Aquaculture landscape in Rajapur, Bangladesh. Aquaculture farmers in Bangladesh tend to prefer complex aquatic systems that produce fish, vegetables and rice. These systems are particularly vulnerable to flooding, which can increase salinity and affect fish health and production. Photo: Jacqueline Turner, IRI
One of the important applications of climate knowledge is in the field of disasters. Being able to predict the scale of potential disasters and the risks that disasters may pose to communities in the future is valuable and important information not only for government agencies and aid organizations, but also for supporting individuals and communities to strategize to become more resilient and predictable When disaster might happen.
Disasters can vary widely by region, climate, time of year, socioeconomic background and other factors. However, while we have made significant progress in understanding the risks of certain disaster types (such as droughts and hurricanes), progress has lagged behind for others (such as floods, especially flash floods).Although flooding varies by water source and land area, it is generally believed that flash flood can be particularly dangerous.
Andrew Cruzkiewicz, Agat Bucheri, Simon Masontheir colleagues have delved into these definitions recent papers. We asked Agathe and Andrew for their insights on the intersection of climate data and applications.
Agathe Bucherie is a researcher at the International Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). She supports work in disaster risk management and resilience.
Agatha Boucheri: Not all floods are the same. They can have different root causes and behaviors, leading to very different effects. Understanding and classifying floods based on triggers is key to improving disaster forecasting. In fact, the techniques used for coastal flood forecasting (eg, based on storm surge models) are very different from river flood forecasting (often monitored using large-scale hydrological networks) or flash flood forecasting (based primarily on local and extreme precipitation forecasts). Furthermore, flood risk varies in time and space by flood type. Accurately mapping where and when populations are more vulnerable to each type of flood is critical to improving disaster risk awareness. Unfortunately, some disasters such as flash floods remain neglected, and some communities in the Highlands are far from flood-prone areas such as coastal or floodplains that are usually mapped, may feel safe, and are unaware of the risk of flash floods. Floods have very different behaviors, and it is critical to understand which types of flooded communities are exposed to the types of expected impacts predicted by disaster practitioners. For example, flash floods, characterized by localized and sudden destructive events, are the most destructive and deadly types of flooding globally. Therefore, appropriate preparedness and response actions may vary from one flood type to another.
