IDRC Graduate Research Awards

Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC) is announcing a Call for Proposals 2010-2011 for Graduate Research Awards on Climate Change and Water.

IDRC offers a maximum of seven awards, each with a maximum value of CA$15,000. The award covers field work expenses for graduate students who are citizens of a developing country and enrolled in a master’s or doctoral program at a Canadian or developing country university.

A maximum of two awards, each with a maximum value of CA$15,000, are also available to cover field work expenses of Canadian citizens who are graduate students pursuing a doctoral degree at a Canadian university.

For more detailed information on eligibility and deadlines, please visit the link below:

http://www.idrc.ca/Adaptation-H2O/

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Urban Planning for Asia Coastal Cities

Rising sea levels, storms and storm surges, heat stress and other aspects of climate change have a severe impact on large coastal cities. The risks are further heightened by continued urban growth in low-lying coastal zones. The workshop will address these risks and assess the vulnerability of Asian Coastal Cities to climate change. Co-organized by SEA-START and The East-West Center, and sponsored by APN, the workshop will be held from 23 August to 1 September 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The main objectives are to promote capacity building for urban planers, managers and researchers; to promote research on risks and vulnerability in Asian coastal cities; and to develop partnerships between researchers, planners and policy makers to encourage “communities of knowledge”.

More Information about Temesgen Deressa

Project Photos

Interviews for PhD Research (Left to Right) Temesgen Deressa, Degu Madebo, Deyu Mandeyo, Adane Guyo, Menale Kasaye

Survey Site in Ethiopia, Experimenting with Irrigation as a Coping Strategy to Climate Change

Project Interview

Temesgen Deressa discusses his 2009/2010 ACCFP Fellowship

The IPCC Scholarship Programme is targeting the most vulnerable regions of the world

As part of SARCS Capacity Building Program, there will be an Advanced Training Workshop, which will focus on Southeast Asia Regional Health Impacts and Adaptation under Climate Change. The workshop will take place between December 3-9 in Tainan, Taiwan. It is co-organized by Professor Su Huey-Jen of the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). The Advanced Training Workshop is sponsored by the National Science Council of Taiwan.

The Advanced Training Workshop is focused on illustrating the health impacts and possible adaptations under climate change, especially with the southeastern Asia scenarios as examples of exercises. The event is open to experts from SARCS member countries and other territories of interest. The main objective is to promote climate change and health-related research programs among SARCS member countries, and to provide advanced training on understanding the health impacts and related adaptations in relation to effects of climate change, as well as to develop a climate change and health research collaboration team across SARCS memberships and others.

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Objective: This project is designed to:

1) enhance the management of landscapes by using sustainable techniques of conservation agriculture (CA) and soil and water conservation (SWC) methods,

2) support target stakeholders by giving them knowledge and skills to take direct action to limit the adverse effects of climate change on agriculture, and

3) create networks to promote farmer awareness of methods for climate risk management at the farm and landscape levels to enhance capacity to adapt to climate change.

Small-scale farmers with limited resources cultivate a major portion of all arable land in Malawi, Swaziland, and Lesotho. In all three countries, water is a limiting factor. Current projections suggest that water will become even scarcer in the future, and that extreme weather events will increase. Therefore, the small-scale farmers will need to improve their abilities to produce crops by adopting cultivation methods that use rainwater more efficiently. Traditional tillage methods create conditions that reduce the potential to catch rainwater in agricultural fields. Furthermore the bare soil is subject to degradation, including the loss of soil organic matter, which is released into the atmosphere as CO2. To date, information on soil management and rainwater resource management has been directed to academics and other researchers. This project will provide training for small-scale farmers who will benefit by becoming better at using scarce water resources.

Structured learning activities will focus on the implementation of the National Action Plans for Adaptation (NAPA). The first stage of research will include the preparation of climate data sets. Climate data will be analyzed to create climatic baseline scenarios and historical trends. Modeling activities will involve scenario creation using Magicc scengen. Climate change scenarios will be created using trend projection and the weather generator. Farmers and members of farming communities, as the actual users of water in agricutlture, will participate in training on water resource management. Comparions between farming methods and modes of delivery of information to farmers will be based on experiences in the three countries with emphasis on implementation of CA and SWC methods as an integral part of adaptation to climate change.

This effort contributes to the AfricanNESS thematic cluster of: Africa and the Earth System with an emphasis on water cycles.

This effort contributes to USGCRP goals of understanding the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes.

Hydrological modeling studies indicate that the strong long-term hydrological variability of the Okavango is driven by climate change. This project intends to gather data to determine to what extent hydrological variations were driven by natural feedbacks in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system, and to what extent the variations were a consequence of anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.

Satellite images and aerial photographs will be used to determine the extent of channel desiccation in the affected areas. Flooding patterns will be reconstructed for the 1980s, 1990s and 2005, using map data, aerial photographs (1983, 2001), and satellite imagery (Landsat, Modis). This will result in detailed flood-frequency maps for the study areas that can be used to note land-use changes. Results from the analysis of hydrological change linked to climate change will be used to assess the likelihood of future channel desiccation. These models will be driven by climate predictions obtained from probabilistic analyses of a multi-model ensemble of Global Circulation Models (GCM) and the results of Statistical Downscaling (SD) of selected GCMs. Detailed socio-ecological research will be collected by sampling households at four sites. Two structured questionnaires will be directed to heads of households to collect primary data. The first questionnaire will be used to collect data in areas where desiccation has already occurred. The second will be used to collect data in areas where channel desiccation is anticipated to happen. In each village study area, there will be a workshop to deepen insights gained from the fieldwork and to up-scale the data to the larger study area. This study is expected to assist the government in making policy decisions for measures that can be used to mitigate the impacts of environmental change on human wellbeing and livelihoods in rural areas of Botswana.

