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This paper presents a new coupled urban change and hazard consequence model that considers population growth, a changing built environment, natural hazard mitigation planning, and future acute hazards. Urban change is simulated as an agent-based land market with six agent types and six land use types. Agents compete for parcels with successful bids leading to changes in both urban land use-affecting where agents are located-and structural properties of buildings-affecting the building's ability to resist damage to natural hazards. IN-CORE, an open-source community resilience model, is used to compute damages to the built environment. The coupled model operates under constraints imposed by planning policies defined at the start of a simulation. The model is applied to Seaside, Oregon, a coastal community in the North American Pacific Northwest subject to seismic-tsunami hazards emanating from the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Ten planning scenarios are considered including caps on the number of vacation homes, relocating community assets, limiting new development, and mandatory seismic retrofits. By applying this coupled model to the testbed community, we show that: (a) placing a cap on the number of vacation homes results in more visitors in damaged buildings, (b) that mandatory seismic retrofits do not reduce the number of people in damaged buildings when considering population growth, (c) polices diverge beyond year 10 in the model, indicating that many policies take time to realize their implications, and (d) the most effective policies were those that incorporated elements of both urban planning and enforced building codes. Plain Language Summary Natural hazards negatively impact communities resulting in significant infrastructure damages. Natural hazard mitigation planning attempts to reduce these damages and modeling can be used to measure how effective different mitigation plans can be. A new modeling framework is presented that accounts for population growth, a changing built environment, natural hazard mitigation planning, and future hazards. The model is applied to a testbed community with a large tourist population that is exposed to earthquake and tsunami hazards. Using this model, we consider different combinations of policies such as limiting the number of vacation homes in the community, relocating community assets, limiting new development, and enforcing building codes. Interestingly, we show that while placing a cap on the number of vacation homes does free up housing for full time residents, this also results in more visitors in damaged buildings.

Sanderson, DR; Cox, DT; Amini, M; Barbosa, AR

Coupled Urban Change and Natural Hazard Consequence Model for Community Resilience Planning

Earths Future

https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003059

Resilience is defined as the capacity of a community to organise itself before, during and after a dangerous/hazardous event in order to minimise the impacts. A conceptual framework is proposed to assess the resilience of a community by understanding and integrating the institutional, legal and social capacities to cope and recover from a natural hazardous event in order to minimize the impacts in the short-term and to adapt to the risk in the long-term. A survey-based method and a specific resilience questionnaire is proposed to explore the perception of stakeholders regarding the risk and emergency management processes as well as psychological and social factors conditioning individual and community preparedness. The method is applied in a pilot area (the Dithmarschen district in the German North Sea Coast) for its validation before applying it to the entire Wadden Sea region, the pilot results being presented in this work. Although some questions may need some type of adaptation to fit adequately to other study sites, the conceptual and methodological framework could be applied worldwide. The study area and its population are characterized by their continuous interaction with the ocean, with the continuous transformation and reclamation of land for agricultural and other purposes, the constant reshaping of the coastline and frequent coastal inundation by storm surge flooding. The assessment allows identifying the main characteristics of the study area in terms of stakeholders' risk perception, intention to prepare, individual and societal behavioural patterns, as well as their opinion regarding authorities' decision-making on emergency and risk management. It also addresses potential improvement in emergency and risk management in terms of multi-sector partnerships and additional adaptation measures for the area. The deficiencies and incoherencies between society's and administration's answers detected in the analysis point towards the challenges to deal with, in order to foster an adequate community preparedness and adaptation to storm surge risk. Some of the results that the proposed method permitted to obtain in the study area show (i) the need for abetter information strategy to enhance society's awareness and preparedness; (ii) the respondents' current proactive behaviour and preference on participatory risk management options, despite fully participatory schemes are not yet set by the authorities; (iii) the need for awareness campaigns regarding the relevance and benefits of the integrated approach in potential partnerships, and (iv) the need for tailored and site-specific adaptation instruments and measures due to the current society's disagreement with some of the options currently provided.

González-Riancho, P; Gerkensmeier, B; Ratter, IMW; González, M; Medina, R

Storm surge risk perception and resilience: A pilot study in the German North Sea coast

Ocean & Coastal Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.05.004

Flood risk is expected to increase in many regionsworldwide due to rapid urbanization and climate change if adequaterisk-mitigation (or climate-change-adaptation) measures are not implemented. However, the exact benefits of these measures remain unknown or inadequately quantified for potential future events in some flood-prone areas such as Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, which this paper addresses. This study examines the present (2021) and future (2031) flood risk in Kathmandu Valley, considering two flood occurrence cases (with 100-year and 1000-year mean return periods) and using four residential exposure inventories representing the current urban system (Scenario A) or near-future development trajectories (Scenarios B, C, D) that Kathmandu Valley could experience. The findings revealsubstantial mean absolute financial losses (EUR 473 million and775 million in repair and reconstruction costs) and mean loss ratios(2.8 % and 4.5 %) for the respective flood occurrence cases in current times if the building stock's quality is assumed to have remained the same as in 2011 (Scenario A). Under a no change pathway for 2031 (Scenario B), where the vulnerability of the expanding building stock remains the same as in 2011, mean absolute financial losses would increase by 14 %-16 % over those of Scenario A. However, a minimum (0.20 m) elevation of existingresidential buildings located in the floodplains and the implementation offlood-hazard-informed land-use planning for 2031 (Scenario C) could decrease the mean absolute financial losses of the flooding occurrences by9 %-13 % and the corresponding mean loss ratios by 23 %-27 %,relative to those of Scenario A. Moreover, an additional improvement of thebuilding stock's vulnerability that accounts for the multi-hazard-pronenature of the valley (by means of structural retrofitting and building codeenforcement) for 2031 (Scenario D) could further decrease the mean lossratios by 24 %-28 % relative to those of Scenario A. The largest mean loss ratios computed in the four scenarios are consistently associated with populations of the highest incomes, which are largely located in thefloodplains. In contrast, the most significant benefits of risk mitigation(i.e., largest reduction in mean absolute financial losses or mean lossratios between scenarios) are experienced by populations of the lowestincomes.

Mesta, C; Cremen, G; Galasso, C

Quantifying the potential benefits of risk-mitigation strategies on future flood losses in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Natural Hazards And Earth System Sciences

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-711-2023

On 14 November 2016, a magnitude (M-w) 7.8 earthquake struck the small coastal settlement of Kaikura, Aotearoa-New Zealand. With an economy based on tourism, agriculture, and fishing, Kaikura was immediately faced with significant logistical, economic, and social challenges caused by damage to critical infrastructure and lifelines, essential to its main industries. Massive landslips cut off road and rail access, stranding hundreds of tourists, and halting the collection, processing and distribution of agricultural products. At the coast, the seabed rose two metres, limiting harbour-access to high tide, with implications for whale watching tours and commercial fisheries. Throughout the region there was significant damage to homes, businesses, and farmland, leaving owners and residents facing an uncertain future. This paper uses qualitative case study analysis to explore post-quake transformations in a rural context. The aim is to gain insight into the distinctive dynamics of disaster response mechanisms, focusing on two initiatives that have emerged in direct response to the disaster. The first examines the ways in which agriculture, food harvesting, production and distribution are being reimagined with the potential to enhance regional food security. The second examines the rescaling of power in decision-making processes following the disaster, specifically examining the ways in which rural actors are leveraging networks to meet their needs and the consequences of that repositioning on rural (and national) governance arrangements. In these and other ways, the local economy is being revitalised, and regional resilience enhanced through diversification, capitalising not on the disaster but the region's natural, social, and cultural capital. Drawing on insights and experience of local stakeholders, policy- and decision-makers, and community representatives we highlight the diverse ways in which these endeavours are an attempt to create something new, revealing also the barriers which needed to be overcome to reshape local livelihoods. Results reveal that the process of transformation as part of rural recovery must be grounded in the lived reality of local residents and their understanding of place, incorporating and building on regional social, environmental, and economic characteristics. In this, the need to respond rapidly to realise opportunities must be balanced with the community-centric approach, with greater recognition given to the contested nature of the decisions to be made.

Cradock-Henry, NA; Fountain, J; Buelow, F

Transformations for Resilient Rural Futures: The Case of Kaikura, Aotearoa-New Zealand

Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.3390/su10061952

Climate change is one factor increasing the risk of hydro-meteorological hazards globally. The use of nature-based solutions (NbS), and more specifically ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction measures (Eco-DRR), has become a popular response for risk reduction that also provides highly-valued co-benefits. Public acceptance is of particular importance for NbS since they often rely on local collaborative implementation, management, and monitoring, as well as long-term protection against competing societal interests. Although public engagement is a common goal of NbS projects, it is rarely carried out with a sufficient understanding of the (de)motivating factors tied to public perceptions. Successful collaboration demands consideration of societal attitudes and values in relation to risk, nature, and place. However, existing research does not sufficiently explore these themes together, their interactions, and their implications for the public acceptance of NbS. This may lead to misaligned public expectations and failed participatory initiatives, while jeopardizing the success of NbS projects and their continued funding and uptake. We conducted citizen surveys within local NbS host communities to determine the degree of pro-NbS attitudes and behavior, associated variables, and how these may be leveraged to increase acceptance. We compared results across sites, relying primarily on correlations and regression models along with survey comments and expert knowledge. Three distinct rural NbS being implemented within the OPERANDUM project aim to reduce risk from (socio-)natural hazards in Scotland (landslides and coastal erosion; n = 66 respondents), Finland (eutrophication and algal blooms; n = 204) and Greece (river flooding and water scarcity; n = 84). Our research thus centers on rural NbS for risk reduction within a large EU project. Trust in implementers is a consistent factor for defining attitudes towards the NbS across the sites, and attitudes are strongly associated with respondents' commitment to nature and behavioral acceptance (i.e., willingness to engage). Behaviorial acceptance is most consistently predicted by connectedness to place and the extent of expected future impacts. Skepticism of NbS effectiveness leads to high public demand for relevant evidence. To increase public acceptance, we recommend greater framing of NbS in relation to place-based values as well as demonstration of the effectiveness of NbS for risk reduction. However, distinct hazard types, proposed NbS, and historical characteristics must be considered for developing strategies aimed at increasing acceptance.

Anderson, CC; Renaud, FG; Hanscomb, S; Munro, KE; Gonzalez-Ollauri, A; Thomson, CS; Pouta, E; Soini, K; Loupis, M; Panga, D; Stefanopoulou, M

Public Acceptance of Nature-Based Solutions for Natural Hazard Risk Reduction: Survey Findings From Three Study Sites in Europe

Frontiers In Environmental Science

https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.678938

Purpose - The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) number 13 calls for urgent action to combat climate change impacts. Urban resilience planning documents often articulate partnerships and collaborations (P&Cs) as critical strategies. This study aims to identify the actors, the topics, processes, and visions of collaboration.Design/methodology/approach - This paper explores the characterization of urban resilience partnerships via a thematic content analysis of resilience strategy documents produced in US cities through the 100 Resilient Cities Project.Findings - P&Cs are defined broadly, taking several forms to meet various objectives. They act as boundary objects engaging across social groups, but the details of the P&Cs are rarely articulated, which is problematic for their implementation. P&Cs are commonly discussed in relation to the focus of the work; therefore, they less often define the specific actors, processes or transformative visions involved.Research limitations/implications - This research focuses only on the resilience plans written in US cities, showing the perspective of US policymakers. Documents analyzed were produced via the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities Project. Practical implications - Understanding and categorizing the who, what, when and why of P&Cs for urban resilience provide a deeper understanding of how these strategies are being described and offer a starting point for tangibly actualizing partnerships and collaborations outside planning documents.Social implications - To reach vital urban resilience goals, P&Cs must be designed and managed appropriately. Understanding the shortcoming of current P&C policies can help managers mitigate problems and find better approaches. Originality/value - To the best of the author's knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze how P&Cs are being articulated and described in urban resilience plans. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 13 calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. As urbanization continues and the effects of climate change escalate, city governments are finding themselves responsible for the resilience of large populations. To cope, increasing numbers of municipalities are developing urban resilience plans. These documents often articulate partnerships and collaborations (P&Cs) as critical strategies for enhancing resilience capacity and implementing resilience policies. Although specific case studies of resilience-related collaborative practices are well documented in urban resilience literature, little is known about the proliferation of P&C strategies collectively.

Caughman, L

Characterization of partnerships and collaborations in US cities? urban resilience plans

Rausp Management Journal

https://doi.org/10.1108/RAUSP-09-2021-0180

The coastal communities are the most vulnerable to climate vagaries, which affect their habitat and livelihood alike. Vulnerability assessments undertaken using quantitative or qualitative methods at macro- or micro-level need to capture the location and context so as to be able to use them towards improving mitigation and resilience strategies at the community level, where the impact is felt. The characteristics of the marine fishing villages differ from those of other villages in any coastal block / district in a State, making a strong case for a marine village-specific vulnerability assessment as well as intervention planning. This work, capturing this grassroots reality and deriving vulnerability indicators that affect fisheries and coastal households, pilots a novel socioeconomic vulnerability (SEVIPH) and cumulative vulnerability (CVIPH) framework in marine fishing villages of Thoothukudi, a coastal district of Tamil Nadu in India, and compares it with an existing framework (SEVISV) that relies on secondary data. A set of 54 indicators reflecting vulnerability components such as exposure, sensitivity (fishery and social) and adaptive capacity (economic, development drivers and alternate livelihood activity) has been developed. Primary data were collected from 1741 households residing in all the 24 marine fishing villages in Thoothukudi district to estimate various sub-indices and indices of SEVIPH, SEVISV and CVIPH. Significant differences (p < 0.01) in sensitivity index (SI) and adaptive capacity index (ACI) were observed among the fishing villages, which however, got masked at taluk and district level due to aggregation, underscoring the importance of household based village level assessment of vulnerability. Overall, 42 % of the fishing villages were socio-economically highly vulnerable, while about 71 % of the villages had high cumulative vulnerability index. While the overall social and economic status of fishing households were lower compared to non-fishing population, it could be ascertained that there was relatively less inequity among them. The study also found significant disparities and differences (p < 0.05) across the villages/taluks in terms of exposure, sensitivity as well as socio-economic capabilities to respond, adapt and develop resilience. The two dimensional decision matrix plotted against SI and ACI median threshold values presented a greater contrast and helped in identifying the key drivers (or contributing factors) and buffers (or ameliorating factors) for coastal vulnerability of marine fishing villages to aid in location-specific intervention planning.

Umamaheswari, T; Sugumar, G; Krishnan, P; Ananthan, PS; Anand, A; Jeevamani, JJJ; Mahendra, RS; Infantina, JA; Rao, CS

Vulnerability assessment of coastal fishing communities for building resilience and adaptation: Evidences from Tamil Nadu, India

Environmental Science & Policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.05.009

With the social and economic development in recent years, human activities have been more extensive and intensified. As a result, ecosystems are damaged to varying degrees, and regional ecological environments tend to be weaker. The socio-ecological system in Aba Prefecture, Western Sichuan Plateau, China, the researched area, also faces increasingly serious problems. To advance ecological civilization development in a coordinated way across the country, the national government and the competent authorities have launched a series of new strategies. Research on socio-ecological vulnerability, a major part of the ecosystem protection and restoration program, is provided with powerful spatial data observation and analysis tools thanks to the invention and development of remote sensing and geographic information system technologies. This study was based on the vulnerability scoping diagram (VSD) framework. Multi-source data such as digital elevation model (DEM), geographical data such as land use types, soil and geological disasters, remote sensing image data, meteorological data and social statistics data from 2005 to 2019 were used to construct the temporal social-ecosystem vulnerability evaluation index database of Aba Prefecture, Western Sichuan Plateau. The spatial principal component analysis (SPCA) is applied to evaluating the socio-ecological vulnerability and analyzing its spatial-temporal variation in Aba Prefecture, Western Sichuan Plateau. To probe into the driving effects of various impact factors on the socio-ecological vulnerability, the Geodetector is used to analyze the driving factors. The ordered weighted average (OWA) method is applied to the multi-scenario analysis of socio-ecological vulnerability in the researched area. The conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) from 2005 to 2019, the spatial distribution characteristics of exposure and sensitivity in Aba Prefecture were higher in the southeast and lower in the northwest, and the overall spatial distribution characteristics of socio-ecological system vulnerability showed that the degree of vulnerability increased from the north to the southeast. (2) Extreme natural climate conditions play a leading role in the driving of socio-ecosystem vulnerability, followed by human production activities and geological hazards. (3) The degree of social-ecosystem vulnerability in Aba Prefecture will increase with the increase of decision risk coefficient.

Yang, XP; Dai, XA; Li, WY; Lu, H; Liu, C; Li, NW; Yang, ZL; He, YX; Li, WL; Fu, X; Ma, L; Shan, YF; Wang, YL

Socio-Ecological Vulnerability in Aba Prefecture, Western Sichuan Plateau: Evaluation, Driving Forces and Scenario Simulation

Isprs International Journal Of Geo-Information

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi11100524

The value-added medium range weather forecast, received from Meteorological Centre, Chandigarh was validated using actual data taken from Agro-meteorological observatories of Bathinda and Faridkot, districts of Punjab during 2013-14 to 2017-18. Moreover, to study the economic impact of the forecast, field experiments were conducted during Rabi 2016-17 on wheat and Kharif 2017 on cotton having two sowing time and two management levels as adoption and non-adoption of agromet advisory services with four replications. Result revealed that, among the years and seasons, maximum accuracy was found with rainfall forecast, while, least correctness of the forecast was observed with wind speed. Except temperature, higher accuracy was observed during pre-monsoon season for all weather parameters. Alternatively, seasonal usability of forecast of rainfall, cloud cover, Tmax, Tmin and wind speed were found success ranged from 87-98%, 65-75%, 51-72%, 56-67% and44-83%, while, early usability was ranged 93-96%, 63-73%, 45-70%, 56-70% and 35-87%, respectively among study locations. Moreover, among study locations, the whole year RMSE was observed in the range from 3.95-5.12 mm, 2.71-2.80 Okta, 2.83-2.85 degrees C, 2.39-2.51 degrees C and 5.79-7.47 kmph, while, the value of correlation coefficient ranged from 0.68-0.83, 0.39-0.44, 0.92-0.93, 0.95-0.96 and 0.35-0.43 in respect of rainfall, cloud cover, maximum temperature, minimum temperature and wind speed, respectively. Moreover, adopted agro-meteorological advisory services (AAS) was found valuable, in which, better yield and its attributes were observed over non-adopted AAS for both the crops and study locations.

Singh, R; Pal, RK; Gill, KK; Mishra, SK; Kaur, A

Validation of medium range weather forecasts and its economic impact on cotton-wheat cropping system in South-Western Punjab

Mausam

https://doi.org/10.54302/mausam.v73i4.6019

The Himalayas are assumed to experience rapid climate change, with serious environmental, social and economic consequences for people living in and around the mountain area. However, the extent of climate change and its impact on the region are underexplored, especially on northern slope of the mountains. Based on local knowledge, we report perceived changes in climate and consequences of such changes for natural and social systems. The respondents in this study were distributed at a continuous elevation gradient of 3570-4646 m above sea level in the northern Himalayas. Therefore, it is possible to analyze the process of the shift of bioclimate zones under climate change and the differences in climate change effects cross altitudes. Among those in the pastoral area (Zhegu town) with an altitude of 4600 m, 91.2% (n=114) of the respondents believe that the climate is obviously changing; the ratio of reporting rainfall decreasing is 77.2% (n=114); those who perceive delayed rainy season, and increased climate change-related natural disasters account for 38.9% (n=113), 72.8% (n=103), respectively; more than two thirds (70.3%) (n=111) view drought as the biggest challenge to address climate change, and more than half (59.3%) (n=113) of the respondents believe that the impact of climate change is mainly negative. All these data rank first among the four survey areas (Zhegu town/pastoral region, Nedong County/crop growing regions, Zhanang County/crop growing region and Nagarze County/farming-pastoral region). Due to climate warming, Labidura riparia spreads to a higher altitude in the basins in Nedong County (Shannan City, Tibet) and Zhanang County (Shannan City, Tibet) at the rate of 31.1 +/- 6.4 m/a and 46.7 +/- 8.8 m/a, respectively in elevation. Most of the respondents view the natural variability as the main cause of climate changes, only 10.7%-29.0% among them view human activities as the main reason. Key challenges for local people to address climate change include droughts and economic hardship.

