Research Project (Ongoing)

Study on quantitative evaluation of climate change adaptation benefits of urban flood management

In recent years, the effects of climate change are becoming more obvious, and many developing countries, out of a sense of urgency about their impact, have high expectations for development cooperation in supporting adaptation measures.

However, changes in climatic conditions and meteorological phenomena are subject to regional and temporal variations, and it is often difficult for developing countries to obtain accurate forecasting data for a specific region or time period. In addition, the impact of climate change on a country or a region depends greatly on its socio-economic characteristics. Climate change adaptation measures attempt to reduce climate change impacts by addressing some of these socio-economic factors, but there are others that cannot be changed by such measures. These uncontrollable factors are expected to change over time, and it is often difficult to predict their future changes.

Under such circumstances, it is extremely difficult to estimate the effectiveness of climate change adaptation measures when climate change impacts are influenced by a complex interplay of uncertain future climatic and socio-economic factors. Still, when we try to support climate change adaptation through development cooperation, we will not be able to deliver effective support unless we somehow evaluate the effectiveness of individual development cooperation projects as adaptation measures. Against this background, this study aims to examine and propose methods to evaluate the effectiveness of climate change adaptation measures using the Robust Decision Making (RDM) Framework, which is one of the types of decision support methodologies in uncertainty known as “Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU).” Although the number of studies on climate change adaptation using RDM analysis has been increasing in recent years, there are few cases of its application to extreme events such as floods and sediment disasters. To close this gap the present study focuses on the issue of urban flooding, one of the extreme events affected by climate change and applies RDM analysis in a case study evaluating the climate change adaptation benefits of urban flood mitigation measures. Specifically, this case study targets the Colombo Metropolitan Area in Sri Lanka, where there are concerns about increased future flood risk due to the effects of climate change, population growth associated with rapid urbanization, and land use change.