Building block 1: Gender-differentiated vulnerability assessment
Participatory process for vulnerability assessment
CityAdapt
This vulnerability assessment methodology allows for the accurate targeting of nature-based solutions to critical areas of need in cities and sectors of the population. It specifically includes a gender focus to ensure that adaptation efforts take into account how climate change affects women differently than men, given their varying roles in society. The vulnerability studies allow identifying the areas of greatest danger from weather-related events (such as landslides, floods, etc.) based on the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the analyzed territory. They are carried out through participatory processes with communities and key stakeholders and climatic scenarios that integrate climatic, environmental and socioeconomic variables at the same time. The analysis also allows estimating the risk of loss of ecosystem services and therefore the potential needs for adaptation to climate change. This exercise is the basis for designing and implementing nature-based solutions to strengthen the resilience of communities in urban and peri-urban systems. Finally, this process builds a sense of co-ownership and relationships for partnerships to carry out the project.
One of the main conditions needed for this building block’s success is the inclusion and approval of local communities and key stakeholders within those communities and their respective governments. Additionally, strong sources of climate and hydrological data facilitate this analysis process greatly.
A key aspect of this block is access to data. For example, Mexico has abundant meteorological and hydrological data while El Salvador does not. This allowed for a much more thorough climate change scenario in the former case. In terms of the consultation process, capturing perceived risk, in addition to modeled risks, is key for developing targeted activities where they are most needed. In that process, including women through the gender-differentiated approach also contributes to better targeted adaptation efforts by successfully identifying socially vulnerable populations. During this vulnerability assessment, capacity building is essential to ensure that communities and policy makers can interpret and use the assessments subsequently.
Building block 1: Gender-differentiated vulnerability assessment
Building block 2: Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation via Sustainable Livelihoods and Green Infrastructure
Building block 3: Project Learning Activities
Evaluating the contribution of stone tidal weirs in safeguarding biocultural diversity
Without doubt, stone tidal weirs contribute to marine biodiversity. In comparison with intertidal zoneswithout stone tidal weir, those with stone tidal weirs have host diverse marine species.
Once stone tidal weirs are abandoned, the less fish is caught. As the attention of local people shifts to destructive modern fishery, all aspects connected to cultural diversity would also be disappeared. In order to maintain coastal communities sustainable, they must not lose their biocultural diversity; stone tidal weirs could be served as an icon of such diversity as well. The UNESCO UNITWIN university network researches and studies how stone tidal weirs in safeguarding biocultural diversity.
The underwater cultural heritage of stone tidal weirs seems to have been an artificial womb for marine species and it is It one of the oldest fish catching methods for human beings. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis are necessary to research the role of stone tidal weirds as marine ecosystems. As for the latter, both archaeological and historical research is the most helpful.
When stone tidal weirs are studied, interdisciplinary collaboration between social science and natural science is really necessary. In the US, archaeology and anthropology are included in social science. Oceanographers or marine biologists provide natural scientific data upon biodiversity, while social scientists combine natural scientific data with social scientific one and use them for design and planning purposes.
Analyzing the vulnerability of stone tidal weirs against the global climate change such as sea level rise, coastal erosion, or destructive storms
Stone tidal weirs are the most vulnerable against global climate change. Recent field surveys and participant-observations of them prove that many stone tidal weirs have been abandoned or simply left broken, owing mainly to ocean environmental change. If sea levels rise more than 1 meter, all stone tidal weirs on the earth do not function as fishing gear. Once they are destroyed by storms or high waves, some coastal communities cannot afford to repair them, leaving simply them abandoned. All over the world, indeed, the underwater cultural heritage of stone tidal weirs is in danger of closing down, as cultural heritage as well as traditional fishing gear. For the purpose of understanding their vulnerability properly, the assessment of long-termed tidal range changes around stone tidal weirs, the measuring of coastal erosions faced by them, and the impact monitor of typhoons or high waves which destroy stone tidal weirs have been conducted, occasionally by help of remote sensing data.
The university networks allows to raise awareness on the issue and provide research-based evidence.
Many national governments do not recognize stone tidal weirs as underwater cultural heritage or even as fishing gear, mainly because in their mind gears are modern fishing boats or nets owned by professional fishers. Stone tidal weirs are often owned by people living in coastal communities, not by fishermen, against whom especially global climate change would cause havoc.
Unless local or national governments recognize stone tidal weirs as cultural heritage, there is no way they could become interested in their vulnerability against the global climate change. It really is essential that multiple stakeholders, including policy makers, social scientists such as anthropologists, natural scientists such as oceanographers, environmentalists, NGO or NPO partners, or local people, work together on this matter.
Documenting the traditional ecological knowledge on fishing, ritual, or other communal activities connected to stone tidal weirs
The underwater cultural heritage of stone tidal weirs was originally born as a local fishing mechanism. The processes are based on a rich local traditional ecological knowledge, which brought on by members of local coastal communities. Traditionally, local communities used stone tidal weirs twice a month during the spring tide; a custom that has been preventing overfishing by locals. At high tide they sometimes functioned as fishponds.
The traditional ecological knowledge, for instance, on non-fishing periods, as well as that on fishery-related ritual activities such as beach opening ceremonies, is widely observed at coastal communities but it is rapidly disappearing before being recorded properly by anthropologists or archaeologists. As stone tidal weirs are easily broken by typhoons or high waves, frequent community-led repairing works based on traditional knowledge are absolutely needed. In case stone tidal weirs are abandoned, however, both communal spirit and traditional ecological knowledge would extinct.
The traditional ecological knowledge, which each coastal community owns, is not only the key for the conservation of stone tidal weirs but also for their wellbeing. Seafood from stone tidal weirs is sustainable and healthier than imported canned or processed food.
Through formal and informal partnerships between universities and coastal communities, educating younger generations with such knowledge is one of the important success factors in preserving traditional ecological knowledge.
Stone tidal weirs provide prosperity and sustainability for coastal communities, and documentation efforts support building local capacity and social capital for the long term.
Gathering data on them and their related traditional ecological knowledge is done both in the field and in archieves and libraries. As for the latter, such knowledge might have existed only in written archivel documentsas many communities have lost their traditions because of modernization and globalisation.
