Devastating floods might be more common than thought

Sasha Harris-Lovett in Sci-Tech Today: Keep the sandbags handy. Previous flood assessments have underestimated the actual risk of dangerous floods in many parts of the country, according to a new study. By looking back at the historical weather records, researchers have found an important synergy between two flood risk factors in coastal zones that has often gone overlooked.

In the past, engineers usually determined flood risk for coastal areas by looking at the separate probabilities of intense rainfall and the especially high seas caused by raging wind, called storm surges. But some of the worst floods in coastal areas are caused by the unfortunate concurrence of big storm surges with high rainfall -- a double-whammy for flooding, because it can result in the sea spilling over onto land while rivers and urban drainage systems overflow onto the streets.

By examining these two phenomena together, researchers showed that heavy precipitation and high seas are occurring in tandem more often in many coastal cities, especially along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the U.S. The results were published this week in Nature Climate Change.

"This is an important yet less studied aspect of vulnerability along the coastline," said Shaleen Jain, a civil and environmental engineer at the University of Maine and one of the authors of the study. Nearly 40% of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties, researchers noted.

The scientists combed through historical records of rainfall, tide gauge readings and hurricane tracks dating back to 1900 for 30 port cities around the continental United States. They noted all the instances where high storm surges corresponded to strong rainfall.

Neither the frequency of big storm surges nor heavy rainfall alone have changed dramatically since 1900, but the probability of them occurring at the same time -- and the resulting devastating floods -- has shown a marked increase in many U.S. cities, said Thomas Wahl, a coastal engineer at the University of South Florida and the lead author of the study. These cities include Boston; New York City; Tampa, Fla.; Houston; San Diego; Los Angeles; and San Francisco....

Flooding in 2001 from Hurricane Gabriel near Tampa, Florida. Photo from NOAA

Ocean warming leads to stronger precipitation extremes

A press release from the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research-Kiel: Due to climate change, not only atmospheric, but also oceanic, temperatures are rising. A study published in the international journal Nature Geoscience led by scientists at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel shows that increases in sea surface temperature can contribute to the development of stronger precipitation events. Their findings are underpinned by flash-flooding in June in the Olympic city of Sochi, Russia.

That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear. In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere. The effects of global warming on the hydrological cycle, however, are still not fully understood. Particularly uncertain is how the strength of extreme summertime thunderstorms have changed, and how it may change in the future. In coastal regions neighboring warm seas, the sea surface temperature can play a crucial role in the intensity of convective storms. The Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean have warmed by about 2 C since the early 1980s. Russian and German scientists investigated what impact this warming may have had on extreme precipitation in the region.

“Our showcase example was a heavy precipitation event from July 2012 that took place in Krymsk (Russia), near the Black Sea coast, resulting in a catastrophic flash food with 172 deaths”, said Edmund Meredith, lead author of the study. “We carried out a number of very-high-resolution simulations with an atmospheric model to investigate the impact of rising sea surface temperatures on the formation of intense convective storms, which are often associated with extreme rainfall”, Meredith continued. Simulations of the event with observed sea surface temperatures showed an increase in precipitation intensity of over 300%, compared to comparable simulations using sea surface temperatures representative of the early 1980s.  “We were able to identify a very distinct change, which demonstrates that convective precipitation responds with a strong, non-linear signal to the temperature forcing”, Prof. Douglas Maraun, co-author of the study added.

At the end of June 2015, the nearby Olympic city of Sochi experienced an unusually intense precipitation event. Over 175 mm of rain was recorded in 12 hours, showing the relevance of the scientists work.  “Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean. We therefore expect that events like those in Krymsk or Sochi will become more frequent in the future”, added the Kiel-based climate scientist.

Rain near a San Francisco beach, shot by the incomporable Brocken Inaglory, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Flash flood risks increase as storm peak downpours intensify

EurekAlert via the University of New South Wales: Patterns of peak rainfall during storms will intensify as the climate changes and temperatures warm, leading to increased flash flood risks in Australia's urban catchments, new UNSW Australia research suggests.

Civil engineers from the UNSW Water Research Centre have analysed close to 40,000 storms across Australia spanning 30 years and have found warming temperatures are dramatically disrupting rainfall patterns, even within storm events.

