Addis Ababa faces growing climate change risks like heat, drought and floods, study warns

By Abay Yimere, Tufts University

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, will likely face increased heatwaves, droughts and severe flooding over the next 67 years. These changes will pose risks to public health and infrastructure. They’ll also be felt most acutely by the city’s most vulnerable residents: those living in informal settlements.

Addis Ababa is one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa, and its current metropolitan population of about 5.4 million is projected to reach close to 9 million by 2035.

This increase in the city’s population will be absorbed by informal settlements, the prime destination for most migrants. And informal settlements are characterised by poor or non-existent infrastructure, and face the twin challenges of worsening climate change and poor urban environmental policy.

To investigate the city’s vulnerability to climate change, researchers at Tufts University and the Woodwell Climate Research Center analysed flood risk and temperature data for different time periods, projecting from the past to the future.

We predicted that the city’s extreme daily maximum temperatures would increase by about 1.7°C over the period 2040-2060, compared with 2000–2020. An increase of 1.7°C would result in a rise in the frequency, duration, and intensity of heatwaves. In addition, higher temperatures contribute to increased water vapour and transpiration. This will threaten health, ecosystems, infrastructure, livelihoods, and food supplies.

Certain southern neighbourhoods, such as Akaki-Kaliti, Bole and Nifas Silk-Lafto, have experienced notably higher temperatures, especially during the warm season from March to May. And, looking to the future, temperature projections for Nifas Silk-Lafto suggest an average temperature increase to 26.21°C between 2040 and 2060, and further increase to 27.78°C from 2070 to 2090 and 27.78°C from 2070 to 2090.

For the warm-season months of March, April, and May, a temperature increase of 1.8°C is projected. This suggests that the peak temperature for the hottest day of the year will rise by an average of 1.8°C compared to recent data. From 2000 to 2020 the average temperature in the Nifas Silk-Lafto sub-city was 24.70°C.

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