DECCMA Project Overview

1. DEltas, vulnerability and Climate Change:
Migration and Adaptation (DECCMA)
Project Overview
Project Overview

2. Project Overview
Threatened DELTAS
(Ericson et al (2006); IPCC AR4, 2007)
Population potentially displaced by current sea-level trends to 2050
(Extreme >1 million; high =1 million-50,000; medium 50,000–5,000 people)
Global population in deltas is about 500 million people
THE PROBLEM:

3. Project Overview
Lecture 4. Climate change and
the integrated coastal system.
Wednesday 25 July 2007
Cyclones/
Marine
River Floods/ Sediment
Supply
Changing catchment
management
Sedimentation,
Tectonics,
Subsidence,
Fundamental
Population and
Economic
Change
NATURAL
PROCESSES
HUMAN
‘PROCESSES’
‘Global
Climate
Change’
Climate
Variability

4. Key Delta Characteristics
• Complex systems with large vulnerable populations
• Multiple drivers at multiple scales
• Rapid resultant change, including significant migration
• (Lack of political representation – not an automatic focus for policy)
• Climate change needs to be analysed in this dynamic context, including
established and emerging migration
• As climate change and sea-level rise increases, so the range of sustainable
adaptation choices diminishes
Project Overview

5. DECCMA Aims
Better understand in deltas:
1. migration processes, including the role of climate change
2. adaptation choices, with a focus on migration.
This will take a participatory and adaptive pathway approach that addresses
gender dimensions.
Project Overview

6. DECCMA Consortium
Four lead institutions:
Northern: University of Southampton, UK (Lead: Prof. Robert Nicholls)
Bangladesh: Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
(Lead: Prof. Munsur Rahman)
India: Jadavpur University (Lead: Prof. Sugata Hazra & Dr Tuhin Ghosh)
Ghana: University of Ghana (Lead: Prof. Samuel Codjoe)
Project Overview

7. Study sites
Project Overview
a b c
(a)Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, Bangladesh/India;
(b)Mahanadi delta, India;
(c)Volta delta, Ghana

8. Work Package
Structure
Project Overview
a b c

9. DECCMA Outcomes
The analysis will guide sustainable and equitable development of deltas
and will:
1. identify gender-differentiated stakeholder-relevant scenarios of
local/regional/delta level vulnerability to climate change;
2. identify options for effective climate adaptation by the poorest groups
in deltas; and
3. lead to the development of gender-sensitive adaptation funding
proposals in the four deltas.
Project Overview

10. This work was carried out under the Collaborative
Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia
(CARIAA), with financial support from the UK
Government’s Department for International
Development (DFiD) and the International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. The views expressed in
this work are those of the creators and do no
necessarily represent those of DFiD and IDRC or its
Board of Governors.
Website: www.deccma.com
Twitter: @deccma