Community engagement as an essential step in designing tools to improve climate change resilience in the brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Climate change and environmental degradation, including rapid deforestation rates, are threatening the Amazon rainforest and the health of traditional peoples who live in the forest. To better understand the health impacts caused by climatic and environmental change and build resilience in low-resource settings, the HARMONIZE project will strategically undertake one-off longitudinal ground truth data collection using drone technology and low-cost weather sensors to improve classification algorithms and downscaling of coarser-resolution environmental datasets (e.g., satellite images, climate reanalysis and forecasts). We will then harmonize this postprocessed data with socio-economic and health data in an automated workflow packaged for users in bespoke hotspotspecific toolkits. These solutions are only possible by engaging with stakeholders, users, and local communities to understand their needs and co-design useful toolkits. In November 2022, I travelled to the Brazilian Amazon with the research team to conduct the first round of field campaigns, engagement, and dissemination activities in Pará state in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the key climate change hotspots in HARMONIZE. In this seminar, I will present the findings of community engagement activities and field campaigns and share insights about how it feels to be and to live in the Amazon.