Search Climate Insights Directory
737 results
CaseStudy Off grid sanitation Cango Caves, Oudtshoorn
The Cango Caves installed a decentralized wastewater treatment system for R2.5 million to replace an inefficient reed bed facility. The system treats and reuses approximately 70% of effluent for flushing and irrigation, resulting in a 60% reduction in potable water demand (over 3.6 million litres per annum) and R163,200 in municipal water savings during its first year of operation (September 2019 – September 2020).
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Document type: Case study
Using treated effluent for a water resilient Century City Urban Square precinct
The Century City Urban Square (CCUS), a mixed-use development by Rabie Property Group, utilizes treated effluent (TE) from the Potsdam treatment works for irrigation, cooling tower consumption, and toilet and urinal flushing. This strategy, combined with water-efficient fittings and real-time monitoring, significantly reduces potable water demand and operating costs. In 2017, the CCUS consumed 0.18kl of potable water per annum per m2 of Gross Build Area (GBA), compared to 1.09kl per annum per m2 in a comparable development without these resilience measures. The use of TE offsets approximately 44,000 kl of potable water annually, resulting in R2.3-million in water and sanitation savings based on 2021 tariffs.
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Document type: Case study
Warwick Wine Estate’s wastewater reuse project provides financial and sustainability benefits
Warwick Wine Estate installed a 23 kl/d MBR wastewater treatment plant to replace an ineffective system and reduce the costs of sewage removal. The project provides a sustainable irrigation source of 10 kl/d, reducing reliance on rain and groundwater. With a capital cost of R 1,100,000 and a payback period of 2.9 years, the estate expects monthly savings of R 31,350 after the payback period.
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Document type: Case study
WATER MARKET INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2021
The report analyzes the South African urban water market, highlighting a critical funding gap of approximately R33 billion per annum for water and sanitation infrastructure. It identifies three primary investment opportunities: reducing non-revenue water (NRW), implementing non-sewered sanitation systems (NSSS), and wastewater sludge beneficiation. While the Western Cape has planned sufficient supply projects to ensure a surplus, the national context remains water-stressed, with a projected 10% gap between supply and demand by 2030. Key barriers to investment include municipal financial insolvency, lack of technical capacity, and a lack of locally demonstrated technologies.
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Document type: Report
Rapid attribution analysis of the extraordinary heatwave on the Pacific Coast of the US and Canada June 2021
The report concludes that the June 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, estimating it as a 1-in-1000 year event in the current climate. The analysis indicates the event was approximately 2°C hotter than it would have been in a pre-industrial climate and would have been at least 150 times rarer without anthropogenic warming. Future projections suggest that in a world with 2°C of global warming, such an event would occur every 5 to 10 years and be another degree hotter. Meteorological drivers included an 'omega-block' high-pressure system and dry antecedent soil conditions, while natural variability modes like ENSO and PDO played little to no role.
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Document type: Research paper
That Was This Year: A Look Back at 2020’s Worst Climate Impacts
The document details a series of record-breaking climate events in 2020, including an unprecedented number of billion-dollar disasters in the US, extreme wildfires in California and Colorado, and devastating tropical cyclones in the Philippines and the Bay of Bengal. It highlights that 2020 was on pace to be the second-hottest year on record and notes the acceleration of Arctic sea ice retreat. Experts cited in the text emphasize that these events are driven by human-caused climate change and call for urgent climate action and funding for affected poor populations.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Enhancing Climate Information and Knowledge Services for resilience in 5 island countries of the Pacific Ocean
The proposal seeks USD 47.4 million to upgrade National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) from WMO Category 1 to Category 2 across five Pacific island nations. The programme focuses on strengthening observation networks, establishing ocean information services, improving community preparedness through 'last-mile' communication, and introducing Forecast-based Financing (FbF).
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Document type: Report
Triple Threat: Water, Energy and Food Insecurity
The document examines the critical interdependencies between water, energy, and food security, illustrating how failures in one sector trigger crises in others. Using case studies from India, Zimbabwe, Cambodia, and Pakistan, it demonstrates how climate-driven droughts and poor governance exacerbate resource scarcity and political instability. The author advocates for a systemic shift in international aid, moving away from siloed management toward a nexus approach based on three pillars: enhanced knowledge through data, strengthened institutional governance, and cross-sectoral regional cooperation.
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Document type: Briefing
social-lottery_ethiopia-game_hanna-teen-girl-607dc7e8c280702b.pdf
The document describes the life of Hanna, a 13-year-old girl in Ethiopia facing severe hardships due to drought. Her daily life involves attending school and performing heavy household chores, specifically walking long distances to fetch water, which has become more difficult as drought increases wait times at boreholes and raises concerns about water contamination. The drought has caused significant economic instability; her father left for an Internal Displaced Persons camp with the family savings, leaving her mother to sell small food items to cover basic expenses and sanitary products. Consequently, Hanna is skipping meals due to rising food prices and lacks savings. While she is interested in climate-smart agricultural and livestock projects to improve local productivity and potentially convince her to stay in her community, her capacity to participate is limited by her age, lack of access to loans, and the time demands of her chores and studies.
