By Hon Abdulhu Byakatonda, MP.
The evidence on negative consequences from climate change on human health and well-being is growing. The changing climate is expected to affect basic requirements needed to support and sustain human health such as good food, clean water, and unpolluted air, with negative effects that are expected to be unequally distributed. A need for the development of adaptation strategies for climate change in Uganda 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.
East Africa is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather and climate events, due to a socio-economic situation characterized by limited resources and low adaptation capacity. This was recently highlighted for example by the extensive devastating impact of 2006, 2022 floods and 2010–2011 drought among others, Climate change has several direct adverse effects on workers, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke, as well as indirect effects including increased risks for infectious diseases, changing distribution and transmission patterns of vector-borne diseases, malnutrition, water and sanitation problems, and injuries due to extreme weather events.
A large portion of the rural economy currently representing 75% of the population is agricultural, 80% of which is smallholder production with consequential high vulnerability.
Natural resources are also under pressure from an increasing population with regional constraints on water availability, and stocks for alternative livelihoods such as fisheries.
Rapid urbanization 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. This inevitably increases pressure on urban infrastructure, particularly drainage and sanitation, reducing spare capacity and augmenting the consequences of floods and their associated health hazards when sanitation infrastructure fails. At the same time, the fast pace of urban growth and relatively weak financial base of many urban administrations present challenges to the planning and delivery of services which rely on infrastructure that typically has a design life measured in decades.
The effects of climate change are thus potentially disastrous for East Africa. It is therefore imperative that full and tailored information are available from climate projections to decision makers, within a framework that enables prioritization of climate-resilient development, utilizing cost-effective measures to tackle risks. There is a need to transition from traditional science-oriented climate metrics to decision-oriented climate metrics that can be employed more directly for risk assessment and management. We define such ‘decision-oriented climate metrics’ as a statistical measure of an aspect of climate that may change in the future, and is thought to be relevant for assessing vulnerabilities to high-impact climate events.
To enable the identification of metrics which are usefully oriented towards decision making, it seems self-evident that expertise must be drawn from both climate science and those sectors where such decisions are made.
In addition, most sectors are highly interconnected (for example, agriculture in East Africa is strongly influenced by groundwater and surface water availability as well as by rainfall) with multiple climate drivers also interacting. Thus, engagement between experts across a range of sectors (multidisciplinary) and co-development of new approaches (transdisciplinarity) is required.
Agriculture
Yields are sensitive to both the mean and variability of climate, particularly precipitation and temperature. Future changes could potentially reduce crop productivity, with significant adverse impacts on food security, through shorter growing periods, increased waterlogging, periodic reduced soil moisture availability and unfavorable temperature ranges. On the other hand, irrigation can supplement water demands and extend productivity to the dry seasons; strategies must account for current water resources, climate change, abstraction potential and maintenance of environmental flows.
Flood management and urban infrastructure
The future frequency of both flash floods and more persistent and widespread fluvial flood events depends on changes in the intensity and duration of rainfall. The growing population will be more vulnerable, particularly where it is forced to occupy flood prone land. Householders are affected through loss of assets (primarily housing) and failure of infrastructures including sanitation, drainage and road access. Substantial investment is required, including ensuring that standards for the design and construction of infrastructure and flood mitigation systems are adapted to the changing characteristics of precipitation.
Urban infrastructure (health)
Changes in temperature and solar radiation impact the growth rate of algae in downstream water bodies which receive nutrient-rich sanitation overflows. This has knock on effects on water quality in rivers and lakes and on the effectiveness of water treatment. Temperature rises may also impact disease aetiology and change the rate, infectivity and spread of sanitation-related and drainage-related diseases under conditions of flooding and sanitation failures.
Key Takeaways;
There, is need to consider a number of sectors i.e agriculture, water supply, fisheries, flood management, sanitation and urban development all of which are important for climate change.
This should bring together climate scientists and sector specialists to best of our knowledge will be one of the first attempts at a systematic climate change adverse effects.
The general direction of warming is clear, but uncertain details in its spatial pattern and lake depth profile are critical for changes in stratification and hence hypoxia. Rainfall also impacts eutrophication (via excessive nutrient input from runoff), as well as visibility (via sediment loading) affecting the reproductive behavior of several species. Irrespective of these uncertainties, accurate determination of fish stocks, and their relative sensitivity to climate, overfishing and unchecked nutrient inputs, would be a pragmatic and immediate policy approach.
Water supply planning is also challenging given uncertainties in projected annual rainfall. However, groundwater is able to effectively buffer interannual rainfall variability and is currently underdeveloped across East Africa. Despite the uncertainties in future recharge of the resource, investment to improve access to groundwater for rural communities and small towns is a no regrets option. With a rapidly growing population, significant investment in higher capacity surface water storage infrastructure has been considered, although designs need to consider uncertainties in catchment water balance. The opportunities for and benefits of investment in irrigation infrastructure, both large and small scale, have been identified for East African agriculture, irrespective of climate change. Irrigation would be particularly valuable in areas where the probability of dry days is already high and likely to increase such as Teso and Karamoja Regions, as studies in the region have shown the limitation in agricultural production due to the uneven distribution of rainfall.
Conclusion,
There is need to address climate change as caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The people’s rights to health, housing, water and food are drastically affected.
Therefore, the mitigation of Climate Change must be addressed by States (duty-bearers).
The building of adoptive capacity by the states to highly vulnerable communities should be emphasized. The factors such as discrimination, disparities in education and health require urgent intervention.
The international cooperation and the follow-up treaties, agreements, protocols etc should be implemented.
It is not long before all the adverse effects take a toll globally■
