1. Main drivers of flood hazard and level of flood risk are identified. 2. EBA options are prioritized based on magnitude of expected flood mitigation impacts. 3. Flood mitigation impacts of at least two EBA scenarios in each of the four study cities are quantified and mapped, relative to a “do-nothing” scenario. 4. Associated erosion, sedimentation, and waste management impacts of EBA scenarios are quantified and mapped, relative to a “do-nothing” scenario. 5. Additional co-benefits are quantified, as relevant.

Home based

6 months

Organizational Setting: The United Nations Environment Programme is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action. UNEP Ecosystems Division works with international and national partners, providing technical assistance and capacity development for the implementation of environmental policy, and strengthening the environmental management capacity of developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The consultant will work for the Economics of Nature (TEN) Unit in the Ecosystems Division to contribute to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) project Building Resilience of Urban Populations in Lao PDR. The project is being implemented by the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) and managed by a team of Ministry representatives, national consultants, and UNEP staff. UNEP-TEN has been contracted to make the economic case for EBA and guide decision making around implementation of EBA measures by valuing their associated ecosystem services. The consultant will report to the Head of the Economics of Nature Unit (TEN) in the Ecosystems Division. Background: With financing from GCF, Lao PDR is undertaking efforts build urban resilience to climate change in four cities: Kaysone, Paksan, Pakse, and Vientiane. Through capacity building, technical assistance, and multi-lateral planning and decision making, the five-year project aims to advise and encourage the adoption of plans and interventions to increase urban resilience to flooding. Under a cooperation agreement with the UNEP Climate Change Adaptation Unit, UNEP-TEN contributes to this project by guiding the application of ecosystem-service valuation to assess and compare EBA options. UNEP will produce an extended cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of potential EBA measures so that decision makers can recognize the societal value of natural ecosystems and adopt NBS and EBA measures to build urban resilience. Ecosystem services valuation is a tool to ensure that the decision-making process accounts for the benefits natural systems provide to society. Economic valuation of ecosystem services incorporates considerations of equity and sustainability in decision making processes and helps to identify and resolve the trade-offs inherent to urban development and management of ecosystems. Ecosystem management plans often result in net gains for some sections of society and net losses for others. For example, forest conservation might increase carbon sequestration (a global benefit) but as a result, local populations might be deprived of access to the forest and be unable to access services, like timber and non-timber forest products, as a result. Similarly, for floodplain wetland ecosystems, their conversion might increase the availability of land for agriculture and industrial uses, but ecosystem services like bioremediation, water storage and biodiversity may be lost, impacting the residents who depend upon them. Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems in ways that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, to provide both human well-being and biodiversity benefits (IUCN 2016).  Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EBA) is the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help people to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change (CBD 2009). EBA and NBS both refer to actions, measures, or interventions that conserve or restore nature, with an aim to ensure or augment the provision of ecosystem services. Ecosystem-services valuation can be used to compare the full range of societal costs and benefits of NBS and EBA measures and compare development scenarios that include NBS to those that do not. For any ecosystem service, its societal value is the discounted net present value of the flow of future expected benefits, including future costs avoided. By estimating this net present value, decision-makers can see how the marginal benefit, for example of conservation of urban or coastal wetlands, equates with the marginal costs of conservation or restoration. The objective of this consultancy is to establish the biophysical evidence base to enable the valuation of ecosystem services that will guide decision making around implementation of EBA. Economic valuation will enable a cost-benefit analysis of specific EBA scenarios and NBS measures for each of the four project cities, which will be co-developed with UNEP staff and Lao stakeholders. In order to estimate the economic value of ecosystem services, the biophysical impact of selected EBA measures must be predicted. Duties and Responsibilities: Summary: For Vientiane, Paksan, Pakse and Kaysone cities in Lao PDR, model and quantify the biophysical impacts of selected NBS and EBA measures, including impacts of flooding, erosion, and sedimentation, to households, business, and public areas. Secondly, quanitification of potential co-benefit ecosystem services from NBS and EBA measures as relevant, such as recreation area, heat mitigation, air quality, waste management, crop or livestock production, wild food harvesting, or others. Activities: Collaborate with UNEP and World Bank staff and consultants to scope EBA scenarios for four cities Collaborate with UNEP and World Bank staff and consultants to identify the most relevant provisioning, regulating and cultural services (co-benefits) potentially provided by the proposed EBA scenarios in the four cities and identify the biophysical relationship between the EBA and NBS measures and the ecosystem services. Identify the data required to conduct a spatially-explicit assessment of the impacts of the EBA scenarios, based on the extent and condition of proposed nature-positive interventions. Model the flood mitigation impacts of EBA scenarios relative to a do-nothing scenario with respect to indicators such as depth and duration of flooding, damage to assets, number of people affected, impacts to key sectors (e.g. agriculture, transport, commerce, supply chains, etc.), social disruption, and environmental and cultural damage. Model secondary and indirect impacts such as erosion, sedimentation, and waste management, relative to a do-nothing scenario. Quantify co-benefits, in biophysical terms, to enable economic valuation of their benefits Description of duties and responsibilities: Building upon other activities within the GCF Urban Resilience project and associated World Bank financed Nature-based Solutions Opportunity Scan and Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Management (SEA DRM) projects, this consultancy will establish the evidence base to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of EBA implementation scenarios to empower Lao environmental management agents to select and