Huang, XH; Zhou, YZ; Fang, JP; Hou, L

Climate change has more adverse impacts on the higher mountain communities than the lower ones: people's perception from the northern Himalayas

Journal Of Mountain Science

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-5352-0

Background Populations in coastal cities are exposed to increasing risk of flooding, resulting in rising damages to health and assets. Adaptation measures, such as early warning systems for floods (EWSFs), have the potential to reduce the risk and impact of flood events when tailored to reflect the local social-ecological context and needs. Community perceptions and experiences play a critical role in risk management, since perceptions influence people's behaviors in response to EWSFs and other interventions. Methods We investigated community perceptions and responses in flood-prone periurban areas in the coastal city of Machala, Ecuador. Focus groups (n = 11) were held with community members (n = 65 people) to assess perceptions of flood exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and current alert systems. Discussions were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded by topic. Participatory maps were field validated, georeferenced, and digitized using GIS software. Qualitative data were triangulated with historical government information on rainfall, flood events, population demographics, and disease outbreaks. Results Flooding was associated with seasonal rainfall, El Nino events, high ocean tides, blocked drainage areas, overflowing canals, collapsed sewer systems, and low local elevation. Participatory maps revealed spatial heterogeneity in perceived flood risk across the community. Ten areas of special concern were mapped, including places with strong currents during floods, low elevation areas with schools and homes, and other places that accumulate stagnant water. Sensitive populations included children, the elderly, physically handicapped people, low-income families, and recent migrants. Flood impacts included damages to property and infrastructure, power outages, and the economic cost of rebuilding/repairs. Health impacts included outbreaks of infectious diseases, skin infections, snakebite, and injury/ drowning. Adaptive capacity was weakest during the preparation and recovery stages of flooding. Participants perceived that their capacity to take action was limited by a lack of social organization, political engagement, and financial capital. People perceived that flood forecasts were too general, and instead relied on alerts via social media. Conclusions This study highlights the challenges and opportunities for climate change adaptation in coastal cities. Areas of special concern provide clear local policy targets.

Tauzer, E; Borbor-Cordova, MJ; Mendoza, J; De La Cuadra, T; Cunalata, J; Stewart-Ibarra, AM

A participatory community case study of periurban coastal flood vulnerability in southern Ecuador

Plos One

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224171

The objective of this study was to develop an index of vulnerability of alpaca herders (VAH), based on the adaptive capacity index (ACI) and sensitivity (SI) to climate change. The study was carried out in 2014 obtaining information from 17 alpaca farms from five annexes of the Sallca Santa Ana Peasant Community (SSAPC), Huancavelica, Peru. A conceptual model of ACI and SI was generated, assigning weights and function values to resources and attributes. For this, an Expert Panel from La Molina National Agrarian University (UNALM) and Nexus Program of the Fulbrigth Commission, USA, was formed. The ACI was estimated from human, physical, financial, information and diversity resources. The SI with livelihood and grassland resources. The VAH was estimated with the combination of ACI and SI, using fuzzy logic obtaining three categories: low, moderate and high. The U Mann-Whitney test contrasted 31 attributes of ACI and SI among the VAH categories. The 58.8% of SSAPC alpaca farms have low (0.2986 +/- 0.0134) and 41.2% moderate (0.3800 +/- 0.0069) ofACI. The 52.9% of alpaca farms have high (0.5863 +/- 0.0277), 35.3% moderate (0.4053 +/- 0.0122) and 11.8% low (0.2994 +/- 0.0107) of SI. The 76.5% of alpaca farms have moderate (0.4390 +/- 0.0208) and 23.5% high (0.6605 +/- 0.0266) of VAH. The attributes of head of household and presence of sheds differed significantly between ACI categories (p<0.15). The attributes grassland trend (p<0.01), migrant contribution and vegetation diversity (p<0.10) and grassland condition (p 0.15) differed significantly between SI categories. The VAH revealed that the alpaca farms with high vulnerability correspond to a high SI ( 0.47) and low ACI (<0.35).

Campos, CAB; Mariazza, ERRF; Vásquez, JAN

Alpaca herders: vulnerability, adaptability and sensitivity to climate change

Revista De Investigaciones Veterinarias Del Peru

https://doi.org/10.15381/rivep.v32i3.20396

Purpose Existing literature on how social learning stemming from flood experience influences management and adaptation to flood-risks, and resilience-building is scant. In this context, the purpose of this study is to map the processes and examine the application of social learning in formulating coping measures and adaptation strategies in Bangladesh's wetland communities. Design/methodology/approach To bridge this research gap, conceptually, we formulated the Social Learning from Disasters (SLD) Framework to explain the process of social learning from flood experience and the mechanism of its influence on community resilience. Applying a qualitative research approach, the empirical investigation was carried out in the Fenarbak Union of Sunamganj District, Bangladesh. Using a participatory approach and qualitative techniques, the required primary data were procured. Findings The results of the study yielded three key findings: (1) social learning and memory have often enabled wetland communities to adopt diverse coping and adaptive measures in response to flash floods; (2) social learning-based actions have resulted in reduced flood-risk and enhanced community resilience to flash floods, especially when these actions were supported by both local and external innovations and (3) the aforementioned social learning stemmed primarily from first-hand experience of flash floods, which was shared via various collective learning platforms. Research limitations/implications The study followed a participatory methodology and the data were procured from two communities in the union level unit of Bangladesh. Therefore, generalization to apply to the larger context should be made with caution. Also, the study represents a cross-sectional study, and thus understanding of the long-term trend is not possible. Practical implications The findings of the study have direct and profound implications for local community-level disaster-risk planning. As there are serious deficiencies in documenting and preserving social learning for community resilience and development planning, this study offers a conceptual framework, along with empirical evidence, for transforming these lessons learned into practical actions for change. Social implications The findings of the study highlight the importance of social learning as a collective effort and provide empirical evidence of innovative adaptations to change. These results are critical to formulating societal strategies for disaster-risk management as well as to enhance community resilience. Originality/value Limited efforts have hitherto been made to determine (1) how the actual process of social learning from disaster shocks takes place, and (2) how innovative adaptation strategies lead vulnerable communities to take up social learning-based actions.

Haque, CE; Azad, MA; Choudhury, MU

Social learning, innovative adaptation and community resilience to disasters: the case of flash floods in Bangladesh

Disaster Prevention And Management

https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-12-2020-0373

This article quantifies the net aggregate impact in 2030 of commitments by individual non-state and subnational actors (e.g. regions, cities and businesses, collectively referred to as 'NSAs') to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The analysis was conducted for NSAs operating within ten major emitting economies that together accounted for roughly two-thirds of global GHG emissions in 2016. Our assessment includes 79 regions (e.g. subnational states and provinces), approximately 6,000 cities, and nearly 1,600 companies with a net emissions coverage of 8.1 GtCO(2)e/year, or a quarter of the ten economies' total GHG emissions in 2016. The analysis reflects a proposed methodology to aggregate commitments from different subnational (i.e. regional and city government) and non-state (i.e. business) actors, accounting for overlaps. If individual commitments by NSAs in the ten high-emitting economies studied are fully implemented and do not change the pace of action elsewhere, projected GHG emissions in 2030 for the ten economies would be 1.2-2.0 GtCO(2)e/year or 3.8%-5.5% lower compared to scenario projections for current national policies (31.6-36.8 GtCO(2)e/year). On a country level, we find that the full implementation of these individual commitments alone could result in the European Union and Japan overachieving their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), while India could further overachieve its unconditional NDC target. In the United States, where the national government has rolled back climate policies, NSAs could become a potential driving force for climate action. Key policy insights Full implementation of reported and quantifiable individual commitments by regions, cities and businesses (NSAs) in ten major economies could reduce emissions by 3.8%-5.5% in 2030 below current national policies scenario projections. National governments' mitigation targets could be more ambitious if they would take NSA commitments into account. With full implementation of such action, the European Union and Japan would overachieve their NDC targets. For the United States such action could help meeting its original 2025 NDC target in spite of rollbacks in national climate policies.

Kuramochi, T; Roelfsema, M; Hsu, A; Lui, S; Weinfurter, A; Chan, S; Hale, T; Clapper, A; Chang, A; Hohne, N

Beyond national climate action: the impact of region, city, and business commitments on global greenhouse gas emissions

Climate Policy

https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2020.1740150

CONTEXT: Adaptation to climate change is crucial to achieve food security and sustainable agricultural devel-opment. United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on climate action urges to combat climate change im-pacts that are more pronounced in developing countries and on marginal & small farmers. Climate smart agriculture (CSA) that jointly addresses food security and sustainable agriculture systems has been emphasized, still adoption of CSA practices is low demanding a framework for location specific identification, prioritization and upscaling of CSA interventions.OBJECTIVE: Present study is contemplated to prioritize and upscale climate smart agriculture interventions in climatically vulnerable coastal and non-coastal ecosystems based on perceived effectiveness and upscaling po-tential by farmers. It also attempts to delineate the livelihood indicators of farmers influencing perceived effectiveness of CSA and its upscaling potential.METHODS: Farmers' participatory framework to prioritize CSA interventions in most climatically vulnerable coastal and non-coastal ecosystems of India, where National Innovations on Climate Resilience Agriculture (NICRA) programme of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has been implemented. Farmers have prioritized CSA interventions on the basis of four pillars of CSA giving maximum weightage to income followed by productivity, resilience, and mitigation in both coastal and non-coastal regions. While judging upscaling potential of CSA interventions, coastal district farmers have given highest weightage to technical feasibility followed by synergy with Govt. plans, cost of technology and gender inclusivity; contrastingly, highest weightage is given to cost of technology followed by gender inclusivity, technical feasibility and synergy with Govt. plans by the farmers of non-coastal district.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Micro level stratifications of dominant livelihoods and their differential prefer-ences for CSA interventions (like scientific technology, institutional innovations, indigenous technical knowledge and information & communication technologies interventions) are unraveled. Climate smart agricultural pro-duction technologies prioritized are mainly resistant crop varieties & livestock breeds, intercropping, water management and vaccination of livestock; farmers have also preferred adaptation through indigenous technical knowledge to build resilience. However, adequate institutional infrastructures and use of ICTs are less than sufficient which needs strengthening. The major determinants of CSA effectiveness and upscaling potential in terms of farm livelihood indicators are revealed through multiple regression and path analyses.

Das, U; Ansari, MA; Ghosh, S

Effectiveness and upscaling potential of climate smart agriculture interventions: Farmers? participatory prioritization and livelihood indicators as its determinants

Agricultural Systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2022.103515

Quantitative flood risk analyses support decisions in flood management policies that aim for cost efficiency. Risk is commonly calculated by a combination of the three quantified factors: hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Our paper focuses on the quantification of exposure, in particular on the relevance of building value estimation schemes within flood exposure analyses on regional to national scales. We compare five different models that estimate the values of flood-exposed buildings. Four of them refer to individual buildings, whereas one is based on values per surface area, differentiated by land use category. That one follows an approach commonly used in flood risk analyses on regional or larger scales. Apart from the underlying concepts, the five models differ in complexity, data and computational expenses required for parameter estimations and in the data they require for model application. The model parameters are estimated by using a database of more than half a million building insurance contracts in Switzerland, which are provided by 11 (out of 19) cantonal insurance companies for buildings that operate under a monopoly within the respective Swiss cantons. Comparing the five model results with the directly applied spatially referenced insurance data suggests that models based on individual buildings produce better results than the model based on surface area, but only if they include an individual building's volume. Applying the five models to all of Switzerland produces results that are very similar with regard to the spatial distribution of exposed-building values. Therefore, for spatial prioritizations, simpler models are preferable. In absolute values, however, the five model results differ remarkably. The two simplest models underestimate the overall exposure, and even more so the extreme high values, upon which risk management strategies generally focus. In decision-making processes based on cost-efficiency, this underestimation would result in suboptimal resource allocation for protection measures. Consequently, we propose that estimating exposed-building values should be based on individual buildings rather than on areas of land use types. In addition, a building's individual volume has to be taken into account in order to provide a reliable basis for cost-benefit analyses. The consideration of other building features further improves the value estimation. However, within the context of flood risk management, the optimal value estimation model depends on the specific questions to be answered. The concepts of the presented building value models are generic. Thus, these models are transferable, with minimal adjustments according to the application's purpose and the data available. Within risk analyses, the paper's focus is on exposure.

Röthlisberger, V; Zischg, AP; Keiler, M

A comparison of building value models for flood risk analysis

Natural Hazards And Earth System Sciences

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2431-2018

In 2008, the European Commission (EC) launched the Covenant of Mayors (CoM), a voluntary agreement under which local governments commit to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 20% within 2020, in order to reinforce local authorities in designing strategies to mitigate climate change in coherence with the European Union's climate policy. The CoM may be defined as a coordinated collection of experiments based on common rules established by the EC. Cities signing the CoM commit to follow guidelines and standardized methodologies in setting CO2 emission reduction targets and in designing and implementing policies and measures to reach them, through the definition of key tools such as the Baseline Emission Inventory (BEI) and the Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP). The present study analyses the emission reduction strategies of a sample of 124 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, signatories of the CoM, which delivered a SEAP by February 2014. More than 5500 actions planned by the sample cities were analysed and categorized. The most relevant actions in terms of recurrence and mitigation impact were assessed. Finally a set of variables was tested through a regression so as to determine their influence on emission reductions strategies. The main results of this study show that the sample cities accounted for a total of 370 million tons of CO2 emissions in selected baseline years and 94 million tons of intended emission reductions per year. The total emission reductions planned by cities reached 25% of the baseline emissions. Buildings and Transport stood out as the sectors where cities intend to deliver the largest emission reductions. Furthermore the analysis showed that cities' administrations attribute higher potential to actions in subsectors under their direct control (municipal buildings, public transport, municipal fleet and public lighting) compared to actions in subsectors managed by private actors (households and firms). In the Building sector, the category of action delivering the highest share of CO2 emission reductions was represented by integrated actions, which combine several types of intervention so as to maximise the energy efficiency of buildings. In the transport sector, it was the modal shift, which implies a transition from private transport to public and cleaner transport modes. In both the Building and Transport sectors, cities plan to reduce the major amount of CO2 emissions through the implementation of management and organization, infrastructure construction and awareness-raising policy levers.

Croci, E; Lucchitta, B; Janssens-Maenhout, G; Martelli, S; Molteni, T

Urban CO2 mitigation strategies under the Covenant of Mayors: An assessment of 124 European cities

Journal Of Cleaner Production

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.05.165

Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable countries to disasters and climate change. While there has been a proliferation of academic publications on natural hazards, risks and disasters on Indonesia, there has not yet been a systematic literature review (SLR) to determine the progress, key topics and authorships. SLR is important so researchers can build upon existing works, avoid bias, determine major research topics and the need for further research, and strengthen research capacity in the future. The author conducts a SLR of publications indexed within the Scopus database from 1900 to 2016 on topics related to disasters and climate change in Indonesia. Two major findings are outlined. The first is related to major research topics: (1) natural hazard, risk and disaster assessments (HRD); (2) disaster risk reduction (DRR); and (3) climate change risks, vulnerability, impacts and adaptation (CC). More than half are related to HRD and focus on volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes. Publications on DRR are related to governance, early-warning systems, and recovery and reconstruction. Those on CC discuss carbon emission, forestry, governance and sectoral impacts. The author calls for future research on different hazards, different locations, and impacts of disasters and climate change. Risks and vulnerability assessments from hydro-meteorological and geophysical hazards are needed. Other locations beyond Sumatra and Java islands are to be examined. Urban risk assessments and the economic and social impacts of disasters and climate change on vulnerable places and communities are equally important. Risk governance at the national, local and community level is to be strengthened to increase resilience. The second finding examines the roles of Indonesian researchers and organizations. Findings show limited progress in research, publication and collaboration. International/non-Indonesian authors dominate the literature, and only half of the publications are co-authored by Indonesians. International collaborations have been conducted by very few Indonesian organizations. This could be due to limited experience in academic collaboration, power play amongst researchers, lack of research capacity, weak English academic writings skills and limited provisions within higher-education systems.

Djalante, R

A systematic literature review of research trends and authorships on natural hazards, disasters, risk reduction and climate change in Indonesia

Natural Hazards And Earth System Sciences

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-1785-2018

The present research offers an exploration into the biophilic approach and the role of its agents in urban planning in questions of building a green, resilient urban environment. Biophilia, the innate need of humans to connect with nature, coined by Edgar O. Wilson in 1984, is a concept that has been used in urban governance through institutions, agents' behaviours, activities and systems to make the environment nature-inclusive. Therefore, it leads to green, resilient environments and to making cities more sustainable. Due to an increasing population, space within and around cities keeps on being urbanised, replacing natural land cover with concrete surfaces. These changes to land use influence and stress the environment, its components, and consequently impact the overall resilience of the space. To understand the interactions and address the adverse impacts these changes might have, it is necessary to identify and define the environment's components: the institutions, systems, and agents. This paper exemplifies the biophilic approach through a case study in the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom and its biophilic agents. Using the categorisation of agents, the data obtained through in-situ interviews with local professionals provided details on the agent fabric and their dynamics with the other two environments' components within the climate resilience framework. The qualitative analysis demonstrates the ways biophilic agents act upon and interact within the environment in the realm of urban planning and influence building a climate-resilient city. Their activities range from small-scale community projects for improving their neighbourhood to public administration programs focusing on regenerating and regreening the city. From individuals advocating for and educating on biophilic approach, to private organisations challenging the business-as-usual regulations, it appeared that in Birmingham the biophilic approach has found its representatives in every agent category. Overall, the activities they perform in the environment define their role in building resilience. Nonetheless, the role of biophilic agents appears to be one of the major challengers to the urban design's status quo and the business-as-usual of urban governance. Researching the environment, focused on agents and their behaviour and activities based on nature as inspiration in addressing climate change on a city level, is an opposite approach to searching and addressing the negative impacts of human activity on the environment. T

Novosadova, L; van der Knaap, W

The Role of Biophilic Agents in Building a Green Resilient City; the Case of Birmingham, UK

Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095033

People all around the world have come into a consensus on climate change that is a fact with an increasing number of unusual climate-related events and extremities. The present study is an attempt to explore the views of local farmers on climate change and uncertainty and evaluating their prevalent coping strategies in the Chengalpet district of Tamil Nadu, a semi-arid expanse of South India. In order to achieve this objective, Rapid Rural Appraisals (RRAs), Focal Group Discussions (FGDs) and In-Depth Surveys (IDS) were conducted. Through RRA, this research identifies farmers' perceptions of climate change and its impacts and highlights how farmers respond to it through adaptations and brings to light the adaptation needs and obstacles faced by the vulnerable coastal agro ecosystems of the state. The study indicated that majority of the farmers have observed climatic variability and change through rises in temperature, extended dry spells, rise in heat stress on crops, etc. The study explored that the farmers are practicing autonomous adaptation strategies like varying planting dates, adoption of heat resistant crops and varieties, switch from conventional paddy cultivation to other cash crops, agroforestry, etc. Farmers are cultivating tree species such as eucalyptus, teak wood, Casuarinafor multipurpose use planted along with various annual crops like cereals, banana, jasmine, cluster beans, maize, etc. This supports them to abate short term risks, sustain their livelihood and works as a long-term investment. The farmers are facing various social hurdles to adaptation options like lack of timely information regarding effective adaptation options from extension officers, lack of crop-weather insurances and micro-financing facilities, etc., apart from climate change risks. With regards to the sources of information regarding adaptation options, there is a strong need to enhance agriculture extension services in the remote areas. SWOT analysis revealed dwindling crop area for cultivation/natural resources, poor dissemination of weather/climate forecasts, reluctance of the young generation to take up farming as their living, etc., as some of the major threats. In order to prioritize the best and viable adaptation that suits, the research zone pairwise ranking method was used. This study recommends modification of farming practices, switching over to different crops and efficient water management as site-specific adaptation interventions as per pair-wise ranking of adaptations.

Dhanya, P; Ramachandran, A; Palanivelu, K

Understanding the Local Perception, Adaptation to Climate Change and Resilience Planning Among the Farmers of Semi-Arid Tracks of South India

Agricultural Research

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40003-021-00560-0

Climate change projections for the 21st century indicate an increase in the already high number of food-insecure people in India. While considerable research on vulnerability to climate change exists, research about Indian smallholder farming systems as a whole, encompassing farming strategies and development pathways in this context, is limited. Hence, the current study examines the vulnerability of three smallholder farming systems, namely, (i) crop without livestock (CWL), (ii) crop with small ruminants (CSR), and (iii) crop with dairy (CD), in the context of climate change in Telangana, India. A mixed methods approach was used to conduct the research with a sample size of ten households per farming system. We found that households of different farming systems faced differential vulnerability due to variation in perceptions of climate change exposures, access to livelihood capitals, and the farming strategies they chose. The CWL households were highly vulnerable to increased maximum temperature and erratic rainfall, while households that farmed both crop and livestock were more vulnerable to overall reduction in precipitation. Decision-making related to farming strategies was a complex process involving several factors, of which the availability of livelihood capitals, provided by government programs, was the foremost. Due to this, households of the different farming systems pursued divergent farming strategies, leading to varying types of adaptation and climate change resilience. Among the three farming systems, the households in the CWL system had the least access to all livelihood capitals and showed the highest vulnerability as their farm strategies only helped to cope with immediate needs. The households in the CD system had access to all critical livelihood capitals, which facilitated opting for sustainable farming strategies. However, as these households were highly dependent on scarce ground water resources for production, their strategies helped only short-term adaption. The households in the CSR system, despite having access to limited capitals, adopted long-term adaptation strategies which is attributed to them being a pastoral ethnic group. Lastly, despite the existence of an integrated climate change policy, state-level development programs continue to focus more on agricultural intensification than on climate change adaptation. This stimulates farming strategies that are lucrative in the short term but endanger farming system resilience to climate change in the long term.

