Fifth CRIDA Seminar Focuses on Climate Risk Assessment for Hydropower

The fifth UNESCO-AGWA-ICIWaRM webinar in a series on Adaptation in an age of uncertainty: tools for climate-resilient water management approaches took place on Wednesday, 10 March 2021. It focused on the climate-water-energy nexus, drawing upon experiences and lessons learned in South Asia.

Presenters shared two different approaches to climate risk assessments recently applied in Sri Lanka and Nepal. The first presentation highlighted experience implementing a comprehensive analysis of infrastructure vulnerability in transport, water, and energy sectors by integrating a “top-down” climate science approach with a “bottom-up” stakeholder-driven approach in Sri Lanka’s Kelani River Basin. In the second presentation, speakers discussed their work assessing the future impacts of climate change on Nepal’s hydroelectricity sector and the associated findings.

Basin-wide outflow projections Kelani basin. CREDIT: Kelsey Harpham, ICEM
Basin-wide outflow projections Kelani basin. CREDIT: Kelsey Harpham, ICEM

Presentations were followed by an interactive panel discussion featuring questions from the audience.

The recorded seminar, along with the presentations and speaker bios, can be accessed at https://en.unesco.org/news/adaptation-age-uncertainty-tools-climate-resilient-water-management-approaches.