Enhancing Adaptation and Resilience against multi-hazards along West Africa’s Coasts (EARWAC)

Abstract

Coastal cities and Small Islands Developing States are perpetually at the edge of high-impact environmental hazards such as coastal flooding, storm surges, coastal erosion and hurricanes. In the West African coasts, these hazards are exacerbated by the additional constraints of the high vulnerability and inadequacy of adaptation capabilities of the local population, institutional tools and infrastructures for improving resilience and accessing relevant, accurate and in-time data. These are the realities in West African coasts that the Enhancing Adaptation and Resilience against Coastal Multi-hazards along the West African Coasts (EARWAC) project posits to address by adopting a mixed-method approach that integrates ecological, socioeconomic and spatial data. This approach enabled the development of a co-design and analytic dashboard that helps enhance adaptation, resilience and response coordination for coastal multi-hazards along West Africa’s coasts. The project was implemented in three steps: i. conceptualisation and needs assessments, ii. user-assessment, and iii. need-based geospatial analytics dashboard development. In the first phase of the EARWAC project, desk research and literature review were conducted to understand the contextual underpinnings of coastal hazards in West Africa, the strengths and weaknesses of existing projects and initiatives on coastal hazards in West Africa. The need and users assessment was conducted through a desktop review and participatory survey process with community members (667 participants from 24 districts), 26 subject matter experts from the academia and regulatory bodies. The need assessment revealed no existing coastal multi-hazards dashboards in the region and that existing initiatives are devoid of stakeholders inputs. Besides 80% of subject matter experts agreeing that coastal flooding is endemic in the region, 41% of community members surveyed highlighted coastal flooding as the most critical coastal hazard in the West African region, followed by marine pollution (37%) and coastal erosion (28%). This outcome guided the development of the EARWAC dashboard (https://earwac.com/.)to prioritise coastal flooding and seasonal flash flood events in the region up to 2023. In the lead up to the dashboard development, we analysed and computed the Coastal Flood Vulnerability Index -(CFVI) -from 2020 to 2022, the historic flash flood (2015 and 2022) and a forecast of the seasonal flash flood (from 2022 till 2023) all disaggregated to the state level. Currently, the EARWAC dashboard is a first of its kind one-stop-shop infrastructure in the region that provides necessary information on coastal vulnerability and seasonal flood events to local dwellers, first responders, governmental institutions and SMEs. Upon resources availability and support, the dashboard has the capacity to function as a multi-hazard infrastructure, including hazards such as erosion, marine pollution, sea-level rise, etc