Jilin Yanji Low-Carbon Climate-Resilient Urban Development in China is supported by the Asian Development Bank. In the context of this investment project FutureWater will undertake a Climate Risk Assessment (CRA). The CRA will be based on the bottom-up approach where climate models (GCMs) are not the guiding boundary conditions, but the base will be an overall climate sensitivity and adaptation analysis. Various tools and data sources will be used such as NASA-NEX-GDDP, WEAP, local data sources, Google Earth Engine, amongst others.
Jilin Yanji Low-Carbon Climate-Resilient Urban Development in China is included in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Country Operations Business Plan (2017–2019). The project is expected to have four outputs that are linked and integrated, and expected to generate co-benefits and higher efficiencies, the outputs as described in ADB’s project concept paper are as follows:
- Output 1: Sustainable, low-carbon, and intelligent urban transport system implemented.
- Output 2: Sponge city and climate-resilience plan completed, and infrastructure constructed.
- Output 3: Water supply and wastewater management systems improved.
- Output 4: Capacity inflow-carbon and climate-resilient urban infrastructure planning developed.
Yanji City is located in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (YKAP) in the east of Jilin Province in the economically challenged north east of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), bordering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the southeast and the Russian Federation to the northeast. Yanji is an ancient city on the Bur-Hatong River, surrounded by hills, and its easternmost border is about 15 kilometers from the Sea of Japan.
In the context of the project a Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) will be undertaken. The CRA will follow the so-called bottom-up approach where the driving force of risks are not climate projections (GCMs), but the overall risk taking into consideration uncertainties in climate projections. This bottom-up approach is developed by increasing recognition of the fundamental uncertainty of future climate discourages the overinterpretation of model generated climate projections. In other words the main difference between the top-down and the bottom-up approach are in the use of GCM projections. The top-down approach is constraint (limited) to the GCM projections, while the bottom-up approach considers a range of potential changes in climate.
The CRA will be undertaken in four steps:
- Analysis of historic climate events
- Projections of future climates
- Impact and vulnerability of climate change
- Adaptation options and recommendations for design
Analysis will be based on a mixture of data and tools such as NASA-NEX-GDDP, WEAP, local data sources, Google Earth Engine, amongst others.
