Publikationen

Evidence on the effectiveness of climate change adaptation interventions in low- and middle-income countries has been rapidly growing in recent years, particularly in the agricultural and coastal sectors. Here we address the question of whether results are consistent across intervention types, and risk reduction versus development-related outcomes using a systematic review of 363 empirical observations published in the scientific literature. 

• Villamayor-Tomas, S., A. Bisaro, K. Moull, A. Albizua, I. Mank, J. Hinkel, G. Leppert, M. Noltze (2024). Developing countries can adapt to climate change effectively using nature-based solutions. Commun Earth Environ 5, 214

Development funds are essential to finance climate change adaptation and are thus an important part of international climate policy. How ever, the absence of a common reporting practice makes it difficult to assess the amount and distribution of such funds. Research has questioned the credibility of reported figures, indicating that adaptation financing is in fact lower than published figures suggest. Projects claiming a greater relevance to climate change adaptation than they target are referred to as “overreported”. To estimate realistic rates of overreporting in large data sets over times, we propose an approach based on state-of-the-art text classification. Additionally, we propose a method that incorporates evidence of smaller, higher-quality data to correct predicted rates using Bayes’ theorem. This enables a comparison of different annotation schemes to estimate the degree of overreporting in climate change adaptation. 

• The article in ACL Anthology

• Borst, J., T. Wencker and A. Niekler (2023), "Constructing a Credible Estimation for Overreporting of Climate Adaptation Funds in the Creditor Reporting System", Proceedings of the 7th Joint SIGHUM Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, Humanities and Literature, pp. 99–109, Dubrovnik, Croatia: Association for Computational Linguistics.

This paper presents a comprehensive river discharge analysis to estimate past and future hydrological extremes across Morocco. Hydrological simulations with historical forcing and climate change scenario inputs have been performed to better understand the change in magnitude and frequency of extreme discharge events that cause flooding. Simulations are applied to all major rivers of Morocco, including a total of 16 basins that cover the majority of the country. An ensemble of temperature and precipitation input parameter sets was generated to analyze input uncertainty, an approach that can be extended to other regions of the world, including data-sparse regions. Parameter uncertainty was also included in the analyses. Historical simulations comprise the period 1979–2021, while future simulations (2015–2100) were performed under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 2–4.5 and SSP5–8.5. Clear patterns of changing flood extremes are projected; these changes are significant when considered as a proportion of the land area of the country. Two types of basins have been identified, based on their different behavior in climate change scenarios. In the Northern/Mediterranean basins we observe a decrease in the frequency and intensity of events by 2050 under both SSPs, whereas for the remaining catchments higher and more frequent high-flow events in the form of flash floods are detected. Our analysis revealed that this is a consequence of the reduction in rainfall accumulation and intensity in both SSPs for the first type of basins, while the opposite applies to the other type. More generally, we propose a methodology that does not rely on observed time series of discharge, so especially for regions where those do not exist or are not available, and that can be applied to undertake future flood projections in the most data-scarce regions. This method allows future hydrological hazards to be estimated for essentially any region of the world.

• External Link

• Giustarini, L.; Schumann, G.J.-P.; Kettner, A.J.; Smith, A.; Nawrotzki, R. Simulating Changes in Hydrological Extremes—Future Scenarios for Morocco. Water 2023, 15, 2722.

The discussion paper is part of the DEval evaluation of interventions for climate change adaptation. This paper focuses on an existing evidence gap on the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of irrigation infrastructure interventions for strengthening climate resilience and climate change adaptation in the nexus of agriculture and water. The evaluation selected the long-term investments of German financial and technical development cooperation in Mali as a representative learning case for similar interventions in the context of climate vulnerability and conflict in the African Sahel region.

• The journal article in PNAS Nexus

• BenYishay A., S. Goodman, R. Sayers, K. Singh, M. Walker, M. Rauschenbach and M. Noltze (2023), Does Irrigation Strengthen Climate Resilience? A Geospatial Impact Evaluation of Interventions in Mali, DEval Discussion Paper 1/2023, German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), Bonn.
  
  This paper has been published in PNAS Nexus by Oxford University Press.
  Citation: BenYishay, A.; Sayers, R.; Singh, K.; Goodman, S.; Walker, M.; Traore, S.; Rauschenbach, M. and M. Noltze (2024), Irrigation Strengthens Climate Resilience: Long-term Evidence from Mali Using Satellites and Surveys, PNAS Nexus, Volume 3, Issue 2, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae022.

The climate crisis poses enormous challenges for the international community. German development cooperation (DC) therefore supports its partner countries in implementing the Paris Agreement by promoting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). In the NDCs, the contracting states specify the degree to which they plan to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to what extent they want to adapt to climate change. The NAPs incorporate the national adaptation policy into the development plans. Against this backdrop, in the course of the evaluation of interventions for climate change adaptation, DEval examined how effectively German DC supports NDCs and NAP processes. This policy brief presents the findings and recommendations of the evaluation.

• Noltze, M. and S. Harten (2023), Climate Change Adaptation: Supporting Partner Countries in Implementing the Paris Agreement, DEval Policy Brief 8/2023, German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), Bonn.

Die Klimakrise stellt die internationale Staatengemeinschaft vor enorme Herausforderungen. Die deutsche Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ) unterstützt deshalb ihre Partnerländer bei der Umsetzung des Pariser Klimaabkommens über die Förderung von nationalen Klimabeiträgen (Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs) und nationalen Anpassungsplänen (National Adaptation Plans, NAPs). In den NDCs legen die Vertragsstaaten fest, wie stark sie ihre Treibhausgasemissionen senken und inwieweit sie sich an den Klimawandel anpassen wollen. Über die NAPs wird das Thema Anpassung in die nationale Entwicklungsplanung eingebracht. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersuchte das DEval im Rahmen der Evaluierung von Maßnahmen zur Anpassung an den Klimawandel, wie effektiv diese NDCs und NAP-Prozesse unterstützen (Noltze et al., 2023). In diesem Policy Brief werden die Ergebnisse und Empfehlungen der Evaluierung vorgestellt.

• Noltze, M. und S. Harten (2023), Klimaanpassung: Partnerländer bei der Umsetzung des Pariser Klimaabkommens unterstützen, DEval Policy Brief 8/2023, Deutsches Evaluierungsinstitut der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (DEval), Bonn.