Use Case: E-link Consult Limited

Collecting data from equipment installed by WARIDI along the Wami River. Photo credit: USAID/WARIDI

SERVIR Hub: SERVIR-Eastern and Southern Africa (E&SA)

Geographic Location: Chalinze District, Tanzania

User Background: E-link Consult Limited is an environmental consultancy firm based in Tanzania with experience in natural resources assessment and management, socioeconomic analysis, forestry assessment, agriculture, food security, livelihoods analysis, and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Ms. Shukuru Nyagawa, Director at E-Link, has expertise in natural resources, the environment, climate change, and gender. At the firm, Ms. Nyagawa focuses on project evaluations with organizations as well as climate change, adaptation, resilience, and empowerment efforts with a variety of organizations in Tanzania, including the USAID-funded Water Resources Integration Development Initiative (WARIDI).

E-link Consult Limited, represented by Ms. Nyagawa, co-developed a series of Vulnerability Impact Assessments (VIA) trainings conducted by SERVIR-E&SA to assist the WARIDI program in climate vulnerability analysis for programming interventions in the Wami Ruvu and Rufiji basins. Organized and facilitated by SERVIR-E&SA, these trainings provided participants with knowledge on data management and climate vulnerability mapping. Through this capacity building exercise, Ms. Nyagawa was able to acquire skills on how to conduct a climate vulnerability assessment using Earth Observation data and apply knowledge from the WARIDI interventions to a similar study in Chalinze District.

Service Summary: The Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Assessments Service assesses climate change impacts on vulnerable communities, water resources and ecosystems in order to better address resilience building activities. The service provides data, maps, and information on vulnerability hotspots to decision makers in government and non-government agencies so that they can prioritize resilience-building programs for the most vulnerable areas. This service integrates remote sensing data, including rainfall and temperature trends and variability from CHIRPS and CHIRTSmax; socio-economic dynamics, such as living standards; and environmental data, such as soil health and trends in land cover and land use to produce vulnerability indices in the form of maps. These timely satellite-derived products provide a more complete and holistic assessment of the regional landscape by showing areas, or "hotspots", which are experiencing a combination of climate and environmental related stresses, and socio-economic pressure. The derived information is then integrated by the end users into decision-making processes to support water security planning, the protection of community livelihoods, and biodiversity conservation.

The climate vulnerability mapping activity in Tanzania was implemented by the Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Assessments Service team to assist the WARIDI program with strategic programmatic planning in the Wami Ruvu and Rufiji basins. SERVIR-E&SA’s collaboration with WARIDI involved convening a co-development team of technical specialists from national and subnational agencies, who SERVIR-E&SA trained on the process of mapping climate vulnerability using an integrated approach.

Situation: Climate change poses a serious risk to poverty reduction efforts and threatens to undo decades of development in many countries, including Tanzania. This challenge is more evident in Chalinze District, which is located within the coastal region of Tanzania. Like many other coastal areas in the country, Chalinze District is faced with immediate climate change threats, including rising sea levels and stronger, more destructive coastal storms and floods. In recent years, there has been a significant shift in the climatic seasons, which has negatively impacted the communities’ livelihoods and economies.

Given these increasing risks, Chalinze District Council contracted researchers at E-link Consult Limited to conduct a vulnerability assessment in the district in order to more clearly understand these climate impacts. However, very few assessments had been conducted within the region and it was necessary for researchers to upskill and have access to more reliable data.

User Need: E-Link Consult Limited had previously engaged in a variety of development opportunities in the Chalinze District region in the areas of climate change and community development initiatives. However, E-link’s climate change assessments relied heavily on data collection field visits, which were often labor-intensive and time-consuming. Requests to meteorological agencies to acquire rainfall data, as well as other datasets, proved to be challenging, which made it difficult to conduct comprehensive climate change assessments and analyses.

Chalinze District required climate change scientific data and information that would advance the understanding and knowledge of climate change hazards, impacts and vulnerabilities. Such an assessment was needed so that relevant development organizations and agencies could target resilience efforts and, thereby, enhance the livelihoods of local communities.

E-Link first participated in a series of SERVIR E&SA’s VIA (Vulnerability Impact Assessment) trainings, which was designed to support the WARIDI program. Through these trainings, E-Link acquired new skills, knowledge, and methodologies and employed the use of more robust Earth Observation data that could identify and analyze vulnerable hotspot areas in the Chalinze District.

User Quote:

"The experience and knowledge acquired was enormous. We have participated in making dreams come true for the newly-formed district like Chalinze to develop a localized VIA report, which will inform future development of this area and the nation at large. We are proud to be part of the stakeholders contributing to the scientific body of climate change knowledge in this regard."

– Shukuru Nyagawa, E-link Consult Limited

Example of Use: During the implementation of the WARIDI program, SERVIR-E&SA provided technical support and capacity building on climate change assessments and analysis in the Wami Ruvu and Rufiji water basins. The overall process was led by a co-development team, which comprised of technical specialists. Along with other government and non-governmental institutions, E-link Consult Limited was selected to be part of the co-development team.