Kuchimanchi, BR; van Paassen, A; Oosting, SJ

Understanding the vulnerability, farming strategies and development pathways of smallholder farming systems in Telangana, India

Climate Risk Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2021.100275

High-quality weather and climate services (WCS) can be critical for communicating knowledge about current and future weather and climate risks for adaptation and disaster risk management in the agricultural sector. This paper investigates the structure and performance of weather and climate services for farmers from a governance perspective. Empirically the paper compares the institutional design and operations of agro-meteorological services in Maharashtra/India and Norway through a 'most different case study' approach. The two cases were selected to represent great diversity in location, scale and institutional design. A governance approach based on semi-direct interviews and policy and institutional analysis was combined with local survey data of farmers' perceptions and use of the services. Despite the fact that the context for the two agromet advisory services was very different from a climate-weather, eco-agriculture and socio-institutional angle, the analysis reveals great similarities in the services structures and critical governance challenges. In both countries the agromet services communicated knowledge that was largely perceived not to be well tailored to farmers' needs for decisions in specific crops- and farm operations, spatially too coarse to address local issues, and, often unreliable or inaccurate in terms of the quality of data. Farmers did, however, respond positively to specific and locally relevant information on e.g., warnings about high rainfall and spread of pests. Observing such similarities across very diverse contexts enhances the generalization potential, precisely because they evolved under very different circumstances. Similar observations find support in the wider WCS literature. Based on the empirical findings, we propose a more deliberate approach to institutional design of WCS in order to enhance governance performance and co-creation of the services at local, district and national scales. It is suggested that greater participation of farmers and agricultural extension agents in the co-creation of these services is a necessary means of improving the services, supported by the WCS literature. However, we insist that greater participation is only likely to materialize if the deficiencies in institutional design and knowledge quality and relevance are addressed to greater extent than done today. The comparison between the two services shows that Norway can learn from India that a more ambitious scope and multiple forms of communication, including the use of social media/WhatsApp groups, can facilitate greater awareness and interest among farmers in multi-purpose agromet services for multi-way communication.

Vedeld, T; Hofstad, H; Mathur, M; Büker, P; Stordal, F

Reaching out? Governing weather and climate services (WCS) for farmers

Environmental Science & Policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.11.010

Kashmir Valley has witnessed a catastrophic flood in 2014, which led thousands of people homeless and devastated the agricultural lands. In the present study, the impact of 2014 flood occurred during the month of September was analysed in the vicinity of Dal lake using the pre- and post-flood periods satellite observations. The study exhibited an inundation of 42.50 km(2) area (52.47% of total area) during September 2014 flood period, which is primarily topographical low-lying area (i.e. below 1530 m). The land use/land cover (LULC) analysis during pre- and post-flood periods exhibited significant impact over the built-up land with 20.4% decrease in the built-up (from 25.44 to 20.25 km(2)), which was mostly evident in the western, southern and eastern parts of Dal lake. It has also severely affected the road network with inundation of 220.84 kms (55.62% of total road network). The road network in the lower elevation (< 1530 m) not only disrupted but also acted as a carrier for the flood water dispersal in the region. The long-term impact and recovery of flood inundation were assessed using spatio-temporal built-up growth during 2014, 2015 and 2018 within the flooded zone through geospatial overlay analysis. The flood (September 2014) affected a total 10.42 km(2) of built-up, wherein the built-up was reduced to 7.50 km(2), due to the low-lying topography and nearest proximity to flow path of Jhelum river. Later, the built-up was increased to 9.60 km(2) within the flooded zone during 2018 primarily in the southern parts, representing the long-term recovery after the flood aftermath. Although the impact of flood (2014) was evident in both the flooded and non-flooded zones, the built-up growth was reduced significantly in the flooded zone (-25.18% change) as compared to non-flooded zones (-17.32% change). Also, the long-term recovery was comparatively higher in the non-flooded zone (31.84% growth) as compared to the flooded zone (28.03% growth).

Ahmad, T; Pandey, AC; Kumar, A

Impact of 2014 Kashmir flood on land use/land cover transformation in Dal lake and its surroundings, Kashmir valley

Sn Applied Sciences

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-020-2434-8

The provision of weather and climate information (WCI) can help the most at-risk communities cope and adapt to the impacts of extreme events. While significant progress has been made in ensuring improved availability of WCI, there remain obstacles that hinder the accessibility and use of this information for adaptation planning. Attention has now focused on the usability gap to ensure useful and usable WCI informs practise. Less attention has however been directed on barriers to the active production and use of WCI. In this study, we combine two frameworks through a bottom-up approach to present a more coordinated institutional response that would be required to ensure a better flow of information from information providers to users at community level and vice versa. The bottom-up approach was designed in form of Farmers Agri-Met Village Advisory Clinics (FAMVACs) and Listening Groups (LG) and was initiated by Uganda Meteorological Authority (UNMA) as a way of ensuring connections between the information providers, the disseminators, and the communities to specifically give voice to the communities to provide feedback on the use of WCI in coping with flood risks. This approach is used to identify the barriers and opportunities in the production/provision and use of WCI for flood risk preparedness for a case study in Eastern Uganda. First, a use-case is developed for Katakwi District where smallholder farming communities have recorded their coping practises and barriers to the use of WCI in practise. Second, online interviews with practitioners from disaster management institutions are used to identify barriers to the production and provision of WCI to local farming communities. Findings show that for providers, barriers such as accessibility and completeness of data hinder the production of useful WCI. In situations where useful information is available, technical language used in the format and timeliness in dissemination hinder usability by local farmers. Useful and usable WCI may not be acted on in practise due to factors such as costs or market availability e.g., lack of access to improved seeds. Further, the study highlights possible solutions to bridge the identified gaps and they include capacity building, fostering data collaborations across sectors, data translation to simple advisories, among others. The study also presents the FAMVACs approach which shows the importance of a more coordinated response with a shift of focus from the users of information only, to a more inclusive understanding of the data and information gaps across the wider provider-user landscapes.

Mitheu, F; Petty, C; Tarnavsky, E; Stephens, E; Ciampi, L; Butsatsa, J; Cornforth, R

Identifying the Barriers and Opportunities in the Provision and Use of Weather and Climate Information for Flood Risk Preparedness: The Case of Katakwi District, Uganda

Frontiers In Climate

https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.908662

Island societies are being disproportionately affected by climate change, a situation likely to continue for some decades. Using an example of an island affected by multiple climate-linked stressors, a situation likely to become more common in the future, this paper examines the nature of these, the ways they are perceived and responded to by local residents, and how these people believe environmental changes might unfold in the future. Yadua Island has one settlement (Denimanu), where most of the 170 residents sustain themselves largely by fishing and farming. Like most Pacific Island settlements, Denimanu is coastal and has experienced progressive shoreline erosion that, a decade ago, washed away a row of houses. In 2012, a storm surge (during Tropical Cyclone Evan) demolished most of the remaining bure (traditional dwellings) in the village. The Fiji Government relocated the affected families to a new upslope location (Korovou), 80-230m from the beach, and up to 20m above mean sea level. In March 2017, heavy rain caused a landslide at the back of Denimanu that endangered the primary school, forcing its abandonment. Some questionnaires were given to representative members of the community in an attempt to understand and quantify the pressures that Yadua Island people are subject to, and how they plan to manage them. All respondents believed that climate change has affected their livelihoods and will continue to do so in the future. Clear majorities stated that climate change - especially higher temperatures and increased frequency/magnitudes of heavyrain events - had negatively affected the supply of marine and terrestrial foods. Most respondents noted increased temperature and decreased precipitation. Clear majorities stated they would eventually relocate their homes further inland, and would consider planting mangroves. Most participants were contemplating the effects of climate change (especially sea-level rise) on food supply, prompting them to consider relocating lowland crop production further inland and planting crops that are more tolerant of saline groundwater and/or periodic wave over-wash. The people of Denimanu recognise how the environment has been changing but debate the ultimate cause of this and therefore how best to respond. It is likely that Yadua will become impacted more by tropical cyclones and sea-level rise (in particular) in the future.

Martin, PCM; Nunn, P; Leon, J; Tindale, N

Responding to multiple climate-linked stressors in a remote island context: The example of Yadua Island, Fiji

Climate Risk Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2018.04.003

This study applies three different methods to assess the flood risk and damage from the strongest high-pressure cold front (locally known as 'Norte') event in terms of the residual tide from 30 years (1979-2008) of data for Progreso, Yucatan. The most important difference between the three methods is the estimation of flood vulnerability for Progreso. The first method, proposed by Mexico's National Center for the Prevention of Disasters (CENAPRED) and used by the Mexican government is based mostly on economic asset (household goods) values and flood impacts. The second (CENAPREDv2) and third (FRI) methods are proposals for assessing risk that include 17 socioeconomic indicators. The former includes economic asset values, as is the case for CENAPRED, while the latter does not. The main results of this study show that the modeled 'Norte' event flooded 25% of Progreso's city blocks, with an estimated economic flood risk of $USD 16,266 (CENAPRED) and $USD 223,779 (CENAPREDv2), and flood damage of $USD 48,848 and $USD 671,918, respectively. When calculating flood risk (FRI) and flood damage (FRI_FD) without monetary terms, the risk categories along the back-barrier behind Progreso varied spatially from 'very low' to 'high', while areas along the coastal side presented a 'low' and 'very low' risk. These categories increased for the flood damage because the exceedance probability of the flood was not considered as it was for flood risk in the three methodologies. Therefore, flood damage provides the losses caused by a given flood event without considering how probable that loss may be. In conclusion, this study proposes that the selection of the applied method depends on the main objectives and specific interests when assessing flood risk. For instance, if economic damage is the main concern, then the CENAPRED method should be used as it identifies where the larger economic impacts could occur; when a socioeconomic approach is needed then the FRI should be applied, but if both economic damage and socioeconomic aspects are needed, the CENAPREDv2 is recommended. Besides considering economic aspects, the FRI method also includes social variables that can help to map the most vulnerable population in terms of mobility, education, communication access and others.

Rey, W; Martínez-Amador, M; Salles, P; Mendoza, ET; Trejo-Rangel, MA; Franklin, GL; Ruiz-Salcines, P; Appendini, CM; Quintero-Ibáñez, J

Assessing Different Flood Risk and Damage Approaches: A Case of Study in Progreso, Yucatan, Mexico

Journal Of Marine Science And Engineering

https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8020137

Research and policy processes in many fields, such as sustainability and health, are increasingly relying on transdisciplinary cooperation among a multitude of governmental, nongovernmental, and private actors from local to global levels. In the absence of hierarchical chains of command, multistakeholder governance may accommodate conflicting or diverse interests and facilitate collective action, but its effectiveness depends on its capacity to integrate systems, transformation, and target knowledge. Approaches to foster such governance are nascent and quickly evolving, and methodological standards to facilitate comparison and learning from best practice are needed. However, there is currently no evaluation approach that (i) comprehensively assesses the capacity for knowledge integration in multistakeholder governance, (ii) draws on the best available knowledge that is being developed in various fields, and (iii) combines a systematic and transferable methodological design with pragmatic feasibility. We brought together 20 experts from institutions in nine countries, all working on evaluation approaches for collaborative science- policy initiatives. In a synthesis process that included a 2-day workshop and follow-up work among a core group of participants, we developed a tool for evaluating knowledge integration capacity in multistakeholder governance (EVOLvINC). Its 23 indicators incorporate previously defined criteria and components of transdisciplinary evaluations into a single, comprehensive framework that operationalizes the capacity for integrating systems, target, and transformation knowledge during an initiative's (a) design and planning processes at the policy formulation stage, (b) organization and working processes at the implementation stage, and (c) sharing and learning processes at the evaluation stage of the policy cycle. EVOLvINC is (i) implemented through a questionnaire, (ii) builds on established indicators where possible, (iii) offers a consistent and transparent semiquantitative scoring and aggregation algorithm, and (iv) uses spider diagrams for visualizing results. The tool builds on experience and expertise from both the northern and southern hemispheres and was empirically validated with seven science-policy initiatives in six African and Asian countries. As a generalized framework, EVOLvINC thus enables a structured reflection on the capacity of multistakeholder governance processes to foster knowledge integration. Its emphasis on dialog and exploration allows adaptation to contextual specificities, highlights relative strengths and weaknesses, and suggests avenues for shaping multistakeholder governance toward mutual learning, capacity building, and strengthened networks.

Hitziger, M; Aragrande, M; Berezowski, JA; Canali, M; Vilas, VD; Hoffmann, S; Igrejas, G; Keune, H; Lux, A; Bruce, M; Palenberg, MA; Poh, C; Radeski, M; Richter, I; Abad, CR; Salerno, RH; Savic, S; Schirmer, J; Vogler, BR; Rüegg, SR

EVOLvINC: EValuating knOwLedge INtegration Capacity in multistakeholder governance

Ecology And Society

https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10935-240236

This paper reports the main results of an assessment of the global-scale implications of the stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 750 ppm (by 2250) and 550 ppm (by 2150), in relation to a scenario of unmitigated emissions. The climate change scenarios were derived from simulation experiments conducted with the HadCM2 global climate model and forced with the IPCC IS92a, S750 and S550 emissions scenarios. The simulated changes in climate were applied to an observed global baseline climatology, and applied with impacts models to estimate impacts on natural vegetation, water resources, coastal flood risk and wetland loss, crop yield and food security, and malaria. The studies used a single set of population and socio-economic scenarios about the future that are similar to those adopted in the IS92a emissions scenario. An emissions pathway which stabilises CO2 concentrations at 750 ppm by the 2230s delays the 2050 temperature increase under unmitigated emissions by around 50 years. The loss of tropical forest and grassland which occurs by the 2050s under unmitigated emissions is delayed to the 22nd century, and the switch from carbon sink to carbon source is delayed from the 2050s to the 2170s. Coastal wetland loss is slowed. Stabilisation at 750 ppm generally has relatively little effect on the impacts of climate change on water resource stress, and populations at risk of hunger or falciparum malaria until the 2080s. A pathway which stabilises CO2 concentrations at 550 ppm by the 2170s delays the 2050 temperature increase under unmitigated emissions by around 100 years. There is no substantial loss of tropical forest or grassland, even by the 2230s, although the terrestrial carbon store ceases to act as a net carbon sink by around 2170 (this time because the vegetation has reached a new equilibrium with the atmosphere). Coastal wetland loss is slowed considerably, and the increase in coastal flood risk is considerably lower than under unmitigated emissions. CO2 stabilisation at 550 ppm reduces substantially water resource stress, relative to unmitigated emissions, but has relatively little impact on populations at risk of falciparum malaria, and may even cause more people to be at risk of hunger.

Arnell, NW; Cannell, MGR; Hulme, M; Kovats, RS; Mitchell, JFB; Nicholls, RJ; Parry, ML; Livermore, MTJ; White, A

The consequences of CO2 stabilisation for the impacts of climate change

Climatic Change

https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015277014327

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA), a concept originally coined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has been presented as a solution to the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change. According to the FAO, CSA explicitly aims for three objectives: (1) to sustainably increase agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development; (2) to adapt and build resilience to climate change at multiple levels; and (3) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. This definition of CSA is central to ongoing debates between different groups of stakeholders, such as NGOs and policy-makers in developed and developing countries, over what exactly constitutes CSA, e.g. does it encompass large-scale industrial agriculture and small-scale agriculture, organic and non-organic farming practices, and which associated practices fall in its ambit. Thus, to frame CSA's efficacy for the future, it is important to explore how different groups of stakeholders define CSA. This study collects and analyses data from qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 30 active members of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA)-one of the most prominent organizations currently involved in shaping CSA policy. The interviewees include employees of governments, NGOs, research institutions, agribusiness companies and representatives of farmers' groups. Their responses reveal that for CSA practitioners within GACSA, doing CSA is perceived to be significantly more important than defining CSA or attempting to identify the differences between, for example, agroecology and CSA. Particularly challenging is to define what qualifies as smart. Nevertheless, clarification of CSA is important for governments and policy-makers, in particular with regard to the use of inorganic fertilizers and GM technologies. Although these latter approaches are not explicitly promoted by GACSA, the membership of several Big Ag companies in the Alliance attracts criticism concerning the shaping of CSA's agenda and possible greenwashing by private interests. At the same time, the respondents note that some proponents of agroecology can be accused of claiming the space as their own. Almost all interviewees stress the importance of a bottom-up approach based on shared governance and growth and placing farmers' needs first, rather than creating division among stakeholder groups.

Alexander, S

What climate-smart agriculture means to members of the Global Alliance for climate-smart agriculture

Future Of Food-Journal On Food Agriculture And Society

https://doi.org/10.17170/kobra-2018122073

Socio-ecological hazards are processes that - depending on the vulnerability of societal systems - may have profound adverse impacts. For this reason, the current discourse in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has been experiencing a shift toward a vulnerability-led paradigm, raising new questions about how to address (i) the complexity of vulnerabilities to multiple hazards, (ii) their cultural, dynamic, and subjective character, and (iii) the effectiveness and legitimacy of vulnerability assessments as decision-support tools. In this paper, we present a review of 707 vulnerability studies (derived from the Clarivate WoS database; 1988-2018) with a particular focus on urban settings and spatially explicit assessments in order to evaluate current efforts to meet the aforementioned issues. The reviewed studies assessed vulnerabilities to 35 hazard types that were predominantly (n=603, 85%) analysed as single hazards (mostly seismic, flood, and groundwater contamination hazards, as well as climate change), whereas only 15% (n=104) of studies focused on multiple hazards (mostly atmospheric hazards). Within the spatially explicit vulnerability studies, almost 60% used data collected by the study itself (mostly seismic hazards), while statistical and combined data were both employed in 20% of cases (mostly floods, climate change, and social and political hazards). Statistical data were found to have only limited transferability, often being generalised to be applicable in small-scale studies, while reducing the role of cultural and contextual factors. Field research data provided high-resolution information, but their acquisition is time-consuming, and therefore fixed at a local scale and single temporal stage. Underlying hazard types and suitable data sources resulting in other differences found a preference towards the specific coverage and resolution of vulnerability maps that appeared in 44% of all reviewed studies. Altogether, the differences we found indicated a division of spatially explicit vulnerability research in two major directions: (i) geological and geomorphological studies focusing on physical vulnerability, using their own data surveys at a detailed scale and lacking links to other hazards, and (ii) other studies (mostly atmospheric hazards and socialpolitical hazards) focusing on social or combined vulnerabilities, using primarily statistical or combined data at a municipal, regional, and country scale with occasional efforts to integrate multiple hazards.

Raska, P; Dolejs, M; Pacina, J; Popelka, J; Písa, J; Rybová, K

Review of current approaches to spatially explicit urban vulnerability assessments: hazard complexity, data sources, and cartographic representations

Geoscape

https://doi.org/10.2478/geosc-2020-0005

This paper examines the interdependencies mediating the cascading negative consequences triggered by the September 2013 flood, in Boulder, Colorado, USA. By illustrating the risks to people and critical food-energy-water systems of a low probability, high-impact event, we draw lessons on what is likely to occur in the future. Other scholars have modeled the influence of interdependent infrastructures on cascading effects. But this is one of the first studies integrating stakeholders' understanding of the influence of interdependent actions, institutions, and infrastructures. These interdependencies create the conditions for vulnerability, which is a product of multiscale and dynamic sociodemographic, economic, technologic, environmental, and governance interactions. Political histories and historical decisions on where and how to design infrastructure exert a deep influence on short- and long-term capacity to manage risk. Boulder's high socio-institutional and learning capacity, while key, is not enough to influence integrative, transformative changes. Contrary to current approaches to nexus thinking, the regimes in which emergency and recovery actions are embedded are dynamically stable, thus imposing a logic for incremental change along established pathways of understanding and action. Our study offers some lessons on the challenges of bringing together diverse sectoral and jurisdictional sectors during and after an extreme event. Plain Language Summary We analyze the influence of infrastructures, institutions, and actions on cascading effects triggered by the 2013 floods in Boulder. With input from stakeholders, we connect analyses from different disciplinary lineages to examine how these conditions may lead, during an extreme event, to cascading negative consequences. While other scholars have modeled the influence of infrastructural interdependences on cascading effects, this is one of the first studies integrating stakeholders' understandings in order to examine some of the mechanisms by which critical infrastructural and socio-institutional interdependencies and actions can mitigate or amplify the cascading effects from an extreme event. Our analysis suggests that interdependent actions and governance regimes are as relevant as infrastructures in amplifying and mitigating risks. We can conclude that the high socio-institutional capacity and ability for learning from extreme events characteristic of Boulder County, while key in mitigating risk, is not enough to influence deeper, transformative changes in understanding and practices among public and private actors.

