1246 | 922 | Multidimensional vulnerability to sea-level rise in Madagascar | Lucia Ferrone, Carolina Falaguasta, Federico Martellozzo
Sea-level rise will have a potentially major disrupting effect on the development of the African continent. Currently, sea levels will rise by 0.3 meters by 2030. Meanwhile, the coastal areas of many African countries are the powerhouse of the economy, as the ‘blue economy’ is project to reach over 405 bllion dollars in 2030. At the same time, sea-level rise and storm surges threaten not only the productive activities, but the livelihoods of millions of people, affecting water supply, land loss, and potential health crisis. Madagascar is one of the countries most exposed to climate change, as it faces the ‘perfect storm’ of hazards due to climate change: from rise in extreme temperature and droughts, to violent storms and cyclones that cause floods, and sea level rise, which is expected to rise between 21 (best scenario) and 43 cm (worst case) until 2080, threatening coastal communities and potentially causing saline intrusion in coastal waterways and groundwater reservoirs. In the last 10 years, over 53 extreme events have been recorded. . At the same time, Madagascar is one of the poorest countries of the world, with limited development capacity and a chronic lack of functional institutions, which makes adaptation to climate change extremely difficult. The combination of exposure to risks, poverty, and the low resilience capacity increases considerably the vulnerability of the population, not only in terms of economic losses, but also in terms of threatened food security and malnutrition, risk of epidemics due to poor sanitation, increased mortality, and increase in violence and crime. This work aims at providing a multidimensional assessment of the vulnerability of the Madagascan population, combining projection data of sea-level rise with socio-economic data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2021.
Lucia Ferrone, Carolina Falaguasta, Federico Martellozzo
Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Italy
ID Abstract: 922