Summary of Recommendations on Data Availability, Access and Use

1. Summary of Recommendations on Data Availability, Access and Use by Leisa Perch MACC PDF-B Technical Coordinator, Organization of American States

2. Linkage Between CPACC and MACC Activities CPACC Activities1 MACC Activities • Tourism and other main econ sectors • Infrastructure development • Water resources • Fisheries • Agriculture and Forestry • Land-use planning Component 1: Mainstreaming of Climate Change in National Planning Economic Valuation of Coastal and Marine Resources (c7) Data for policy analysis Formulation of economic/ regulatory Proposals (c8) Basis for overall Policy framework Formulation of policy framework for Adaptation to GCC (c4) • Feasibility studies for demonstration projects • Prep. Of 2nd National Communication Component 2: Supporting the Formulation of Specific Adaptation Options and of a Regional Position On Adaptation: Basis for prep of 2nd Comm. First Communication for St. Vincent (c9)* Component 4: Cross-regional Dissemination and Replication Coastal Vulnerability (c6) Facilitates identification of demonstration projects Establishment of Databases (c2)* Feeds into modeling work Baseline for future studies • Strengthen climate monitoring network • Downscaling models • Modeling scenarios Component 3: Expanded GCC Monitoring and Modeling: Inventory of Coastal Resources (c3) Sea level and Climate Monitoring Network (c1)* Basis for strengthening monitoring network Coral Reef Monitoring (c5)* 1 CPACC component number shown in parenthesis * Indicates completed CPACC activities. The remainder are in progress.

3. Data Needs - Concern • To obtain from countries, departments and regional institutions what are and continue to be the challenges with data • What challenges do countries presently feel they experience in addressing an issue such as climate change?

4. Assessing Needs • As part of the sectoral consultation process, the issue of data needs and challenges were raised: • The review of linkages between climate and key economic sectors (Issues Papers) • during the workshop themselves; and • As part of the working group discussions • Determining what activities MACC could support and mechanisms it could develop to address these concerns

5. What do Countries Need Information for? • Improved understanding of the impacts of climate variability and change – the science of these impacts; • The economic and social parameters of the impacts at the national, local and community level; and • A better understanding of the ecology and eco-systems that would be affected and the level at which climate impacts on their operation.

6. Current Challenges Experienced by countries • Availability of data • The lack of applications that allow them to manipulate the data to apply to a given situation; • The lack of capacity to use and manipulate the data; and • The capacity to determine what is the minimum set of parameters they need to make a feasible decision.

7. Concerns: availability • Persistent challenges of accessing data in country and from various departments; • No reasonable assessment of what data exists and how often it was collected • Issues of data quality – no standard formats were used or practiced; • Limits to data use by the lack of ability to compare data sets • Inability to access data sets from studies carried out by consultants; 

8. Concerns: Use and Integration • The type of data available and how to use it to present the type of information needed to convince decision-makers and politicians of the need to act; • The lack of or capacity to produce data to public awareness and education; • No common framework for the use of data and inability to combine sets of data ; and • The persistent lack of attention to data collection at the policy level and the need for a long-term and consistent programme.

9. Data/Information Needs: Disaster and Insurance • Impact scenarios • Assessment and determination of critical hazards e.g. storm surge, wave and wind • Climate forecasts • Documentation of successful practices • Implications of ENSO on key sectors and the probability of disasters

10. Data/Information Needs: CC and Fisheries • Ability to distinguish changes in stocks from other kinds of environmental degradation and climate induced changes; • The role of wetlands as buffers for the coast; • Impacts of temperature change on fish populations and the productivity of fishery habitats; • Socio-economic baseline conditions of fishermen • Data on the dependency of communities and households on fishing and associated activities • Traditional practices addressing changes in fishing

11. Industry needs (accurate climate forecasting): Average daily and annual temperature Seasonal rainfall patterns Hot and cool days per year, sunny days Windspeed Site elevation Wave data Policy Needs: Levels of visitation and use of coastal and marine resource (in economic terms) Vulnerability assessments of yachting sector Challenges posed to health Risk and vulnerability of property due to location Risks of coastal flooding Implications for land-use Data Needs: CC and Tourism

12. Impacts of climate change on water availability and food production Agricultural productivity Defining social impacts and social vulnerability Projections of food and water needs Population projects transposed against available resources Projections for precipitation Soil moisture as a contribution to productivity Mapping of hazards I.e. drought, erosion, land degradation Baseline indicators for critical variables Data Needs: IRM

13. Mapping and GIS of land use and allocation Development of integrated data systems Development and maintenance of resource inventory systems Development of land evaluation systems Design and implementation of information policies Assessment of traditional knowledge on past changes in climate and their effectiveness Compilation of lessons learnt and success stories Using Statistics as a management tool Data credibility needs to be be focused on Financial resources need to be allocated for data collection Potential Recommendations and Actions

14. CPACC to MACC Critical Path CPACC (1997-2001) MACC (2003-2008) ACCC (Jul. 01- Mar .04) CPACC Closure Jan – May.02 PDF-B (Oct. 01- Aug.02) CCCC (Sep.02 - )