Romero-Lankao, P; Norton, R

Interdependencies and Risk to People and Critical Food, Energy, and Water Systems: 2013 Flood, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Earths Future

https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF000984

Due to the effects of climate change and urbanization, the severity and frequency of hazard events is expected to increase. The energy sector in the United States is ever more vulnerable to extreme climatic hazards. Hurricane winds can damage electrical lines, causing hazard-induced power outages. Extreme heat and freezing temper-atures can imbalance the supply and demand for energy resulting in managed power outages. Utility companies reportedly prioritize the restoration of power systems based on the number of outages and the size of affected populations. This approach fails to account for unequal impacts of hazard-induced and managed power outages. Research in equitable infrastructure emphasizes that certain populations, such as lower income and racial-ethnic minority households, are disproportionately impacted by disruptions in the power system. Moreover, the con-nected network qualities of the power system suggests an element of spatial vulnerabilities. However, little empirical evidence exists regarding the presence and extent of energy inequality. A main roadblock is the data collection process, in that outage data is often perishable and not found at granular spatial scales to allow the undertaking of a comprehensive analysis on impacts of power losses. Recognizing this important gap, this study collected and analyzed observational data related to the managed power outages during Winter Storm Uri (2021) and the hazard-induced outages during Hurricane Ida (2021). The research quantified the period of recovery at a granular spatial scale using an equitable-focused analysis to detect social and spatial inequalities through an exploratory lens. In extreme cases of power outage, census tracts of lower income and higher percentage of Hispanic population had longer median durations of recovery during Winter Storm Uri. In the hazard-induced outages of Hurricane Ida, non-coastal zip codes with lower income had a 1.00-day longer median duration of recovery and higher percentage of Black population had a 2.00-day longer median duration of recovery while coastal zip codes with higher percentage of Black population had a 1.00-day longer median of recovery. Non-coastal regions had 63% greater spatial Gini values and 16% greater value in infrastructure inequality when compared to coastal regions. The managed power outages resulted in a 3% to 19% greater value of infrastructure inequality to the hazard-induced power outages.

Coleman, N; Esmalian, A; Lee, CC; Gonzales, E; Koirala, P; Mostafavi, A

Energy inequality in climate hazards: Empirical evidence of social and spatial disparities in managed and hazard-induced power outages

Sustainable Cities And Society

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104491

Understanding the vulnerability of forests and its associated factors is crucial for the sustainable management of forested landscapes. The assessment of vulnerability of forests in the Indian Western Himalayan (IWH) region comprising the states of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Uttarakhand (UK) was done using six indicators of vulnerability in the form of biological richness index, disturbance index, forest canopy density, fire point intensity and forest extraction intensity of fringe forests. We express this assessment as the indicator-based vulnerability. The indicators were allocated weights by multi criteria analysis using analytical hierarchy process. The spatial extent of all of the selected indicators was mapped for the IWH region at a pixel resolution of 24 m and was integrated to find out the vulnerability for each pixel in a GIS environment. The study area was divided into 172 grids of size 0.5 degrees, equivalent to the grid size of available climatic projections, out of which 67 grids were identified as the forest grids. The grids that have at least 5% forest cover were designated as the forest grids and the vulnerability assessment was done only for these grids. The final representation of vulnerability across forested grids of the IWH was done at a spatial resolution of 5' and 0.5 degrees to categorise as low, medium, high and very high class. It was observed that the highest concentration of very high and high vulnerable grids of 5' size lies in the state of UK, comprising 32 and 31%, respectively. The aggregated values at 0.5 degrees indicate that most of the grids of UK fall under very high vulnerability except for the few uppermost and lowermost grids falling under other categories. In J&K, most of the 5' grids fall under low vulnerability (41%), while medium, high and very high categories are 27, 25 and 7%, respectively. Similarly, out of total 28 grids of size 0.5 degrees, only one grid is categorized as very high vulnerable, while 11 grids fall under high vulnerability. In HP, none of the grids of either size is categorized as very high vulnerable. It was observed that most of the high and very high vulnerable grids in the IWH are in the lower altitudes while higher altitudes have lesser magnitude of vulnerability.

Kumar, M; Kalra, N; Singh, H; Sharma, S; Rawat, PS; Singh, RK; Gupta, AK; Kumar, P; Ravindranath, NH

Indicator-based vulnerability assessment of forest ecosystem in the Indian Western Himalayas: An analytical hierarchy process integrated approach

Ecological Indicators

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107568

Farmers in Bangladesh face considerable risk due to fluctuations in biophysical and economic conditions, but the response to these risks is poorly understood. In particular, there is a need to better understand the endogenous management of risk in the rice/shrimp farming systems that have emerged in the inner coastal zone of Bangladesh. This paper draws on a case study of a typical rice/shrimp farming village in Khulna District to explore: (a) farmers' perceptions of risks and their management responses, (b) risk-return trade-offs within small-, medium-, and large-farm households, and (c) the role of other farm and non-farm activities in mitigating risks to household livelihoods. Farm-level data were collected through a reconnaissance survey, a village census, household case studies, and a sample survey of 73 households. Representative farm budgets were constructed for the three farm-size classes. The key performance indicators calculated were gross margin (GM), net income (NI), and GM per workday of family labour. The riskiness of the rice/shrimp system was assessed for each farm type using farmers' estimates of low, normal, and high yields and prices to specify triangular distributions. Cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) for GM, NI, and GM per workday were generated. A whole-farm economic analysis was also conducted to assess the relative contributions of different sources of income for each farm type. With access to saline water for shrimp farming in the dry season and fresh water for rice in the wet season, farmers have developed and progressively adapted an alternating rice/shrimp farming system that has minimised the trade-offs between the two crops and provides a good return to household and village resources for all farm types. The system is subject to significant production and market risks, especially the shrimp component. However, farmers have clearly perceived these risks and ameliorated them through a range of production, marketing, and management strategies. With these risk management practices, the rice/shrimp cropping system is economically viable, given the current variation in yields and prices. The greater risk associated with the shrimp component was offset by the renewed stability of the rice component over the past decade, and the risks of the whole cropping system were offset by other farm and non-farm sources of livelihood.

Kabir, J; Cramb, R; Alauddin, M; Gaydon, DS; Roth, CH

Farmers' perceptions and management of risk in rice/shrimp farming systems in South-West Coastal Bangladesh

Land Use Policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104577

Nowadays, urban flooding is becoming a severe issue in most of the developing and developed countries. The growth of the urbanization rate is also increasing, and the United Nations (UN) projected that 68 % of the world's population would live in urban areas by 2050. People tend to migrate from rural to urban areas, which expose them more vulnerable to urban floods. The flood-related damages and deaths are increasing every year globally. Using the Birmingham city, Alabama (AL), USA as the study area, the objective of this research is to assess potential damage risks due to flood exposure of buildings and population in an urban area. Different social and environmental factors influence urban floods in an urban area. This paper considered elevation, slope, flow accumulation, land-use, soil types, and distance from the river as significant influential factors to urban flooding. The flood risk model hence can be developed by using an integrated GIS and cartrographic approach, in which we assessed and assigned weights to these factors and formed a GIS risk assessment model, which shows the level of flood risks in the floodplain areas of Birmingham and quantifies and maps both commercial buildings, home buildings, and populations' exposed to flooding risks. This study found that the Valley Creek area is the highest flood risk zone in Birmingham, and about 48.85 percent of Valley Creek's floodplain area will face very high flood risk. The findings further reveal that total number of 5602 people are living in high and very high flood risk zones in Birmingham that approximates 44.04 % of the total population in this floodplain area. The physical vulnerability is also assessed, and findings suggest that the Valley Creek zone has the highest percentage of residential (i.e., 56.14 %) and commercial (i.e., 75.34 %) buildings located in very high flood risk areas. Our study providing a GIS risk assessment approach to locating and mapping the areas, buildings, and populations from the most to the least at risks with a fine spatical scale for urban flood risk management. The numbers of vulnerable buildings and populations within each risk category are quantified and their distributions are mapped.

Hossain, MK; Meng, QM

A fine-scale spatial analytics of the assessment and mapping of buildings and population at different risk levels of urban flood

Land Use Policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104829

Climate vagary has exposed farming communities in Semien Mountains (North West Ethiopia) to repeated droughts and famines in recent years. Most of the farming communities in this area have failed to produce sufficient food and have become dependent on foreign food donations. Yet, the impact, vulnerability and adaptive capacity of the community to climate change in the above-mentioned mountain areas are not well documented. This paper examined the temporal temperature and rainfall trends, and the communities' vulnerability to climate change as well as their adaptive capacities to the changing climate to fill the existing information gaps regarding issues called forth in the Semien Mountains and other highland environments. Data were gathered using questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. Information from meteorological recordings was also collected for this study. The collected data were analyzed using standardized precipitation index, livelihood vulnerability index, bi-logit model and descriptive statistics. The results confirmed highest climatic variability manifested in rainfall and temperature changes. Rainfall decreased by a total of 573.46 mm (by approximate to 16.38 mm per year on average) from 1979 to 2013. Mean annual temperature increased from 18.54 degrees C in 1979 to 20 degrees C in 2013. In this light, majority of the respondents (85%) reported facing climatic hazards. About 70% of them perceive that climate change has decreased land productivity and numerous others (74%) felt its future implications on farmlands. Recurrent crop and animal diseases were indicated by 95.21 and 93.41% of the sampled households, respectively. These climate change-induced incidents were exacerbated by lower adaptive capacities and limited institutional services. Livestock rearing, livelihood diversification, stone bund building, tree planting, organic fertilizer application, selling home articles, soil bund construction, rainwater harvesting, utilizing synthetic fertilizers and preparing hand-dug wells were important adaptive strategies used and ranked 1-10, respectively, by the studied households. Extension services, family size, farm income, access to training and livestock ownership found influential during the use of composting, terracing and tree planting to reduce the negative impact of climate change. Farmer-to-farmer extension appeared to significantly reduce composting, terrace building and tree planting at p < 0.01 level. This calls for further social and cultural related studies to explore the reasons.

Yohannes, Z; Teshome, M; Belay, M

Adaptive capacity of mountain community to climate change: case study in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia

Environment Development And Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00334-3

Climate change has exerted a significant global impact in recent years, and extreme weather-related hazards and incidents have become the new normal. For Taiwan in particular, the corresponding increase in disaster risk threatens not only the environment but also the lives, safety, and property of people. This highlights the need to develop a methodology for mapping disaster risk under climate change and delineating those regions that are potentially high-risk areas requiring adaptation to a changing climate in the future. This study provides a framework of flood risk map assessment under the RCP8.5 scenario by using different spatial scales to integrate the projection climate data of high resolution, inundation potential maps, and indicator-based approach at the end of the 21st century in Taiwan. The reference period was 1979-2003, and the future projection period was 2075-2099. High-resolution climate data developed by dynamic downscaling of the MRI-JMA-AGCM model was used to assess extreme rainfall events. The flood risk maps were constructed using two different spatial scales: the township level and the 5 km x 5 km grid. As to hazard-vulnerability(H-V) maps, users can overlay maps of their choice-such as those for land use distribution, district planning, agricultural crop distribution, or industrial distribution. Mapping flood risk under climate change can support better informed decision-making and policy-making processes in planning and preparing to intervene and control flood risks. The elderly population distribution is applied as an exposure indicator in order to guide advance preparation of evacuation plans for high-risk areas. This study found that higher risk areas are distributed mainly in northern and southern parts of Taiwan and the hazard indicators significantly increase in the northern, north-eastern, and southern regions under the RCP8.5 scenario. Moreover, the near-riparian and coastal townships of central and southern Taiwan have higher vulnerability levels. Approximately 14% of townships have a higher risk level of flooding disaster and another 3% of townships will become higher risk. For higher-risk townships, adaptation measures or strategies are suggested to prioritize improving flood preparation and protecting people and property. Such a flood risk map can be a communication tool to effectively inform decision- makers, citizens, and stakeholders about the variability of flood risk under climate change.

Chen, YJ; Lin, HJ; Liou, JJ; Cheng, CT; Chen, YM

Assessment of Flood Risk Map under Climate Change RCP8.5 Scenarios in Taiwan

Water

https://doi.org/10.3390/w14020207

Small-holder farmers in Ethiopia are facing several climate related hazards, in particular highly variable rainfall with severe droughts which can have devastating effects on their livelihoods. Projected changes in climate are expected to aggravate the existing challenges. This study examines farmer perceptions on current climate variability and long-term changes, current adaptive strategies, and potential barriers for successful further adaptation in two case study regions-the Central Rift Valley (CRV) and Kobo Valley. The study was based on a household questionnaire, interviews with key stakeholders, and focus group discussions. The result revealed that about 99 % of the respondents at the CRV and 96 % at the Kobo Valley perceived an increase in temperature and 94 % at CRV and 91 % at the Kobo Valley perceived a decrease in rainfall over the last 20-30 years. Inter-annual and intraseasonal rainfall variability also has increased according to the farmers. The observed climate data (1977-2009) also showed an increasing trend in temperature and high inter-annual and intra-seasonal rainfall variability. In contrast to farmers' perceptions of a decrease in rainfall totals, observed rainfall data showed no statistically significant decline. The interaction among various bio-physical and socio-economic factors, changes in rainfall intensity and reduced water available to crops due to increased hot spells, may have influenced the perception of farmers with respect to rainfall trends. In recent decades, farmers in both the CRV and Kobo have changed farming practices to adapt to perceived climate change and variability, for example, through crop and variety choice, adjustment of cropping calendar, and in situ moisture conservation. These relatively low-cost changes in farm practices were within the limited adaptation capacity of farmers, which may be insufficient to deal with the impacts of future climate change. Anticipated climate change is expected to impose new risks outside the range of current experiences. To enable farmers to adapt to these impacts critical technological, institutional, and market-access constraints need to be removed. Inconsistencies between farmers' perceptions and observed climate trends (e.g., decrease in annual rainfall) could lead to sub-optimal or counterproductive adaptations, and therefore must be removed by better communication and capacity building, for example through Climate Field Schools.

Kassie, BT; Hengsdijk, H; Rötter, R; Kahiluoto, H; Asseng, S; Van Ittersum, M

Adapting to Climate Variability and Change: Experiences from Cereal-Based Farming in the Central Rift and Kobo Valleys, Ethiopia

Environmental Management

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0145-2

For public safety, especially for people who dwell in the valley that is located downstream of a dam site, as well as the protection of economic and environmental resources, risk management programs are urgently required all over the world. Despite the high safety standards of dams because of improved engineering and excellent construction in recent times, a zero-risk guarantee is not possible, and accidents can happen, triggered by natural hazards, human actions, or just because the dam is aging. In addition to that is the impact of potential climate change, which may not have been taken into account in the original design. A flood risk management program, which is essential for protecting downstream dam areas, is required. Part of this program is to prepare an inundation map to simulate the impact of dam failure on the downstream areas. The Baysh dam has crucial importance both to protect the downstream areas against flooding, to provide drinking water to cities in the surrounding areas, and to use the excess water for irrigation of the agricultural areas located downstream of the dam. Recently, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was affected by extraordinary rainstorm events causing many problems in many different areas. One of these events happened along the basin of the Baysh dam, which raised the alarm to the decision makers and to the public to take suitable action before dam failure occurs. The current study deals with a flood risk analysis of Wadi Baysh using an integration of hydrologic and hydraulic models. A detailed field investigation of the dam site and the downstream areas down to the Red Sea coast has been undertaken. Three scenarios were applied to check the dam and the reservoir functionality; the first scenario at 100and 200-year return period rainfall events, the second scenario according to the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP), and the third scenario if the dam fails. Our findings indicated that the Baysh dam and reservoir at 100- and 200-year rainfall events are adequate, however, at the PMP the water will spill out from the spillway at similar to 8900 m(3)/s causing flooding to the downstream areas; thus, a well-designed channel along the downstream wadi portion up to the Red Sea coast is required.

Abu-Abdullah, MM; Youssef, AM; Maerz, NH; Abu-AlFadail, E; Al-Harbi, HM; Al-Saadi, NS

A Flood Risk Management Program of Wadi Baysh Dam on the Downstream Area: An Integration of Hydrologic and Hydraulic Models, Jizan Region, KSA

Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031069

Terrace agriculture in Latin America has existed for millennia. It is the result of local, traditional knowledge on slope management, and has adapted to social and environmental change. Agriculture is being affected by climate variability, i.e. random changes of inter-annual variation of temperature and precipitation. This variability has increased with climate change, affecting food security and increasing poverty over peasant communities that rely on rainfed agriculture. For agriculture adaptation to climate change, most research attention has been paid to agroecology and agrobiodiversity management, while the role of agriculture terracing has been less studied as an adaptation strategy. The objective of this paper was to determine how terrace management contributes to the agriculture adaptation to climatic variability in peasant communities in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca. Located in southeast Mexico, this is a very diverse region in terms of geology, landforms and biotic resources where terrace agriculture has been practiced for at least 3400-3500 BP. Mixteca Alta is higher than 2000 m.a.s.l., and the climate is temperate with seasonal summer rainfall. The research method was qualitative, ethnographic and participative, using semi structured interviews as primary tool. The results of interviews were grouped in four categories: climate changes and their impact on the agriculture calendar; productive systems; characteristics of terraces for agriculture; and social and economic problems of peasant communities. Interviewees indicated that the main changes have been on quality and quantity of the precipitation, specifically a decrease in total rainfall but an increase in rainfall intensity, a delayed onset of the rainy season and an early start of the midsummer heat. These changes have resulted in a delay in maize sowing and in an increase in the potential exposure of crops to frost. Early cultivation of traditional cajete maize (using residual soil moisture) in terraces was acknowledged as an efficient practice facing these changes. Interviewees recognized that terrace flat terrains, with deeper soils and higher residual soil moisture than sloping soils, allowed for coping with climatic changes and water scarcity. Cajete maize is part of the cultural heritage of the indigenous communities in this region, but is being negatively affected by a double exposure: to climate change and to adverse agricultural policies that favor large scale market agriculture and neglect family farming.

Bocco, G; Castillo, BS; Orozco-Ramírez, Q; Ortega-Iturriaga, A

Terraced agriculture in the adaptation to climatic variability in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico

Journal Of Latin American Geography

https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2019.0006

We report on a regional flood and earthquake risk assessment for 33 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Flood and earthquake risk were defined in terms of affected population and affected gross domestic product (GDP). Earthquake risk was also quantified in terms of fatalities and capital loss. Estimates of future population and GDP affected by earthquakes vary significantly among five shared socioeconomic pathways that are used to represent population and GDP in 2030 and 2080. There is a linear relationship between the future relative change in a nation's exposure (population or GDP) and its future relative change in annual average population or GDP affected by earthquakes. The evolution of flood hazard was quantified using a flood model with boundary conditions derived from five different general circulation models and two representative concentration pathways, and changes in population and GDP were quantified using two shared socioeconomic pathways. There is a nonlinear relationship between the future relative change in a nation's exposure (population or GDP) and its future relative change in its annual average population or GDP affected by floods. Six regions can be defined for positive and negative relative change in population that designate whether climate change can temper, counter, or reinforce relative changes in flood risk produced by changes in population or exposure. The departure from the one-to-one relationship between a relative change in a nation's population or GDP and its relative change in flood risk could be used to inform further efforts at flood mitigation and adaptation. Plain Language Summary Floods and earthquakes affect the economy and population of countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Future changes in these countries' economies and population will change the impacts of floods and earthquakes. In addition, future changes in climate will change how often flooding occurs. We assume that earthquake occurrence won't change with climate changes. We show how much the economies and populations of these countries are affected by floods and earthquakes in 2015, 2030 and 2080. However, as we don't know for certain how the economies, population and climate will change in the future, we show result for a variety of scenarios for future economies, population and climate. We assess how future changes in the economy and population affect future flood risk using changes in earthquake risk, and assume the remaining change is caused by changes in climate.

