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Authorities heedless of climate change in coastal planning: report
View(s):Rising ocean would drown valuable projects
Sri Lanka will be hit hard by climate change and is not giving this enough thought when executing development projects, a new report warns. The report, “Turn Down The Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience” builds on a World Bank report released late last year, which concluded the world would warm by 4C above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century if countries did not take concerted action now.
The paper looks at the likely impacts of present-day 2°C and 4°C warming on agricultural production, water resources, coastal ecosystems and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. With South Asian coastlines being located close to the equator, projections of local sea-level rise show a greater increase compared to higher latitudes. Sea-level rise is projected to be approximately 100–115cm by the 2090s in a 4°C world, and 60–80 cm in a 2°C world, the report calculates.
“In Sri Lanka, we recently witnessed the havoc wrought on communities, especially those living on the coast, by extreme bad weather and this could only get worse with the accelerating effects of climate change,” pointed out Ivan Rossignol, Acting Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives of the World Bank releasing the report.
The World Bank said climate risk mitigation measures were integrated into the designs of its project investments to ensure their sustainability. For example, the Metro Colombo Urban Development Project (MCUDP), which aims at flood and drainage management, and the Dam Safety and Water Resources Planning Project (DSWRP), have incorporated climate/weather proofing of water resource management into its project design, he explains.
The report, by the National Climate Adaptation Strategy of Sri Lanka (NCASS), warned that many other development projects, including roads, drainage systems, railways, did not take the risks of Climate Change into account even when such concerns were critical.
Transport infrastructure in certain coastal areas could be under severe threat due to sea level rise. Tourism in coastal areas is also under threat, as beaches and the biodiversity which underpin our tourism product are both at risk due to climate change.
Guidelines and standards for development and engineering of infrastructure currently in use are outdated and do not include climate change considerations, the NCASS report says.
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