Essentially, the most intense downpours are getting more extreme at warmer temperatures, dumping larger volumes of water over less time, while the least intense periods of precipitation are getting weaker. If this trend continues with future warming, the risk of flooding due to short-term extreme bursts of rainfall could increase even if the overall volume of rain during storms remains the same. The findings were published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"These more intense patterns are leading to more destructive storms, which can significantly influence the severity of flood flows," says lead author and PhD candidate Conrad Wasko, from the UNSW School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "The climate zones we studied in Australia are representative of most global climates, so it's very likely these same trends will be observed around the world."

Previous studies have looked at rainfall volumes over the total duration of storms, but this latest UNSW study is the first to look at temporal rainfall patterns within storms. Australian Bureau of Meteorology data from 79 locations across the country were used instead of computer simulations....

Photo by Shootthedevgru,Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Researchers connect climate change to food safety

Wageningen UR: Climate change can affect our food safety in a number of ways. In a European study, researchers at Wageningen University and Ghent University (Belgium) state that there is often a relationship between long-term changes in temperature and rainfall and vegetable and fruit contamination. For example, flooding may result in increased concentrations of harmful bacteria that can be quickly broken down again by UV light. Similarly, in one region fungi that produce toxins may increase due to global warming, while they decrease in other regions. The researchers have published their findings in a special issue of the scientific journal Food Research International that they edited.

In the future, in a changing climate, will we be able to continue eating safe vegetables and fruit or will this come under pressure? This is the question asked by the Ghent and Wageningen researchers. They have brought together the latest information and scientific findings on the impact of climate change on food safety in the special issue. The special issue was initiated by researchers and includes several papers from the  Veg-i-Trade project financed by the European Union.

These are the first studies into the relationship between climate change and food safety. The researchers find that there is every reason to expand this research. They believe that more scenario analyses, which have been used for years in climate study in general, should also be included in food safety research. One of the first scenario analyses was included in the Veg-i-Trade study.

Field studies and statistical analyses within the Veg-i-Trade project show that there is in fact often a relationship between vegetable and fruit contamination and climate variables such as temperature and rainfall. A preliminary study into toxic
substances from fungi shows, for example, that an increased risk of contamination of tomatoes may be expected at the end of the 21st century in Poland. In Spain, however, it will be too hot then for this kind of fungi, so the risk of contamination will be lower. Another study shows that in a flooded lettuce field the likelihood of flooding is increased by climate change, resulting in higher concentrations of harmful bacteria. UV light will then cause these concentrations to decrease again rapidly.

One of the conclusions from a study into possible forms of adaptation to climate change is that adaptation to future climate change will have to be very different for different countries, sectors and companies. According to this research the focus here will have to be on increasing the adaptive capacity....

A lettuce field, shot by Daniel Ventura, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Flooding, wildfires shake Argentina

Terra Daily via AFP: The heaviest rain in decades pounded much of central and western Argentina on Tuesday, prompting evacuations, even as wildfires roared across much of the parched far south.

Rain has been heaviest in the provinces of Cordoba, San Luis, Santiago del Estero and Santa Fe's capital city of the same name, forecasters said. In the central-western region, "this is the worst weather disaster we have seen in the past 50 years," said Cordoba governor Jose Manuel de la Sota.

His province alone has seen at least seven people killed and 1,000 evacuated in the past two weeks. In San Luis province "there are families who have lost everything," said Facundo Dominguez, mayor of Concaran.

Global rainfall satellites require massive overhaul

Space Daily via SPX: Circling hundreds of miles above Earth, weather satellites are working round-the-clock to provide rainfall data that are key to a complex system of global flood prediction. A new Cornell University study warns that the existing system of space-based rainfall observation satellites requires a serious overhaul. Particularly in many developing countries, satellite-based flood prediction has weak spots, which could lead to major flooding that catches people by surprise. What's more, four of the 10 dedicated rainfall satellites are past their warranty, further increasing risk of disaster.

The study, published online Feb. 11 in Environmental Research Letters, is led by Patrick Reed, professor of civil and environmental engineering, in collaboration with researchers at Princeton University and the Aerospace Corporation.

