ALBERT

Description: The asymmetric policy and science domains, face a number of challenges when it comes to managing disaster risk. On the one hand, policy stakeholders require reliable, high-quality information in order to make well-informed decisions in a timely manner, while on the other, creation of sound scientific information upon which such decisions can and should be made, requires time and thoroughness. As a result, uncertainty plays a crucial role when it comes to integrating scientific information into the decision-making process. To explore further the ways in which uncertainty affects decision-making, the ESPREssO Project developed a serious game for disaster risk reduction (DRR) stakeholders to “play,” termed RAMSETE III. It aims to assess how uncertainty impacts processing of early warning information and subsequent decision-making (such as ordering evacuations), embedded within a fictitious geographic, policy and practice setting. Serious gaming can serve as an useful tool to allow stakeholders with very different backgrounds to work closer together in a simulated environment. Different operational timescales and misunderstandings arising from differing perceptions of risk and uncertainty between policy stakeholders and scientists, are identified as key barriers hindering effective integration of policy and science in disaster management. Hence, RAMSETE III was employed to initiate open discourse between DRR stakeholders across the science-policy spectrum. The main outcome of this game emphasizes that to overcome these identified barriers, a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive approach is needed as a first-step foundation, with enhanced efforts in communication and development of common terminologies to assist strengthening of mutual understanding.

Description: Natural hazards and climate-related disasters disregard political borders, where additional barriers can complicate mitigation, response and recovery efforts within and between the sectors of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The ESPREssO Project (Enhancing Synergies for Disaster Prevention in the European Union) aims to improve management of transboundary disasters by encouraging closer synergies between the CCA and DRR communities. Using targeted stakeholder interviews, questionnaires, Think Tank discussions and purpose-built serious games, ESPREssO draws on both CCA and DRR stakeholder experiences and informed perspectives in order to identify current gaps. Set within a fictitious border zone, ESPREssO’s RAMSETE II serious game challenges CCA and DRR stakeholders in making coordinated decisions before, during and after a simulated disaster, in protection of population and critical infrastructure. Results highlight the essential role of local governance mechanisms as the sharp end of the policy wedge, with current examples of proactivity that require to be championed and supported at national level in order to thrive. These good practice examples reflect the fact that transboundary settings, despite their challenges, act as fertile ground for mutual growth, offering opportunities for CCA and DRR communities to find innovative ways to cooperate and unite in developing synergies and strengthening their mutual efforts towards resilience. Stakeholders emphasise a need to invest more resources in informal cooperation and call on policy makers to recognise that each border zone raises its own unique set of complex challenges that requires flexibility and special consideration by transboundary authorities in management of disasters.

Description: Conventional continental geoarchives are rarely available in arid southern Africa. Therefore, palaeoclimate data in this area are still patchy and late Quaternary climate development is only poorly understood. In the western Kalahari, salt pans (playas, ephemeral lakes) are common and can feature quasi-continuous sedimentation. This study presents the first climate-related biomarker record using sediments from the Omongwa Pan, a Kalahari salt pan located in eastern Namibia. Our approach to reconstruct vegetation and hydrology focuses on biogeochemical bulk parameters and plant wax-derived lipid biomarkers (n-alkanes, n-alkanols, and fatty acids) and their compound-specific carbon and hydrogen isotopic compositions. The presented record reaches back to 27 ka. During the glacial, rather low δ2H values of n-alkanes and low sediment input exclude a strong influence of winter rainfall. n-Alkane and n-alkanol distributions and δ13C values of n-hentriacontane (n-C31) indicate a shift to a vegetation with a higher proportion of C4 plants at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum until the end of Heinrich Stadial I (ca. 18–14.8 ka), which we interpret to indicate an abrupt excursion to a short wetter period likely to be caused by a temporary southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Shifts in δ2H values of n-C31 and plant wax parameters give evidence for changes to drier conditions during early Holocene. Comparison of this dataset with representative continental records from the region points to a major influence of summer rainfall at Omongwa Pan during the regarded time span and demonstrates the potential of southern African salt pans as archives for biomarker-based climate proxies.