Murnane, RJ; Daniell, JE; Schäfer, AM; Ward, PJ; Winsemius, HC; Simpson, A; Tijssen, A; Toro, J

Future scenarios for earthquake and flood risk in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Earths Future

https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000481

I discuss the methodological challenges that research with Aboriginal women poses in historical geography, especially in Northern Canada. Drawing a parallel between historical geography and contemporary Northern studies, I explore how the predominance of climate change as a framework for funding Arctic research creates an environment where women's specific ways of knowing and connecting with the land are not adequately captured. A gender approach that is sensitive to the issues women face in their communities reveals that their experience of climate change, as well as the concerns they have about it, are inseparable from the other economic and social issues they face. I argue for the development of a feminist research agenda in the North that allows Aboriginal partners to locate themselves in the frameworks that are constructed for producing knowledge. At times letting the project 'fail' may be the surest way to enable the emergence of a locally-driven agenda that addresses the present and future needs of Northern Aboriginal Peoples.

Desbiens, C

Step lightly, then move forward: exploring feminist directions for northern research

Canadian Geographies-Geographies Canadiennes

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2010.00320.x

With the ultrahigh-speed, large-scale development of tourism and the increasing frequency, intensity, and scope of extreme natural hazards in the context of climate warming, tourism has entered a high-risk era. Based on the central urban area within the outer ring of Shanghai as the research area and the tourism attraction as the research object, this paper takes the flood scenario simulation combined with GIS network analysis to evaluate the spatial accessibility of the emergency response of urban key public service departments (120) under current and future river flood scenarios in different return periods. The results of the study show that, (1) under the current and future flood scenarios, the submergence range is mainly distributed within 2 similar to 3 km along the banks of the Huangpu River, and it tends to increase from north to south; (2) there are 6, 9, and 21 tourism attractions in the emergency blind area under the once-in-a-century floods in 2010, 2030, and 2050 and 98, 105, and 112 tourism attractions in the emergency blind area under the once-in-a-millennium floods in 2010, 2030, and 2050, respectively; (3) in the flood scene, local road traffic in the inundation area is interrupted by water, and 120 first aid cannot get or be delayed to some tourist attraction (blind area); and (4) in 2030, under the normal and flooding scenarios, 120 first aid in the downtown area of Shanghai has the fastest route to tourism attractions according to the speed of S1, S2, S3, and S4. The flooding intensity (range and water depth), road traffic conditions (vehicle flow speed), and the number and location of key public service departments jointly determine the service scope and response time of medical emergency in urban floods. Since the flood control area of the central city in Shanghai is mainly distributed in the 2 similar to 3 km area on both banks of the Huangpu River, the impact of flood on the emergency medical service in the entire central city is limited, mainly in some hospitals in the riverside area, where 120 emergency vehicles are unable or delayed to reach some tourism attractions.

Shi, Y; Wen, JH; Xi, JC; Xu, H; Shan, XM; Yao, Q

A Study on Spatial Accessibility of the Urban Tourism Attraction Emergency Response under the Flood Disaster Scenario

Complexity

https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/9031751

This paper describes an investigation of various adaptations of rice based cropping systems to climate variability in India's Telangana State. All adaptations were generated through participatory engagement and were field-tested with local smallholder households before being evaluated through cropping system simulation analysis. This approach contrasts with most research about adaptation of cropping systems to climate variability and climate change that is mostly based on simplifying assumptions about current farmer management practices and where the feasibility of implementing proposed adaptations is rarely tested. In this study, the investigation commenced with discussions about climate related issues in rice based farming systems between researchers, farmers and NGOs in three villages in three Mandals of the state of Telangana. Participatory intervention was used to identify new practices that could provide more adaptive and robust responses to climate variability. Suggested adaptations were implemented in on-farm experimentation. Fields demonstrating these adaptations were monitored and results were discussed with participating farmers at regular 'Climate Club' village meetings. Crop and soil data from these fields were used to locally parameterise the cropping systems simulator APSIM. Local adaptations that were trialled in the villages were simulated using local soil and long term historical weather data. In each of the case studies, a number of adaptations that were developed and implemented in the villages were shown through simulation to be successful in terms of agricultural production, stability of yields and resource use efficiency. Of the adaptations investigated, sowing rules to reduce the chance of crop failure due to early dry spells were most readily adopted and are also relatively easy to extend to other villages. Strategic irrigation of rainfed crops such as maize and cotton resulted in significant gains to profitability and stability of these crops but cannot be considered in isolation where access to water is limited. Reduced irrigation of rice resulted in over 60 mm/ha/yr. savings in water and some improvements in gross margins but this adaptation was not popular with farmers due to its burden on labour and added risks associated with unreliable supply of electricity for pumping at critical times. The reduced rice area for strategic irrigation of rainfed crops adaptation resulted in improved gross margins per hectare per year and higher net water productivity. This adaptation is most promising but will require institutional change around water use policy and more equitable allocation of limited water resources within villages. These results led us to the proposition that participatory action research with smallholder farmers, coupled with field-testing and simulation analysis can produce practical and productive adaptations to climate variability.

Hochman, Z; Horan, H; Reddy, DR; Sreenivas, G; Tallapragada, C; Adusumilli, R; Gaydon, D; Singh, KK; Roth, CH

Smallholder farmers managing climate risk in India: 1. Adapting to a variable climate

Agricultural Systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2016.10.001

Agricultural systems in Europe face accumulating economic, ecological and societal challenges, raising concerns about their resilience to shocks and stresses. These resilience issues need to be addressed with a focus on the regional context in which farming systems operate because farms, farmers' organizations, service suppliers and supply chain actors are embedded in local environments and functions of agriculture. We define resilience of a farming system as its ability to ensure the provision of the system functions in the face of increasingly complex and accumulating economic, social, environmental and institutional shocks and stresses, through capacities of robustness, adaptability and transformability. We (i) develop a framework to assess the resilience of farming systems, and (ii) present a methodology to operationalize the framework with a view to Europe's diverse farming systems. The framework is designed to assess resilience to specific challenges (specified resilience) as well as a farming system's capacity to deal with the unknown, uncertainty and surprise (general resilience). The framework provides a heuristic to analyze system properties, challenges (shocks, long-term stresses), indicators to measure the performance of system functions, resilience capacities and resilience-enhancing attributes. Capacities and attributes refer to adaptive cycle processes of agricultural practices, farm demographics, governance and risk management. The novelty of the framework pertains to the focal scale of analysis, i.e. the farming system level, the consideration of accumulating challenges and various agricultural processes, and the consideration that farming systems provide multiple functions that can change over time. Furthermore, the distinction between three resilience capacities (robustness, adaptability, transformability) ensures that the framework goes beyond narrow definitions that limit resilience to robustness. The methodology deploys a mixed-methods approach: quantitative methods, such as statistics, econometrics and modelling, are used to identify underlying patterns, causal explanations and likely contributing factors; while qualitative methods, such as interviews, participatory approaches and stakeholder workshops, access experiential and contextual knowledge and provide more nuanced insights. More specifically, analysis along the framework explores multiple nested levels of farming systems (e.g. farm, farm household, supply chain, farming system) over a time horizon of 1-2 generations, thereby enabling reflection on potential temporal and scalar trade-offs across resilience attributes. The richness of the framework is illustrated for the arable farming system in Veenkolonien, the Netherlands.

Meuwissen, MPM; Feindt, PH; Spiegel, A; Termeer, CJAM; Mathijs, E; de Mey, Y; Finger, R; Balmann, A; Wauters, E; Urquhart, J; Vigani, M; Zawalinska, K; Herrera, H; Nicholas-Davies, P; Hansson, H; Paas, W; Slijper, T; Coopmans, I; Vroege, W; Ciechomska, A; Accatino, F; Kopainsky, B; Poortvliet, PM; Candel, JJL; Maye, D; Severini, S; Senni, S; Soriano, B; Lagerkvist, CJ; Peneva, M; Gavrilescu, C; Reidsma, P

A framework to assess the resilience of farming systems

Agricultural Systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102656

Weather and climate information trigger early action and facilitate better disaster preparedness. Decision-driven and people-centered weather and climate information are pivotal for the effective uptake. The challenge of early responses in preparing for drought hazard is growing in the dry savannah of tropical sub-Saharan African countries. This paper analyzed user needs for weather and climate information in fostering drought risk preparedness in Central-Southern Nigeria. Stratified, snowball, and simple random samplings were used to obtain a sample of 397 respondents across the agro-ecological zones of Edo State. Structured questionnaire was used to collect farm-level household data across communities. Eight focus group discussions and 11 key informants' interviews were conducted, targeting contact farmers and other agricultural stakeholders in selected key economic sectors of Edo State, Central-Southern Nigeria. Results show that non-users of weather and climate information are more than users in the savannah area. Heckman probit results explained that male gender, farmers' experience, income, and persistent incidence of erratic rainfall have more propensity to facilitate use of WCI in taking critical decisions while group membership or associations and distance of meteorological station prevent stakeholders from developing interest in using WCI for drought preparedness and response. Multi-criteria decision-making indicated that rainfall amount, onset and cessation rainfall dates, and rainfall distributions are the most useful WCI needed by end users in their decision response plan in agriculture; rainfall intensity, rainfall cessation date, rainfall distributions, and length of dry season are ranked as the most useful WCI for water resource management while heat intensity, rainstorms, and drought alerts were ranked as most appropriate for users in the disaster risk reduction in fostering resilience toward anticipated future drought hazard. Subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) and medium (4-10 days) timescales information are the most highly rated to facilitate resource planning for efficient utilization and management in all the economic sectors. The users' most preferred delivery method of receiving WCI are mobile telephone, radio, agricultural extension officers, farmers' groups, and contact farmers/specialist for efficiency and convenient criteria in enhancing users' decision capacity to uptake WCI. There is a need for a policy drive to build synergy that will make WCI forecasting systems include impact-based forecast estimates and response advisory across a wide range of natural hazards.

Awolala, DO; Mutemi, J; Adefisan, E; Antwi-Agyei, P; Taylor, A

Profiling User Needs for Weather and Climate Information in Fostering Drought Risk Preparedness in Central-Southern Nigeria

Frontiers In Climate

https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.787605

Drought is one of the most challenging disasters that impact the natural and cultural ecosystems across the world, especially in the climate dependent sectors of arid and semi-arid areas. The aim of this article is to share the experiences gained and enhance the readers' awareness on the status of drought and process of the early warning systems (EWS) in south India. Drought status of three agroecologically different states is included in this article, such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, Karur, Thuthukudi, Krishnagiri, Namakkal, Trichy and Thirunelveli districts are water scarce compared to other districts in the state. The districts such as Wayanad, Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki and Palakkad in Kerala have received lesser rainfall compared to the other parts of the state during the period 1981 to 2019. In Telangana, the mandals such as Nagarkurnool, Jogulamba-Gadwal, Wanaparthy, Mahabubnagar Nalgonda and Yedadri are frequently hit by dry spells and droughts. As a case study, weather early warning dissemination, carried out at Parambikulam Aliyar basin, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, during Khariff and Rabi seasons, using IMDs medium and extended range forecast is also elaborated in particular in the article. As far as the accuracy of forecast is concerned, probability of false detection (false alarm rate) was found to be 0.81 for Khariff and 0.30 for Rabi season, indicating the need for better performance in the accuracy of dry spell early warning, disaster preparedness and response. In-spite of this, access to early warning has supported the farmers during harvest and land preparation with a utility score of 72% and 59%, respectively. In Parambikulam Aliyar basin, remote sensing products such as MODIS-NDVI, NDWI and TWI was also used to identify the real-time progression of monthly vegetative condition for Kharif and Rabi seasons. NDVI values were used to monitor the district level vegetation condition and compared it with the drought year 2016, the difference in area under barren land was 76% less

Dhanya, P; Geethalakshmi, V

Reviewing the Status of Droughts, Early Warning Systems and Climate Services in South India: Experiences Learned

Climate

https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11030060

A mechanism has been established to improve integration of international climate-related programmes. Known as the Climate Agenda it outlines a programme, that in a cost-effective way, responds to national obligations to respond to international agreements as well as their national needs for social and economic development. The paper briefly describes the Climate Agenda and the incorporation within it of studies of climate impact assessments and response strategies to reduce vulnerability The need for increased emphasis on climate impact assessment and for the development of effective adaptation measures is emphasised following the elaboration of a Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). UNEP's efforts to identify national programmes contributing to the Climate Agenda are described. The response from developing countries has, however, been very disappointing, even from countries where we know work is ongoing through funding by GEF or US Country Studies Program and other bilateral programmes. Initial compilation of information available so far shows that many developed countries are putting a lot into the area of impact assessment of not just climate change, but also climate variability. There remain some research gaps, especially in the area of assessment of climate impacts on ecosystems, hydrological systems, etc. Considerable efforts are presently being directed at reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases and in the case of developing countries, most efforts are being directed towards completing national communications and providing baseline data for future studies. The paper refers to early activities by UNEP in cooperation with other international organizations to undertake integrated assessments of the impacts of climate change on important socio-economic sectors and the later incorporation of lessons teamed into the IPCC Guidelines for Assessing Impacts of Climate Change. Later sections outline the development of a handbook on methods for climate change impact assessment and adaptation strategies as a practical approach to national assessments and the development of appropriate and cost-effective response to climate change. The initiation of a GEF-funded project to apply the methods contained in the handbook and improve the results based on national studies is also described for both developed and developing countries. Working in collaboration with a team of international experts under the coordination of the Institute of Environmental Studies at Vrije University (Amsterdam), the goal of this ongoing project is to develop a valuable methodological tool that Parties to the UNFCCC may apply to develop national climate change impact and adaptation assessments.

Usher, P

Integrating impacts into adaptation measures

Environmental Monitoring And Assessment

https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006305832380

The adverse effects of climate variability and extremes exert increasing pressure on rural farm households whose livelihoods are dependent on nature. However, integrated and area-specific vulnerability assessments in Ethiopia in general and the study area, in particular, are scarce and insufficient for policy implications. Therefore, this study aims to quantify, map, classify, and prioritize the level of vulnerability in terms of the components of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity in the Northeastern Highlands of Ethiopia. The study area is divided into six livelihood zones, namely, Abay-Beshilo Basin (ABB), South Wollo and Oromia eastern lowland sorghum and cattle (SWS), Chefa Valley (CHV), Meher-Belg, Belg, and Meher. A total of 361 sample households were selected using proportional probability sampling techniques. Survey questionnaire, key informant interview, and focus group discussions were used to collect the necessary data. Rainfall and temperature data were also used. Following the IPCC's climate change vulnerability assessment approach, the climate vulnerability index (CVI) framework of Sullivan and Meigh's model was used to assess the relative vulnerability of livelihoods of rural households. Twenty-four vulnerability indicators were identified for exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity components. In this regard, Iyengar and Sudarshan's unequal weighting system was applied to assign a weight to indicators. The results revealed that Belg and Meher were found to be the highest exposure livelihood zones to vulnerability with an aggregated value of 0.71. Equally, SWS, ABB, Belg, and CHV livelihood zones showed moderate level of sensitivity to vulnerability with an aggregated value between 0.45 and 0.60. The study noted that livelihood zone of Belg (0.75) was found to be at high level of livelihood vulnerability. ABB (0.57) and CHV (0.45) were at a moderate level of livelihood vulnerability while Meher-Belg (0.22) was the least vulnerable livelihood zone due to a high level of adaptive capacity such as infrastructure, asset accumulation, and social networks. It was identified that disparities of livelihood vulnerability levels of rural households were detected across the study livelihood zones due to differences in the interaction of exposure, sensitivity.

Mekonen, AA; Berlie, AB

Rural households' livelihood vulnerability to climate variability and extremes: a livelihood zone-based approach in the Northeastern Highlands of Ethiopia

Ecological Processes

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13717-021-00313-5

This study contributes to understand the role of the civil society organizations (CSOs) for promoting the green and blue infrastructure (GBI) by studying the case of Islamabad city. Pakistan is facing severe crises of changing climate and it is ranked one of the most vulnerable countries due to climate change. Adaptation to climate change is the main strategy of Pakistan to deal with climatic impacts. Implementing the GBI plays a key role in urban areas for promoting adaptive governance towards climate change. Many efforts have been initiated to manage the issue of climate change by the national, provincial, and local governments in Pakistan. The latest and notable strategy by Pakistani government was devised in the form of the Clean Green Pakistan Strategy (CGPS) to promote the GBI as adaptation strategy to address climate change. However, there are multiple challenges and hurdles for effective implementation of the CGPS. On the heels of Paris Agreement 2015, the CSOs have growing role to overcome such challenges and to prepare the local communities in collaboration with local institutions especially in cities for advancing the GBI and tackling climate change effectively. This study is conducted to understand and uncover the role of the CSOs for promoting the GBI as adaptive strategy in dealing with climate change in Islamabad city of Pakistan. The study focuses to investigate and dig out the prominent initiatives of the CSOs towards the GBI in Pakistani governance system. It also identifies the hurdles and challenges for the CSOs in relation to promote the GBI in Pakistan. A case study approach as research methodology is employed where semistructured interviews were conducted with relevant actors in Islamabad city. The study finds that the CSOs are actively involved in promotion of the GBI in collaboration with Islamabad administration through plantation drive, educating school students on the GBI, arranging training programs for the local community, providing advocacy assistance and helping the city government for establishing policies and action plans for the GBI. The CSOs act as representative of the local community in devising the GBI policies and implementation actions at local scale through consistent engagements with the local administration and the local community in the city.

Mumtaz, M

Role of civil society organizations for promoting green and blue infrastructure to adapting climate change: Evidence from Islamabad city, Pakistan

Journal Of Cleaner Production

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127296

Indigenous communities are often on the front-lines of climate change, and for tribes such as the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe (PACIT) that make their homes and livelihoods in the dynamic landscapes of Coastal Louisiana (USA), sea-level rise, subsidence, and land loss are very real reminders of why they must continue to hone their adaptive capacity that has evolved over many generations and continues to evolve as the pace of change quickens. PACIT members have an inherited wisdom about their surrounding environment and continue to build on that body of observational knowledge that is passed from generation to generation to sustain themselves in this dynamic landscape. This knowledge is woven through their culture and is sometimes referred to as tradi-tional ecological knowledge (TEK). The PACIT and other Indigenous communities around the world are using creative strategies to adapt to the impacts of climate change that include partnering with researchers to combine their TEK with science in approaches to enhance strategies dealing with climate change impacts, mitigation, and adaptation. Tribes and other Indigenous communities often have a strong connection to place that helps to inspire innovative ideas to promote greater sustainability of vulnerable ecosystems and the communities that depend on them, but not the institutional support to implement them. Overcoming this barrier requires a better understanding of their perception of the issues and what they prioritize in sustaining their cultures and the ecosystems on which they depend. Better inclusion of their knowledge into applied research is necessary to support these communities in their efforts to make sure their knowledge is recognized, understood, and valued in environmental management applications. The primary goal for this study was to develop a decision-support tool that aids the PACIT in assessing local ecological change and associated risks to the Tribe's resilience. Using remote sensing datasets and geographic information systems (GIS) processes to represent aspects of the Tribe's TEK to achieve this goal, we developed methods for producing interactive maps that reflect local perceptions of landscape features within the Tribe's ecosystem-dependent livelihood base that contribute most to the com-munity's physical vulnerability to coastal hazards. This case study is offered to consider how Indigenous com-munities like the PACIT are shaping their own coastal hazards mitigation planning efforts in line with their unique needs, cultural practices, and values.

