(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Muscat- Oman is the most vulnerable country in the GCC to be impacted by extreme weather events, ranking 28th in the Global Climate Risk Index 2018. The index analyses to what extent countries have been affected by the impacts of weather-related events such as storms, floods and heat waves etc. The most recent data available – for 2016 and from 1997 to 2016 – were taken into account. The countries affected most in 2016 were Haiti, Zimbabwe and Fiji.
For the period from 1997 to 2016, Honduras, Haiti and Myanmar were ranked highest. In the long-term ranking (1997-2016) for GCC, Oman is placed among the high-risk countries, while others are comfortably ranked over hundred with Qatar at 182, Kuwait 178, UAE 169, Bahrain 140 and Saudi Arabia at 117.
In Oman, with climate change it is expected that the prevention of groundwater degradation and balancing supply and demand will become a greater challenge. According to the study, 'Projection of Future Changes in Rainfall and Temperature Patterns in Oman' by Charabi Yassine from SQU, northern Oman is expected to face decreasing rainfall in the coming decades.
'In a region where historic average annual rainfall levels are between 50mm and 100mm for the northern coast area, climate change is expected to lead to between 20mm and 40mm less rainfall by 2040. This is equivalent to a reduction in average annual rainfall of about 40 per cent. With less future rainfall in northern areas, groundwater recharge and surface water flow are expected to also decrease,' Yassine stated in the study.
This year's 13th edition of the analysis reconfirms earlier results of the Climate Risk Index: Less developed countries are generally more affected than industrialised countries. 'Recent storms with intensity levels never seen before have had disastrous impacts on island states,' said David Eckstein of Germanwatch, one of the authors of the index.
'In 2016, Haiti was hit by the strongest hurricane in over 50 years and Fiji was struck by the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded on the island. This is why Haiti ranks first and Fiji ranks third in the index of the most-impacted countries in 2016.'
In many of the countries most affected by natural disasters in the past year, extreme rainfall followed periods of severe drought. In Zimbabwe (No 2 in 2016) for example, rain caused dramatic flooding that killed 250 people and left thousands of people homeless. In the past 20 years from 1997 to 2016, Honduras, Haiti and Myanmar were impacted the strongest, according to the long-term index.
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