Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/R007047/1
Consensus forecasts: integrating indigenous knowledge with scientific weather and climate information to strengthen resilience to climate change.
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr C Audia, King's College London, Geography
- Grant held at:
- King's College London, Geography
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Climate & Climate Change
- Nat Resources, Env & Rural Dev
- Abstract:
- Climate change is having an impact on climate extremes in East and West Africa. Despite the large volume of climate and weather observational and modelled data, in indigenous communities in Burkina Faso, traditional weather forecasting still remains one of the main accessible and trusted sources of weather and climate information, due to a lack of usable and timely scientific climate information. The UK Meteorological Office (Met Office) as well NGOs and government bodies recognises the value of local observation systems and complementary frameworks for analysing weather and climate phenomenon, but have not been able to move towards using such frameworks as means to better communicate science derived or informed forecasts. The purpose of this project is for social science researchers to work with the Met Office to develop a set of tools, address a knowledge gap and document institutional best practices in reaching a consensus forecast to strengthen local communities' resilience to climate change. Recognising the importance of community based, collectively held indigenous knowledge and practices importance, the Met Office has compiled a data set of existing traditional forecasting practices in northern Burkina Faso (Gallo and Henley, 2017) as partners of the Zaman Lebidi Burkina Faso BRACED (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters) project. A brief qualitative analysis of this dataset has been realised but further work is needed to understand the use of the different indicators in communicating scientific climate information. This placement allows the expertise of King's College London (KCL) to assist the Met Office to place data on indigenous knowledge and forecast indicators in the socioeconomic and cultural context in order to make it useful and relevant for the climate scientists. The goal is to develop a tool, a participatory approach and best practices materials based on this work in Burkina Faso which can then be used by the Met Office in other areas and for work with other National Meteorological Services (NMS). The researchers will assist the Met Office in identifying the most useful and relevant indigenous indicators to highlight their importance and potential application as part of a process of co-production of a local "consensus forecast", a way to combine indigenous and scientific climate and weather information so that local rural populations can make informed decisions and achieve better livelihoods. The researchers will also document the evolving relationship between formal and informal institutions (e.g. the Met Office, NMS, communities and academia) through the lens of bricolage (Cleaver, 2012). The partnership between KCL and the Met Office is a way of applying social science research to help climate scientists make full use of available resources, contextualise them at local scales and integrate participatory approaches. The research will also look at potential future research needs that could be addressed through future NERC research. This could strengthen and improve long-term relationship between KCL and the Met Office. A potential outcome of this research is the identification of new ways of efficiently collaborating with NMS and a replicable process for creating consensus forecasts. The project will be further supported by a Climate Information Communication specialist to ensure relevance of the project at all steps and will be part of KCIRR (King's Centre for Integrated Research on Risk Resilience) hub to ensure that the links with the host organisation are embedded within the University to maximise the potential of continuing interactions. References: Gallo and Henley, Indigenous indicators used for seasonal forecasts in northern Burkina Faso, BRACED Zaman Lebidi Report, UK Met Office, 2017 Cleaver, F 2012, Development through bricolage: rethinking institutions for natural resource management. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/R007047/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Knowledge Exchange Fellowships
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Innovation Placements
This fellowship award has a total value of £57,662
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Exception - Other Costs | DI - Staff | Exception - T&S |
|---|---|---|
| £25,806 | £25,806 | £6,049 |
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