weADAPT has been working with the Climate Information Portal (CIP)run by CSAG at the Climate Systems Analysis Group in Cape Town to integrate each others platform into their own. Whereas weADAPT has a wealth of case studies on climate change adaptation, CIP has developed a robust methodology to downscale climate information to hundreds of climate stations in Africa and Asia. Having access to climate science information alongside your adaptation case study can be hugely valuable for end users, and we see a lot of potential in comparing the two. In terms of support, we have developed an 8-step guidance page to show users the best way to use the integrated data, and also a case study which has used the applied the guidance steps in a flooding scenario in Cape Town, South Africa.

1. Using climate information to support adaptation
planning and policy-making: A step-by-step guide
A vegetable farmer in Philippi, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. Source: FLICKR/KOSMOSELEEVIKE

2. Make sure you have completed these preliminary steps
before you start
 Conducted a basic vulnerability assessment (Link to guidance=
http://weadapt.org/knowledge-base/vulnerability/guidance-for-assessing-
vulnerability)
 Identified the key climate sensitivities and in particular taking into account the
following?
 livelihoods/ and economic activities?
 Infrastructure and services relied upon for that site?

3. Why?
• You may not have thought about your problem as a
question yet, but this can be a useful exercise not
least because you can always check back to this
question to see if you are answering it.
How?
• Set out some parameters of your problem by asking
yourself, ‘what do I want to get out of this process’.
Having realistic expectations of the answer is
important at this stage.
Step 1: Define the question
© Micky Aldridge

4. Step 2: locate the right climate station
3. Navigate to where you are working and look
at what stations are around where your case
study area is located.
1. Go to the Adaptation Layer.
2. Turn on the climate stations by pressing "view
climate stations“.
4. Click on the closest station.

5. Step 3: Investigate historical records
3. Now you can look at the whole time series of
the historical data recorded at this station,
looking across all the years.
1. Click through into CIP from the weADAPT placemark to
look at more information that lies “behind” this overview.
2. Click on historical monthly data record.
4. Which climate variables are available in
CIP? (Look at the drop-down menu.)
How do these match up with the ones you
wanted to look at, identified in Step 1?
What extremes and patterns do you notice?

6. Step 4: Investigate future projections
3. Looking at the projections consider; a) is
there a clear direction of change at critical
times of year that most of the models agree
on? b) How much is that change? How wide is
the uncertainty range?
1. Click through to the future climate
scenarios (also referred to as downscaled
projections) for that station.
2. Look at the variables you are interested in and
compare the spread of projections across the
two different emissions scenarios.
4. The default time period of projections displayed is
2040-2060, but you can change these on the slider
bar as relevant to your needs.

7. Step 5: Check for consistency with
proximal stations
3. Check the historical data for consistency
1. Close the content box to reveal the map
behind it.
2. Look at what other stations are also nearby the
project site (check across the different datasets).
4. Check the future projections. Note, should there be
inconsistencies, there may well be mitigating
circumstances, for example Cape Point station is
located on a peninsula where temperature is heavily
affected by its maritime influences.

8. Step 6: Analysis
• Look back over the information
you have gathered during Steps 2-
5
• What can you say about the
climate in this place? How might it
change under various future
scenarios, and what this might
mean for those who live and work
there?
• What could be done differently to
adapt to current climate
conditions and prepare for how
these patterns might shift in the
future?

9. Step 7: Compare with other adaptation studies
• Go back into weADAPT
and search the
Adaptation Layer for
projects elsewhere
tackling similar climate
risks to see:
– What adaptation options
are they testing or
promoting that might be
worth considering as
options in your study or
project?
– Who has experiences of
implementing
adaptation measures
that you might be able
to learn from?

10. Step 8: Share your work
• Document and share what
you’ve done by adding it to the
weADAPT platform
• The easiest way to do this is
through the QuickShare form
• For guidance on how to share
content via weADAPT go to:
http://weadapt.org/knowledge-
base/guidance/share

11. Useful links
• To see a how we work through these steps in a case study focussing on
land use management and zoning in a suburb of the city of Cape Town,
South Africa, go to: http://weadapt.org/knowledge-base/using-climate-
information/using-climate-information-case-study
• To view the full climate guidance, go to: http://weadapt.org/knowledge-
base/using-climate-information/guide-to-using-climate-information