SUBNATIONAL LEVEL – WORKING WITH CITIES

WHO WE ARE?
Low Carbon Resilient Development Program
(LCRD) aims to support Colombian climate change
efforts framed in the Low Carbon Development
Strategy (ECDBC) and the National Adaptation Plan
(NAP) at both the national and subnational level.
The main objective of the program is to reinforce the
process the country has already advanced in
adaptation and mitigation, and provide the enabling
conditions for the advancement of implementation
actions and territorial planning processes. The
program will address two interventions: The national
scale in climate change policies and the subnational
scale in the cities of Pasto and Riohacha to identify
and implement mitigation and adaptation actions
that become national examples.
Common to both our national and subnational work,
we identify and propose ways to monitor progress
and impacts in terms of GHG emission reductions
and avoidance, and increasing climate resilience for
infrastructure and communities through a cross
cutting area of MRV.
SUBNATIONAL LEVEL – WORKING WITH CITIES
TOP-BOTTOM APPROACH
At the subnational level, the
LCRD Program is working
with a “bottom–up approach”,
within
a
continuous
improvement process. In a
“top-bottom
approach”,
starting from a national scale,
the implementation or the
scale down process of the
policies and/or guidelines in a
specific territory, can have a
different response in each
case, due to the territory’s
particularities. The LCRD
Program
is
thinking
in
adaptation and mitigation
alternatives with the potential
to be replicable at a national
level.
The first step was to select the
cities to work with; cities that
fulfill the following criteria:
identified climate change
impacts; local government
with a basic knowledge and
willing to work with climate
change topics; and, an
ongoing process of land
planning documents updating.
The LCRD Program selected
to work with the cities:
Riohacha, and Pasto.
BOTTOM-UP APPROACH
WHAT HAVE WE DONE? RIOHACHA’S CASE
RIOHACHA:
Is the capital of the Guajira State, it is placed in the center of the state but its north-west
boundary is the Caribbean Sea. Its average temperature is around of 28ºC; rainfall lower
than 500mm/year; high values of sunlight and evaporation during the year.
HOW DO WE WORK?
The process started with a Rapid Vulnerability Assessment, based
on historical data and an official documents review. The analysis
was done on the perception of the city as a system, where the city
is a conglomerate of elements, with interaction between them in
order to bring the city into life.
The most harmful Climate
Stressors and the areas with the highest climate risk level
were prioritized. Those areas must be characterized, taking into
account its particularities; after that, the LCRD Program is going to
propose an adaptation portfolio with alternatives that will face the
identified risks in the selected areas.
The LCRD Program is not trying to face just one specific
problem in the selected area, many other secondary climate change
effects could be faced, looking with that an increment of the adaptation
capacity in the “city system”. Because of that, the portfolio will contain
“systematic alternatives”, it means, alternatives where the selected
area could be either, at the beginning, at the middle or at the
end (in time and/or space) of the alternative.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE IN RIOHACHA
RVA RESULTS: The most recurrent climate
stressors were analyzed. For each Climate
Stressor the sensibility and the adaptation
capacity were assessed in observation points
placed within the municipality.
The sensibility
assessment was
based on damage
curves (relation
between the
percentage of
expected damage
and the land price).
Taking into account
the importance of
the observation
point in the city
system, getting a
sensibility
coverage.
The elements which
can drive the
adaptation capacity,
such as economic
resources,
technological
development, health
In a participatory exercise, the RVA results were
and education service
overlapped with the climate change impact’s
coverage, domestic
perception. At the end two of them were selected
public utility and the
to analyze by the LCRD team: FLOODING IN
government
THE URBAN AREA AND DROUGHTS IN THE
penetration, were
evaluated, getting an
RURAL AREA.
adaptation capacity
coverage as well.
Taking into account
the weight of each
variable,
sensibility
Risk Assessments: Multi-stakeholder
inputs were needed,
and
adaptation
especially for Hazard Zoning. Those hazard maps were
capacity
were
affected with the guidelines given
by the
Second National
combined,
getting
a gave the
Communication of Climate Change, which
projection of temperature and Vulnerability
precipitation based on the
Assessment related to
AR4.
the specific climate
stressors.
𝑅𝑖𝑠𝑘 = 𝑓(𝑉𝑢𝑙𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑
𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠, 𝐻𝑎𝑧𝑎𝑟𝑑)
The High Risk Areas were delimited. In a second
participatory workshop, the economic, social, cultural and
ecological importance of those areas, were analyzed; as
result, the areas that provide more services to the system
were selected: SALADA LAKE IN THE URBAN AREA
AND THE MEDIUM BASIN OF THE TAPIAS RIVER IN
THE RURAL AREA.
LCRD TEAM
Sandra Garavito
Chief of Party
Ana María Mogollón
Technical Advisor
Ernesto Betancourt
Cities Coordinator
The ongoing activities in Riohacha are oriented to
know the state of art of the intervention areas,
taking into account the political, economic, social
and cultural background of the city itself.
Juan Felipe Franco
MRV Coordinator
Sebastian Velasquez
Transport Team Coordinator
Carolina Hernández
Ministry of Housing, City and Territory
Consultant
Flooding Riohacha’s hints:
 The Salada Lake was part of a series of
lakes connected by a green corridor, but
now, that corridor does not exist, due to the
urban expansion.
 The Salada Lake was once connected to a
mangrove next to it, but a national highway
was built over that connection, and now, a
box culvert is trying to keep that connection.
 The control of the protected areas around
the lake is not effective, illegal suburbs are
placed on those areas.
 The environmental regional agency is
working in a process of wetlands
delimitation.
 The storm sewer system in the city has a
coverage close to 10%, and almost the 85%
of the urban runoff water goes directly to the
Salada Lake.
 The municipality has a precipitation deficit,
close to 80%, it means, 9 months without
rain events
Andrea Maldonado
Ministry of Housing, City and TerritorySanitation Sector Consultant
Andrés Martínez
Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism
Consultant
Claudia Díaz
Ministry of Transportation Consultant
Andrés Peña
Ministry of Transportation Consultant
Oscar Galvis
Urban Risk Expert and Adaptation Specialist
Beatriz Mogollón
Climate Change and Natural Resources
Specialist
Juan Pablo Borda
Renewable Energy Expert
Sonia Borja
Hydrology Consultant
Patricia Dávila
MRV Consultant
Ivonne Ayala
Administrative and Financial Support Specialist
Lina María Rueda
Communication Specialist