Mongolia National Scoping Study for Cities and Climate Change, and Ulaanbaatar city Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment
Executive Summary
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
1.Introduction
2.Geographic and Socio-Economic Profile of Study Areas
Mongolia
Mongolia Cities
Ulaanbaatar City
Unur District
3.Climate Change
National
Ulaanbaatar
4.Impacts and Consequences of Climate Change
National
Cities
Ulaanbaatar city
5.GHG Emission
National
Ulaanbaatar city
2.Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change
Ulaanbaatar
Unur district
3.Policy to Respond Climate Change
Mongolia
Cities
4.Climate Change Response Framework for Ulaanbaatar City
5.Proposed Project and Actions Towards Climate Resilient Unur district
6.Conclusion
Executive Summary
1.Introduction
This Executive Summary introduces findings of research work conducted within UN Habitat CCCI framework for Mongolia and its capital city of Ulaanbaatar. The research was done in 2010 with 3 components, namely, national scoping study (NSS) for cities of Mongolia in climate change, vulnerability and adaptation assessment (VAA) and inventoryof Green House Gas (GHG) emission of Ulaanbaatar city.
The final research report is composed from 3 volumes, each of which corresponds to individual research component as the followings:
Volume 1: National Scoping Study for cities of Mongolia in Climate Change;
Volume 2: Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment for Ulaanbaatar city;
Volume 3: Green House Gas Emission from Ulaanbaatar city.
The Executive Summary is a synthesis of above 3 volumes and has 5sections that summarize findings of surveys (geographic and socio-economic profile) and scientific research (climate regime and changes, projection of future changes); assessment results (impacts and consequences, vulnerability), inventory outputs (GHG emission); andconcepts and ideas for future (policy and action projects).
Sections cover Mongolia, cities, Ulaanbaatar city and Unur district of Ulaanbaatar city (pilot site).Actually information on weather and climate is more relevant to urban rather than rural areas as all meteorological stations are located in the cities and towns, and spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of climatic parameters is obtained from observation and measurement conducted at those stations. This means that climate regime, change and variability in the certain area are about the climate in the cities and towns located within that area. However, climate change impacts and consequences are different in urban and rural areasand relevant sections introduce the specifics. Description of vulnerability and adaptation assessment is relevant to Ulaanbaatar city and Unur district.
2.Geographic and Socio-EconomicProfile of Study Areas
Mongolia
Mongolia is situated in the central part of the Asia. The country has a total area of 1,564,100 sq. km, and is bounded on the north by Russia and on the east, south, and west by China. It is the 19thlargest country in terms of area in the world. It is also one of the largest mainland countries with no access to sea.
At the end of 2009, resident population of Mongolia reached at 2735.8 thousand. Although the population has doubled since 1960, the average population density – 1.5 persons per square kilometer – remains the lowest in the world. But, by land use classification only 0.3 per cent of total area (or 4.7 thousand km2) is urban, where 1.7 million people are settled. From this, average density of urban population is approximately 360 person/km2.
Mongolia’s territory includes areas of relatively high altitudes. The northwest and central parts of Mongolia are high mountainous regions, while the south and eastern part is a vast steppe region. The Altai Mountain in the west and southwest rises to heights of 4,267 m above the sea. The southern part of the country is a semi-desert and desert area known as the Mongolian Gobi.
By 2009 official land classification, about 73.9% of country territory is agricultural land, 15.9% is for state special use, 9.2% is forest, 0.4% is land of water resources, and 0.3% goes to urban areas, as well as about 0.2% is covered by roads and networks.
Mongolia has a harsh continental climate with four distinctive seasons, high annual and diurnal temperature fluctuations, and low rainfall. Although annual precipitation is low, its intensity is high, with large amounts falling in short time periods. Snow contributes less than 20 percent of total annual precipitation.
Economic activity in Mongolia has traditionally been based on pastoral animal husbandry, which was truly in harmony with nature.Since 1990 country has been in transition from centralized planning to free-market market economy with extensive privatization of the formerly state-run economy. Economic growth was from 7 to 9 percent in the last 3 years. Much of the growth was due to high copper prices and new gold production. Besides agriculture (21% of GDP), dominant industries in the composition of GDP are mining, trade and service, and transportation, storage, and communication.