Bethel, MB; Braud, DH; Lambeth, T; Dardar, DS; Ferguson-Bohnee, P

Mapping risk factors to climate change impacts using traditional ecological knowledge to support adaptation planning with a Native American Tribe in Louisiana

Journal Of Environmental Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113801

The risk of climate-induced feed gaps, i.e. seasonal deficiencies in forage quantity and quality, is a major constraint for livestock in the dry regions of southern Africa. In South Africa particularly, the frequent occurrence of drought is a challenge for livestock farming and, coping strategies to mitigate feed gaps on smallholder farms are urgently needed. We chose the Limpopo province, of northern South Africa to study livestock farmers' perceptions of the temporal patterns of feed gaps and their perceived impacts on livestock production across different agro-ecological zones (AEZ) and farm types (i.e., livestock only, mixed crop-livestock farms). We combined a semi structured questionnaire on ninety farms with data from herbage analysis (mineral nutrient concentrations of grasses grazed in winter). Additionally, we explored the effect of seasonal feed availability on feed gaps, expressed as gross primary productivity (GPP), based on long-term simulated vegetation data. We found a close correlation between farmers' perceived feed gaps and GPP (Pearson's r = 0.77, p < 0.01). Farmers' perceptions of feed gaps are related to precipitation deficits that restrict rangeland productivity especially in winter and spring across the AEZ. Consequently, farmers considered that feed gaps occur mainly in winter (80%) followed by spring (30%) and autumn (20%). In addition, our analysis demonstrated that in winter the mineral concentration in rangeland biomass is inadequate to meet the livestock feed requirements. The percentages of farmers who perceived feed gaps and animal weight loss in the winter season did not differ significantly between farm types (p = 0.40) and AEZ (p = 0.41). Among livestock-only farmers, feed gaps were perceived to occur more in autumn (p < 0.01) whereas for mixed crop-livestock farmers the feed gap perception was greater in spring (p < 0.01). Farmers located in the drier zone perceived feed gaps more in spring (p < 0.05), leading to the significant perception of livestock weight loss for that period (p < 0.01). As strategies to deal with feed gaps, farmers rely on crop residues and/or reduction of livestock numbers. To improve the sustainability of the livestock system, our results show that feed gaps follow a strong seasonal pattern

Lamega, SA; Komainda, M; Hoffmann, MP; Ayisi, KK; Odhiambo, JJO; Isselstein, J

It depends on the rain: Smallholder farmers' perceptions on the seasonality of feed gaps and how it affects livestock in semi-arid and arid regions in Southern Africa

Climate Risk Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2021.100362

Climate data are essential in an array of climate research and applications. Climate data also provide the foundation for the provision of climate services. However, in many parts of Africa, weather stations are sparse, and their numbers have been declining over the last half-century. Moreover, the distribution of existing meteorological stations is uneven, with most weather stations located in towns and cities along the main roads. To address these data gaps, efforts over the last decade, largely driven by external donor funding, have focused on expanding meteorological observation networks in many parts of Africa, mainly through the provision of Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) to National Meteorological Services (NMS). While AWS offer a number of advantages over the conventional ones, which include automated reporting at a very fine temporal resolution (15 min, on average), they also have several disadvantages and accompanying challenges to their use. Some of these well-known challenges are the high maintenance requirements and associated costs that arise from the need to procure replacement parts that may not be available locally. However, another major, under-discussed challenge confronting NMS is the disparities between the different station types provided by different donors that has given rise to barriers to pragmatically using the plethora of data collected by AWS in decision-making processes. These disparities include major differences in the way the data from various AWS types are formatted and stored, which result in poorly coordinated, fragmented, and unharmonized datasets coming from different AWS networks. The end result is that while top-of-the-line AWS networks may systematically be collecting highly needed data, the inability of NMS to efficiently, combine, synchronize, and otherwise integrate these data coherently in their databases limits their use. To address these challenges, a free web-based application called Automatic Weather Station Data Tool (ADT) with an easy-to-use graphical user interface was developed to help NMS to access, process, perform quality control, and visualize data from different AWS networks in one place. Now implemented in five African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zambia), ADT also enables real-time monitoring of stations to see which ones are working and which ones are offline.

Faniriantsoa, R; Dinku, T

ADT: The automatic weather station data tool

Frontiers In Climate

https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.933543

Adaptation to climate change in Europe has only recently become a true policy concern with the management of extreme events one priority item. Irrespective of future climatic changes increasing the need for systematic evaluation and management of extremes, weather-related disasters already today pose substantial burdens for households, businesses and governments. Research in the ADAM project identified substantial direct risks in terms of potential crop and asset losses due to combined drought and heatwave, as well as flood hazards in Southern and Eastern Europe, respectively. This paper focuses on the indirect, medium to longer term economic risks triggered by the direct risks and mediated by policy responses. We present a selection of three economic impact and adaptation assessments and modelling studies undertaken on extreme event adaptation in Europe. Responding to a need for more economically based adaptation assessments, we address some relatively unresearched issues such as the understanding of past adaptation, the role of market response to impacts as well as government's ability to plan for and share out extreme event risks. The first analysis undertakes an empirical exploration of observed impacts and adaptation in the agricultural sector in the UK comparing the impact of consecutive extreme events over time in order to determine whether adaptation has occurred in the past and whether this can be used to inform future estimates of adaptation rates. We find that farmers and the agricultural sector clearly have adapted to extreme events over time, but whether this rate can be maintained into the future is unclear, as some autonomous adaptation enacted seemed rather easy to be taken. Markets may mediate or amplify impacts and in the second analysis, we use an economic general equilibrium model to assess the economic effects of a reduction in agricultural production due to drought and heatwave risk in exposed regions in Spain. The analysis suggests that modelled losses to the local economy are more serious in a large-scale scenario when neighbouring provinces are also affected by drought and heatwave events. This is due to the supply-side induced price increase leading to some passing on of disaster costs to consumers. The simulation highlights the importance of paying particular attention to the spatial and distributional effects weather extremes and possibly changes therein induced by climate change may incur. Finally, we discuss how national governments may better plan their disaster liabilities resulting from a need to manage relief and reconstruction activities post event. We do so using a risk based economic planning model assessing the fiscal consequences associated with the coping with natural extremes.

Mechler, R; Hochrainer, S; Aaheim, A; Salen, H; Wreford, A

Modelling economic impacts and adaptation to extreme events: Insights from European case studies

Mitigation And Adaptation Strategies For Global Change

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-010-9249-7

Climate change causes multiple consequences in different societies. One of the most prominent is the migratory movements derived from the negative effects of global warming. In recent years, the phenomenon of climate migration has been increasing and, unfortunately, it is a trend that will continue to rise in the coming decades. At the international level, there is still no agreement capable of providing a comprehensive response to this problem. The legal vacuum makes people who must migrate due to climate change look totally unprotected. Furthermore, this also leads to a lack of consensus in the framing and naming of this type of migration. The literature has been working in this sense, trying to collect positions and good practices in the matter. However, in the field of decision-making, it seems that there is still no concern about this issue. The international initiatives and declarations that are available to date are deficient. Mainly, because they are not mandatory for the States -and, consequently, not enforceable-, in such a way that each country will voluntarily choose to adopt the regime it deems appropriate, creating uncertainty and legal insecurity. Faced with this lack of legislation, some international organizations have also had to manage to come up with creative responses, as in the case of the Observation of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Teitiota v. New Zealand. This Study seeks to delve into the issue of this lack of a legal framework, reinforcing the statement of the need for international cooperation to face the problem of climate migration - regardless of the name that is to be used - manifested through the creation of a binding agreement for the States. To do this, it draws mainly on existing literature as well as international treaties and initiatives that deal with the matter. Likewise, special emphasis is placed on the role of multilateralism as a central engine to achieve a better result. The countries committed to the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals and, although their formulations do not contemplate climate migration as such, their compliance or non-compliance can also have an impact on this type of human mobility. Also, the situation of climatic migrations is analyzed from a regional perspective. In this sense, the potential of the European Union to lead the search for the necessary comprehensive response is addressed.

Greco, DJG

Risks derived from climate change: a regional look at climate migration from international cooperation

Observatorio Medioambiental

https://doi.org/10.5209/OBMD.73172

Significant increases in food production in the 20(th) century have contributed to the improvement of many farmers' livelihood and their economic growth. However, the gains have come with disproportionate environmental, cultural, health and social costs. The agriculture in the 21(st) century will have to address crucial challenges including climate change, by maintaining and enhancing environmental & cultural services and safeguarding nutritional quality, diversity of food and farming systems. Often the problems in agriculture are not solely caused by a lack or failure of science & technology, but instead derive from social, economic or legal framework. It is therefore critical to define first, what problems are best solved by changing social, economic or legal frameworks and second, those which are best solved by using technology. Further, the green revolution era model of transfer of technology is no more valid, particularly, when it comes to complex issues such as natural resource and climate change. Instead, innovative institutional arrangements are essential to successful design and adoption of ecologically and socially suitable agricultural systems. The roles of NGOs should be seen in this context. The advantage of NGOs lies in their independence status, freedom of raising voice of the poor and involvement at the grass-root level. Nand Educational Foundation for Rural Development (NEFORD) is one such NGO committed to transforming quality of live for the rural poor and under-privileged. It is dedicated to achieve sustainable economic development and preserve environment with the focus on marginal communities. NEFORD is leading an initiative called PARIS (Poverty Alleviation through Rice Innovation Systems) to improve food security (increase yields and reduce input cost), enhance flexibility in response to monsoon and climate change and maintain profitability in the market economy. PARIS aims to build Partnership for Rice Innovation Platform and Communication Systems to improve information flow to farmers and feedback and facilitate communication through out the information supply chain. The project uses ICT to improve access to information on market, cropping choices, weather forecasts and technology options, for which an Information Hub has been developed via the internet and village computer centres, to facilitate information flow between farmers and project partners. The program is about taking Research Into Use (RIU). We know a lot about the potential uses of different technologies, but what we don't know is where it is fit for purpose.

Singh, RK; Singh, HN; Singh, VN; Singh, A; Singh, S; Singh, N; Singh, A

Helping farmers adapt to climate change: the NEFORD way

Indian Journal Of Genetics And Plant Breeding

In recent years, policy makers and scientists have become interested in the dynamic links between migration and environmental change (Doos in Global Environ Change 7(1):41-61, 1997; Adger et al. in Living with Environmental Change: Social vulnerability, adaptation and resilience in Vietnam, 2001; Gunderson and Holling in Panarchy-understanding transformations in systems of humans and nature, Island Press, Washington, DC, Gunderson and Holling 2002; Scoones et al. in Dynamic systems and the challenge of sustainability, 2007; Galaz et al. in Ecosystems under pressure. A policy brief for the International Commission on Climate Change and Development, 2008). Recently, scoping activities have emerged to produce empirical observations about the role of environmental change in decisions about human mobility, including a range of movements from voluntary to forced migration and displacement. One notable recent attempt to contribute to the base of knowledge about the links between environmental change and migration has been the European Commission co-sponsored the Environmental Change and Forced Scenarios (EACH-FOR) project. The EACH-FOR project was created to assess the impact of environmental change on migration at the local, national, regional and international level. This paper shares the methods and fieldwork experiences of a first-time, multicontinent survey of environmental change and migration from the research project supported by the European Commission: Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR, Contract Number 044468, http://www.each-for.eu). This paper has three purposes. First, the authors explore issues related to how EACH-FOR designed its methodological approach for the first global survey of environmental change and migration. The paper then describes how the project attempted to create a method that would produce comparable results in a challenging context of multiple scientific challenges and trade-offs for research design. The second purpose of this paper is to examine how field researchers implemented and used this methodology in the EACH-FOR project. This paper takes a closer look at the fieldwork approach applied in investigating the 23 EACH-FOR project case studies. These case studies presented diverse local conditions and social contexts and different types of environmental changes. The paper discusses some of the practical considerations and shortcomings of the method in practice and illustrates how local researchers from selected case studies managed the challenges of their complex assignment.

Warner, K

Environmental change and migration: methodological considerations from ground-breaking global survey

Population And Environment

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-011-0150-4

The International Workshop on Reducing Vulnerability of Agriculture and Forestry to Climate Variability and Climate Change held in Ljubljana, Solvenia, from 7 to 9 October 2002 addressed a range of important issues relating to climate variability, climate change, agriculture, and forestry including the state of agriculture and forestry and agrometeological information, and potential adaptation strategies for agriculture and forestry to changing climate conditions and other pressures. There is evidence that global warming over the last millennium has already resulted in increased global average annual temperature and changes in rainfall, with the 1990s being likely the warmest decade in the Northern Hemisphere at least. During the past century, changes in temperature patterns have, for example, had a direct impact on the number of frost days and the length of growing seasons with significant implications for agriculture and forestry. Land cover changes, changes in global ocean circulation and sea surface temperature patterns, and changes in the composition of the global atmosphere are leading to changes in rainfall. These changes may be more pronounced in the tropics. For example, crop varieties grown in the Sahel may not be able to withstand the projected warming trends and will certainly be at risk due to projected lower amounts of rainfall as well. Seasonal to interannual climate forecasts will definitely improve in the future with a better understanding of dynamic relationships. However, the main issue at present is how to make better use of the existing information and dispersion of knowledge to the farm level. Direct participation by the farming communities in pilot projects on agrometeorological services will be essential to determine the actual value of forecasts and to better identify the specific user needs. Old (visits, extension radio) and new (internet) communication techniques, when adapted to local applications, may assist in the dissemination of useful information to the farmers and decision makers. Some farming systems with an inherent resilience may adapt more readily to climate pressures, making long-term adjustments to varying and changing conditions. Other systems will need interventions for adaptation that should be more strongly supported by agrometeorological services for agricultural producers. This applies, among others, to systems where pests and diseases play an important role. Scientists have to guide policy makers in fostering an environment in which adaptation strategies can be effected.

Salinger, MJ; Sivakumar, MVK; Motha, R

Reducing vulnerability of agriculture and forestry to climate variability and change: Workshop summary and recommendations

Climatic Change

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-5954-8

One of the most critical impacts of sea level rise is that flooding suffered by ever larger settlements in tropical deltas will increase. Here we look at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and quantify the threats that coastal floods pose to safety and to the economy. For this, we produce flood maps through hydrodynamic modeling and, by combining these with data sets of exposure and vulnerability, we estimate two indicators of risk: the damage to assets and the number of potential casualties. We simulate current and future (2050 and 2100) flood risk using IPCC scenarios of sea level rise and socioeconomic change. We find that annual damage may grow by more than 1 order of magnitude, and potential casualties may grow 5-20-fold until the end of the century, in the absence of adaptation. Impacts depend strongly on the climate and socioeconomic scenarios considered. Next, we simulate the implementation of adaptation measures and calculate their effectiveness in reducing impacts. We find that a ring dike would protect the inner city but increase risk in more rural districts, whereas elevating areas at risk and dryproofing buildings will reduce impacts to the city as a whole. Most measures perform well from an economic standpoint. Combinations of measures seem to be the optimal solution and may address potential equity conflicts. Based on our results, we design possible adaptation pathways for Ho Chi Minh City for the coming decades; these can inform policy-making and strategic thinking. Plain Language Summary While sea levels gradually rise, concerns about coastal floods become higher, especially in low-lying cities in the tropics. In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, floods are already large and frequent. Here we look at how coastal floods, and their impacts, will evolve on this city during the coming decades. Using different scenarios of sea level rise and socioeconomic growth, we calculate that risk, in terms of urban damage and potential casualties, may increase even more than 10-fold, if adaptation measures are not taken. We then simulate the realization of different adaptation measures: a ring dike, elevating part of the city, retrofitting buildings, and changing land use, and their combination. Most measures have the potential of reducing a considerable part of flood risk. The ring dike has the disadvantage that it would protect the inner city while increasing risk in outer districts; if implemented, it should therefore be combined with other measures

Scussolini, P; Tran, TTV; Koks, E; Diaz-Loaiza, A; Ho, PL; Lasage, R

Adaptation to Sea Level Rise: A Multidisciplinary Analysis for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Water Resources Research

https://doi.org/10.1002/2017WR021344

The frequent occurrence of meteorological disasters in China has caused huge losses to agriculture. Risk assessment serves as a bridge from disaster crisis management to disaster risk management. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a refined comprehensive risk assessment of meteorological disasters in typical areas. However, several limitations remain in the disaster loss risk research, such as too coarse resolution and too single risk indicator. Additionally, less research has examined geographical information on risk clustering and barycenter migration, as well as temporal information on the sustainability of trends. Consequently, it is significant to unearth the geographical and temporal information on disaster loss and identify the refined spatial and temporal evolution pattern of crop risk. For this reason, we evaluated the risk of corn production in Gansu Province. First, based on maize yield data, a risk evaluation index system was constructed using the characteristics of variation trends, fluctuations, and extreme values of disaster losses. Then, the spatial distribution patterns and temporal evolution characteristics of maize production risks on a county scale in Gansu Province were determined using spatial analysis and climate diagnosis technology. The results show that there is a large interdecadal fluctuation in risk. In the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, the average yield reduction rates of maize in Gansu Province were -11.8%, -12.6%, -8.7%, and -8.5%, and the proportions of counties with severe yield reduction were 34.8%, 44.4%, 20.8%, and 9.7%, respectively. Second, most counties belong to medium-low or low-risk areas for maize production. High-risk counties are primarily located in eastern and southern Gansu, whereas low-risk counties are mostly found along the Hexi Corridor. Third, most risk indicators exhibit some geographical aggregation. The Jiuquan region falls within the low-low-risk aggregation zone. In contrast, the Qingyang region is a high-high aggregation zone with a gradual expansion trend. Four, each risk indicator's geographical barycenter migrates over a complicated path, but the direction and distance vary considerably. The comprehensive risk migrates along the south-northwest-southeast trajectory, albeit at a shorter distance. Five, the proportion of counties with a medium, medium-severe, severe, and total yield reduction tended to decline.

Fang, F; Wang, J; Lin, JJ; Xu, YX; Lu, GY; Wang, X; Huang, PC; Huang, YH; Yin, F

Risk Assessment of Maize Yield Losses in Gansu Province Based on Spatial Econometric Analysis

Agriculture-Basel

https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13071280

Online channels for communicating risk frequently include features and technological capabilities to support sharing images of risk. In particular, the affordances found in social media, such as Twitter, include the ability to attach maps, photographs, videos, and other graphical information. The inclusion of visual cues such as colors and shapes and their different sizes are important for making sense of approaching threats, populations at risk, the potential impacts, and ranges of associated uncertainty. The reception of and attention to these visual cues in messages about a potential threat is the necessary first stage to making a decision about protective actions. Understanding what visual features capture individual attention and how attention is directed to visual images of risk on social media has the potential to affect the design of risk communication messages and the protective actions that follow. In this paper we use eye-tracking methods to identify where people allocate attention to a series of tweets and qualitative think alouds to determine what features of the tweets people attend to in their visual field are salient to message receivers. We investigate visual attention to a series of tweets that depict an emerging tornado threat to identify areas of visual interest and the properties of those visual cues that elicit attention. We find the use of color, properties of text presentation, and contents of messages affect attention allocation. These findings could help practitioners as they design and disseminate their weather messages to inform the public of emerging threats. Significance StatementTornadoes frequently pose an imminent threat to individuals, requiring quick decision-making and protective actions. To date, much research has investigated how people perceive and respond behaviorally to warning messages sent over short messaging channels. However, limited research has addressed how people allocate attention to messages, that is, what they actively look at, and how the attributes of warning messages influence attention. In this study, we use eye tracking to explore where participants allocate visual attention to the message and use qualitative think alouds to determine how visual features in the messages influence attention. These results point the way toward better message design. For example, message designers should carefully consider their use of color to indicate threat type, threat level, and areas of risk, ensuring that colors are accurately labeled and used consistently. We found that attention was drawn to visual cues of difference, such as the use of all capital letters and changes in color; message designers should incorporate these techniques into their communication strategies. Future studies may find that different visual manipulations of images and text have an impact on attention allocation and message processing.

Sutton, J; Fischer, LM

Understanding Visual Risk Communication Messages: An Analysis of Visual Attention Allocation and Think-Aloud Responses to Tornado Graphics

Weather Climate And Society

https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-20-0042.1

There is an emerging and urgent need for new approaches for the management of environmental challenges such as flood hazard in the broad context of sustainability. This requires a new way of working which bridges disciplines and organisations, and that breaks down science-culture boundaries. With this, there is growing recognition that the appropriate involvement of local communities in catchment management decisions can result in multiple benefits. However, new tools are required to connect organisations and communities. The growth of cloud based technologies offers a novel way to facilitate this process of exchange of information in environmental science and management; however, stakeholders need to be engaged with as part of the development process from the beginning rather than being presented with a final product at the end. Here we present the development of a pilot Local Environmental Virtual Observatory Flooding Tool. The aim was to develop a cloud based learning platform for stakeholders, bringing together fragmented data, models and visualisation tools that will enable these stakeholders to make scientifically informed environmental management decisions at the local scale. It has been developed by engaging with different stakeholder groups in three catchment case studies in the UK and a panel of national experts in relevant topic areas. However, these case study catchments are typical of many northern latitude catchments. The tool was designed to communicate flood risk in locally impacted communities whilst engaging with landowners/farmers about the risk of runoff from the farmed landscape. It has been developed iteratively to reflect the needs, interests and capabilities of a wide range of stakeholders. The pilot tool combines cloud based services, local catchment datasets, a hydrological model and bespoke visualisation tools to explore real time hydrometric data and the impact of flood risk caused by future land use changes. The novel aspects of the pilot tool are; the co-evolution of tools on a cloud based platform with stakeholders, policy and scientists; encouraging different science disciplines to work together; a wealth of information that is accessible and understandable to a range of stakeholders; and provides a framework for how to approach the development of such a cloud based tool in the future. Above all, stakeholders saw the tool and the potential of cloud technologies as an effective means to taking a whole systems approach to solving environmental issues. This sense of community ownership is essential in order to facilitate future appropriate and acceptable land use management decisions to be co-developed by local catchment communities. The development processes and the resulting pilot tool could be applied to local catchments globally to facilitate bottom up catchment management approaches.