"It's important for us to start thinking as a globe about a serious discussion on flood adaptation, and aiding affected populations to reduce their risks," Reed said. "We want to give people time to evacuate, to make better choices, and to understand their conditions."

In their study, Reed and colleagues showed that even assuming all 10 satellites are working well and perfectly coordinated, rainfall data still has many deficits across the globe, including in areas vulnerable to flood risk. Removing the four satellites that have surpassed their design life dramatically increases these deficits, possibly leading to high-intensity flood events to go unobserved.

The study was not all bad news. Reed and colleagues also demonstrated that replacing as few as two of the four satellites past their design life could help close these gaps considerably....

Typhoon Songda in 2011, via NASA

More Malawi floods in the next two weeks

Yamikani Yapuwa and Memory Kutengule in AllAfrica.com via Malawi News Agency:  The Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services has warned of high rainfall amounts which will eventually trigger flash floods and flooding in potential flood prone districts in the next two weeks. Director of Climate Change and Meteorological Services Jolam Nkhokwe said the trend is as a result of the activeness of Congo air mass coupled with a low pressure area in the Mozambique Channel.

He said: "Our two main rain bearing systems which are the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and Congo air mass coupled with a low pressure area located in the Mozambique Channel remain active. "This will consequently cause wide spread rainfall associated with high rainfall amounts. The high rainfall amounts cumulatively are expected to trigger flash floods and flooding in potential flood prone districts such as, Nsanje, Chikhwawa, Phalombe, Mangochi, Salima, Nkhata bay and Karonga," warned Nkhokwe.

Nkhokwe further warned that during this period severe thunderstorms are expected and would be accompanied by strong winds and lighting because of the accumulation of heat energy in the atmosphere. "The general public is therefore being advised to be indoors during periods of severe thunderstorms to avoid lighting strikes and should take caution when crossing swelling rivers," cautioned Nkhokwe.

And Assistant District Disaster and Risk Management Officer for Blantyre, Alibewake Maulawo has disclosed to Malawi News Agency that at least 561 households in Blantyre District have been affected by the stormy rains since October last year....

Locator map of Malawi by TUBS, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Nine deaths in Mozambique's torrential rains

AllAfrica.com via Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique: At least nine people died on Saturday morning when torrential rains struck the northern Mozambican port city of Nacala, according to a report on the independent television station, STV. The storm also swept away over 60 houses, mostly built of flimsy materials and severely damaged roads in the city.

The nine deaths were caused by lightning strikes, and by the collapse of a warehouse wall on top of adjacent houses. The collapse caused the deaths of five people from the same household. There were two survivors who are receiving medical care at the local health centre.

The clinical director of Nacala district hospital, Marciana Machatine, said that of the injured people who were taken to the hospital, one had died, but the others were recovering. “Their clinical state is stable”, she said, “but even so they must remain hospitalized for the time being”.

Machatine took the opportunity to urge Nacala households to cover their homes with zinc sheeting rather than with thatch to make them more resistant during storms. Most of the traditional houses in Nacala have walls made of mud bricks, and are covered with thatch. They are always in danger of collapse during heavy rains....

The beach in Nacala, Mozambique, shot by Stig Nygaard Stig Nygaard, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Improving forecasts for rain-on-snow flooding

Hannah Hickey at University of Washington Today: Many of the worst West Coast winter floods pack a double punch. Heavy rains and melting snow wash down the mountains together to breach riverbanks, wash out roads and flood buildings. These events are unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Yet they will become more common as the planet warms and more winter precipitation falls as rain rather than snow.

...Most of the largest floods on record in the western U.S. are associated with rain falling on snow. But it’s not that the rain is melting or washing away the snow. Instead, it’s the warm, humid air surrounding the drops that is most to blame for the melting, Wayand said. Moisture in the air condenses on the cold snow just like water droplets form on a cold drink can
. The energy released when the humid air condenses is absorbed by the snow. The other main reason is that rainstorms bring warmer air, and this air blows across the snow to melt its surface. His work support previous research showing that these processes provide 60 to 90 percent of the energy for melting.

