NSF-nfrf: community water systems: climate vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities

This $650,920 Project Grant award, funded by the National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.079), aims to investigate the vulnerabilities of community-managed water systems to climate change impacts and identify opportunities to strengthen their resilience. The project will focus on five climate-vulnerable locations globally, including indigenous communities in Kenya, South Sudan, Norway, Canada, and Alaska. Through a combination of climate scenario modeling and local stakeholder engagement, the project will create action plans to support climate resilience and water security goals for these communities. The project's broader impacts include developing a global toolkit for co-producing water resilience action plans that can be scaled for use by the 3.2 billion people projected to face water insecurity by 2050. The University of Colorado is the lead institution for this inter-disciplinary, international research effort, with planned sub-awards to support the work across the target regions.

Abstract

Today, more than two billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress. By 2050, that figure may reach 3.2 billion and by 2050 water scarcity could displace 150-200 million people. Changing climates affect water security for daily needs, livelihoods, and culture and increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather, like floods and fires which can disrupt critical infrastructure including roadways and pipelines necessary to provide water for peoples? Well-being. Threats to critical infrastructure are intrinsically connected to threats to water security through the roadways, water kiosks, pipeline infrastructure, and other mechanisms that provide water to households. This project advances knowledge on the vulnerabilities of community-managed water systems to the impacts of climate change and investigates opportunities to strengthen their resilience in the face of future climate risks. The broader impacts of the proposed work create a global water security toolkit that integrates the processes for CO-producing water resilience action plans with communities; an outcome that can be scaled for use by the 3.2 billion people who may face water insecurity by 2050. The goal of this inter-disciplinary project is to mitigate the risks to water security of indigenous communities living in five climate-vulnerable locations: turkana in kenya, the nile region in south sudan, varanger in norway, first nations communities in western canada, and native communities in rural alaska. The project will investigate risks to water security at local to regional scales, focusing on the impacts of extreme weather on damage to the infrastructure and networks needed to support water security. The project methods will combine climate scenario modeling with stakeholder engagement targeting both local communities and experts to understand current and future climate vulnerabilities of local water systems. Broadly, the project will address the connected risks of displacement because of drought, wildfires, floods, landslides/erosion, and effects on the ecosystems impacting the traditional land-based activities, community?S livelihoods, and food security. This project will enable climate-vulnerable indigenous communities globally to build an understanding of the climate vulnerabilities in their water systems, create action plans to support their climate resilience and water security goals, and implement and evaluate localized interventions to augment the resilience of their water systems. This is a project jointly funded by the U.S. National science foundation and funding agencies from canada and norway via the 2023 international joint initiative for research on climate change adaptation and mitigation competition. This competition allowed a single joint international proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by canada. Upon successful joint determination of an award recommendation, each agency funds the proportion of the budget that supports scientists at institutions in their respective countries. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are planned for this award.