Do-It-Yourself Adaptation: New Pathways for Community Flood Risk Communication
Thematic Area: Climate change
University: Bayero University Kano (BUK)
Project Leader: Dr Aliyu Salisu Barau
Collaborating Partners: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India; ImageCat, Inc. USA
Duration: 3 years
Project Overview
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the regions most exposed to the negative effects of global climate change. In particular, frequent droughts and floods locked the African dryland belts into unbroken cycle of food insecurity, weak resilience, poverty, and other forms of social vulnerabilities. Nigeria is also among the African countries most prone to myriads of climate disasters. Studies have reported on the increasing urban flood incidents across Nigeria; nevertheless, public understanding and response capacity to early warning system are dramatically low – at eight percent. This project shifts attention to flood risk adaptation crisis in the least investigated rural dryland areas of Northern Nigeria. Meteorological data is available and used for weather forecast and early warning system, but this science is never communicated in appropriate language and formats that communities can utilise to manage flood risks
The technology
The main goal of this project is to create flood resilience/adaptation capacity of dryland rural communities by developing an innovative, integrated, interdisciplinary, knowledge based, and solution-oriented approach. The project will create a science communication system that simplifies understanding of climatic information associated with food risk for low-educated community members. A drylands landscape flood risk hazards toolkit will be designed that enables communities to develop hands on adaptation skills for abating flood risks. Additionally, an open source mobile app will be developed for supporting flood risk education in local languages using audio-visuals integrating local and indigenous knowledge for enhancing community adaptation strategies to climate change.
Expected Impact
The innovative learning products to be produced by the project for climate knowledge, attitude and adaptation skills will help to address climate science ignorance among affected communities, reduce flood risks and create a do-it-for-yourself community especially in the north-eastern parts of Jigawa Sate in North- Western Nigeria.
