Urban Climate Information Platform (u-CLIP)
The u-CLIP project will implement a digital platform containing detailed urban climate projections and associated sectoral indicators (e.g., number of heatwave days for the health sector, cooling degree days for the energy sector, etc.) for Niamey.
Overview of the project
Climate change projections point towards increasingly devastating heatwaves occurring in Africa in the coming decades. In cities, exposure to extreme heat is exacerbated by the phenomenon of urban heat islands, and poor housing conditions, inducing health and other impacts, and affecting vulnerable population groups in particular.
Yet, today, the formulation of effective climate resilience measures is strongly hampered by a lack of suitable and accessible urban climate information. The ambition of u-CLIP is to meet this data need, aiming to support the formulation of adequate resilience measures by policy makers and other stakeholders.
The u-CLIP project will implement a digital platform containing detailed urban climate projections and associated sectoral indicators (e.g., number of heatwave days for the health sector, cooling degree days for the energy sector, etc.) for Niamey.
The platform will be co-designed with representatives from the City of Niamey, and other stakeholders, including city quarter councils, youth organisations, urban planning professionals and other sectoral experts. Being openly accessible to anyone, the platform will be equipped with functionalities to explore and analyse the urban climate projections in a comprehensible manner.
While the project will initially focus on demonstrating the urban climate information platform for Niamey, it is our firm ambition to prepare, during the project’s later stages, a substantial upscaling towards other cities across the African continent.
https://www.wehubit.be/sites/default/files/2021-04/21%20VITO_FINAL_0.pdf
To implement an online urban climate information dashboard to support urban resilience measures.
implementation
project still in progress
The platform will provide historic data and future climate projections (horizons 2030, 2050, 2100), downscaled from data contained in the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS,) and from CORDEX-Africa.
Apart from basic climate data, the platform will contain derived sectoral climate indicators, such as health indices (number of heatwave days,) or indices for the energy sector (degree days,) and impact indicators, such as excess mortality, or cooling energy requirements.
Urban climate downscaling will be achieved by means of VITO’s UrbClim (urban climate simulation,) and GeoDynamix (urban growth) models, accounting for detailed land cover characteristics from satellite imagery and open data sources.
The main expected outcome is that urban stakeholders, by exploration of the u-CLIP platform’s data and scenarios, will be in a position to take better informed decisions with respect to urban adaptation policy, and the development of suitable and effective climate resilience measures.
Moreover, u-CLIP will be designed as an instrument to raise awareness, and support local authorities in gaining access to international climate funds, thus allowing to actually implement resilience measures.
The u-CLIP project is funded by Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency, within the WeHubit programme (digitalisation for sustainable development, see www.wehubit.be).
organisation
VITO is a leading international research and consulting centre. Its research agenda focuses on today’s major social challenges: climate change, food security, raw materials scarcity, a sustainable energy supply, and an ageing population.
The climate team at VITO aims to support governments and private sector organizations in becoming climate resilient. We do this by providing risk analysis and adaptation option information based on the most accurate climate information. Together with our clients we develop interactive climate services from local to global scales. Our proprietary urban climate model (“UrbClim”) is used in many of our projects.
in collaboration
Associate partner: City of Niamey (Département de l’Environnement et de l’Aménagement Paysager)