Climate Risk-based Decision Analysis (CRIDA)

Introduction

Through the AGWA network, an international community of practice for the application of bottom-up approaches to plan under deep uncertainty has steadily grown. This growth is indicative of the need for systematic guidance to develop long term planning under uncertainty and to come up with robust or resilience adaptation projects.

Several initiatives show the progressive uptake of CRIDA in decision-making processes. The UN Economic Commission for Europe highlights the use of CRIDA as part of their program of work for 2020-2022 to build capacity to increase resilience to climate change. The World Bank has institutionalized the application of the Decision Tree, to evaluate the resilience of their infrastructure investments, and what changes might be recommended. The Millennium Challenge Corporation successfully applied CRIDA to design robustness into a Lusaka water treatment plant in Zambia. A highly collaborative CRIDA approach was also used in the city of Udon Thani, Thailand for an investment strategy to enhance resilience to urban floods and droughts. The city is currently in the design and construction ($25 million) of a first phase, based on a recommendation from a CRIDA study, that integrates urban storm water storage and diversion with recreation at the downtown.Through continuous training and outreach, UNESCO-IHP is developing a global CRIDA community of practice. Translations of the CRIDA book in different languages also supports this effort.  

In the U.S., the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted a CRIDA study of the State Water Project (SWP) which delivers approximately 4.2 million acre-feet of water per year to more than 27 million Californian and over 750,000 acres of farmland. This study is published in the California Fourth Climate Change Assessment. A second pilot, supported during initial stages by the Institute for Water Resources, adopted the CRIDA approach to enhance flood and drought resilience in the Tuolumne River basin. This pilot established CRIDA’s capacity to support multi-objective decisions in large water resource systems with diverse federal, state and local interests. The DWR recently convened a conference highlighting this work, which focused on better integrating CRIDA style approaches and tools into the state’s long term water resource plans. CRIDA provided DWR a pragmatic framework to implement the California State Executive Order N-10-19 to prepare “a water resilience portfolio that meets the needs of communities, economy, and environment through the 21st century.”

An extensive CRIDA study has also been implemented in the Chilean agriculture-intensive Limari Basin, identifying adaptation options in a region heavily impacted by the recent mega-drought (2010-2020), as well as projected to become drier under climate change scenarios.

Asia

Colombo, Sri Lanka. Yasas Upeakshika Amilakumari Bandara. 2018. Collaborative Risk-Informed Decision Analysis for Climate Change Adaptation at Municipal Water Supply of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Asian Institute of Technology, master’s thesis.

Bangkok, Thailand. “Collaborative Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA): An Evaluation of Critical Thresholds for Bangkok Water Supply Utility. Ms. Rachel Koh, Asian Institute of Technology. Supervisor: Prof Mukand Singh Babel. http://apctt.org/sites/default/files/CRIDA-Presentation_Mukand-Babel.pdf

Philippines. Gilroy, Kristin and Jeuken, Ad. 2018. Collaborative Risk Informed Decision Analysis: A water security case study in the Philippines. Climate Services 11: 62-71.

Udon Thani, Thailand. Mendoza et al., in prep. Reducing flood risk through green infrastructure in Udon Thani, Thailand.  A highly collaborative CRIDA approach was used in the city of Udon Thani, Thailand for an investment strategy to enhance resilience to urban floods and droughts. The city is currently in the design and construction ($25 million) of a first phase (recommended from the CRIDA study) that integrates urban storm water storage and diversion with recreation at the downtown.

Latin American and the Caribbean

Colombia. Gómez-Dueñas, Santiago, Kristin Gilroy, Berry Gersonius and Michael McClain. 2018. Decision Making under Future Climate Uncertainty: Analysis of the Hydropower Sector in the Magdalena River Basin, Colombia. Aqua-LAC 10(2): 81-92.

Chile. Verbist, K. M. J., H. Maureira, P. Rojas and S. Vicuna. In press. A Stress Test for Climate Change Impacts on Water Security: a CRIDA Case Study. Climate Risk Management Journal. Article reference: CRM_CLRM_2019_150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2020.100222  

Verbist, K., Rojas, P. and H. Maureira. 2020. A Stress Test for Climate Change Impacts on Water Security - Case study from the Limarí Watershed in Chile. UNESCO, Paris, 45p.