This effort contributes to the AfricanNESS thematic cluster of Land and Water with emphases on water resources, wetlands and degradation.

This effort contributes to USGCRP goals of understanding the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes.

This study will assess risk levels of climate change and the potential consequences at local and sub-regional scales for the next 10 -15 years, as well as the impacts of human-influenced driving forces of climate change such as population count, population density, relative affluence and changes in technology. This project is an integral part of the ReBOSuM Project and focuses on:

1) Derivation of climate change data and scenarios. Rainfall and water availability will be monitored using climate models and satellite data including NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

2) Development of a GIS-platform for the identification of changes in management criteria of oases and associated ecosystems. The potential production of agricultural goods, meat, eggs, milk and wood will be predicted using georeferenced regional mapping of vulnerability and risk levels for selected ecosystem functions.

3) Generation of knowledge about interactions among ecosystem services. Ecosystem services interact with one another in unpredictable ways. Interactions will be investigated by evaluating anthropogenic, meteorological, biological, and geological events as a means to provide mapping of ecosystem service trade-offs in the context of the changing climate in oases.

4) Synthesis and dissemination of information. A web-based data archive will be hosted and maintained at University of Cadi Ayyad to allow open access by students, teachers, land managers and policy makers. A national stakeholder workshop will be held as part of the National Communication on Climate Change managed by the Department of the Environment of Morocco.

This effort contributes to the AfricanNESS thematic cluster of: Land and Water with special emphasis on water resources

This effort contributes to USGCRP goal of: Understanding the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes.

SOC emitted as CO2 as a result of deforestation, soil disturbance and other agricultural practices is a potential driver of climate change. Furthermore, as SOC volatizes, soil organic matter is depleted, causing a decrease in productivity and crop yields. As human expansion of land used for agriculture increases, it becomes more important to monitor and adapt sustainable land management practices that not only reduce CO2 emissions, but also provide ecosystem services by sequestering carbon. This research will provide recommendations for mitigation of soil carbon emission and the improvement of soil ecosystem services in the context of current priorities and current climate negotiations that were not considered when the SCRP was established in the 1980’s.

Past research and implementation efforts in soil and water conservation on soil carbon sequestration will be reviewed on SCRP sites in watersheds located in Northeast, Southwest and North Central Ethiopia as compared to non-conserved areas within the watersheds. Each watershed will be treated as a case study with investigations on land management in the following ecosystems:

1) pastures,

2) afforested land,

3) reforested land,

4) arable land,

5) abandoned land, and

6) agro-forestry land.

The study will include laboratory analyses, field measurements, survey and rapid assessments, use of previous data collected by SCRP, national statistical reports, and global databases. WOCAT (World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies) methodologies will be used to document:

1) best practices for local land management,

2) soil carbon sequestration, and

3) ecological services.

Questionnaires will be used to collect information on soil sequestration practices and soil ecological services at the study sites.

This effort contributes to the AfricanNESS thematic cluster of Africa and the Earth System with emphasis on carbon cycles.

This effort contributes to USGCRP goals of understanding the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes.

http://start.org/forum2010

The Forum on Education, Capacity Building, and Climate Change: A Strategy for Collective Action in Africa, convened at the White Sands Hotel in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on 27 June – 1 July 2010. The Forum was organized by the International START Secretariat and the Pan-African START Secretariat and hosted by the University of Dar es Salaam with support from the Open Society Institute. The purpose of the forum was to explore the role of African universities in promoting education on climate change adaptation in the areas of research, curriculum development and teacher training, as well as to examine issues of how to more fully engage civil society on adaptation through education aimed outside the university. 40 of the 45 2009/2010 ACCFP Fellows were in attendance to participate in the Forum. On the final day of the Forum, Ms. Mzime Regina Ndebele-Murisa, a 2009/2010 ACCFP Doctoral Research Fellow hosted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), reflected on the African Climate Change Fellowship Program, as shown on the video below.

Additional presentations, media and outcomes of the Forum are available on the Forum Website at http://start.org/forum2010

“African Climate Change Fellowship Program” – Mzime Regina Ndebele-Murisa
from Lauren Gibbons on Vimeo.

The collective monograph contains results of ecological studies of Amursky Bay and adjacent areas conducted as a part of the international projects Climate variability and human activities in relation to Northeast Asia land-ocean interactions and their implications for coastal zone management and Marine biodiversity of the coastal zones in the Northwest Pacific: Status, regional threats, expected changes and conservation supported by the APN (Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research) and START. Data on the natural environment, geomorphology, and the Quaternary history of the bay are given. Accumulation of chemical elements in bottom sediments of the Razdolnaya River – Amursky Bay marginal filter was studied,and physicochemical modeling of the behavior of microelements in the zone of mixture of riverine and marine waters was carried out. The influence of pollution on macrobenthic soft bottom communities was investigated, and the species indicative of pollution were distinguished. Data on taxonomic composition and dynamics of meroplankton, zooplankton, phytoplankton, resting stages of microalgae in recent surface sediments, and faunas of sea anemones and birds are presented.

Chapters can be downloaded at http://www.imb.dvo.ru/misc/apn/bio/e_b005.htm