UN-HABITAT initiative:

Improving climate change resilience of coastal cities

By Anuradha KODAGODA

To improve resilience to climate change in coastal cities in the country, the Norwegian Institute for water Research (NIVA) together with the University of Moratuwa, United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT), Batticaloa Municipal Council (BMC) and Negombo Municipal Council (NMC) have launched a project 'Climate Resilient Action Plans for Coastal Urban Areas, Sri Lanka (CCSL)'.

The project inauguration workshop was held on November 4 at the Galadari Hotel Colombo with the participation of the Minister of Environment Anura Priyadarshana Yapa and the Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Hilde Haraldstad.

The project will be implemented during the next twenty months in the Municipal Council areas of Batticaloa and Negombo.

The project is funded by the Nordic Climate Facility. Climate change initiatives and strategies from Europe, the Asia Pacific region including Sri Lanka as well as technical sessions on Climate Resilient Adaptation Strategies and Supporting Action Plans (CRASAPs) and water resource management and GIS rapid response systems were introduced by national and international specialists.

Practitioners on climate change, environment and urban development from Government agencies, development partners, academia and civil society participated at the workshop.

Prof. Harsha Ratnaweera, the Director of International Projects of NIVA said that as most of the coastal cities in Sri Lanka have experienced climate disasters during the recent years.

This initiative will focus on mitigating climate change risks in coastal cities through Disaster Risk Management (DRM).

Further he said that, 70 percent of Sri Lanka's urban population and 80 percent of its economic infrastructure networks are concentrated in coastal cities which are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such the rise in the sea level, flooding, storms, cyclones and droughts.

These disasters affect the urban poor communities who have no option but to live in vulnerable areas. Environment Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa said, "As we are aware the climate change which is the ultimate outcome of the global warming is now being universally recognized as the fundamental human development challenge of the twenty first century.

The intergovernmental panel on climate change has established that the climate change is taking place and global warming is the direct result of human action. Global warming increases the concentration of atmospheric Green House Gases (GHG).

The post-industrial era recorded a marked increase of GHG in the atmosphere.

Primarily fossil fuel burning and industrial emissions and various other human actions have contributed to such increases at alarming levels," the (CCSL) will be a momentous initiative to implement the adaptation measures in the coastal zone.

This project aims at settling up multi-purpose green belts to protect the lagoon and the coastal areas, restore the mangrove eco-system and coastal biodiversity in Batticaloa and Negombo Municipal Council areas; The process will be replicated in other coastal cities while climate change resilient approaches will be included in urban planning and budgetary frameworks," he said.

UN-HABITAT program Manager, Laxman Perera said that the CCSL project will contribute towards climate change, disaster preparedness of the cities of Negombo and Batticaloa and that the knowledge and lessons learned from this project would benefit other coastal cities in developing a climate resilience action plan.