Authored by Simon Hearn (Southern Hemisphere) with the INFLOW team

CLARE Stories of Change are snapshots of how research and capacity strengthening initiatives that the programme supports are contributing to specific changes on the ground in support of resilience to climate change and natural hazards. They help illustrate how CLARE is enabling socially inclusive and sustainable climate resilience, as outlined in the CLARE Theory of Change.

What changed?

In May 2024, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of South Sudan used hydrological status and flood outlook evidence from the INFLOW project to release a public early warning notice of upcoming flooding, which was picked up and distributed by media outlets across South Sudan. This marked the first time a flood analysis of this national scope had been conducted – and used – in the country. It signaled an important step towards producing and using stronger evidence to inform anticipatory action in the White Nile catchment where INFLOW works.

INFLOW has a strong and ongoing working relationship with South Sudan’s Ministry of Water Resources, particularly through the team’s direct involvement in the country’s Technical Working Group (TWG) on flooding, which coordinates technical inputs into the country’s fortnightly Flood Task Force meetings, which the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UN OCHA) established in 2024 following record releases from Lake Victoria upstream in Uganda.. This collaboration is facilitating recognition of the value of data on hydrological status and flood outlook in efforts to promote early action to mitigate flood-related risks in a changing climate. The relationship is also enabling ongoing data sharing, with INFLOW sharing data from its research, while the Ministry of Water Resource and Irrigation shares data from daily monitoring of water levels, previously restricted to government use only, for use in the project’s work.

Why does it matter?

Flooding is a feature of the South Sudan landscape, as the scale of its Sudd wetlands expand and contract seasonally. However, under a changing climate, this flooding is increasing in severity and duration with several record-breaking events in recent years. This is just one dimension of a severe and multifaceted humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, with over two million people internally displaced due to factors including protracted conflict and flooding.

Efforts to take anticipatory action to mitigate the impacts of floods on vulnerable populations in the White Nile catchment have been constrained by the limited applicability of global-scale hydrological forecasting capabilities to the unique nature of flooding in this river basin. INFLOW is working to address this gap in direct collaboration with government and practitioners. By producing and promoting use of evidence to help understand and predict flooding in South Sudan, the team aims to strengthen the potential to take anticipatory action ahead of flooding events.

What did CLARE do to contribute?

INFLOW was developed in the context of worsening seasonal flooding and an urgent need for usable information in the White Nile river catchment, with an understanding that its analysis of hydrological dynamics in the catchment could be used to inform the development of improved flood forecast models. In South Sudan, to ensure strong and sustainable means of facilitating evidence use, the project made significant efforts from the outset to establish relationships with key organizations on the ground, including the national Ministry of Water Resources and irrigation in South Sudan, UN OCHA, and other humanitarian partners.

Building on these relationships, in 2024 the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) office in Juba facilitated INFLOW’s entry into South Sudan’s TWG on flooding. Since joining, members of the INFLOW team have participated in fortnightly meetings, providing forecast updates based on the new forecast products developed through INFLOW research. Additionally, INFLOW frequently represents the TWG on the South Sudan Flood Task Force, co-chaired by the Government of South Sudan and the UN OCHA, which brings together humanitarian agencies, government agencies, and technical experts involved in addressing and responding to flood risk on the ground. With the IGAD Climate Predication and Applications Centre (ICPAC) co-leading the INFLOW project, and a mandated regional forecasting centre, they have played a critical role in enabling ongoing engagement in decision-making spaces. These connections and relationships have already proven critical in enabling INFLOW’s contributions to informing strengthened flood warnings in the country.

About INFLOW:

The Improved anticipation of floods on the White Nile (INFLOW) project aims to improve early warning capacity in the White Nile River catchment and increase the capacity of humanitarian organizations equipped to act on new information. Research is being conducted by a transdisciplinary team of mandated government agencies, regional forecasting bodies, academic institutions and humanitarian partners. It examines how recent flooding is represented in existing hydrological models and how the flooding impacts people, particularly women and children, in conflict-affected communities. The new knowledge that the project generates will bis being integrated into existing models.