Climate-Risk and Loss-and-Damage Assessments in the Transboundary Songwe River Basin

Climate change is increasingly affecting Africa through more frequent and intense extreme weather events, including droughts, floods, heatwaves, and rising temperatures, which threaten livelihoods, ecosystems, and key economic sectors. This has resulted in immediate losses, long-term damage, heightened food insecurity, economic instability, and increased social vulnerability. The resulting climate-induced loss and damage have emerged as a critical concern in Africa, particularly where adaptation limits are being reached and impacts can no longer be fully avoided. This requires proactive investments in climate science, early warning systems, resilient infrastructure, and the integration of climate risk assessments into development planning.

A climate-risk and loss-and-damage assessment was conducted to provide evidence for policymakers and communities within the transboundary Songwe River Catchment. Given the basin's complex administrative setting and the limited availability of historical and spatial data, the assessment drew upon multiple sources of information, including freely accessible online datasets and analytical tools. To evaluate flood risk, a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) framework based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied and integrated within a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. This approach enabled the development of a spatially explicit flood susceptibility map for the Songwe River watershed, supporting informed decision-making for climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and resilience planning.

The assessment identifies recurrent flooding, increasing drought frequency, rising temperatures, and more erratic and intense rainfall events as the major climate hazards affecting the basin, with significant implications for livelihoods, natural resources, infrastructure, and socio-economic development. Although ongoing adaptation and resilience-building initiatives provide important opportunities to reduce vulnerability, further interventions are needed to address unavoidable climate-induced losses and damages and to strengthen the long-term resilience of communities and ecosystems within this shared transboundary river basin.