Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. In this case, we go to the town of El Torno, in Colombia, which was seriously affected by a strong flood in 2010.
The fact that this town was damaged by the flood prompted action and development to prepare against the effects of climate change. In this way, El Torno is today everything an example of adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change and also in a sustainable way.
Floods caused by climate change
The town of El Torno has been affected for many years by heavy torrential rains that have caused serious damage and enormous repair costs. In order to alleviate the devastating effects of the floods, the Ministry of the Environment and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has been working with the leaders of each region of Colombia since 2013 to prepare the inhabitants and increase resilience against the effects of climate change.
Plans against climate change are based on the development of agricultural, housing and multidisciplinary training programs that help to adapt to global warming. Although it is true that no matter how many plans and programs are developed, they will never be able to avoid the extreme natural phenomena caused by climate change, Yes, they can reduce the impacts that these have on the population. These impacts can be economic, social, health, material goods, etc.
Measures against climate change
To reduce the impacts that climate change produces in these areas through extreme natural phenomena, programs have been developed, such as, for example, growing traditional plants that are resistant to flooding. The seedbeds are carried from seeds that are capable of germinating plantations that are resistant to flooding. In this way, since we cannot avoid the flood, at least we will not have that economic loss of agricultural plantations.
In addition, traditional seeds are also resistant to pests and droughts (two other consequences caused by climate change). UNDP has also carried out other actions such as creating homes that are adapted to changes in climate and a network of hydrological stations has been put into operation that warn and notify the inhabitants when the San Jorge River begins to be a threat due to heavy torrential rains.
These measures are quite remarkable and help reduce the impacts of climate change in these areas. Unfortunately, these ideas and innovations did not exist in 2010 when the floods occurred which, while not causing many deaths, it did affect 211.000 people in the La Mojana region, destroying crops, ecosystems and more than 20.000 homes.
We learn from mistakes
As a result of this catastrophe and the impact on lives and property of the floods, the Ministry of the Environment and UNDP have started a pilot plan to prevent extreme weather events from reducing their impacts and causing less damage. These plans have become good disaster prevention practices and they are already a daily reference in the area. That is, they are actions that are carried out by the entire population as a value more introduced in society.
These projects have a budget of about eight million dollars and thanks to them it is possible to avoid tragedies such as the Mocoa avalanche. To avoid flood damage, a forest has been replanted by the communities around the San Jorge River in order to regulate its course and at the same time offer fruit and grass for livestock.
As you can see, there are many effects that climate change has around the world. We cannot avoid extreme events unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, but impacts can be minimized.