Climate Change in Ecuador: expected extreme weather events

PREPARED BY GLOBAL FACILITY FOR DISASTER REDUCTION AND RECOVERY / APRIL 2011

Ecuador is located in the northwestern part of South America and borders Colombia, Peru and the Pacific Ocean. The country has a total area of 248,513 km2 and a population of over 13.6 million inhabitants.1 Ecuador is highly exposed to El Niño events, floods and associated landslides. The country faces numerous environmental and socioeconomic challenges, such as erosion and unregulated land use, desertification, deforestation, overexploitation of resources, pollution, poverty, health problems, and high population density in the coastal and mountain regions, which make it
extremely vulnerable to a changing climate.2 Yet, even with the high uncertainty of long-term precipitation pattern projections, some impacts emerge more clearly. Climate change is expected to increase variability and the incidence of extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, and intense rainfall events. The variability can be expected to negatively impact crop production, particularly because agriculture is already vulnerable to current fluctuations in climate. Increasing temperatures will cause greater evapotranspiration, which will lead to drier soil conditions in many areas. The increasing demand for water will likely decrease water availability even with an increase in precipitation.18 Projections shown in the graphs below indicate that it is very likely that there will be increases in temperature in Ecuador for all months as a result of climate change. Yet, even with the high uncertainty of long-term precipitation pattern projections, some impacts emerge more clearly.BE SURE TO READ FULL REPORT IN PDF – THERE IS VERY PERTINENT INFORMATION FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING A MOVE TO ECUADOR