Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands (FRACTAL) is a 4 year project coordinated by the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town. The aim of the FRACTAL project is to advance scientific knowledge about regional climate responses to human activities (such as burning fossil fuels, changing land surface cover, etc.) and work with decision makers to integrate this scientific knowledge into climate-sensitive decisions at the city-regional scale (particularly decisions relating to water, energy and food with a lifetime of 5 to 40 years). FRACTAL is designed to work across disciplines within the scientific community and foster strong collaboration between researchers, city government officials and other key decision makers in southern Africa.

The FRACTAL project started on the 1st of April 2015 and is funded by Future Climate for Africa. The primary aim of advancing scientific knowledge on the regional response to global climate change is done by bridging the divide between research and decision-making at the city-region scale. The project will run until the 31st of March 2019. Thus far, the project has successfully developed reports on the main challenges and vulnerabilities related to a) climate change, b) water and storm water, c) energy and d) food security in the respective targeted cities.

The project objectives include:

a) Understanding the climate processes which drive the African climate system's variability. Thereafter, we can understand the response to global change in history and climate model simulations;
b) Distil defensible, scale-relevant climate information, informed by and tailored to urban decision making and risk management within their regional dependencies;
c) Use pilot studies to enhance our understanding of co-exploration processes with urban partners to integrate climate messages within real-world decisions, and strengthen development pathways to resilience.

Visit the FRACTAL website here.