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Document type: Guide
East Africa 00b Scenario
The document presents a scenario in Kul-Bayne, Ethiopia, where drought and resource scarcity threaten livelihoods. It outlines a series of proposed resilience measures developed by an Environmental Management Officer, including improved meteorological liaison, community radio weather forecasts, water-saving technologies, women-focused savings and loan schemes, bio-fertiliser kitchen gardens, and disaster risk reduction networks to protect vulnerable populations during heatwaves.
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Document type: Guide
social-lottery_ethiopia-game_sitra-sex-worker-e3913648d4c72e84.pdf
This document is a role-playing scenario for a 'social lottery' game designed to simulate the experiences of a 22-year-old commercial sex worker living with HIV in Ethiopia during a drought.
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Document type: Guide
social-lottery_ethiopia-game_zainab-environmental-worker-8d274953922c0e4d.pdf
The document outlines a simulation where a government worker in Kul-Bayne develops a climate adaptation plan focusing on drought and heatwave resilience. The proposed plan includes improving meteorological liaison, partnering with community radio for forecasts, accessing water-saving technologies, establishing loan schemes for women, creating kitchen gardens, and organizing disaster risk reduction support networks for vulnerable populations.
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Document type: Guide
Case study: Talensi, Ghana
A case study on the Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) project in Talensi, Ghana, detailing how a low-cost land restoration technique has improved soil fertility, increased crop yields, and enhanced the climate resilience of over 10,000 smallholder farmers.
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Document type: Case study
Rural Ethiopian women diversify livelihoods and boost entire communities’ climate resilience
The Market Approaches to Resilience (MAR) project (2015-2019) aimed to reduce the vulnerability of rural Ethiopian pastoralists to climate shocks by diversifying their assets beyond livestock. By providing microfinance services—including loans, savings, and credit—the project enabled participants, particularly women, to establish small businesses and generate steady cash incomes. This financial diversification reduced the need for long-distance migration to find grazing land during droughts. The project employed a 'systems approach' that combined financial services with the restoration of depleted landscapes through the planting of trees and vegetation. A key focus was gender integration, with some Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) reaching up to 80% female membership. The project reached 188,902 people, including 70,825 women, and demonstrated that pastoralist resilience can be improved without forcing a transition to a non-nomadic lifestyle. The authors conclude that systemic resilience requires longer funding cycles than the typical three-year period to ensure institutional gains are sustainable and to overcome barriers such as the reluctance of financial institutions to serve low-income, non-permanent settlements.
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Document type: Case study
Why invest in resilience?
The document highlights that Malawi loses approximately 1.7% of its GDP annually to droughts and floods, a rate significantly higher than the average for Least Developed Countries. It advocates for a 'triple dividend' approach to resilience—avoided losses, unlocked development potential, and co-benefits—noting that benefit-cost ratios for such investments can range from 3:1 to 50:1. The brief provides evidence from infrastructure, social protection, and climate-smart agriculture to support the claim that proactive resilience is more cost-effective than humanitarian aid.
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Document type: Policy brief
Troubled Waters
The report highlights that California's water system is engineered for historical conditions that no longer apply due to climate change. It identifies critical shifts in the state's hydroclimate—including declining snowpack, more extreme precipitation events, and increased volatility between wet and dry years—that threaten the viability of surface reservoirs and groundwater aquifers. The authors argue that while the data to plan for these changes is available, state and local agencies are underprepared, often relying on outdated operational rules or proprietary models. The report recommends updating the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), developing new hydrologic operations models, and increasing collaboration between climate scientists and water managers to prevent wasted investments and exacerbate inequities between well-resourced and vulnerable communities.
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Document type: Report
Climate Change in the San Joaquin Valley
The document examines how climate change exacerbates water scarcity, poor water and air quality, and economic instability in the San Joaquin Valley, offering specific adaptation strategies for households and communities.
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Document type: Guide
Strengthening Climate Information Services and Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems for El Salvador
The project aims to modernize El Salvador's National Environmental Observatory (DOA) by upgrading hydro-meteorological and ocean observation networks and implementing a National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS). It focuses on shifting from simple weather predictions to impact-based forecasting to better protect up to 4.6 million people from floods, mudflows, and droughts. Key components include the development of a Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS), the introduction of Forecast-based Financing (FbF), and the integration of traditional knowledge with scientific data. The project is funded by a $9.22 million GCF grant with $1.7 million in co-financing from the Government of El Salvador.
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Document type: Report
Wildfires and Climate Change
Climate change is intensifying wildfires in the United States by raising temperatures and drying out forests, while a century of fire suppression has increased fuel loads. These fires cause significant loss of life, property destruction, and high federal costs, while simultaneously releasing greenhouse gases that further accelerate global warming.
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Document type: Fact sheet
How does the American public perceive climate disasters?
Based on 2018 and 2019 survey data, the study finds that 64% of Americans believe global warming affects U.S. weather. Risk perceptions are heavily influenced by local geography, with residents in the West fearing droughts and wildfires, those in the Midwest fearing flooding, and those in the East and Southeast fearing hurricanes. While 56% of Americans view extreme weather as a high or moderate risk to their community over the next decade, the specific concerns vary by state, often reflecting local experiences with 'Billion Dollar Disaster Events'.
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Document type: Research paper