UMFULA (“river” in Zulu) is a four year research project that aims to improve climate information for decision-making in central and southern Africa, with a particular focus on Tanzania and Malawi. UMFULA is a global consortium of 15 institutions specialising in cutting edge climate science, impact modelling and socio-economic research.
UMFULA aims to support long-term – 5 to 40 years – planning decisions in central and southern Africa around resource use, infrastructure investment and cross-sectoral growth priorities, by identifying adaptation pathways which are robust and resilient in the face of climate change and other non-climate stressors.
The team is generating for the region new insights and more reliable information about climate processes and extreme weather events and their impacts on water, energy and agriculture. These insights will support the more effective use of climate information in national and local decision-making.
UMFULA is working to make climate information more useful and accessible for decision-makers in central and southern Africa.
UMFULA researchers and decision-makers in the Rufiji River Basin in Tanzania and in the Shire River Basin in Malawi partner in a collaborative dialogue to identify critical vulnerabilities and thresholds where climate change may pose unacceptable risks to planned development activities. The team supports a range of actors involved in development decisions to evaluate future climate scenarios and identify various adaptation options.
By having a clearer description of how the climate will change over the next 5-40 years in the region the team will produce scenarios for the climate in the decades ahead, including the effects of ‘high impact’ events like intense rainfall and droughts, on natural resources and socio-economic activities. This will highlight the trade-offs that decision-makers face in the context of uncertain future climate and rapid economic change.
A knowledge-mapping exercise will illustrate where and how climate information is currently being used in Central and Southern Africa. The team will assess local power dynamics – to examine whose decisions count, how actors relate to each other and how these dynamics set the policy agenda and influence decision-making. With an understanding of which decisions are made, by whom, and how, the project team will use new climate information to target and inform planning processes.
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