Mongolia Cities
At the end of 2009, the 62 per cent of population is living in urban area. Since the early 1990s, a migration flow to cities, particularly to Ulaanbaatar city, from rural areas has been increasing every year, and then since 2008 even with more accelerated rate. Migration rural population to cities has both natural and social causes. Natural causes are drought and dzud[1] disasters, and social causes are limited market and job opportunities, and social services in rural areas.
The urban area is composed from the capital city Ulaanbaatar, 21 province centres – cities and their satellite cities and 331 rural county centres – towns. Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan (centre of Dakhan – Uul province) and Erdenet (centre of Orkhon province) are the major cities ofcountry. Since 1979 Mongolia population increased by 2.4 per cent, while urban population increased by 4.1 per cent. Percentage of city population in total was 47 per cent in 1979, and remained unchanged until mid of 1980s, than sharply increased reaching 54 percent by 2000. At the end of 2009, the 62.3 percent of total population or 1.7 million inhabitants (or 440 thousand households) live in urban area.
The city system is dominated by capital city Ulaanbaatar, in which all important political, economic, and cultural functions are centralized. In 1986 Ulaanbaatar had 500,200 people (or nearly 25 percent of the nation's population), by end of 2009 it has 1 106 719 inhabitants (or 40 percent of total). Its dominant position was demonstrated by the transportation system, which radiated out from Ulaanbaatar.
Erdenet is the second-largest city in Mongolia with 86 thousand inhabitants and located in the northern part of the country. It lies in a valley between the Selenge and Orkhon rivers. The city was built in 1975 to exploit Asia's largest deposit of copper ore and has the fourth largest copper mine in the world. The "Erdenet Mining Corporation" is a joint Mongolian-Russian venture, and accounts for a majority of Mongolia's hard currency income.
With a population of 75 thousand inhabitants, Darkhan is the third largest city of country.
The city was built in 1961 with economic assistance from the Soviet Union and was originally conceived to be manufacturing site in the north of Mongolia. It lies in the forest steppe valley of Orkhon and Kharaa rivers’ confluence.
Ulaanbaatar City
Ulaanbaatar is the capital and the largest city in Mongolia. It is located in the north central part of the country, elevated at 1,310 m (nearly 4,000 ft) above sea level and lies in the Tuul River valley. It is surrounded by the beautiful foothills of the Khentii mountain range, with the centuries-old protected holy Bogd Khan Mountain in the south.Ulaanbaatar has four seasons with a continental and semi-arid climate and it is probably the coldest capital in the world.
As date of 2009 end, totally 1106719 permanent population (40.4 % of country total) and 273182 households were registered in Ulaanbaatar city.
City is expanding rapidly and population is growing mechanically due to mass migration from rural areas after 2000, when weather hardship and natural disasters occurred in few consequent years. Settlement growth is much faster than urban development. For instance, in the recent 5 years settlement area expanded with 122 sq km, while infrastructure areas with 27 ha only. By end of 2009,61% of residents have settled in Ger districts that has very limited social and infrastructure services.Number of people living in slam areas has been rapidly increasing. Since 2004 households living in Ger districts has increased by 40%, while increase of households in apartments is 25%.
By 2009 statistics, Ulaanbaatar contributes 50.5 percent of national GDP. More than 15 thousand production and service companies were operating in the city, and 37% of economic active people and 38% of employees are settled here.
Unur District
UNUR district was selected as pilot site for climate change vulnerability and adaptation study and assessment. It is located on the territory of 6 Khoroos[2] of Songinokhairkhan district (SHD) of Ulaanbaatar city. The district has 434,4 ha of territory with a residential area, where are modern built up apartments in the south part, and traditional Ger areas in the north, which has been newly settled since 2000, due to the mass migration from rural areas after consequent dzud disastersoccurred in Mongolia during 1999-2002.
The UNUR is comparatively close to the City Center (in distance of 6-8 km) where are more job opportunities, betterinfrastructure and social services, hence people consider it is convenient to live there since it is cost effective compared to other remote areas of the city.