Places that experience rain-on-snow flooding are cities on rivers that begin in the mountains, such as Sacramento, California, and Centralia, Washington. In the 1997 New Year’s Day flood in Northern California, melting snow exacerbated flooding, which broke levees and caused millions of dollars in damage. The biggest recent rain-on-snow event in Washington was the 2009 flood in the Snoqualmie basin. And the Calgary flood in summer of 2013 included snow from the Canadian Rockies that caused rivers to overflow their banks.

The UW researchers developed a model by recreating the 10 worst rain-on-snow flooding events between 1980 and 2008 in three regions: the Snoqualmie basin in Washington state, the upper San Joaquin basin in central California and the East North Fork of the Feather River basin in southern California.

Their results allow them to gauge the risks for any basin and any incoming storm. The three factors that matter most, they found, are the shape of the basin, the elevation of the rain-to-snow transition before and during the storm, and the amount of tree cover. Basins most vulnerable to snowmelt are treeless basins with a lot of area within the rain-snow transition zone, where the precipitation can fall as snow and then rain....

The Centre Street Bridge in Calgary, Alberta, during the 2013 floods, shot by Ryan L. C. Quan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

17 dead, nearly 100 missing in Indonesian landslide

Terra Daily: Torrential downpours triggered a landslide on Indonesia's main island of Java, killing at least 17 people and leaving nearly 100 others missing, with persistent rain hampering rescue efforts, officials said Saturday.

Hundreds of rescuers were digging with shovels through mud and rubble after the landslide buried scores of houses in Jemblung village in central Java late Friday, the national disaster agency said. The landslide swept down a hillside in the village, sparing only two houses, an AFP correspondent said.

"The rescue team have found 17 bodies," the national disaster agency's spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, told AFP, adding that 11 others were badly injured and rescuers were searching for 91 people still missing. The disaster agency said that 200 rescuers and 500 volunteers had joined the search for the missing....

Locator map of Java by Jeanot, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

California residents braced for floods and mudslides as rain sweeps state

Amanda Holpunch in the Guardian (UK): A Pacific storm is sweeping through California, providing the drought-stricken state with a brief respite from its arid conditions but triggering fears of mudslides and floods. The downpour, however, will put a minor dent in the three-year drought and comes with mudslide evacuations, traffic hazards and concerns that it could give a misleading impression of the state’s water conditions.

The Los Angeles region could experience its heaviest rainfall in two years. The National Weather Service predicted that up to six inches could fall in the southern part of the state by the end of Wednesday. Authorities on Tuesday issued a mandatory evacuation for 75 homes in Camarillo Springs, about 50 miles north of Los Angeles. The order was lifted at 6pm, though people were urged to voluntarily stay out of their homes. Voluntary evacuation notices were also issued to dozens of other homes in southern California.

San Francisco’s famed cable cars had to shut down during the downpour. The California highway patrol reported an increase in traffic hazards and a large number of car crashes in the Bay Area. Many flights in the region were delayed because of the rain.

Sacramento received 0.53 inches of rain on Tuesday, and was due for another half-inch into Wednesday. Over the next few days, more than four inches of rain are expected in the mountainous parts of the state.

Flash-flood warnings were issued to in parts of El Dorado and Placer counties because of the quick pace of the rain storm. These regions were beset by the King Fire, which covered more than 150 square miles and brought in firefighters from other states including Alaska and Florida. The state has launched projects to fight erosion of the devastated land...

The Golden Gate through the rain drops. A beautiful shot by Brocken Inaglory Brocken Inaglory, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0

Drying of Botswana's Gaborone dam due to insufficient rain

Mmoniemang Motsamai in AllAfrica.com via the Daily News (Botswana): Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Kitso Mokaila has told Parliament that the drying up of Gaborone Dam and its inability to accumulate water was a result of insufficient rain in Gaborone and its catchment areas. "The fact that there had been no rains here and certainly the history of rainfall in Gaborone can be confirmed by Metrological Services", said Mr Mokaila.

He also brushed aside sentiments that small dams up stream could be responsible for the drying up of the Gaborone Dam, saying, instead such dams had been a blessing in disguise because they had been depositing water into the dam.

The Gaborone Dam is currently at 5.4 per cent, yielding 14 million litres of water a day, but had the capacity to yield 88 million litres of water a day. "And maybe in the next two weeks it will be dry and we won't be able to extract anything out of it," the minister said.

