Vulnerability and risk assessment

Digital Earth Africa is a free platform for accessing satellite imagery specific to the African continent. To make the satellite data easier to use, Digital Earth Africa translates it into an analysis-ready format to provide insights into land and water resources. The Digital Earth Africa Map portal provides easy access for anyone to visualize and analyze the data. The portal provides technical users with a programming environment to conduct comprehensive analysis.

he UNCCD-SPI technical report “Creating an Enabling Environment for LDN and its Potential Contribution to Enhancing Well-being, Livelihoods and the Environment” provides science-based evidence on the potential contribution of LDN to enhancing the well-being and livelihoods as well as the environmental conditions of people affected by desertification/land degradation and drought. This is done by capturing evidence on the configuration of an enabling environment for LDN drawn from the scientific literature, the outcomes of the LDN target setting programme, and the experiences of individual stakeholders directly involved in LDN initiatives gathered through a global LDN survey.

An enabling environment for LDN is found to consist of inclusive policies and regulations building on already existing national plans and programmes, an LDN conducive institutional setting, access to multiple sources of finance, and an effective science-policy interface designed to inform sustainable land-based interventions. This report offers solid evidence for the critical dimensions of an enabling environment and provides key messages and policy options for stakeholders involved in national efforts to further engage in LDN planning for sustainably managing land and providing multiple benefits for the environment, human well-being, and sustainable livelihoods.

Guidelines and Background Documents for Development of National Drought Plan (Annex I, Chapter 2). The chapter provides guidelines for selecting and calculating indicators or indices to monitor and forecast drought onset, end and impacts, and identify triggers for different management responses during drought. Drought is a natural hazard highly suitable to monitoring because the slow onset of droughts makes is possible to observe changes in precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, surface, and groundwater reserves and social and economic behaviours.

The Global Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation (PROVIA) has responded to this challenge by revising and improving existing guidance for assessing climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation, covering the range of available approaches, methods and tools. This document is the result of this effort, which has been a pleasure for me to coordinate. The PROVIA Guidance is meant to be informative rather than prescriptive; its intended users are researchers, adaptation practitioners, decision-makers and those involved in project, programme and policy formulation. The Guidance is conceived as a �living document�: the current version is a consultation document that will benefit from feedback from users.

The main objective of the database is to serve the purposes of humanitarian action at national and international levels. The initiative aims to rationalise decision making for disaster preparedness, as well as provide an objective base for vulnerability assessment and priority setting. EM-DAT contains essential core data on the occurrence and effects of over 22,000 mass disasters in the world from 1900 to the present day. The database is compiled from various sources, including UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, insurance companies, research institutes and press agencies.

The present document proposes main elements of a drought risk reduction framework in line with the priorities of the Hyogo Framework, namely i) policy and governance, ii) drought risk identification and early warning, iii) awareness and education, iv) reducing underlying factors of drought risk, and v) mitigation and preparedness, as well as cross-cutting issues.

Space-based information for disaster Management and Emergency Response

In this document, we present a methodology for assessing returns to the regional economy from locally prioritised adaptation investments through the DfID-funded Building resilience to climate extremes and disasters (BRACED) Decentralised climate finance (DCF) programme. This methodological note remains under discussion with DCF programme stakeholders, who are using a participatory approach in Senegal's Kaffrine region to prioritise adaptation investments with local decision makers and stakeholders.

The goal of Vulnerability and Impact Assessment (Pillar 2) is to determine the primary historical, current and, likely, future impacts associated with drought (impact assessment) and to assess the root cause of these impacts, i.e, vulnerability assessment. Drought impact and vulnerability assessment are directed at gaining an understanding of both the natural and human processes associated with drought and the impacts that occur. An outcome of Pillar 2 is the creation of a vulnerability profile for each sector, region, population group or community, i.e., vulnerability mapping.

GWAVA combines locally sourced data with global databases to give projections of future changes to water availability. These can be used to model consequential impacts, including changes to water quality and damage to river ecosystems. GWAVA is highly adaptable to low data environments and has been successfully applied both globally and at continental and basin scales across Europe, Africa and Asia for more than 20 years.

This is a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-developed tool that helps farmers and pastoralists self-assess and prioritize resilience aspects of their livelihoods in a participatory manner. The survey is both paper and tablet based and assesses the resilience of farmers and pastoralists to climate change organized into governance, environmental, social, economic and agricultural practices using a combination of self-assessment and academic review of livelihood components. There are 54 questions in total of which 26 are mandatory to fully assess resilience. SHARP can be used both as a monitoring and evaluation tool, as well as a learning method integrated into agropastoral/ farmer field schools training curricula. The tool provides immediate results (offline) on the tablets in the field and offers the possibility to analyse results online in more detail. Data can be disaggregated based on gender, production practice type, age group; comparisons can be made across households, within communities, regions and countries.

