Expected start date:

2012•10•01

Expected end date:

2017•04•30

Institute:

UNU-EHS

Project Status:

Closed

Project Type:

Research

Project Manager :

Fabrice Renaud

The West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) project is a large-scale research-focused programme initiated to develop effective adaptation and mitigation measures to climate change. The geographical focus of WASCAL is on West Africa with in-depth research in case study watersheds in Benin, Burkina Faso and Ghana. WASCAL is based on three principle components: a Competence Center, a core Research Programme and a Graduate Research Programme. The Competence Center will contribute to the development of local research capacity, and serve as a service center for the partner countries, building on the national research communities of the West African countries participating in WASCAL. UNU-EHS is responsible for the work package on “Risk Assessment and analysis” (WP 5.1) and supports the development of the MSc programme “Climate Change and Human Security” based at the Université de Lomé, Togo. Our research activities within WASCAL consist of: 1) Identification of the major climate change-related hazards to rural communities in the West African Sudanian Savanna Zone. This includes determining the probability of occurrence and potential intensity of those hazards. 2) Drawing from a variety of methods, hazard impacts on rural social-ecological systems are assessed and a participatory approach is developed to identify vulnerability and risk indicators for multiple hazards. 3) Furthermore, the research is centered on assessing the suitability of existing coping and adaptation strategies to reduce the overall vulnerability and risk and increase the resilience to the identified multiple hazards. At UNU-EHS, the project is executed by the EVES (coordinating), VARMAP and EGECHS sections. The research within workpackage 5.1 is conducted jointly with a partner from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). For more information, see www.wascal.org