He further told MPs that when government realised the need for standardised water issues, it took a decision to give Water Utilities Corporation the authority to supply water to the nation. He said at the time, WUC was supplying water to main towns from dams and that councils were using boreholes to supply water to individual villages with water affairs doing the same.

Mr Mokaila said, however, that the charges were not standard to all the areas and it was imperative for one authority to do so. For example; he said Molepolole was paying P2.60 per kilo-litre while Selebi Phikwe was paying P1.30.

With regards to the provision of water in the southern region, he said government went a step further to negotiate with states along the Zambezi River for Botswana to source water from the Zambezi River to water the Kgalagadi-Tsabong area....

NASA image of the Gaborone Dam in Botswana, shot from the International Space Station

Italy faces billion euro bill for killer rainfall

Terra Daily via AFP: Torrential rain drenched northern Italy again Monday as the damage suffered by just one of the regions hit by floods and landslides was put at one billion euros ($1.25 billion).

In Sesto Calende, a small town near Lake Maggiore and the Swiss border, the central square resembled a giant pond, a handful of sandbags doing a poor job of preventing the water from soaking the ground floors of houses and businesses. "It is a nationwide problem caused by decades of neglect and poor governance," said one resident, Mauro, with a resigned shrug.

A total of 12 people have died in weather-related accidents in northern Italy since mid-October. Three deaths at the weekend included a pensioner and his granddaughter who were buried alive when a landslide hit their house on the shores of Maggiore in the early hours of Sunday morning, the third tragedy of its type in less than a week.

Claudio Burlando, the president of the Liguria region, which includes the entire Italian Riviera, said the damage incurred on his patch alone in the last month now exceeded one billion euros.

Apart from the clean-up costs, millions of euros worth of crops have been destroyed and many fields rendered unsuitable for grazing or planting, while motorways and other infrastructure, including a Genoa cemetery where zinc coffins were washed away at the weekend, will have to be repaired at public expense.

Most costly of all, the water-management systems which have proved incapable of dealing with exceptional conditions will have to be upgraded....

Sesto Calende on the Ticino River, shot by Markus Bernet,Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Mudslides kill four along Swiss-Italian border

Yahoo News via AFP: At least four people were killed as landslides triggered by torrential rain slammed into houses and buildings on either side of the Swiss Italian border Sunday, police and media said. In the rain-drenched southern Ticino region of Switzerland, two people died and four were injured when a mudslide slammed into a small residential building, regional police said.

On the other side of the border, a pensioner and his granddaughter were killed when another landslide engulfed a house on the Italian shores of Lake Maggiore, local media reported. Three other family members survived.

Those landslides were the latest of many to recently have hit northern Italy and southern Switzerland amid incessant rainfall over recent weeks. They also came a day after storms in southern France killed six people, including a mother and her two small sons whose car was swept away in flooding.

In Switzerland, the bodies of two local women, aged 34 and 38, were pulled Sunday from the rubble of the three-story apartment building in Davesco-Soragno, near Lugano, after being hit by the mudslide shortly before 2:30 am (0130 GMT), Ticino police said.

Another resident had returned home after the landslide hit and was unharmed, but police said they were still searching the area to make sure no one else was under the rubble. The tragedy came 10 days after a young mother and her three-year-old daughter were killed when a landslide swept away their house in the same region...

A foggy road near Ticino, shot by Luca Casartelli, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

New forecasting method for predicting extreme floods in the Andes mountains

A press release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: Predicting floods following extreme rainfall in the central Andes is enabled by a new method. Climate change has made these events more frequent and more severe in recent decades. Now complex networks analysis of satellite weather data makes it possible to produce a robust warning system for the first time, a study to be published in the journal Nature Communications shows. This might allow for improved disaster preparedness. As the complex systems technique builds upon a mathematical comparison that can be utilised for any time series data, the approach could be applied to extreme events in all sorts of complex systems.

“Current weather forecast models cannot capture the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events, yet these events are of course the most dangerous, and can have severe impacts for the local population, for example major floods or even landslides,” says lead author Niklas Boers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “Using complex networks analysis, we now found a way to predict such events in the South American Andes.”