Mexico. WWF-Mexico, AGWA, WWF, IHP, CAZALAC, CONAGUA, IDB. Eco-Engineering: “Examining Mexico’s Water Reserves Program as an Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Instrument” – “assess the role of water reserves in assisting natural and human systems as they adapt to climate change and to understand the role of water reserves as an adaptation tool for CONAGUA.” http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_mex_water_reserves_program.pdf . CONAGUA is implementing in 300 basins.

Guayaquil, Ecuador. Ongoing Deltares study. “Guayaquil invests in flood resilience and climate adaptation… Guayaquil is among the most vulnerable coastal delta-cities in the world and prone to urban flooding by intensive rainfall and high sea levels. Together with the municipality of Guayaquil, Deltares is leading a consortium that will improve the city’s resilience to urban flooding resulting in an adaptation strategy for future climate change. The main output will be an investment strategy for flood risk adaptation for the Febres Cordero neighbourhood, which has about 400.000 inhabitants…“Project activities include a bottom-up vulnerability assessment, the identification and evaluation of potential actions, the development of an adaptation strategy as well as an analysis for opportunities for upscaling towards other neighbourhoods and delta cities. The participative planning approach will be based on CRIDA (Collaborative Risk Informed Decision Analysis)…The Guayaquil Partners for Water project will be one of the first applications of this integrated approach.”

Africa

Zambia - Iolanda – https://www.mcc.gov/blog/entry/blog-031419-planning-in-uncertainty - “The intake structure at the Iolanda water treatment plant was rehabilitated under the Zambia compact. MCC’s pilot of the CRIDA approach examined investment decisions at Iolanda in light of uncertainties about future water availability.”

Tkach, M., J. Kucharski, J. Olszewski, R. Chaudhry, and G. Mendoza. In Press. A risk informed study to enhance water supply resilience of the Iolanda Water treatment plant in Zambia.

Europe

Sweden - Carstens, Christoffer, Karin Mossberg Sonnek, Riitta Räty, Per Wikman-Svahn, Annika Carlsson-Kanyama and Jonathan Metzger. 2019. Insights from Testing a Modified Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways Approach for Spatial Planning at the Municipal Level. Sustainability 2019, 11(2), 433; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11020433 . Uses a simplified form of Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) or CRIDA, which they cite 15 times.

Lower Rhine River. Extensive simulations by Deltares of the “Waas” River, based on the lower Rhine. Appears throughout Deltares literature.

North America

Lake Ontario–St. Lawrence. The International Lake Ontario–St. Lawrence River Study (March 2006) and the International Upper Great Lakes Study (March 2012)—led the International Joint Commission (IJC) to advise the U.S. and Canadian governments about long-term management of the North American Great Lakes in light of transboundary stakeholders and complex climate impacts. This advice included decisions on improved regulation of lake outflows and on infrastructural investments as well as the adoption of an adaptive management strategy to address uncertain impacts and potential extreme water levels (International Joint Commission 2013)…Large uncertainties remained. Indeed, a variety of hydrological parameters had data errors larger than the potential climate change signals. A process of adaptive management was recommended to establish a structured, iterative process of evaluation with the aim of reducing uncertainty over time and, if necessary, adjusting earlier management decisions. Therefore, the Great Lakes Adaptive Management (GLAM) Committee was created…

California. In the U.S., the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted a CRIDA study of the State Water Project (SWP) which delivers approximately 4.2 million acre-feet of water per year to more than 27 million Californian and over 750,000 acres of farmland. This study is published in the California Fourth Climate Change Assessment.

A second pilot, supported during initial stages by the Institute for Water Resources, adopted the CRIDA approach to enhance flood and drought resilience in the Tuolumne River basin. This pilot established CRIDA’s capacity to support multi-objective decisions in large water resource systems with diverse federal, state and local interests.

The DWR recently convened a conference highlighting this work, which focused on better integrating CRIDA style approaches and tools into the state’s long term water resource plans. CRIDA provided DWR a pragmatic framework to implement the California State Executive Order N-10-19 to prepare “a water resilience portfolio that meets the needs of communities, economy, and environment through the 21st century.”