Climate information requirements for community-level risk management and adaptation

Abstract

Climate information can be of value when used in decisions involving risks posed by adverse weather or climate. Socio-economic factors such as increasing population in regions susceptible to climate extremes significantly increase the vulnerability of communities to climate. Climate information is an important pre-requisite for informed decision-making in risk management and adaptation that would help prevent climate extremes from becoming disasters and threats to livelihoods. Reliable weather, climate and water information generated by national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs) is the crucial first step in issuing early warnings of potential climate extremes. In order for climate information to inform risk management and adaptation effectively, it is helpful to have it embedded within an institutional system that starts with monitoring of weather and climate events and ends with a community level response. This institutional system contains a number of components, of which perhaps the most important is the customization of information according to user requirements and its delivery to the community level. Policies and projects aimed at creating and facilitating systemic linkages between climate information producers and users can contribute significantly towards the 'community centeredness' of climate services. Experiences from implementing such community level activities in Asia are used to recommend actions required for evolving frameworks for developing community-centered climate services. © Inter-Research 2011.