Policy-makers and practitioners often struggle or fail to define and quantify the economic impacts that can be achieved through ecologically sustainable investments in dryland ecosystems. This paper reviews the current state of the art in the characterization and valuation of environmental benefits in drought-prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. Benefit streams from ecosystem services associated with the production of food, energy and water are characterized, as well as those from supporting and regulating hydrological systems. For each value type, valuation approaches and examples of their application in Sub-Saharan African contexts are presented. The review is drawn from a series of recent methodological discussions, working papers and field research reports focusing on the benefits of locally determined and ecosystem-based adaptations under dryland climate extremes. The focus is on the challenges faced by practitioners and researchers tasked with developing benefit-cost assessments for investments in the adaptive management and conservation of dryland ecosystems, particularly in marginalized dry and drought-prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. Recommendations could also interest a wider global community of dryland researchers and development practitioners.

RIMA is a�quantitative approach�that enables a rigorous analysis of how households cope with shocks and stressors. Comparisons can be made between different types of households (for example, male-headed versus female-headed or urban versus rural) in a given country or area. Resilience analysis using RIMA provides the necessary evidence to more effectively design, deliver, monitor and evaluate assistance to vulnerable populations, based on what they need most.

The overarching purpose of the PDNA Guide is to provide improved support to governments in post-disaster recovery assessments and planning through a more coordinated approach. The more immediate objective of the Guide is to provide an agreed framework and predictable arrangements for effective and efficient coordinated support from the EU, the UN and the WB to governments requesting international assistance for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. To achieve this, the Guide provides practical, action-oriented, easy-to-use guide in the following critical areas to:  Present common minimum standards regarding quality, reliability, and inclusiveness; Facilitate quick decision-making and action by stakeholders; Provide a predictable and coherent approach to assessment and planning; Contribute towards producing an objective and comprehensive estimate of recovery needs; Contribute towards an efficient professional response by the international community; Contribute to a more cost-effective approach by working towards coordination, reducing overlaps; Improve the credibility of assessments and recovery strategies; Improve financing opportunities for recovery and reconstruction

The model uses a classification of farming systems based on the feed use and agro-ecological conditions. GLEAM distinguishes three farming systems for cattle (grazing, mixed and feedlot), two for other ruminant species (grazing and mixed), three for pigs (backyard, intermediate and industrial) and three for chicken (backyard, layers and broilers). Three agro-ecological zones are considered: temperate -which includes temperate regions and tropical highlands, arid -including arid and semi-arid tropics and subtropics, and humid -comprising humid and sub-humid tropics. Overall, this amounts to over 9,000 discrete supply chains, defined as unique combinations of commodity, country, farming system and climatic conditions.

The Soil & Water Assessment Tool is a small watershed to river basin-scale model used to simulate the quality and quantity of surface and ground water and predict the environmental impact of land use, land management practices, and climate change. SWAT is widely used in assessing soil erosion prevention and control, non-point source pollution control and regional management in watersheds.

The TAAS framework and methodology examines processes and outcomes of adaptation at national and local levels, providing a consistent and flexible list of indicators. It builds on existing indicators of sustainable development, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, to avoid any duplication of tracking efforts at the national level. Four major categories of indicators are identified: natural resources and ecosystems, agricultural production systems, socio-economics, and institutions and policies.

The Integrated Monitoring Guide provides a basis for national governments to monitor progress towards the new Sustainable Development Goal on water and sanitation (SDG 6). The Guide includes step-by-step methodologies outlining how countries can monitor each of the SDG 6 global indicators. The methodologies have been designed to allow countries to monitoring SDG 6 at a level in line with their capacity and resource availability, and they promote harmonization and the use of international standards.

The Pastoralist Knowledge Hub is an initiative bringing together pastoralists and the main actors working with them to join forces and create the synergies for dialogue and pastoralist development.

This guideline presents a set of four global impact indicators and their methodologies wich, when take togueter, can be used to determine the trends in combating land degradation and desertification through sustainable land management practices that improve the productivity of agro-ecosystem while generating other associated global benefits.

WEAP is a user-friendly software tool that takes an integrated approach to water resources planning. The Water Evaluation and Planning system, or WEAP, aims to incorporate these issues into a practical yet robust tool for integrated water resources planning. WEAP is developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute's U.S. Center.

This website provides an online catalogue of the majority of worldwide available drought hazard and risk tools, ranging from drought indices and datasets to online platforms, newsletters, and software products. The technical assessment of global drought report contains a quantitative and qualitative comparison of available global drought datasets, indices, platforms, and drought detection and forecasting systems. The guidance documents aims at providing guidance to policy makers, managers, and professionals when assessing drought hazard and risk.

This document serves as an instructional and guiding text for stakeholders interested in performing costbenefit analyses for sustainable land management options using the ELD Initiative supported approach, and includes examples from the Initiative and its partners to demonstrate how each part of the process functions practically.

InVEST is a suite of free, open-source software models used to map and value the goods and services from nature that sustain and fulfill human life. If properly managed, ecosystems yield a flow of services that are vital to humanity, including the production of goods (e.g., food), life-support processes (e.g., water purification), and life-fulfilling conditions (e.g., beauty, opportunities for recreation), and the conservation of options (e.g., genetic diversity for future use). Despite its importance, this natural capital is poorly understood, scarcely monitored, and, in many cases, undergoing rapid degradation and depletion.

