PICO
Climate services have a well-recognised potential for empowering decision makers in taking climate-smart decisions, through the provision of climate-relevant information at sub-seasonal to seasonal scales, early warning of drought and water scarcity, and/or longer-term climate projections. Recent decades have seen significant advances that underpin the climate science data provided through such services, but despite these advances, crossing the last-mile in early warning proves to be challenging and barriers remain to actual uptake and use. These barriers include the lack of understanding of end-user needs and the options end-users have to respond; limited understanding of the decision-making processes of users, and a poor recognition of the local knowledge they hold and the role it can play in the provision and uptake of climate services.
Research shows, however, that more human-centred approaches and integration of local and traditional knowledges within climate services co-design and co-delivery can help establish services that are credible, salient and legitimate; leading to improved uptake and use. This is also recognised in recent initiatives such as the Early Warning for All launched recently by the United Nations.
This session addresses grounded research that advances the integration and combination of local and scientific knowledges in climate services, in particular in services that provide early warning to drought and water scarcity, heat waves, and advance information on water availability to support water resources management decisions across sectors such as water allocation, crop planning, reservoir operations (including hydropower) etc. We particularly encourage contributions that report action-based, multi-disciplinary research, involving multi-disciplinary researchers, and engagement with local stakeholders and communities. We encourage presentations that have had demonstrable impacts through improved uptake of advance warning, leading to better preparedness for climate extremes droughts and water scarcity, and better adaptation.