Wilkinson, ME; Mackay, E; Quinn, PF; Stutter, M; Beven, KJ; MacLeod, CJA; Macklin, MG; Elkhatib, Y; Percy, B; Vitolo, C; Haygarth, PM

A cloud based tool for knowledge exchange on local scale flood risk

Journal Of Environmental Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.06.009

The purpose of this paper was to draw attention to the need for rising landslide disaster risk awareness directed to children at the local level, particularly in peri-urban mountain areas of Mexico, where high vulnerability conditions and the lowest levels of information and attention are usually found. An attempt to engage children in the co-production of basic disaster risk knowledge associated with landslide exposure founded on a community-based mapping approach was documented for the neighbourhoods of Ayotzingo and Las Moraledas, localities built as post-disaster resettlements, resulting from the disaster of October 1999 associated with rainfall-induced landslides, in the municipality of Teziutlan, Puebla, in Mexico. The performed community-based mapping endeavour is part of the activities carried out within the framework of the ICL-IPL Project Landslide disaster risk communication in mountain areas. This approach indicated that analytical capabilities of community-based strategies could be used not only to contribute to the elaboration of hazard maps, but also to highlight the spatial complexity of social and environmental issues that produce and influence landslide disaster risk at the local level. Most importantly, community-based mapping workshops were useful to emphasise the importance of children's education and participation in disaster risk reduction. In this paper, it is argued that in addition to using maps as quantitative and qualitative tools for depicting the different ingredients and interactions of historical and contemporary processes leading to the social construction of disaster risk, they are a popular and simplified view of the own space of peoples at risk that can be transformed to personal and communal awareness as an initial stage into the understanding of disaster risk and the necessity to transcend disaster response by supporting scientific evidence-based integrated disaster risk management (IDRiM). It was possible to conclude that community-based landslide mapping should be regarded as a cornerstone for landslide disaster risk awareness, favouring the co-production of knowledge by taking into account local contexts. Above and beyond all, it is considered that the sustain participation of children in DRR should be highly valued as a significant means to contribute to the challenge of curbing disaster losses and reducing disaster risk.

Ruiz-Cortés, NS; Alcantara-Ayala, I

Landslide exposure awareness: a community-based approach towards the engagement of children

Landslides

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01391-w

The study analyzed the level of agro-ecosystem sensitivity to climate change among the agro-climatic zones (ACZs) that are situated in the highlands of Lake Tana sub-basin. The analyses considered the actual land capability class (LCC in % considering soil texture, slope and elevation zone), crop diversity (count), length of growing period (LGP, month), and inter-annual variability of climate (mean annual rainfall-MARF in mm, mean monthly minimum temperature-MMMinT in degrees C, and mean monthly maximum temperature-MMMaxT in degrees C). For comparison purpose, it was essential to index/standardize the values of specified indicators. The proportion of arable land varied from 13.30% (in the Sub-Alpine) to 93.00% (in the Moist-Cold). The value of coefficient of variation showed the presence of variations of 7.85-11.21 (%), 7.21-10.34 (%), 16.37-39.61 (%) for MARF (mm), MMMaxT (degrees C), and MMMinT (degrees C), respectively across the ACZs. The inter-annual variability of both onset and offset time of rainy season was found to be in the range of 0.3-1.25 months. The LGP (month) was in the range of 3.25-6.25 across the ACZs; whereas crop diversity (count) ranged from 2-7. The production of red onion (allium cepa), oat (Avena sativa), local wheat (Triticum), and pea (Pisum sativum) was abandoned in the Sub-Alpine; whereas the production of linseed (Linmu usitatisimum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), and niger (Guizotia abyssinica) in the Moist-Cool. Yet, crops like maize and tef became the common crops in the Cold, possibly because of global warming. The indexed value of agro-ecosystem sensitivity to climate change ranged from 0.14-0.71. The level of agro-ecosystem sensitivity was higher towards the Sub-Alpine.

Taye, MA

Agro-ecosystem sensitivity to climate change over the Ethiopian highlands in a watershed of Lake Tana sub-basin

Heliyon

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07454

The main objective of this study was to analyze drought-induced agricultural livelihood vulnerability through a comprehensive assessment of agro-meteorological, biophysical, and socioeconomic variables in North Wollo. The study area has four main livelihood zones, namely, Abay Tekeze watershed (ATW), North Wollo east plain (NWEP), North Wollo highland belg (NWHB), and Northeast woina-dega mixed cereal (NEWMC). A total of 274 sample households were selected from all the livelihood zones by considering wealth rankings. A Survey questionnaire, supplemented with focus group discussions and key informant interviews, was used to collect the data. Principal component analysis was applied to determine the indicators and assign weights. Consequently, from 66 indicators 32 were prioritized to measure the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of the system. Both the livelihood vulnerability framework (LVI) and vulnerability sourcebook approach (LVIVSBA) were applied to assess livelihood vulnerability. The results revealed that the entire study area was characterized by higher exposure (0.653) and higher sensitivity (0.632) scores to drought impacts, while it exhibited a lower adaptive capacity (0.37). In both approaches, NWHB obtained the highest vulnerability score (0.681/0.715) followed by NWEP (0.634/0.619), whilst ATW revealed the lowest (0.583/0.555) in LVI and LVIVSBA, respectively. Similarly, the poor (0.671/0.670), medium (0.589/0.593), and better-off (0.554/0.537) were relatively ordered from the highest to the lowest. In conclusion, differential livelihood vulnerability does exist across the livelihood zones and wealth groups. The major sub-components which worsen household's vulnerability were access to irrigation, food self-sufficiency problem, scarcity of livestock fodder, poor access to basic infrastructure, lower livelihood diversification, inadequate economic resources, low educational status, lack of training and support. Hence, the study calls for decision-makers and development partners to develop context-specific planning and interventions that strengthen the farmers' adaptive capacity .

Wassie, SB; Mengistu, DA; Birlie, AB; Waktola, DK

Drought-induced agricultural livelihood vulnerability: Livelihood-based comparative analysis in Northeast highlands of Ethiopia

Cogent Food & Agriculture

https://doi.org/10.1080/23311932.2023.2238981

The amount of agricultural drought vulnerability in an underdeveloped rain-fed agro-based economy at the local, regional, and national level is most prominent factor for measurement. The desiccation of rain in agricultural sector becomes apprehensive to intercontinental food supply chain. So, adequate investigation and development of sustainable agricultural methodology are key factors to sustain the food security of a territory. In this research, delineation of agricultural drought vulnerability (ADV) status has been carried out by multidimensional mixed-method index approach using remote sensing and geographic information system. An integrated three-dimensional model is utilized to enrich this study. The three indices of this model include exposure index (EI), sensitivity index (SI), and adaptive capacity index (ACI). The ACI has been constructed by combining the environmental adaptive capacity (EAC), social adaptive capacity (SAC), and economic adaptive capacity (EcAC) index. The 40 parameters for ADV modeling are picked up by analyzing metrological, geo-environmental, social, and remote sensing data. There are six exposure parameters, seven sensitivity parameters, twelve environmental adaptive capacity parameters, six social adaptive capacity parameters, and nine economic adaptive capacity parameters. Each index has been computed by assigning the weights based on their relative importance by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach. Final results were classified into five vulnerability zones, e.g., very low, low, moderate, high, and very high covering an area 362.32 km(2), 186.68 km(2), 568.69 km(2), 547.05 km(2), and 266.89 km(2) respectively. Results have been validated with long-term Aman paddy yield data (2004 to 2014) through the yield anomaly index (YAI). Finally, the model ADV is a good model fit (R square = 0.894) and all the relationships were found significant, when SI, EI, and ACI are considered its predictors. While SI (B = 0.391, p < 0.001) and EI (B = 0.223, p < 0.001) are positively associated with ADV, ACI is negatively associated with ADV (B = - 0.721, p < 0.001). This regional agricultural drought vulnerability model can be useful to identify drought-responsive areas and improve drought mitigation measures.

Senapati, U; Das, TK

Geospatial assessment of agricultural drought vulnerability using integrated three-dimensional model in the upper Dwarakeshwar river basin in West Bengal, India

Environmental Science And Pollution Research

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23663-9

The exposure of vulnerable food systems to hazards often leads to outcomes such as food insecurity. In order to prevent such food insecurity, it is critical to understand the causal factors - or root causes - of vulnerability, particularly in a world of increasing risk. As such, this paper develops and implements a food system causal disaster vulnerability framework within the Bedamuni tribe of Papua New Guinea. Although changing, Bedamuni livelihoods remain centred on subsistence swidden agriculture, hunting, and gathering. The framework developed here considers food systems as socioecological systems that through, for example, ecosystem use, provision, and social institutions should ideally provide food security along with other forms of social and cultural welfare. As detailed in the paper, disaster vulnerability is considered a function of exposure (temporal and spatial), susceptibility (as historical, socio-human, psychological, economic, environmental, physical, cultural, and governance dimensions), livelihood resilience (as knowledge, power and participation, capabilities, assets, and social capital) and absorptive, adapttive, and transformational capacities. The study is based on in-depth mixed methods fieldwork undertaken in 25 villages throughout the Bedamuni territory and incorporates established ethnographic approaches (e.g., participant observation, garden and disaster transect walks, and interviews) and a novel culturally appropriate approach (e.g., 31 longhouse stories lasting 1-3 h). The study reveals the main drivers of increasing vulnerability relate to historical, ecological, social, and psychological dimensions of susceptibility and declining adaptive capacity. The need for transformational change is suggested but is hindered by declining self-efficacy, inertia and a lack of knowledge of how to address factors such as population growth, declining land productivity, climate change, and increasing garden pests and diseases. Taken together with high exposure to El Nino droughts (e.g., 1971/2, 1982/3, 1997, 2015/16) and earthquakes (e.g., -1950, 2018), disaster vulnerability is concemingly high and participants suggest is increasing. This paper is an empirically grounded argument for using causal approaches that look beyond outcomes to identify drivers of vulnerability in food systems. The framework and empirical evidence presented provides researchers, NGOs, and policy makers guidance and entry points for reducing vulnerability and increasing the resilience of marginalised Indigenous food systems in Papua New Guinea and potentially beyond.

Jackson, G; McNamara, KE; Witt, B

System of hunger: Understanding causal disaster vulnerability of indigenous food systems

Journal Of Rural Studies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.10.042

Climate change will have a progressively increasing impact on environmental degradation and environmentally dependent socio-economic systems with potential to cause substantial population displacement. The key concerns in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) will include serious threats to food security and health, considerable economic decline, inundation of coastal areas, and degradation of land and fresh water resources (Reuveny in Polit Geogr, 2007). The relationship between environmental change and potential humanitarian crises has been captured by: McGregor (Geography and refugees: patterns and processes of change, Belhaven Press, London, pp 159-70, 1993), Kibreab (Environment and Population Change, International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, LiSge, 1994), Kibreab (Disasters 21(1):20-38, 1997), Myers (Bioscience 43:752-761, 1993), Myers and Kent (Environmental exodus: an emergent crisis in the global arena, Climate Institute, Washington, DC, 1995), Black (New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper no. 34, 2001), Lee (Environmental matters: conflict, refugees and international relations, World Human Development Institute Press, Seoul and Tokyo, 2001), Castles (Environmental Change and Induced Migration: Making Sense of the Debate Working Paper No. 70, 2002), Christian Aid (Human tide: the real migration crisis, Christian Aid, London, 2007), and Massey et al. (http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/pdf/rr07-615.pdf , 2007). However, we know little about the interplay between environmental change and stresses on ecological systems, resulting socio-economic vulnerability and potential outcomes in terms of population displacement or induced migration. So far these relationships are poorly conceptualized, lack systematic investigation, and are reduced to simplistic causal explanations. This leads to misleading conclusions that deny the complex multivariate processes-environmental, political, social, and economic- which are the root causes of environmentally induced migration and/or conflict. When people are faced with severe environmental degradation they have one of three options: (1) stay and adapt to mitigate the effects; (2) stay, do nothing and accept a lower quality of life.

Warner, K; Hamza, M; Oliver-Smith, A; Renaud, F; Julca, A

Climate change, environmental degradation and migration

Natural Hazards

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9419-7

Lima's environmental sustainability is threatened by increasing water scarcity, heavy rain events and limited attention for water vulnerability and climate change scenarios. In this paper we examine how knowledge construction and risk perception on water-related disaster risks and vulnerabilities affects decision-making and implementation in urban governance networks, specifically looking at some of the reasons behind high levels of risk tolerance and the lack of decision-making initiatives in putting adaptation and/or preventive measures in place. New forms of metropolitan governance have constructed spatial knowledge about water-related vulnerabilities using inclusive scenario-building processes. These unpack complexities, uncertainties and spatial inequalities in water governance, making them visible by mapping and spatial representations as strategic instrument for social and policy learning. This article analyzes two case studies, which either already are or can become disasters (scenario building). The first, concerns the long-term plausible scenario of water scarcity and droughts analyzing population growth rates, water distribution and consumption through the Chance2Sustain research project and presenting spatial representations. The maps were used to define possible spatial intervention priorities to deal with future water vulnerabilities in Lima. The second, refers to short term extreme weather events that already manifest as mudslides and floods and El Nino in Chosica, eastern Lima. We investigate the first at the metropolitan city scale level and the second at the scale of vulnerable communities. The cases illustrate iterative spatial knowledge construction, in which processes of risk prioritization, normalization and tolerance occur, and the resulting [in-]action by a variety of actors so far. The methodology used collective and iterative mapping processes, using technical, organizational and geographical knowledge from a variety of governance, experts and practitioner networks in Lima. The main outcome is the social learning derived from bringing together different kinds of knowledge and integrating several dimensions through spatial representations. This has raised awareness, increased capacities for dealing with uncertainty and contributed to the approved metropolitan Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, but not implemented by the Lima Municipality yet. The main conclusions are two: 1) spatial planning is a quite political process, in which knowledge is contested or even when acknowledged, does not necessarily steer decision-making processes, either by local communities, authorities and private institutions. And 2) existing models linking knowledge construction to risk framing, risk tolerance and how these influence decision-making processes and actions to prevent disaster may ignore the issues of risk tolerance, through normalization and prioritization at their peril

Sara, LM; Jameson, S; Pfeffer, K; Baud, I

Risk perception: The social construction of spatial knowledge around climate change-related scenarios in Lima

Habitat International

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.12.025

Air quality can be affected by weather and thus is sensitive to a changing climate. Wildfire, consecutive high temperature summer days, and other extreme events are projected to become more severe and frequent with climate change. These may create challenging conditions for managing air quality despite policy targets to reduce precursor and pollutant emissions. Although extreme events are becoming more intense and interest in climate adaptation is increasing among public health practitioners, little attention in scholarly literature and policy covers climate adaptation for air quality governance. Understanding the management and managers' perspectives at the local level provides insight about the needs for climate adaptation, including their adaptation status, perspectives, responsibilities, and roles. This study explores local manager perspectives and experiences of managing air quality within a changing climate as one puzzle piece to understand the gap in climate adaptation within the air quality sector. A broader goal is to contribute to the discussion of developing a multi-jurisdictional vision for reducing the impacts of air quality in a changing climate. In 2016 local air quality district managers in California were invited to participate in an online survey of 39 questions focused on extreme event impacts on air quality. The questionnaire focused on present air quality threats and extreme event challenges, adaptation status and strategies, adaptive capacities, perceived barriers to adaptation, and jurisdictional responsibilities and roles. Over 85 percent of the 35 local air districts in California participated in the survey, which represents 80 percent of the state's population. High awareness and knowledge of climate change among local managers indicates they are ready to adopt and take action on policies that would support climate adaptation, but barriers reported suggests they may need policies and adequate funding to take action and make necessary changes.Implications: Downscaled global climate models project an increasing severity and frequency of extreme events. In the southwestern United States, these include wildfire, heat events, and dry periods, among others, all of which can place an extra burden on air quality managers and emitters to achieve air quality standards even as they reduce emissions. Despite climate change presenting increasing challenges to meet air quality standards, in the southwestern United States, policy and action to mitigate these impacts have been surprisingly absent. California presents a valuable case study on the topic because of its historic leadership in air quality management for the United States and also because of its initiatives in combating climate change. Yet still we found that adaptation has not been incorporated into air quality management thus far, but local managers seem sufficiently knowledgeable and willing.

Ekstrom, JA; Bedsworth, L

Adapting air quality management for a changing climate: Survey of local districts in California

Journal Of The Air & Waste Management Association

https://doi.org/10.1080/10962247.2018.1459325

The paper presents a nation-wide spatially explicit object-based assessment of buildings and citizens exposed to natural hazards in Austria, including river flooding, torrential flooding, and snow avalanches. The assessment was based on two different data sets, (a) hazard information providing input to the exposure of elements at risk, and (b) information on the building stock combined from different spatial data available on the national level. Hazard information was compiled from two different sources. For torrential flooding and snow avalanches available local-scale hazard maps were used, and for river flooding the results of the countrywide flood modelling eHORA were available. Information on the building stock contained information on the location and size of each building, as well as on the building category and the construction period. Additional information related to the individual floors, such as their height and net area, main purpose and configuration, was included for each property. Moreover, this data set has an interface to the population register and allowed, therefore, for retrieving the number of primary residents for each building. With the exception of sacral buildings, an economic module was used to compute the monetary value of buildings using (a) the information of the building register such as building type, number of storeys and utilisation, and (b) regionally averaged construction costs. It is shown that the repeatedly stated assumption of increasing exposure due to continued population growth and related increase in assets has to be carefully evaluated by the local development of building stock. While some regions have shown a clearly above-average increase in assets, other regions were characterised by a below-average development. This mirrors the topography of the country, but also the different economic activities. While hotels and hostels are extraordinarily prone to torrential flooding, commercial buildings as well as buildings used for recreational purposes are considerably exposed to river flooding. Residential buildings have shown an average exposure, compared to the number of buildings of this type in the overall building stock. In sum, around 5% of all buildings are exposed to torrential flooding, and around 9% to river flooding, with around 1% of the buildings stock being multi-exposed. The temporal assessment of exposure has shown considerable differences in the dynamics of exposure to different hazard categories in comparison to the overall property stock. In conclusion, the presented object-based assessment is an important and suitable tool for nation-wide exposure assessment and may be used in operational risk management.