Guidelines and Background Documents for Development of National Drought Plan (Annex I, Chapter 3)This chapter provides guidelines to complete vulnerability and risk assessments for locations, people and economies vulnerable to drought. Vulnerability assessments attempt to understand who is vulnerable to what, when, and why, and what can be done to reduce vulnerability.

The Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) provides a scientific foundation for understanding, implementing and monitoring LDN. It has been designed to create a bridge between the vision and the practical implementation of LDN, by defining LDN in operational terms. The conceptual framework is a product of the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface.

The global hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB simulates for each grid cell (0.5 degree globally over the land) and for each time step (daily) the water storage in two vertically stacked soil layers and an underlying groundwater layer, as well as the water exchange between the layers (infiltration, percolation, and capillary rise) and between the top layer and the atmosphere (rainfall, evapotranspiration, and snow melt). The model also calculates canopy interception and snow storage. Water use for agriculture, industry and households is dynamically linked to hydrological simulation at a daily time step. The simulated local direct runoff, interflow, and baseflow are routed along the river network that is also linked to water allocation and reservoir operation scheme.

The System of Environmental-Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water) is an integrated approach to water monitoring, bringing together a wide range of water-related statistics across sectors into one coherent information system. The SEEA-Water is the conceptual framework and set of accounts which presents hydrological information alongside economic information in a consistent way.

The drought risk assessment in this tool has been completed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and is applicable for 2000-2018. It uses a global-scale top-down data-driven approach that is consistent and applicable to all regions of the world. The maps are a first screening analysis and it is recommended that local assessments of risk are carried out to improve the outputs for targeting of drought preparedness and appropriate drought mitigation solutions. The outputs of the drought risk assessment provide a relative measure of drought risk globally that is, the scale of risk is not a measure of absolute losses or actual damage to human health or the environment, but a ranking and comparison of specific geographic regions. You can zoom in on the map and view the assessment in more detail to evaluate the drought situation in your location.

This handbook provides practical guidance for planning and implementing community-led ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) in three vulnerable ecosystems: mountains, drylands and coastal areas. It is intended for project managers, practitioners and technical specialists. The guidance is structured around eight key steps in the project cycle, and includes general implementation protocols for EbA in each target ecosystem. It also includes an introduction to EbA which is intended for a broader audience, including policymakers.

The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) provides a framework for the collation of a set of consistent, multi-sector, multi-scale climate-impact simulations, based on scientifically and politically-relevant historical and future scenarios. This framework serves as a basis for robust projections of climate impacts, as well as facilitating model evaluation and improvement, allowing for improved estimates of the biophysical and socio-economic impacts of climate change at different levels of global warming. It also provides a unique opportunity to consider interactions between climate change impacts across sectors.

The RAND Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation formed a partnership to develop a modeling framework that can be used to estimate the net benefits of a resilience project. We call the framework the Resilience Dividend Valuation Model (RDVM). The RDVM addresses the absorption of shocks and stressors, the recovery path following a shock, and any co-benefits that accrue from a project, even in the absence of a shock. For any given project, the estimated dividend may be positive or negative. The RDVM is designed to provide a systematic, "structural" framework for assessing resilience interventions that ultimately create benefits and costs within a system, such as a community or city. This guide provides a detailed overview of the RDVM to help policymakers and practitioners understand how it can be implemented across a range of contexts.

The National Drought Mitigation Center launched the Drought Impact Reporter (DIR) in July 2005 as the USA first comprehensive database of drought impacts. This update, released in fall 2011, collects and displays more types of information, providing researchers and interested members of the public with more context and detail, as well as more readily summarized information.

The mission of the IHSN is to improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of survey data within developing countries, and to encourage the analysis and use of this data by national and international development decision makers, the research community, and other stakeholders.

The EDR database was compiled as part of the EU funded DROUGHT R&SPI Project. The database is designed to provide a single, publically available site to disseminate detailed information about historical drought events in Europe. For additional information on this project and data collection, see the Project Overview. Major European droughts identified by the EU funded DROUGHT-R&SPI Project are listed below. Links provide detailed meteorologic and hydrologic drought indices, as well as information regarding economic, social, and environmental impacts.

The Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis (CVCA) methodology helps us to understand the implications of climate change for the lives and livelihoods of the people we serve. By combining local knowledge with scientific data, the process builds people's understanding about climate risks and adaptation strategies. It provides a framework for dialogue within communities, as well as between communities and other stakeholders. The results provide a solid foundation for the identification of practical strategies to facilitate community-based adaptation to climate change.

The Disaster Information Management System is a sustainable arrangement within an institution for the systematic collection, documentation and analysis of data about losses caused by disasters associated with natural hazards. The Disaster Information Management System is a tool that helps to analyze the disaster trends and their impacts in a systematic manner. With increased understanding of the disaster trends and their impacts, better prevention, mitigation and preparedness measures can be planned to reduce the impact of disasters on the communities.