About the project This project is a collaborative effort by EfD-CA and LACEEP at CATIE, and CEDE at the Universidad de los Andes, with generous financial support from IDRC’s Climate Change and Water program (CCW). It has a dual purpose of promoting research and capacity building on environmental economics of climate change (CC) and water in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC).
Climate change and water issues are closely linked. The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region is not the exception. Climate-change-induced extreme events have exacerbated risks associated to water issues in vulnerable areas of LAC. Weather in the region is dominated by storms that develop along the intertropical convergence zone and the subtropical high-pressure zone. These geographic characteristics generate heavy rainfall in a few days, hurricanes and tropical storms that often lead to heavy flooding. Estimating climate-change induced effects (e.g. changes in water availability and quality, migration, loss in production capability and infrastructure) is a complex task. Assessing most of these social phenomena requires understanding the interactions of several variables of different nature (socioeconomic, biophysical, political, risk analysis, etc.). Furthermore, the amount of uncertainty of how each community or individual will be affected complicate matters significantly and imposes significant barriers to design sound adaptation policies. In order to address these issues, rigorous economic analysis is required. Environmental economics tools could effectively contribute to addressing some of the questions posted before. An innovative and relevant empirical research agenda is needed to address the linkages between climate change and water, especially at the local level and with emphasis on adaptation measures. Investment in human capital towards improving environmental economics knowledge in the region will be needed especially for future generations. Although, there are capable research institutions across the region with experienced researchers in the field, their capacity to significantly contribute to solving problems related to climate change is limited by the lack of resources. Providing resources to creating capacity in the region and to conduct high quality research is a strategy that will contribute to the identification of solutions to these problems. This strategy will have long lasting benefits. This project has a dual purpose of promoting research and capacity building on environmental economics of climate change (CC) adaptation and water in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC). This project aims to strengthen research capacities and produce innovative scientific knowledge to assess the social and economic links among climate change, water and adaptation strategies in LAC. |