When the monsoon hits South America from December to February, it brings moist warm air masses from the tropical Atlantic. Travelling westwards, these winds are blocked by the steep Andes mountains, several thousand metres high, and turn southwards. Under specific air pressure conditions, the warm air masses, loaded with moisture, meet cold and dry winds approaching from the south. This leads to abundant rainfa
ll at high elevations, resulting in floods in the densely populated foothills of the Bolivian and Argentinian Andes. “Surprisingly, and in contrast to widespread understanding so far, these events propagate against the southward wind direction,” says Boers.

The international team of scientists performed a ‘Big Data’ analysis of close to 50,000 high-resolution weather data time series dating from the 15 years since high quality satellite data became available, generated by NASA together with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. “We found that these huge rainfall clusters start off in the area around Buenos Aires, but then wander northwestward towards the Andes, where after two days they cause extreme rainfall events”, says Boers. The new method makes it possible to correctly predict 90 percent of extreme rainfall events in the Central Andes occurring during conditions of the El Niño weather phenomenon when floods are generally more frequent, and 60 percent of those occurring under any other conditions....

The Andes between Chile and Argentina, shot by Jorge Morales Pideri, public domain

Central African Republic faces insecurity, logistics challenges as rains set in

UN News Centre: Due to the rainy season in the Central African Republic (CAR), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it is facing a double challenge of insecurity and logistical constraints.

“Heightened insecurity in some areas of the country has resulted in postponed or halted distributions by the WFP and other organisations due to the volatility of the situation,” explained WFP spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs.

Recently, significant security-related events occurred in central parts of the country – particularly within the Bambari-Sibut-Dekoa area. Ms. Byrs elaborated, “There have been substantial movements of armed elements to and from Bambari and rumours of strategic attacks from one militia gro
up, triggering counter attacks from other elements in these areas. Insecurity also remains in Batangafo and Boda.”

In total, six primary and secondary at-risk axes were identified in the west, central and north of the country. “In the past three months, overall nationwide incidents related to access had increased by 38 per cent,” Ms. Byrs informed. Despite those challenges, WFP had distributed 4,800 metric tonnes for approximately 400,000 people in August, corresponding to 95 per cent of planned distributions for the month.

A consignment of 40 KAMAZ trucks – one of the world’s largest vehicles – were currently on their way to help deliver life-saving food to hundreds of thousands of hungry people in the Central African Republic. Russia donated the trucks, valued at $2.7 million, to WFP’s Afghanistan operation. In 2013, Russia contributed $50 million to support agency operations in 18 countries....

NASA image of Bangui in the Central African Republic

Reduced rains affect food security in Kenya

AllAfrica.com via the UN World Food Program: Below average rains, increased food prices and conflicts, have contributed to a 15 percent increase in the number of people requiring food assistance. A Long Rains food security assessment recently released by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) estimates that 1.5 million people are acutely food insecure and will require immediate food assistance over the next six months (September 2014 - February 2015). This is almost double the 850,000 that were in need during the same period last year.

With the peak of the lean season yet to set in, and the next rains expected in mid-October, the food and nutrition security situation will likely worsen, prompting the need for urgent response. The poor rains resulted in below-average crop production and weak recovery of rangeland conditions.

In pastoral and agro pastoral areas, forage conditions were fair to poor with 70 percent to 80 percent of ground water sources reported to be exhausted. The current areas of concern include parts of Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir, Mandera, Samburu, Baringo and West Pokot. In the Arid areas the large majority of counties have general acute malnutrition (GAM) rates that are critical (>15%) or very critical (>
20%) and this is a significant deterioration compared to last year.

WFP is currently providing general food distributions (GFD) to 530,000 people in Kenya. That number will rise based on the current situation. WFP is also providing cash and food assistance to 700,000 vulnerable people in order for them to build assets at household and community levels which enhance their resilience to shocks. Support focuses on rainwater harvesting for crop and livestock production, rehabilitation of degraded land, and increased production of drought-tolerant and high value cash crops....

