Tracking climate change adaptations

Planners are making efforts to build an integrated knowledge network to help State build resilience

Scientists, policy planners and decision makers from various departments, agencies and research institutions across the State are involved in a massive effort to build an integrated knowledge network that will help the State adapt and build resilience to climate change.

Spearheaded by the Knowledge Cell under the Institute of Climate Change Studies (ICCS), Kottayam, the initiative has been taken up under a five-year project funded by the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change (NMSKCC). The project seeks to build a data bank and knowledge repository for storing and retrieving climate change information that would be useful to various stakeholders, including government departments and agencies, universities, and general public.

Portal on climate change

Efforts are on to develop a Web portal to assist decision makers in formulating adaptation and mitigation strategies. The portal is envisaged as a single window information source on climate change issues specific to Kerala.

The project will also assess the risks and vulnerability to climate change for various sectors in Kerala. Capacity building programmes for stakeholders is another major component.

“As many as 42 departments, agencies, and research institutions are currently involved in data collection and processing,” said George Chackacherry, Director, ICCS.

“Creating an integrated databank and dissemination network on this scale is a daunting prospect. We expect the Web portal to become functional by March 2018,” he said.

The ICCS has initiated a programme to collect journals, research reports, proceedings, books and statistical data on environment and climate change from various sources.

It is also trying to access data products from the National Remote Sensing Agency for the proposed vulnerability study.

Challenges

Mr. Chackacherry foresees a greater challenge in keeping the knowledge repository regularly updated to reflect the latest trends in climate change and their impact on various sectors.

The NMSKCC envisages the creation of knowledge networks for sharing data on climate change and a technology watch system for vulnerable sectors. It also aims at developing new technologies for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

As part of the capacity building exercise, the ICCS has initiated a training programme to equip teachers and functionaries of local bodies in building resilience to climate change.

Source:- The Hindu