The U.S. Forest Service International Programs, through USAID’s Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, is working in Central Africa to train communities on improved fire management. Uncontrolled fires pose a huge threat to Central African forests and can cause large releases of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when burned, further exacerbating the effects of climate change. However, fire within forest-savannah mosaic landscapes in the Congo Basin can be both a management tool as well as a threat. If used in a sustainable manner, fire can help maintain pastureland and protect forests, farms, plantations, and villages. If used haphazardly, intentional and accidental fires can burn out of control, impacting large areas and threatening villages, farms, and forests. Here, during a trailing in May 2017, a local “fire brigade” is trained in how to control and suppress fire so that they can better deal with uncontrolled fires in their communities.
Climatelinks Photo Gallery
Do you have a photo that you want to add to the photo gallery?
Welcome to the Climatelinks photo gallery. Here you can find a range of climate change and development photos from our photo contest, our blogs, and USAID’s Flickr sites. Submit your photos to the photo gallery here.
- Clear all
- Photo Topic: Disaster Risk Management
- (-) Disaster Risk Management
Showing 52 results
The U.S. Forest Service International Programs, through USAID’s Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, is working in Central Africa to train communities on improved fire management. Uncontrolled fires pose a huge threat to Central African forests and can cause large releases of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when burned, further exacerbating the effects of climate change. However, fire within forest-savannah mosaic landscapes in the Congo Basin can be both a management tool as well as a threat. If used in a sustainable manner, fire can help maintain pastureland and protect forests, farms, plantations, and villages. If used haphazardly, intentional and accidental fires can burn out of control, impacting large areas and threatening villages, farms, and forests. Here, during a trailing in May 2017, a local “fire brigade” is trained in how to control and suppress fire so that they can better deal with uncontrolled fires in their communities.
In March of 2017, members of the Nkhombedzi Rice Scheme in Chikwawa District in Malawi take a break from planting seeds purchased at a Catholic Relief Services DiNER fair (Diversification for Nutrition and Enhanced Resilience) to sing and dance. The DiNER program offers agricultural vouchers to beneficiaries to purchase drought-resistant seeds that can withstand Malawi’s changing climate. Many areas in Malawi have battled a long history of food insecurity due to flooding and drought. The DiNER Fair program is part of UBALE (United in Building and Advancing Life Expectations), a USAID Food for Peace-funded project which works to increase the food security of vulnerable households, improve the nutrition of children and mothers, and strengthen the disaster risk management of communities.
Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic. September 11, 2018.
This image describes the educational activities for development of capacities in adaptation strategies and flood prevention in the Las Terrenas River by the Fundación REDDOM under the Climate Risk Reduction Program. With these actions we can support the reduction of flood risks in urban areas near the riverbank.
For many Mozambican farmers, improving yields is a challenge. Years of practicing traditional farming methods, such as planting the same crops on the same land year-after-year, have depleted the soil’s fertility. On top of this, hot dry spells are becoming more frequent, and rain either comes in a downpour or doesn’t come at all.
The Feed the Future Resilient Agricultural Markets Activity is supporting farmers to increase agricultural productivity by improving farming practices, like proper seed spacing and intercropping maize fields with legumes. Legumes are nitrogen-fixing crops that repel pests and replenish soil health, making the soil more effective at retaining water during periods of drought. The legume beans and dark green leaves also provide Ana’s family with additional sources of nutrition.
Two agricultural extensionists from the Mam Mayan population of Todos Santos undergoing a field training day for improved post harvest practices. Todos Santos Cuchumatán is a municipality from Huehuetenango, at 12,559ft elevation, a drought or extreme rainfall have serious effects on smallholder farmers crops, therefore the PHLIL helps this farmers improve their resilience to climate change by improving post-harvest practices, reducing contamination of their corn and increasing their yields, ensuring food safety in adverse conditions. Todos Santos Cuchumatán, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. October 25, 2017.
Feed the Future Post Harvest Loss Innovation Lab Guatemala, Asociación Share de Guatemala.
This young woman was one of many who supported the planting of mangroves in the coastal area of Las Terrenas. This area has been supported under the Climate Risk Reduction Program of the USAID Dominican Republic Mission executed by the Fundación REDDOM.
Southwest Bangladesh is a watery world. Houses perch on steep riverbanks. Storms pummel fragile coastlines. It’s hard not to see this starkly beautiful place as engaged in a battle between water and land, with the water winning. But the land has a new ally, a living hem of mangrove forests made possible by Winrock International’s Climate Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods (CREL) project, funded by USAID. “If we don’t have trees, we are flooded,” says Bharati Rani Bishwash, who was left homeless after a typhoon in 2009. It’s a view that many Bangladeshis share. “I’m taking care of the trees now,” says Bishwash, “and in time the trees will take care of me." Subject: Bharati Rani Bishwash Location: Koyra, Bangladesh August 17, 2017
Terraced rice production is a climate adaption tool. It reduces the velocity of water runoff and the resulting soil erosion by reducing the length of sloped land surfaces. This helps protect the soil from moderate flood risks. It can also trap and hold rainwater to make it feasible to cultivate water-intensive crops (such as rice). The flatter areas of land increase the ability to retain and absorb water if the soil is sufficiently permeable. However, it is labor intensive to construct and maintain the terraces.