Yarey Abdi iIobe lives in Shabantaabaq village, without rain for two and a half years and about 80% of the cattle have died. The village population has almost doubled in recent months with an influx of families arriving in search of food and water: "My husband is old and he cannot eat the grains. We need something soft like milk but it is no longer available. Here are quite a number of families in the village who are malnourished. Without the aid we are getting we would be dead." Photo by Oxfam East Africa, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Bangladesh floods test disaster response improvements

IRIN: Floods triggered by two weeks of intense rain have affected two million people in northern Bangladesh and left up to half a million homeless. While the country’s disaster response capacity has been enhanced in recent years, experts argue that with people displaced and crops destroyed the flooding is testing response mechanisms.

"Improvement has been made in regard to flood forecasting system but there is still lack of coordination among government agencies," Mahbuba Nasreen, director of the Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies at Dhaka University, told IRIN.

A 31 August situation report by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief said 17 of the country’s 64 districts have been affected. Six of these districts are expected to experience rising water levels this week, and Dhaka, the capital and home to 15 million people, may see flooding as well. NGOs estimate that the floods have left 500,000 homeless and, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), “others, who have nowhere else to go, have remained in their flooded homes.”

Nasreen explained that part of the remaining weakness is due to Bangladesh’s Water Development Board being responsible for building and repairing embankments, which protect against floods, while the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief is responsible for reacting to disasters. This, she argued, results in lack of coordination between the two agencies. "One organization should look after the whole thing," she said. "There are still lots of things to do to improve [the] country's disaster response."...

Concerned scientists tell the UN: hunger will never be eradicated without better rainwater management

Worldwaterweek.org: The world is missing a chance to eradicate hunger and poverty for billions of people living in regions with variable and scarce rainfall. Without improved management of rainwater, the future development goals currently being discussed are unrealistic, say leading scientists.

Some of the world’s leading water, environment and resilience scientists and experts today publish a call to the UN, saying that rain, and the way it is managed, is what will determine whether hunger and poverty can be eradicated in the world.

The call was made at the onset of World Water Week in Stockholm – the leading annual meeting place for water and development issues.

The scientists, including Professor Malin Falkenmark of Stockholm International Water Institute/Stockholm Resilience Centre andProfessorJohan Rockström of Stockholm Resilience Centre, are “deeply concerned that sustainable management of rainfall in water scarce regions of the world is missing in the goals and targets proposed by the UN Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Poverty (Goal 1), Hunger (Goal 2) and Freshwater (Goal 6).

More than two billion people live in some of the driest and poorest areas of the world, also home to the fastest growing populations. These regions depend on highly variable, unreliable and unpredictable rainfall. When it rains, it pours, making agriculture extremely challenging. However, over time these areas do receive enough rain, and with better methods of using the rainwater, food production could be drastically improved.

Attempting to eradicate global poverty and hunger without addressing the productivity of rain “is a serious and unacceptable omission”, and the Sustainable Development Goals as currently proposed “cannot be achieved without a strong focus on sustainable and resilient management of rainfall for resilient food production” the scientists say.

The signatories call upon the United Nations to add a target on rainwater management to any Hunger Goal in the Sustainable Development Goals, which are to be agreed on in 2015....

Climate change adaptation can help promote sub-Saharan African livelihoods

UN News Centre: Investing in ways to adapt to climate change will promote the livelihood of 65 per cent of Africans, the United Nations environmental agency reported, warning also that failing to address the phenomenon could reverse decades of development progress on the continent.

Africa’s population is set to double to 2 billion by 2050, the majority of whom will continue to depend on agriculture to make a living, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “With 94 per cent of agriculture dependent on rainfall, the future impacts of climate change – including increased droughts, flooding, and seal-level rise – may reduce crop yields in some parts of Africa by 15 - 20 per cent,” UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said. “Such a scenario, if unaddressed, could have grave implications for Africa’s most vulnerable states,” he added.

In a new graphical report, Keeping Track of Adaptation Actions in Africa (KTAA) - Targeted Fiscal Stimulus Actions Making a Difference, UNEP details the implications of climate change, and provides examples of adaptation projects that range from forest ecosystem management to aquatics and agriculture.

The report describes sustainable examples of how countries in sub-Saharan Africa enhanced environmental and ecosystem resilience through the use of native plants and natural infrastructure, land plans and rainwater harvesting, among other examples.

The projects are integrated into national development policies which can strengthen and enhance the resilience communities against the impacts of climate change, while also contributing to the realization of the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to the report authors....