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MENAdrought Synthesis of Drought Vulnerability in Lebanon - Final Report

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Executive Summary

Purpose

This report summarizes MENAdrought findings on the underlying causes of vulnerability to drought impacts in Lebanon. It serves as a link between the impact assessment and policy planning process.

The objective of the vulnerability studies has been to identify who or what is at risk from drought, what causes that risk, and the effects of how actors manage that risk. This can inform drought management planning so that interventions target underlying causes of vulnerability for the identified communities and systems.

The problem context

Lebanon is water-rich compared to other Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nations, which historically has led government officials to place low priority on drought risk management. However, the intense droughts of 1998-2001, 2008, and 2013-2014 had widespread socio-economic impacts, which spurred increased official interest in drought.

Drought frequency has increased in the Levant region over the last century (Kelley et al. 2015), and climate change has significantly increased the intensity of recent droughts in Lebanon (Bergaoui et al., 2015). Climate model projections suggest that global warming will likely drive decreased precipitation and snowpack in Lebanon, as well as shortened snow seasons (Karmalkar et al., 2010; MoEW, 2010). Changed snow dynamics will affect hydrological responses in Lebanon’s major surface and groundwater basins (Fayad et al., 2017) and alter temporal patterns of water availability.

Increased drought and water scarcity in the future are likely to deepen rural indebtedness and structural socioeconomic challenges as well as increase Lebanon’s dependence on food imports and the depletion of foreign exchange reserves.

Defining vulnerability

Vulnerability to drought impacts is a socio-environmental phenomenon. Drought risk management practitioners typically explore this dynamic interaction through a conceptual assessment of vulnerability that can shift depending on the time-scale under assessment:

Short term: Vulnerability = potential impact - coping capacity
Long term: Vulnerability = potential impact - adaptive capacity

In this formulation, potential impact has two components: exposure and sensitivity. Exposure refers to the presence of people, assets, ecosystems, etc. in areas affected by drought. Sensitivity refers to the climatological thresholds that trigger negative effects. Coping capacity is the ability of communities, people, or systems to withstand drought without irreversible changes in state and functions whereas adaptive capacity is the ability for systems, people, and communities to change form and function under new conditions.

Research methods

We used participatory research methods across multiple vulnerability assessment approaches per the typology developed through a recent review (King-Okumu 2019). The reason for reliance on participatory methods is twofold. Firstly, use of these methods can help establish and facilitate social relations and associations that drive increased application of the knowledge in wider technical and political processes. Secondly, we were unable to apply spatial and statistical approaches due to the lack, or inaccessibility, of relevant datasets.

This research included multiple workshops with the Drought Technical Committee, an inter-disciplinary team coordinated by the Ministry of Energy and Water (MOEW). It also included four focus group meetings and interviews with smallholders in the Hermel area focused on exploring drought impacts on rural society, particularly food security, livelihoods, and gender-specific effects.