Accra, Nov. 27, - Stakeholders
have joined efforts to investigate the impact of flooding and extreme heat on
urban infrastructure and its resultant effects on the livelihoods of poor urban
residents in the country.
The project titled “Vulnerability
to Extreme Weather Events in Cities (VEWEC)”, seeks to investigate and suggest
adaptive ways of mitigating the challenges that comes with extreme weather
events such as flooding and extreme heat.
The cities of Accra and Tamale,
with their differing climates, urban form and size, infrastructure and
governance systems, would provide contrasting cases within one national context
for the project.
At a stakeholder workshop held in
Accra, Professor Sam Agyei-Mensah, the Provost of College of Humanities at the
University of Ghana (UG), said the project was a laudable idea because of the
interlinkages between the key sectors.
Professor Agyei-Mensah, who is
also the Project Advisor sharing his experiences from London, South East Asia
and Uganda, reiterated that the VEWEC project provided a good context to
salvage negatives of extreme weather events.
He said much was known about what
was happening elsewhere but in Accra, not much was known about the extreme
weather events and it was the time to hold such discussions.
He said it is significant that
stakeholders were looking at water, electricity and health in an
inter-connected investigation.
Dr Ebenezer Amankwa of the
Department of Geography and Resource Development at UG said the 16-month
project which would commence investigations in January 2018 started on
September 1.
He said at the end of the
project, lives would be saved because “we are going to predict rainfall
patterns, people will be more aware of when rains maybe coming in, they can be
more prepared and at least they can be more proactive in their mitigation and
adaptive strategies.”
Dr Amankwa said “we are going to
improve infrastructure performance once we know the type of infrastructure that
are affected by these extreme weather events”.
At least we can also inform
service providers as to how to manage some of the services and how much
rainfall can affect some of these infrastructures.
At the end of everything, we are
looking at how all these things are affecting people's livelihood and so once
we are able to be more prepared, we can assist with the way people can go on
with their businesses and have their daily means of survival,” Dr Amankwa said.
He said the overriding goal was
to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, with the idea of making the
world a safer place for humanity.
Professor Katherine Gough of the
Loughborough University in the United
Kingdom (UK) said the main aims of the project were; to refine methods for mapping ‘hotspots’ of
vulnerability and predicting flooding and extreme heat in cities by drawing on
existing climate data.
She said it was also to among
others examine the impact of flooding and extreme heat on water, electricity
and health services and analyse the impact of reduced service levels during
extreme weather events on the income-generating activities of the urban poor.
The Project Investigators are;
Professors Paul Yankson and Sam Codjoe, and Dr Amankwa of UG and Dr Raymond
Kasei of the University for Development Studies in Tamale.
The rest are; Professor Gough,
Professors Paula Griffiths, Rob Wilby and Dr Sam Kayaga all of the Loughborough
University in UK.
The Project Advisors are;
Professor David Simon of the Royal Holloway University in the UK and Professor
Agyei-Mensah.
GNA
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