implement the most beneficial EBA measures and NBS for water management in Vientiane, Paksan, Pakse, and Kaysone. Specifically, this consultancy will assess and quantify (model) the impacts of NBS and EBA intervention scenarios so that the economic value of those scenarios can be estimated. Assess flood drivers and hazards (impact indicators) Using as a starting point the report “Hydrological and climate risk assessment and development of hydrological /hydraulic models to inform EBA solutions for flood reduction in Vientiane, Paksan, Savannakhet and Pakse”, the consultant shall identify the main drivers of flooding and the flood hazards in Vientiane, Paksan, Pakse, and Kaysone. Hazards will include aspects such as direct risk to human life; damage to properties including their contents and infrastructure; disruption of traffic; health risk; disruption of business activities; environmental impact and other matters such as political considerations. This shall include hazards related to erosion and sedimentation. The Consultant is expected to assess the level of dependence between the flood mechanisms based on available data and the knowledge of the hydrologic/hydraulic system in general. The flood driver and hazards assessment should consider the interaction of large-scale river flooding from the Mekong River, local fluvial flooding from tributaries, pluvial flooding, and flash floods. The hazard assessment shall include mapping exposure of public and private assets, including residential buildings, industrial establishments, government buildings, infrastructure, and agriculture to flood impacts. Secondary impacts, such as loss of ecosystem services, must also be considered. The Consultant shall prepare a flood drivers and hazards report, providing a summary of results (maps) and findings, providing a narrative around flooding and its causes. The report will be succinct and aimed at a mainly technical but non-expert audience. A dissemination/verification meeting will be held following submission of the draft report, and any necessary adaptation or amendments will be incorporated into the final draft. Collaborate on development of EBA scenarios The EBA scenarios will be determined for each city by UNEP staff and consultants in consultation with the project management unit (PMU) and provincial authorities, and and will be based on, as a starting point, the World Bank NBS Opportunity Scan1 as well as recommendations for EBA measures from provincial ecosystem management plans2, spatial hydrological assessments3, and integrated climate-resilient flood management strategies4 (ICRFMS). The EBA Impact Modeling consultant is expected to review the draft scenarios and participate in the consultation process in so much as is possible under the budget constraints of the consultancy. Based on the consultant’s expert opinion and experience modelling river and drainage systems, the consultant shall propose adaptations or supplemental NBS and EBA measures. Model flood mitigation impacts of EBA scenarios The consultant shall model the potential flood mitigation impacts of proposed EBA implementation scenarios relative to a business-as-usual scenario. The modelling must be applied to realistically represent variations in rainfall, topography, soil type, land use, and adequately simulate floods' genesis. The modelling may need to be extended to locations outside the urban areas to capture all relevant run-off. The model design should allow a straightforward representation of land-use changes and human interventions. The model schematization must be set-up such that the model can evaluate a range of different types of measures including but not limited to additional storage areas, widening/deepening of tributaries, changes to land use, urban water management measures to reduce runoff, improvement of maintenance, pump capacity, canal widening/deepening, improvement of canal maintenance, green infrastructure or other nature-based interventions. etc. Particular attention should be given to the impact of planned and unplanned urban development (e.g. changes in both density and extent of urbanization, that will result in an increase in paved areas, increase in informal settlements near waterways, increase in populations vulnerable to flooding), and how these will affect the flood impacts. The Consultant shall prepare a draft and final flood impact assessment report, that includes an executive summary of results and findings, with maps, and include a narrative around flood risk and its main contributing factors (from the drivers and hazards assessment). The report shall consider risk indicators such as depth flooding, duration of flood, number of people affected, damage to assets, impacts to key sectors (e.g. agriculture, transport, commerce, supply chains, etc.), social impacts, and environmental and cultural damage. Risk mitigation measures shall be partly prioritized based on their robustness, i.e., their ability to deliver reduced flood losses under a range of future conditions. The report shall be aimed at a mainly technical but non-expert audience, and shall include an assessment of the robustness of solutions for a range of (uncertain) future scenarios due to climate and socio-economic changes, etc. Estimate implementation costs of EBA scenarios The Consultant shall enable the cost-benefit analysis with an estimate of costs of EBA and NBS implementation, considering capital costs, operations & maintenance costs over their functional lifespan, and other long-term budget needs. Detail any other implementation needs and constraints. Sketches or conceptual drawings of the proposed shortlist options will be prepared, and where possible, with outline dimensions and materials. Quantify secondary ecosystem service impacts The Consultant shall quantify expected secondary and indirect impacts of EBA scenarios (“Co-benefits”). Apart from direct benefits from flood risk reduction, assess indirect benefits associated with EBA scenarios, for instance erosion control, waste management, sedimentation, recreation, and improving the overall quality of life (heat mitigation, air quality, attractive landscape, spiritual wellness, etc.) Additionally, the Consultant shall conduct a high-level assessment of potential environment and social risks of the proposed investments for the highest ranked options for four cities as agreed with the responsible agencies.

An advanced university degree in Applied Hydrology, Environmental Engineering, or a related field is required. A first university degree in related fields with a combination of two (2) years of professional and academic qualifications may be accepted in lieu of the advanced degree. A minimum of five (5) years of professional working experience in the field of hydrological modeling, ecosystem services modeling, or ecosystem-based adaptation assessment in developing countries is required. A minimum of three (3) years of professional working experience on flood impact assessment is required. Experience in and understanding of the political economy of development planning in South East Asia is desired.

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this position fluency in oral and written English is required.

Not available.

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.