New method to monitor climate change in Tanzania in offing

Beatrice Philemon in IPP Media: A new methodology for monitoring climate change impact on coastal, or peri-urban areas, will help enhance Dar es Salaam's development strategies. The methodology will be developed by researchers from Italy’s Sapienza University, in collaboration with Ardhi University and the city council.

This was revealed recently by city council director Bakari Kingobi during a workshop on adapting to climate change in Dar es Salaam’s coastal areas with the support from the European Union (EU). This has come about after realising that people living in the city’s coastal areas have already experienced the impact of climate change such as salinization of shallow water wells, loss of land on the coastline and damage to aquatic breeding sites.

Apart from that, people lack awareness on the link between climate change and its impact on their livelihoods. So, there is a need to assess the impact of climate change with a view to raising public awareness on how to cope with it.

Sapienza University Prof Silvia Macchi noted that the city council and Ardhi University should collaborate with local communities to develop a comprehensive plan that would help them cope with climate change in the areas they lived.

“You have to explore changes in this city because people living in peri-urban or coastal areas and the natural resources in those areas will be affected most by climate change induced hazards, floods, sea level rise, drought and land slide,” she said….

From the Bundesarchiv via Wikimedia Commons, a Walter Dobbertin photo of the harbor in Dar es Salaam, sometime between 1906 and 1918