WASH climate change adaptation in climate change & environment

Climate change is already having significant negative effects on the lives and livelihoods of people living in countries affected by conflicts and disasters. It is also making the provision of humanitarian support more difficult. This situation can be expected to get worse in the coming years. The humanitarian Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector faces particular risks and challenges. The increased temperatures resulting from global heating disrupt the water cycle: increasing evaporation, accelerating the melting of ice and snow and allowing more water to be stored in the atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to more erratic
and intense precipitation and changes the availability of water in many places. At the same time, climate change affects the activity, seasonality and range of many of the pathogens that cause waterborne diseases. It also increases the frequency and scale of events such as floods and droughts, damaging WASH infrastructure while simultaneously increasing the need for humanitarian WASH services.
Humanitarian WASH programmes need to adapt to these threats. This Guidance Note (GN) introduces a wide range of climate change adaptations relevant to the WASH sector in humanitarian settings. It supports WASH implementing agencies to consider climate risks and how they might adapt WASH programming in response to those risks. It outlines how specific programming adaptations can be identified based on an analysis of climate change-linked hazards and their impacts.
The adaptations are geared towards programming by humanitarian practitioners, especially those establishing and delivering water, sanitation, hygiene and public health services in humanitarian settings. It is intended for international, national, and local NGOs, government agencies, service providers, and those involved in WASH sector coordination. The programming adaptations are drawn from existing literature and from Oxfam’s programming experience.

source:

https://www.oxfamwash.org/climate-change-adaptation