Decision-making under climate change: evaluating investment choices for climate adaptation in a changing world.

Código

I-EBHE0210

Autores

SAULO AIRES DE SOUZA, Dirceu Silveira Reis Junior, Cássio Guilherme Rampinelli

Tema

WG 1.10: Hydrologic Design - Solutions & Communication

Resumo

Extreme hydrometeorological events are usually followed by severe damage and losses, imposing significant challenges to the society. As we face the reality of climate change, there is a growing interest in this subject, driven by the expectation that frequency and intensity of such extreme climate events will further escalate. Therefore, understanding the potential future risks associated with trends in hydrometeorological variables is of paramount importance in the decision-making process to support effective adaptation strategies for society. The uncertainties behind the decision-making process under a changing climate world bring additional issues when defining policies and investments in adaption countermeasures. This work builds on this topic, revisiting and reframing a decision tree analysis to support decision making on infrastructure investments when facing stationarity and non-stationarity scenarios. Our approach is based on the components of hypothesis testing for trend analysis and was used to define when investing in adaption measures would be advisable by employing a benefit/cost and risk-based framework. The framework is demonstrated by two case studies applied on time series of maximum and minimum stream flows, including a collection of 1,106 gauging stations in Brazil. Besides improving the Power of the hypothesis testing and minimizing the Type II error our study contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges posed by investments in adaptation policies in a changing climate.