November 30, 2018.
Children are often most vulnerable to climate impacts. Parents and their children may face increasing risks over time. These impacts include extreme weather events and climate-related malnutrition, increases in the prevalence of malaria and other diseases, water and sanitation problems, and air pollution. Inhaca Island, Mozambique. October 31, 2014.
The USAID-NREL Partnership, in coordination with Clean Power Asia, partnered with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the country's power sector. The assessment included a review of climate change related risks as well as vulnerabilities related to technological and human-related threats. At the time of the assessment, the Lao PDR was experiencing severe flooding related to greater than normal rainfall and tropical storms.
Flooding and other extreme weather events can damage generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure and cause both short- and long-term outages. This photo shows power distribution equipment located within the flood zone in Vientiane, Laos. The vulnerability assessment analyzed risks related to power sector equipment sited in hazard zones.
Learn more about planning a resilient power sector at the Resilient Energy Platform website: http://bit.ly/30LeCqV. Learn more about the Lao PDR power sector vulnerability assessment in this webinar: http://bit.ly/2P3Triy. Photo taken by Sherry Stout, NREL, August 2018.
IOM staff member Maylia Rudolph facilitates a workshop on climate change awareness and disaster preparedness for school students attending Marshall Islands Christian School, Rongrong, Republic of the Marshall Islands in early 2017.
As part of the USAID-funded CADRE + program, IOM regularly conducts workshops and information sessions assisting Marshallese school students to better understand the ways in which climate change can produce hazards in their communities. In these workshops, IOM staff are able to educate students about climate change adaptation and disaster risk management strategies to enhance the resilience of Marshallese youth and their wider communities.
Through the CADRE + program, IOM has distributed educational materials such as storybooks, involved school students in public awareness campaigns and conducted focus group discussions in which Marshallese youth are able to share their attitudes towards climate change and what it means for their homeland. (Photo credit: Muse Mohhamed, IOM 2017).
In 2017, an elementary school teacher in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, utilizes the climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (CCA / DRR) curriculum in classroom, educating her students on how to recognize signs of natural disasters common to the region.
The USAID-funded CADRE + program aims to increase climate change awareness and adaptation practices to build the resilience of vulnerable communities in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia. At a school level, the IOM designed (CCA/DRR) curriculum has now been endorsed by the Department of Education at national and state level and is being taught in many schools across the region. Photo credit: Muse Mohhamed, IOM, 2017.
The Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are vulnerable to typhoons, floods, droughts and tsunamis. The Enhanced Preparedness for Effective Response (EPER) program, funded by USAID, supports FSM and RMI’s resilience through capacity development and local ownership in disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management.
As part of this program, IOM designed tabletop exercises to test and improve the capacity of stakeholders to prepare for and respond to disasters. In this photo, two members of the Disaster Coordination Office participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by Chuuk State in Weno between the 16th and 18th of July 2019. The photo was taken by IOM’s Lee Arkhie Perez on the first day of the activity.
Typhoon Wutip hit the outer-islands of Chuuk, Yap and Pohnpei located in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in February 2019 and damaged agricultural production across many islands. USAID/OFDA, through its implementing partner the International Organization for Migration (IOM), responded by delivering supplementary food baskets to affected communities.
This picture, taken by Mr. Lee Arkhie Perez on 3 July 2019, depicts local community members working together to transport food from the shore to strategically located distribution points. The OFDA-funded program, titled “Typhoon Wutip Response: Provision of Logistics and Food Assistance”, is addressing climate change by planning a food-secure future in the face of increasingly frequent and devastating natural disasters.
San Agustín Loxicha, Oaxaca, Mexico. 2019.
Project: Alliance for sustainable landscapes and markets
In the alliance for sustainable landscapes and markets, supported by USAID and implemented by Rainforest Alliance in Mexico, we are working with coffee producers in Oaxaca and Chiapas to reforest and restore their landscapes.
The State Coordinator of Coffee Producers in Oaxaca (CEPCO) is one of our partners in the alliance. With them, we seek to generate resilient practices that overcome extreme weather and shocks by introducing new coffee species and planting multi species gardens, in order to create a more competitive product for the global market.
With climate smart agriculture implementation, coffee producers are able to strengthen their practices and restore their landscapes by planting more trees to give shadow and nurture their crops and protecting all the biodiversity that the forest inhabit like this beautiful cheeky kinkajou (Potos flavus) in Oaxaca.