E-Link then participated in a series of capacity building workshops as indicated below:

March 27-31, 2017: The first training was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The objective of this workshop was to provide comprehensive training on the framework, data and methods utilized to develop a spatial climate change vulnerability index via the spatial index approach.
April 17-21, 2017: The second workshop was held in Morogoro, Tanzania, with the objective of developing a series of community climate change vulnerability hotspot maps using data collected by national agencies after the first data management training workshop.
May 29-June 9, 2017: The third workshop was held in Morogoro, Tanzania. This final workshop was successful in creating vulnerability maps for the diverse sectors including: communities, water, and agriculture and food security. E-link, along with other stakeholders, participated in the development of these vulnerability maps, which included identification of drivers of vulnerability, selection of indicators and validation of end products.

After these trainings, E-link incorporated both primary and secondary data into its own research. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) contributed quantitative secondary data at the national level, while the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources of Development (RCMRD), Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNFCCD), and Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (as well as the Landsat and Sentinel satellites) contributed quantitative secondary data at the international level. Qualitative data was gathered through district-level stakeholder discussions.

Outcome of Use: Through the participation of these SERVIR-E&SA VIA trainings, E-link was able to acquire skills in data management and the processing of Earth Observation data, which included CHIRPS rainfall data – a metric that is used to derive rainfall indicators and landcover data via Landsat images. E-Link also increased skills on vulnerability mapping and analysis using the R statistical package to develop vulnerability products.

In 2019, E-link, utilizing data from national and international organizations and leveraging the skills and knowledge acquired from attending the three SERVIR-E&SA trainings, conducted a nine-month climate change vulnerability assessment in Chalinze District.

Using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework as a guide, E-link focused on three VIA areas, including (1) climate exposure, (2) sensitivity and (3) adaptive capacity. This resulted in the development of a community climate vulnerability index and a water resources climate vulnerability index.

Below are the results from the analysis of the three assessment components

Climate Exposure: The central locations of the Chalinze District – specifically Kimange, Msata, Talawanda, and Miona wards – had the greatest exposure to climate change impacts.
Sensitivity: The most sensitive areas included Talawanda, Pera, Vigwaza, and Mkange wards.
Adaptive Capacity: Both the Bwilingu and Mandera wards had the highest adaptive capacity compared to the others.

By averaging and rescaling the values of the three assessment components, an overall vulnerability assessment indicated that the Talawanda and Kimange wards were the most vulnerable.

Upon completing the assessment, E-Link generated informative maps to highlight climate vulnerability areas and VIA hotspots in the district. Through these maps, E-link identified vulnerable communities and set up workshops to train community members on how climate change impacts are directly linked to development activities and how they could adapt to the inherent challenges of climate change. Throughout this process, E-link remained engaged with SERVIR-E&SA for ongoing guidance with respect to data collection and scientific methodology being used throughout the region.

For Chalinze District, conducting a vulnerability assessment and mapping hotspots was an important exercise, as it will help to inform decision makers on project interventions, especially those related to adaptation. These assessments can then be leveraged as a resources mobilization tool when engaging partners within the Chalinze District Council.

In addition to the community-based workshops, E-link organized site visits for Chalinze District Officers to help build capacity by sharing the findings of the VIA report and the intersections of climate change and development. These site visits, which included the Kaloleni Village, Ubenazomozi Village, Lugoba Village, Ruvu River and Wami River, helped officers understand the results of the six specific environmental and economic sectors that were addressed in the study:

Agriculture: Chalinze District relies primarily on rain-fed agriculture, while very few farmers employ irrigation measures. Qualitative feedback from the district agriculture officer suggests that rainfall distribution within the district has been variable and that more periods of drought have occurred. Areas of the district have also endured crop disease and frequent flooding, which have impacted crop yields and resulted in food shortages.
Forests: Many of the forests within Chalinze District have been degraded resulting from the demand for charcoal, agriculture encroachment, and settlement of new areas.
Water: Many sources of water in the Chalinze District have now dried up, while those that continue to flow experience a decrease in volume.
Livestock: Due to the increase in drought events, the livestock sector – specifically animal productivity and the quality of pasture – has been negatively impacted. This has resulted in more men abandoning their families, a decrease in household income, and more disagreements between farmers and livestock owners.
Land: The land within the Chalinze District has suffered due to a variety of stressors including poor settlement planning, deforestation, unregulated mining and agricultural activities, and the oscillations between flooding and droughts.
Mining: Most of the mining activities within Chalinze District focus on sand and gravel extraction, which is used to support construction projects across the region. Open pits and quarries are poorly planned and prompt the development of ad hoc settlements. When these extraction and settlement sites are abandoned, flooding leads to the percolation of contaminated water into underground water sources.

Chalinze District Council climate change vulnerability impact assessment
and hotspot mapping report. (Map Credit: E-link Consult Limited)

Future Collaborations: E-link Consult Limited and SERVIR-E&SA continue to collaborate with SERVIR providing ongoing support to E-Link for climate assessments, the improvement of climate data and services, and the mapping and knowledge of geospatial data. This collaboration will continue to produce more robust climate risk assessments in the region.