Building capacity for risk management in a changing climate

The Raising Risk Awareness (RRA) project focused on applying extreme event attribution to understand the role of climate change in specific weather events in Ethiopia, India, and Kenya, while using the Surging Seas tool to assess coastal flooding risk in Bangladesh. The project sought to bridge the gap between science, communication, and policy to improve disaster risk management in developing countries.

• In Ethiopia, analysis of the 2015 drought, which affected nearly 10 million people, found that while El Niño exacerbated the drought during the July–September rainy season, a measurable influence of climate change was not detected, although a small impact could not be entirely excluded.
• Attribution studies in India for the December 2015 Chennai floods and the May 2016 Phalodi heatwave did not find a measurable role for human-induced climate change. This discrepancy between observations and climate models may be due to high levels of aerosol pollution masking warming effects or the influence of irrigation.
• Analysis of the 2016–2017 drought in Kenya indicated that human-induced climate change likely contributed to higher than usual temperatures, but it did not have a strong influence on the lack of rainfall.
• In Bangladesh, the project utilised the Surging Seas tool to map coastal flooding risk, noting that over 48% of the population of 163 million people lives less than 10 metres above sea level. The project identified that improving the accuracy of coastal elevation modelling and acquiring high-quality local data are critical for policy-maker uptake.
• Effective communication of attribution results requires tailoring to the audience; for example, Kenyan decision-makers preferred percentages for probability, while the Indian public found the phrase 'frequency… twice in a lifetime' easiest to understand, though 'lifetime' was criticised in Kenya due to varying lifespans among the poor.
• The project highlighted a 'science–communications–policy gap', noting that attribution results are most actionable during the immediate window after an event when policy-makers are more likely to prioritise climate risk in recovery and rebuilding planning.

APA

Climate and Development Knowledge Network (n.d.). Building capacity for risk management in a changing climate. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/RRA-project-synthesis-report.pdf

Chicago

Climate and Development Knowledge Network. Building capacity for risk management in a changing climate. n.d. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/RRA-project-synthesis-report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |title=Building capacity for risk management in a changing climate |url=https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/RRA-project-synthesis-report.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climateanddevelopmentknowledgenetworkndbuilding, author = {{Climate and Development Knowledge Network}}, title = {{Building capacity for risk management in a changing climate}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, url = {https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/RRA-project-synthesis-report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }