver real leadership last week at the UN Climate Summit and G20. Either the US lifts its game, or the next two weeks in Bangkok could go down as just a holding pattern before a fatal nosedive in Copenhagen,” he said.

Intransigence a problem

He said while many key countries, including China, India, Japan, the African Union, the Least Developed Countries and the Alliance of Small Island States, had shown they were ready to enter the final, more detailed phase of negotiations, intransigence on the part of rich countries like the US, Canada and Australia was proving an obstacle to progress.

Key sticking points remain the emissions reductions developed countries are willing to deliver – current commitments are around 15 per cent instead of the science-based 40 per cent reductions on 1990 levels by 2020 - and the amount of financing they will put on the table for developing countries to both adapt to the impacts of climate change and develop on a low carbon pathway.

The two-week negotiations, held in South-East Asia, one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change, is the penultimate negotiation session before Copenhagen in December, when a fair and safe global climate change treaty must be secured.

Hill said that whilst last week’s summits in the US were forums for world leaders to signal their intentions, the UN negotiating process continuing in Bangkok was the only place where countries could forge an agreement to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“It’s crunch time,” Hill said. “What is needed for a breakthrough is a clear commitment from developed countries – responsible for three-quarters of the carbon in the atmosphere - to commit to substantial finance, additional to existing aid levels, to developing countries.”

Climate change is already affecting South-East Asia: extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones have increased in frequency and intensity in recent decades, exacerbating water shortages, hampering agricultural production and threatening food security, causing forest fires and coastal degradation, and increasing health risks.

Hill said a study in Thailand found that aquaculture farmers in Bang Khu Thian were spending an average of USD3,130 per household every year to protect their farms from coastal erosion and flooding between 1993 and 2007 – a fourth of annual household income.

“Once developing countries have confidence about the scale of resources rich countries are prepared to negotiate, then they can turn their attention to how they might achieve emissions reductions in their own countries, and work can begin on how a global climate fund could operate. These detailed negotiations must not be left till the eleventh hour in Copenhagen,” he said.

Hill said it was crucial that this finance be over and above existing aid commitments otherwise decades of development gains would be reversed and millions more people would be plunged deeper into poverty.

He said the Copenhagen framework also needed to help enable smallholder farmers make agriculture resilient to climate impacts and achieve emissions reductions from the sector.

Adaptation costs

Oxfam calculates that at least USD150 billion is needed to help people in developing countries adapt to the escalating impacts of climate change and reduce their emissions, and proposes a fair and transparent global fund operated through the UN system.

The Asian Development Bank estimates that for Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam as a whole, the cost of adaptation for the agriculture and coastal zones (mainly for the construction of sea walls and development of drought and heat-resistant crops) will be about USD5 billion per year by 2020 on average.

Investment in adaptation will pay off, with the annual benefit in terms of avoided damage from climate change likely to exceed the annual cost after 2050.

Major upgrade to industry standard flood estimation software

A major upgrade to the industry standard UK flood estimation software has been launched this week. WINFAP-FEH version 3 incorporates recent scientific advances to the Flood Estimation Handbook statistical methods, and offers improved functionality and ease of use.

The Flood Estimation Handbook, originally published in 1999, encapsulates scientific developments originating from the work of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology’s large team of flood science researchers over the last four decades.

The Flood Estimation Handbook methods continue to form the basis of most work on flood frequency estimation in the UK, including flood mapping studies, flood risk assessments, the design of flood alleviation schemes, and methods for assessing the rarity of notable rainfall and flood events which are of particular interest to insurers.

The procedures have been adopted as standard practice by the environment agency and are used by many other organisations engaged in flood frequency estimation in the UK.

The software has been developed under licence by Wallingford HydroSolutions Ltd, a spin-out company from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Andy Young, director of Wallingford HydroSolutions, said, “The partnership between Wallingford HydroSolutions and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is a great example of how to take the latest scientific research and quickly incorporate it into software for industry use.

"As well as incorporating the latest science the new release of WINFAP-FEH also includes significant improvements to the functionality of the software, many of which have been suggested by the ever expanding user base of WINFAP-FEH."