Coping with climate shocks

Over the years, countries across the world have been experiencing extreme weather events occurring on a frequent scale, leading to tragic losses of life and damage to properties.

In fact, several major international and regional reports suggest that with increased global warming, the atmosphere can hold and release more moisture, meaning more torrential downpours are becoming more common and more frequent.

Flooding as a result of torrential rain risks human life, damages infrastructure, including buildings, roads, and bridges, and devastates livestock and crops. Too much rain has a negative impact on wildlife, the environment, and the economy.

Rains and subsequent floods have become recurrent headlines on the news in recent years, affecting many countries in the Gulf, something the arid region has not seen so frequently in the past. Figures of rainfall in some countries were akin to those normally quoted in annual rainfall terms.

Research shows that heavy downpours have become more common since the middle of the last century, when global warming started to intensify. While torrential rainfalls show no signs of abating despite the fact that climate change brings droughts to some parts of the world, researchers say they may intensify.

Look at the reports of rain last week in the Sultanate of Oman. Flooding was widespread, with flash flooding proving particularly dangerous in Oman’s mountainous regions. The clean-up operation has taken days to finish, with recovery work still continuing, if the reports are to be believed.

Ironically, Oman has seen an increase in the number, duration, and intensity of rains and subsequent floods. Tropical cyclones and storms from the northern Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea have increased in frequency and intensity.

The county has experienced 22 extreme weather events between 2007 and 2021, six of them cyclones. In recent years, the areas at risk have increased almost tenfold in the Muscat area, while Al Wusta is expected to be the region most vulnerable to tropical cyclones in the future.

Rising groundwater salinity due to the torrential rains is a major concern in Oman. Tropical storms have cost the country millions. North Al Batinah is considered the most exposed of the coastal governorates to tropical storms.

Muscat, Sur, and Salalah are also highly vulnerable. According to a study by the previous Ministry of Regional Municipal and Water Resources, Al Batinah's coast is the worst affected, with rising salinity of 40 to 45 per cent shown in water samples from 670 groundwater wells, but the situation is similar in Al Khabourah and elsewhere.

Reports indicate that by the middle of the 21st century, 64 per cent of cultivated land in the southern Al Batinah region will be unfit for groundwater irrigation owing to seawater intrusion into the Jamma aquifer from sea level rise.

As a country with high levels of vulnerability to several consequences of climate change, Oman has made notable progress in climate change adaptation and resilience. It approved its National Strategy for Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change in April 2019, focusing its vision on three themes, one of which is climate adaptation.

It foresees a national framework to guide the country’s sustainable development and facilitate the implementation of the Oman Vision 2040.

Significantly, Oman government’s continuous support for the diversification of energy technologies and higher penetration of renewable energy is expected to help the country cope better with climate-related shocks, facilitating its shift to alternative options and limiting energy supply disruption.