The Middle East is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change and extreme climatic events, of which flash floods are particularly frequent and destructive. Jordan is a prime example in this context, as it is severely affected by climate change and there have been several heavy rain events there in recent years with enormous property damage and deaths. At the same time, Jordan has a very small amount of renewable water. Maximizing the benefits of heavy rain events in terms of water abstraction and minimizing flash flood damage is therefore one of the most important tasks for adapting to climate change in Jordan. Flash floods have been identified as one of the risks of climate change by the Jordanian Ministry of the Environment. However, the country lacks the capacities to set up and maintain suitable early warning systems (EWS), but also to develop and implement measures to reduce the effects of such disasters. Currently, the existing flood risk assessments in Jordan are out of date and not generally available and there is a lack of socio-economic information on disaster damage.
In view of this, the proposed project “CapTain Rain” (Capture and reTain heavy Rainfalls in Jordan) aims to develop suitable climate services for the assessment and forecasting of flash floods and to identify promising measures for adapting to climate change and reducing disaster damage. In this context, the development of climate services including EWS depends on close cooperation with Jordanian actors and requires the consideration of scientific and local, practice-oriented knowledge. CapTain Rain will therefore pursue a transdisciplinary research approach. Our proposed socio-ecological research concept for risk assessment integrates science and local practical knowledge in order to analyze the vulnerability to flash flood hazards on different spatial and temporal scales.
In this context, three research institutes, two universities, two administrative authorities, two ministries and three SMEs from Germany and Jordan will exchange their knowledge and experience
(i) to analyze the socio-ecological drivers of flash floods in the wadi systems of Jordan and to record the complex interactions between climate and land use change as a basis for a better simulation and prognosis of flash flood events;
(ii) to assess the socio-ecological risk of flash floods on the basis of an integrated vulnerability analysis, taking into account the risk of flash floods, spatial exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity;
(iii) Develop climate services for flood-related decision-making based on dialogues with different stakeholders and participatory approaches;
(iv) and to identify promising measures to improve the adaptive capacity of the local population, including possible methods and technologies to divert and use water from heavy rain events, but also to prevent damage.
In WP 2, the natural hazard of heavy rain, PIK will deal with the cross-scale cause-and-effect analysis of heavy rain in Jordan. Available long-term climate data, operational synopsis and radar data as well as global reanalyses and satellite data (UAP 2.1) are to serve as the basis for this, with the aim of bringing large-scale weather patterns into a causal relationship with local precipitation patterns. The aim is to identify relevant drivers for heavy rain in Jordan in order to make an important contribution to the early detection of damage-relevant flash flood events. The long-term development of climate risks from heavy rain in the Middle East should be carried out by evaluating patterns in regional climate scenarios (e.g. Cordex) (UAP 2.2). These results will then be integrated as a module in a developed demonstrator of an early warning system for flash floods. This is used to better classify current and future heavy rain events.
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