By 2009 statistics total 45.9 thousand residents (or 11.4 thousand households) are living here. 70.4% of households live in apartments and comfortable houses, and 29.1% in small houses and gers, and 0.5% are homeless.
In the Ger area households posses 0.7 ha of land by Law, construct fence and live in small house or Ger[3]. Ger area households have no centralized heating and sanitation infrastructure, water supply is from common use wells, and latrines are outside of the home.
Solid waste and grey water create themost problem in Ger area. Households normally transport wastes via waste trucks, throw to trenches or burn openly. Minor parts of waste are recycled. When waste burnt, the risk to making fire is increased. The residents settled closer to main road remove waste via waste truck while residents in upper hill garbage to trenches and ravine, because waste truck can’t reach them due to bad condition or absence of road. In addition, the residents’ differ by cultural and living behavior and education.
The main meteorological station of Ulaanbaatar city is located in UNUR district, hence the existingclimate information relates directly to the district.
Solid waste and grey water create themost problem in Ger area. Households normally transport wastes via waste trucks, throw to trenches or burn openly. Minor parts of waste are recycled. When waste burnt, the risk to making fire is increased. The residents settled closer to main road remove waste via waste truck, while residents in upper hill garbage to trenches and ravine, because waste truck can’t reach them due to bad condition or absence of road. In addition, the residents’ differ by cultural and living behavior and education.
It is noticed that large amount of garbage was in trenches and ravine especially near by Khambiin Ovoo hill. As concluded, almost 53 % of local residents in Ger area of UNUR district have no practice to proper removal of waste.
3.Climate Change
National
Climate Regime
The climate of Mongolia is characterized by short dry summer (June to middle of August) and long cold winter (end of November to April) with spring (April to beginning of June) and autumn (end of August to end of October). Mongolia is far from the world oceans, surrounded by high mountains and highly elevated above the sea level averaging1.5 km. Climate is severe and greatly variable geographically and time wise. Summer rainfall seldom exceeds 380 mm in the mountains and forest steppe areas and is less than 50 mm in the desert areas.
Mongolia receives an average of 230-260 days of sunshine annually and the temperature ranges between -15° and-30°C (-5° and -22°F) in winter, and 10° and26.7°C (50° and 80°F) in summer. In general, the amount of precipitation in Mongolia is low. Annual mean precipitation is 300-400 mm in the Khangai, Khentein and Khuvsgul mountainous regions; 250-300 mm in Mongol Altai and forest-steppe zone; 150-250 mm in the steppe zone and 50-100 mm in the Gobi-desert. Precipitation distribution depends very much on relief and landscape and decreases from north to south and from east to west.Mongolian steppe and desert-steppe zones are windy. Annual average wind speed in these areas is in 4-6 m/s. West-northwest-north wind dominates, but the wind depends much on relief and landscape.Gobi-desert area has 30-100 days (300-600 hours)of year sand-dust storm. Mongoliandust storms are one of the mainsources of “Asian yellow dust”.
Climate Change
The last 70 years trends of climatic parameters clearly show significant changes. According to a linear trend estimation of temperature changes over the period from 1940 to 2007, annual mean temperatures increased by 2.1°C. Warming is intensifying as from 0.06°C per decade in 1940-1975to 0.52°Сper decade in 1976-2006.Average annual precipitation has decreased by 7 percent between 1940-2007.There is seasonal difference as winter precipitation has increased and warm season precipitation has decreased. Period of lower precipitation has been continued since 2000.In the last 20 years,the frequency and intensity of climate related extreme events and natural disasters haveincreased twice, while economic losses have increased by 10 – 14 folds.
Projection for Future Climate Change
Annual average air temperatures are projected to increase by 1.4-1.5°C by 2010-2039, by 2.4-2.8°C by 2040-2069, and by 3.5-5.0°C by 2070-2099.Precipitation is projected to decrease by 4 percent between 2010 and 2039, increase, by 8-20mm per month between 2040 and 2080. This change will vary by season, with increases occurring in the cold season, but decreases in the warm season.
