Community water systems: Climate vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities
This partnership takes on the challenge of co-developing strategies for improving resilience against climate change that respond to distinct contexts in collaboration with local knowledge holders. We will co-create solutions with our longstanding community and government partners in East Africa and Indigenous communities, including Northern and Arctic, by advancing policies and practices, and codeveloping resilient structures and evidence-based water future scenarios.
About Project
More than two billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress. By 2050, that figure may reach3.2 billion. Changing climates affect water security for daily needs, livelihoods and culture (Risk #7) andincrease the frequency and severity of extreme weather like floods and fires which can disrupt criticalinfrastructure like roadways and pipelines necessary to provide water for peoples’ wellbeing (Risk #3).While initiatives by our collaborators and others develop technologies to address immediate water risks, thereis no framework to assess future climate vulnerabilities of non-professionalized water systems. To address thisgap, we will use data-driven vulnerability assessments to inform mitigation and adaptation strategies. Ourresearch objectives include describing: (i) the systems that ensure water security, (ii) the climate vulnerabilities in those systems, and (iii) the opportunities for creating and maintaining climate-resilient water systems.We will support our partner communities in Turkana, Kenya; Nile region, South Sudan; Varanger, Norway; andIndigenous communities in Alaska and Western Canada to develop their Water Security Action Plan and to a)map their water systems and its climate vulnerabilities, and b) implement and evaluate interventions thataugment their water systems’ resilience. Further, we will create a Global Water Resilience Toolkit to informpolicymakers at the regional and local levels to advance similar Water Security Actions Plans with vulnerablegroups elsewhere so that our approach can be scaled for the 3.2 billion people who may face water insecurityby 2050.Understanding that water security is a trans-disciplinary challenge spanning health, livelihoods, security, culture and science, our diverse team includes engineers, landscape architects, policymakers, local NGOs andIndigenous knowledge-holders, including four Co-PIs from Canada, Norway and the USA, five academic andthree non-academic Co-Applicants, and five implementing partners. Our team has a track record applyingcontext-specific approaches to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at our research sites, informed by trust built partnerships with our community and local implementing partners. We will rely on our PerformanceMetrics, Management, and Results Framework to track and evaluate our findings, EDI practices, partnershipstrategies, and the effectiveness of our contributions to local and global policy and practice.Sponsors:New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF)—CanadaNational Science Foundation (NSF)—United StatesThe Research Council of Norway (Forskningsradet)—Norway
