Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA)

Introduction

Over the last decade, climate change is accelerating and disrupting  national  economies  and  affecting  livelihoods,  particularly  through  the impact  on  water  and  water-related  hazards.  Adequate  planning  for  water  resources  management  is therefore at  the  heart  of  disaster  risk reduction, as defined by the Sendai Framework, and has been also integrated in the UN Sustainable Development  Goals. The  Paris  Agreement  highlights  the  importance  of  averting,  minimizing  and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, and the role of sustainable development in reducing the risk of loss and damage. It also requests  the  UN  agencies  to  support  their  Member  States  in  order  to  enhance action on adaptation, highlighting adequate planning for policy making, as well as the identification of adaptation strategies.

In this context, the CRIDA methodology was introduced as a multi-step process that embraces a participatory, bottom-up approach to identify water  security hazards, and is sensitive to indigenous and gender-related water vulnerabilities. By engaging local communities  in  the  design  of  the  analysis,  the  information  provided  by  scientific  modeling  and climate analysis can be tailored and thus provide more useful answers to the challenges they are facing.  They  are  also  providing  a  more  informed  starting  point  to  assess  the  different  options  for adaptation, and design robust adaptation pathways, in line with the local needs.

In October 2018, the book “Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA):  Collaborative Water Resources Planning for an Uncertain Future”, was launched at UNESCO in Paris.  This was the result of seven years of collaboration through technical exchanges, study pilots, and workshops between UNESCO-IHP, the International Centre for Integrated Water Resource Marnagement (ICIWaRM), Deltares, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), the Millennium Challenge Cooperation (MCC), the World Bank, and the University of Massachusetts.