Emily Boyd
Professor, Docent
Event Attribution science in adaptation decision-making : the context of extreme rainfall in urban Senegal
Author
Summary, in English
Event attribution assesses the effect of climate change on individual extreme events. While scientists have suggested that results could be relevant for climate adaptation policy, this has had little empirical investigation, particularly in developing regions. Taking the case of Senegal, the national adaptation policy context regarding extreme precipitation and flooding in urban areas, and the scientific information needed to support this policy is investigated using key informant interviews, a workshop and document analysis. Flooding in Senegal was found to be viewed primarily as an urban planning concern rather than a climate change issue, with actions to address the impacts focussing on current vulnerabilities of urban communities without considering changing climate risks. While stakeholders thought event attribution might be useful to inform about climate change impacts and future risks of extreme events, it is unclear whether there would be an opportunity for this at present, due to the limited role climate information has in adaptation decision-making. While addressing vulnerability to extremes is necessary whether or not the risk is climate change-related, if long-term planning is to be resilient then knowledge about future changes in risks of extremes will need to be considered, even if individual events are not attributed to climate change.
Department/s
- LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)
Publishing year
2019-02-06
Language
English
Pages
812-824
Publication/Series
Climate and Development
Volume
11
Issue
9
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Topic
- Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
- Climate Science
Keywords
- adaptation policy
- attribution
- climate change
- decision-making
- extreme events
- Senegal
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1756-5529