Currently, 62% of the area of Mongolia has stable snow coverage greater than 50 days. This is projected to decrease by 43-46 percent of current levels by 2020, 31-35percent by 2050, and 27percent by 2080.By 2020, permafrost area is projected to decrease by 30-50 percent, and by 2080 by 77-94 percent. For instance, melting of glaciers on Tsambagarav Mountain is projected to lead to a total loss of 50m of glacier depth by 2070-2080, initial increase and then ultimatedecline flows in nearby rivers.
Ulaanbaatar
Climate change studies with focus on cities have not been conducted in Mongolia except this study. As mentioned in Introduction section of this Executive Summary, information on weather and climate is more relevant to urban rather than rural areas as all meteorological stations are located in the cities and towns. Therefore above information on climate regime, change and future projection refers to cities as well as national.
Study under UN Habitat CCCI is focused on Ulaanbaatar city and the findings are summarized in the following subsections.
Climate Regime
Annual mean temperature in the city ranges between -0,9 and -2,4оС and -19.3 and.-22,5оС is in winter, +14.3 and+15.3oC in summer. According to data since 1979, the hottest air temperature was recorded as 39.5оC in 15 July, 2005 and the coldest day with -46.9оС in 09 January, 2001.
- Hot wave: July of 2007 was the hottest month. Days with temperature higher than 300 continued for half of the month. During this period, hottest temperature reached 390C.
- Extreme cold: Extreme cold was recorded in January and February of 2005. Nights colder than -300C were continued for one and half month. At that time the coldest temperature was - 420C.
Total amount of annual precipitation in Ulaanbaatar ranges from 249 to 261 mm. There is seasonal variation. Precipitation ranges from 180 to 190 mmin summer and 5-7 mm in winter. Monthly amount of precipitation may fall in a day causing flood. For instance, average monthly sum of precipitationaround Chingis Khaan International Airport area is 68 mm, while rainfall occurred on 13 July, 1995 gave 60mm precipitation.On 17 July, 2009, the heavy rainfall continued for 2.30 hours gave 40-52 mm precipitation and caused dramatic flood in the south western area of the city.
The current study showed that the most hazardous phenomenon in Ulaanbaatar is flood caused by rain, and number of heavy rain decreased, while its intensity increased, and probability of heavy rain with thunder is more than 90 percent.
Climate Change
During the period 1940-2009, the annual average temperature increased by 2.73oC and annual precipitation decreased by 9.97 mm in the city. By season, precipitation in summer was decreased by 24.90 mm (13.5%), while winter rainfall increased by 2.40 mm (48.7%).
Duration of continues cold days is shorter compared to continues hot days. The number of days hotter than 26oC in average increased by 44 days,days colder than 0oCreduced by 18 days. For instance, number of hot days was 7 in 1979, 32 in 2002 and 36 in 2007 respectively. Days with precipitation decreased by 10 days. These changes of indicators of climate extremes are higher compared with the national average. In addition frequency of strong wind increased (28 in 1979; 50 in 2005; and 60 in 2009).Frequency of dust storm increased (18 in 1979;80 in 2005; and 92 in 2007).
Projection for Future Climate Change
Outputs of climate change model for Ulaanbaatar city are shown in Table 1. By end of this century winter is projected to be warmer by 3-5oC. Warming will lead to increase number of hot days. Winter precipitationis projected to be increased, while days with more than 5 mm precipitation is going to be decreased. Days with dust storm is projected to be increased.
Table 1. Climate change projection, Ulaanbaatar city
4.Impacts and Consequences of Climate Change
National
Climate change is having dramatic impacts on Mongolia’s natural and economic resources, and dramatic social consequences. Changes to physical regimes of temperature, precipitation and weather extreme events have further implications for natural and human environments, including permafrost, glaciers and snow cover, water resources, natural zones, pastures and grassland, livestock and agriculture, with resulting impacts on human lives and livelihoods.
According to the German Watch assessment Mongolia is among the most climate vulnerable countries, ranking at 16thby Climate Risk Index (CRI), and at 6th by GDP Losses per capita [German Watch, 2009].