Fuchs, S; Keiler, M; Zischg, A

A spatiotemporal multi-hazard exposure assessment based on property data

Natural Hazards And Earth System Sciences

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-15-2127-2015

Despite growing interest in resilience, there is still significant scope for increasing its conceptual clarity and practical relevance in socio-hydrological contexts: specifically, questions of how socio-hydrological systems respond to and cope with perturbations and how these connect to resilience remain unanswered. In this opinion paper, we propose a novel conceptual framework for understanding and assessing resilience in coupled socio-hydrological contexts, and encourage debate on the inter-connections between socio-hydrology and resilience. Taking a systems perspective, we argue that resilience is a set of systematic properties with three dimensions: absorptive, adaptive, and transformative, and contend that socio-hydrological systems can be viewed as various forms of human-water couplings, reflecting different aspects of these interactions. We propose a framework consisting of two parts. The first part addresses the identity of socio-hydrological resilience, answering questions such as resilience of what in relation to what. We identify three existing framings of resilience for different types of human-water systems and subsystems, which have been used in different fields: (1) the water subsystem, highlighting hydrological resilience to anthropogenic hazards; (2) the human subsystem, foregrounding social resilience to hydrological hazards; and (3) the coupled human-water system, exhibiting socio-hydrological resilience. We argue that these three system types and resiliences afford new insights into the clarification and evaluation of different water management challenges. The first two types address hydrological and social states, while the third type emphasises the feedbacks and interactions between human and water compo-nents within complex systems subject to internal or external disturbances. In the second part, we focus on resilience management and develop the notion of the resilience canvas, a novel heuristic device to identify possible pathways and to facilitate the design of bespoke strategies for enhancing resilience in the socio-hydrological context. The resilience canvas is constructed by combining absorptive and adaptive capacities as two axes. At the corners of the resulting two-dimensional space are four quadrants which we conceptualise as representing resilient, vulnerable, susceptible, and resistant system states. To address projected change-induced uncertainties, we recommend that efforts now be focused on shifting socio-hydrological systems from resistant towards resilient status. In sum, the novel framework proposed here clarifies the ambiguity inherent in socio-hydrological resilience

Mao, F; Clark, J; Karpouzoglou, T; Dewulf, A; Buytaert, W; Hannah, D

HESS Opinions: A conceptual framework for assessing socio-hydrological resilience under change

Hydrology And Earth System Sciences

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3655-2017

Sustainability of organic farming depends on the organic inputs. As such, other than a few fertilizers and plant protection measures, there have been scanty resources available to farmers for continuing organic farming. Some farmers in India have evolved traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) based location specific practices to sustain their agroecosystems and continue organic farming. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore TEK-led adaptations in bio-mulching to grow ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) as a crop and to test empirically the best practices including identifying the best leaves and local bio-mulching materials applied by farmers. The role of TEK-led adaptive practices for controlling moisture loss, temperature regulation, reduced disease incidence, quality yield and economic aspects of ginger production are examined. The study was conducted in nine randomly selected villages of Champawat district, Uttrakhand (Western Himalaya). Data was collected using open ended questions in association with participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools. Results indicated that farmers have developed major TEK led adaptive practices for organic ginger production after seeding in the field, namely using the leaves of oak (Quercus leucotrichophora A. Camus.), chir pine needles (Pinta roxburghii Sarg.), local mixed grasses

Singh, AK; Singh, RK; Singh, AK; Singh, VK; Rawat, SS; Mehta, KS; Kumar, A; Gupta, MK; Thakur, S

Bio-mulching for ginger crop management:Traditional ecological knowledge led adaptation under rainfed agroecosystems

Indian Journal Of Traditional Knowledge

Farmers, forest owners, and rural communities are among the groups most exposed to the effects and associated impacts of hurricanes and other extreme climate events in the Caribbean. Yet, little is known about their preparedness for or their capacity to respond to and recover from these disturbances. We conducted qualitative research involving focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with 152 farmers, forest owners, and agriculture and forest experts in Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin Islands to understand the effects and associated impacts of hurricanes Irma and Maria at farm, forest, community, and sectoral levels and the internal and external factors that help to explain their capacities to anticipate, absorb, and adapt to hurricanes and other extreme climate events. Participants reported widespread crop and livestock losses; extensive damages to roads, facilities, and other private and public infrastructure; lengthy outages in electricity, telecommunications, and water supplies; and harmful impacts on human health and well-being that significantly affected their productive capacities and livelihoods. Most farmers and forest owners reported coping with the immediate effects and associated impacts of the hurricanes largely on their own, some also reported the emergence of informal or extemporized relief and recovery support, mostly from family members, neighbors, and others in their local community. Official relief and recovery resources for the agriculture and forest sectors were described by many as having been too rigid or onerous to access or navigate successfully, ultimately limiting their effectiveness in supporting farm and forest relief and recovery. Few participants or sectors reported having adequate hurricane preparations, mitigation, or adaptation practices in place prior to the storms. Low levels of risk reduction and adaptation mostly were associated with limited human, financial, and technological resources to design and implement related strategies and practices at individual and community levels. Many participants expressed a desire to incorporate more or specific hurricane and other disturbance plans and preparations into their production systems. Some participants also described plans to adapt, innovate, or transform their farm and forest sys-tems, but few had implemented these types of changes at the time of data collection. Findings point to the need for improved understanding, adoption, and support of effective hurricane miti-gation and adaptation measures in agriculture, forests, and rural communities; increased flexibil-ity and adaptiveness of official response and recovery programs and processes to accommodate local contexts, capacities, and conditions

McGinley, KA; Gould, WA; Alvarez-Berríos, NL; Holupchinski, E; Díaz-Camacho, T

READY OR NOT? Hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery of farms, forests, and rural communities in the US Caribbean

International Journal Of Disaster Risk Reduction

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103346

Climate change and variability has been detected in Ethiopia. Smallholder and subsistence farmers, pastoralists and forest-dependent households are the most hit by climate-related hazards. They have to have perception of climate change in order to respond it through making coping and/or adaptation strategies. Local perceptions and coping strategies provide a crucial foundation for community-based climate change adaptation measures. This study was specifically designed to (1) assess households' perception and knowledge in climate change and/or variability, and (2) establish the observed changes in climate parameters with community perceptions and climate anomalies. Purposive stratified random sampling method has been used to gather information from 355 sample households for individual interviews supplemented by group discussion and key informants interviews. The analysis of observed and satellite climate data for the study district showed that mean maximum and minimum temperature for the period 1983-2014 has increased by 0.047 and 0.028 degrees C/year, respectively. However, the total rainfall has declined by 10.16 mm per annum. Seasonally, the rainfall has declined by 2.198, 4.541, 1.814 and 1.608 mm per annum for Ethiopian summer, spring, autumn and winter seasons, respectively. Similarly, the mean maximum temperature of the study area had showed an increment of 0.035, 0.049, 0.044 and 0.065 degrees C per year for spring, winter, autumn and summer seasons, respectively. The observed climate variation has been confirmed by people's perception. Considering what had been the existed situations before 30 years ago as normal, an increase in temperature, an increase in drought frequency, a decrease in total rainfall, erratic nature of its distribution and the tardiness of its onset had been perceived by 88, 70, 97, 80 and 94% of the respondents, respectively, at current time-2015. Deforestation as a casual factor of climate change and variability had been perceived by 99.7% of the respondents. This had been also confirmed by scientific studies as it emits carbon dioxide and is the main driver of climate change and variability. Indigenous knowledge, including climate predictions, has been used by people to implement their day-to-day agricultural activities. Therefore, science should be integrated with the perception and indigenous knowledge of people to come up with concrete solution for climate change and variability impacts on human livelihoods.

Mekonnen, Z; Kassa, H; Woldeamanuel, T; Asfaw, Z

Analysis of observed and perceived climate change and variability in Arsi Negele District, Ethiopia

Environment Development And Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-9934-8

The risk of natural disasters has increased over the last few decades, leading to significant economic losses across the globe. In response, research related to the risk of economic loss due to natural disasters has continued to develop. At present, insurance remains the best solution for funding such losses. The purpose of this study is to analyse the development of insurance as an alternative for sustainable economic recovery after natural disasters. The data used are articles obtained from several sources indexed by Scopus and Google Scholar. The search resulted in a final database of 266 articles, culled from a total of 813 articles before the final selection was made. The articles used are publications from 2000-2021 (including 21 database periods), to which we applied a systematic literature review method. Identification and evaluation of the articles was carried out through visualization of their content, development of disaster risk insurance, and availability of disaster risk insurance by country and type. The identification results show that the relationship between the word insurance, according to visualization using the VOSviewer software, has a relationship with other clusters including the words disaster, disaster insurance, risk, natural disaster, study, recovery, and disaster risk financing. The 266 articles studied show that there was an annual increase in the number of published scientific papers over the period. The types of disaster risk insurance, based on a review of the articles, include agricultural insurance, flood insurance, property insurance, earthquake insurance, crop insurance, and natural disaster insurance. In addition, of the six types of disaster risk insurance, three have been discussed the most in the last five years, namely, agricultural, flood, and property insurance. The increase in the number of scientific publications discussing these three types of disaster risk insurance has been influenced by climate change. Climate change causes a significant increase in the potential for disasters and is accompanied by an increased risk of loss. This review is expected to provide information and motivation for researchers related to the development and importance of disaster risk insurance research. Research in the risk sector for disaster losses due to climate change should be continued in the future in order to help fund economic recovery, especially throughout the insurance sector. With continuous research on disaster risk insurance, it is hoped that the resulting information can be more effective in determining insurance risk and in helping local economies and communities recover after the advent of a disaster. With the availability of funds for post-disaster recovery, the regional economy affected by the disaster can be immediately restored and recovered from adversity.

Kalfin; Sukono; Supian, S; Mamat, M

Insurance as an Alternative for Sustainable Economic Recovery after Natural Disasters: A Systematic Literature Review

Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.3390/su14074349

Should the process of forcibly evicting people from customary land be classified as a disaster? Some international organizations and governments are integrating processes on forced eviction of urban residents into policies that are primarily designed to manage displacements due to climate change and disasters-such as National Policy on Climate Change and Disaster-Induced Displacement. This article contextualizes the classification of evictions as disasters. We argue that evictions are not disasters and should not be so classified. We make these arguments from an empirical position, based on community response to the declaration of eviction as disaster, and also from the perspective of international law. Approach and MethodsOur data come from the following sources: Communities: We use a storytelling method to interview around 100 women and men. The policy: We review the language of the Vanuatu policy in the context of international guidance on displacement generally and on forced eviction specifically. Public records: We use court records and newspaper reporting to understand claims of government, land claimants and survivors. Policy-makers: A limited number of unofficial conversations with policy-makers inform this work. FindingsUrban forced evictions should not be treated as disasters in policy on forced displacement. Our interviewees identify the equation of eviction and disaster as one that removes the agency of the government to protect their human rights. The evidence presented here suggests that the Government of Vanuatu does not have sufficient powers to intervene in some forced evictions from customary land. This raises critical questions about whether the government will be able to fulfil the promises made in the policy and in its obligations under international law relating to displacement. Classifying forced evictions together with land conflicts, infrastructure and development as potential crises, and so disastrous, as the Vanuatu policy does, creates a new set of challenges that must now be managed as the policy is operationalized. This includes serious consideration of how countries that take this path will fulfil their obligations to protect against, avoid and minimize displacement, in the context of customary land, and meet other international policy standards, in order to ensure no one is left worse off nor denied the benefit of development opportunity. This is a timely issue for peer countries. Right now, other Pacific countries, like the Solomon Islands, are looking to Vanuatu's example to develop internal displacement policies of their own.

Day, J; Wewerinke-Singh, M; Price, S

Eviction is not a disaster

Development Policy Review

https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12460

Maize is an important cereal crop in Ethiopia. Maize yield has been declined in Ethiopia mainly due to water scarcity, low soil fertility and heat stress. Currently, limited technologies are available in the study region that increases maize productivity. If crop models are properly calibrated, they are effective tools to study crops responses to environmental factors. Assessing impact of future climate on maize crop may help to develop adaptation strategies. The objectives of this study were (1) to calibrate and evaluate the CERES maize model in DSSAT technology for simulating phenology and yield of maize (2) to assess impact of projected climate change on maize productivity (3) to develop promising management practices for maize. The impact of projected climate change was assessed using the 17 GCMs (CMIP5) run under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios. Two water regimes treatments (rainfed and irrigated) and four rates of nitrogen (0, 46, 92 and 138 kg ha(-1)) were evaluated individually and in combinations for their effectiveness to increase maize productivity under the projected climate conditions. The model evaluation result revealed that the RMSE values were 2.5 days for anthesis, 4.4 days for physiological maturity, 258.3 kg ha(-1) for grain yield and 1034 kg ha(-1) for above ground biomass yield with nRMSE values of 3%, 4%, 4.7% and 10%, respectively. The d-index values were 0.87, 0.80, 0.88 and 0.71 for the respective parameters. The good agreement between the simulated and the measured values indicated the maize genetic coefficients in the model were properly calibrated. The simulation results at Tehuledere site showed that maize grain yield may decrease by 11% and 20% in 2030s and by 26% and 29% in 2050s under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively whereas in Kallu site yield may decrease by 13% and 15% in 2030s and by 17% and 19% in 2050s for the respective RCP scenarios. However, the management scenarios have shown that maize yield may substantially increase by the use of optimum nitrogen fertilizer and supplemental irrigation.

Mohammed, A; Yimer, E; Gessese, B; Feleke, E

Predicting Maize (Zea mays) productivity under projected climate change with management options in Amhara region, Ethiopia

Environmental And Sustainability Indicators

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indic.2022.100185

Purpose - Flooding is an emerging problem in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, and is fast becoming a major barrier to its ongoing development. While flooding is presently of nuisance value, there is a growing concern that a combination of rapid urban expansion and climate changes will significantly exacerbate the problem. There has been a trend of population being rapidly accommodated in new urban areas, which are considered highly vulnerable to floods, while the development strategy by the local government still attracts more property investments into the three new districts on the right side of Saigon River. This paper aims to discuss the increase in the number of residences vulnerable to flooding, to underline the need for more appropriate future spatial development. For the vision, an application of compact and resilient theories to strategic planning and management of this city is proposed to reduce vulnerability. This paper also highlights the need to better understand growing vulnerability to floods related to urban expansion over low-lying former wetlands and the more important role of planning spatial development accompanied with transportation investment which can contribute to flooding resilience. Design/methodology/approach - This research uses combined-methods geographical information system (GIS) analysis based on secondary data of flood records, population distributions, property development (with the details of 270 housing projects compiled as part of this research) and flooding simulation. This allows an integrated approach to the theories of urban resilience and compactness to discuss the implication of spatial planning and management in relevance to flooding vulnerability. Findings - The flooding situation in HCMC is an evidence of inappropriate urban expansion leading to increase in flooding vulnerability. Although climate change impacts are obvious, the rapid population growth and associated accommodation development are believed to be the key cause which has not been solved. It was found that the three new emerging districts (District 2, 9 and ThuDuc) are highly vulnerable to floods, but the local government still implements the plan for attracted investments in housing without an integrated flooding management. This is also in line with the development pattern of many coastal cities in Southeast Asia, as economic development can be seen as a driving factor. Research limitations/implications - The data of property development are diversified from different sources which have been compiled by this research from the basic map of housing investments from a governmental body, the Department of Construction.

Duy, PN; Chapman, L; Tight, M; Linh, PN; Thuong, LV

Increasing vulnerability to floods in new development areas: evidence from Ho Chi Minh City

International Journal Of Climate Change Strategies And Management

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-12-2016-0169

Vulnerability to climate change and variability impacts has been identified as a major cog in the wheel of both livelihood and resilience, particularly in vulnerable groups in rural areas. This study aims to assess genders' vulnerability dimension to climate change and variability in REDD + (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation+) piloted site/clusters, Cross River State, Nigeria. Data were proportionately collected from selected 200 respondents on gender disaggregated level using questionnaires. The assessment adopted the sustainable livelihood approach (livelihood vulnerability index) and compared the results with the IPCC vulnerability standard of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity weighted mean. The results revealed a significant difference in the vulnerability dimension of both women and men disaggregated levels (LVI: men 0.509, women 0.618). The women category was more vulnerable to six out of seven major components of LVI assessed: (livelihood strategies (0.646), social networks (0.364), water (0.559), health (0.379), food and nutrition (0.507), and natural hazards and climate variability (0.482), while men only vulnerable to socio-demographic major component (0.346). Vulnerability indices also showed women to be more exposed (0.482), and sensitive (0.489) with the least adaptive capacities (0.462) to the climate change and variability impacts. Overall, on the IPCC-LVI index, women are more vulnerable (0.0098) to climate change and variability impacts than men (-0.0093). The study recommends that the women's category resilience and adaptive capacity should be empowered in adaptation projects in climate change such as REDD + (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation+) to reduce their vulnerability to impacts of climate change and variability in the context of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacities. This will be instrumental in formulating policies to address the specific needs of gender categories in reducing vulnerability to climate change and variability. This pragmatic approach may be used to monitor gender vulnerability dimension, and livelihood enhancement and evaluate potential climate change adaptation programs. Additionally, the introduction of IPCC-LVI as a baseline instrument will enhance information on gender resilience and adaptive capacity for policy effectiveness in a data-scarce region particularly Africa.

Basiru, AO; Oladoye, AO; Adekoya, OO; Akomolede, LA; Oeba, VO; Awodutire, OO; Charity, F; Abodunrin, EK

Livelihood Vulnerability Index: Gender Dimension to Climate Change and Variability in REDD

Land

https://doi.org/10.3390/land11081240

Uncertainty in future water supplies for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (Phoenix) are exacerbated by the near certainty of increased, future water demands; water demand may increase eightfold or more by 2030 for some communities. We developed a provider-based water management and planning model for Phoenix termed WaterSim 4.0. The model combines a FORTRAN library with Microsoft C# to simulate the spatial and temporal dynamics of current and projected future water supply and demand as influenced by population demographics, climatic uncertainty, and groundwater availability. This paper describes model development and rationale. Water providers receive surface water, groundwater, or both depending on their portfolio. Runoff from two riverine systems supplies surface water to Phoenix while three alluvial layers that underlie the area provide groundwater. Water demand was estimated using two approaches. One approach used residential density, population projections, water duties, and acreage. A second approach used per capita water consumption and separate population growth estimates. Simulated estimates of initial groundwater for each provider were obtained as outputs from the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) Salt River Valley groundwater flow model (GFM). We compared simulated estimates of water storage with empirical estimates for modeled reservoirs as a test of model performance. In simulations we modified runoff by 80%-110% of the historical estimates, in 5% intervals, to examine provider-specific responses to altered surface water availability for 33 large water providers over a 25-year period (2010-2035). Two metrics were used to differentiate their response: (1) we examined groundwater reliance (GWR; that proportion of a providers' portfolio dependent upon groundwater) from the runoff sensitivity analysis, and (2) we used 100% of the historical runoff simulations to examine the cumulative groundwater withdrawals for each provider. Four groups of water providers were identified, and discussed. Water portfolios most reliant on Colorado River water may be most sensitive to potential reductions in surface water supplies. Groundwater depletions were greatest for communities who were either 100% dependent upon groundwater (urban periphery), or nearly so, coupled with high water demand projections. On-going model development includes linking WaterSim 4.0 to the GFM in order to more precisely model provider-specific estimates of groundwater, and provider-based policy options that will enable what-if scenarios to examine policy trade-offs and long-term sustainability of water portfolios. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Sampson, DA; Escobar, V; Tschudi, MK; Lant, T; Gober, P

A provider-based water planning and management model - WaterSim 4.0-For the Phoenix Metropolitan Area

Journal Of Environmental Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.05.032

The considerable increase in flood damages in Europe in recent decades has shifted attention from flood protection to flood risk management. Assessments of expected damage provide critical information for flood risk management efforts. The evaluation of potential damages under different flood scenarios through quantification of their ability to provide relative short-, medium- and long-term risk reduction, supports decision-makers in discriminating among several alternative mitigation actions. End-users should be aware of, and knowledgeable about, the limitations and uncertainties of such analyses, as well-informed decisions regarding efficient and sustainable flood risk management will become increasingly relevant under future climate and socio-economic changes. In this context, a method was developed to identify and quantify the role of the input parameters in the uncertainty of the potential flood economic damage assessment in urban areas with low sloping/flat terrain and complex topography using a GIS-based, free and open-source software called Floodrisk. Sets of plausible input parameters for the model's two flood loss modelling subroutines (hydraulic modelling and damage estimation) were dynamically combined to quantify the contribution of their inner parameters to the total damage assessment uncertainty. To estimate the contributions of each input to overall model uncertainty, the combination of input parameters that minimized the error in the spatial distribution assessment of the extensive damages affecting (downtown) Albenga (Italy), enumerated after the historical Centa River flood of November 5, 1994, was taken as a reference. In this specific case, a high epistemic uncertainty for the damage estimation module was noted for the specific type and form of the damage functions used. In the absence of region-specific depth damage functions, the vulnerability curves were adapted from a range of geographic and socio-economic studies. Given the strong dependence of model uncertainty and sensitivity to local characteristics, the epistemic uncertainty associated with the risk estimate was reduced by introducing additional information into the risk analysis. Implementing newly developed site-specific curves and a more detailed classification of the construction typology of the buildings at risk, led to a substantial decrease in modelling uncertainty, along with a decrease in the sensitivity of the flood loss estimation to the uncertainty in the depth-damage function input parameter. These findings indicated the need to produce and openly disseminate data in order to develop micro scale risk analysis through site-specific vulnerability curves. Moreover, this study highlighted the urgent need for research on the development and implementation of methods and models for the assimilation of uncertainties in decision-making processes.

Albano, R; Sole, A; Adamowski, J; Perrone, A; Inam, A

Using FloodRisk GIS freeware for uncertainty analysis of direct economic flood damages in Italy

International Journal Of Applied Earth Observation And Geoinformation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2018.06.019

Rapid urban expansion has strongly impacted rural development in China's suburbs. The increasing probability of socio-ecosystem hazards, such as the shrinking and fragmentation of ecological space, the outflow of labor force, the disintegration of traditional society, and the decline in collective economy has become a systemic risk restricting the sustainable development of rural areas in the suburbs. At present, the influence of urban expansion on rural systemic risk in the suburbs is not clear, which is not conducive to putting forward differentiated and targeted strategies for rural revitalization. Therefore, in this study, we propose the ecological, industrial, social, and livelihood elements of rural systemic risk in the suburbs and construct a multi-dimensional risk resistance analysis framework involving functionality, stability, and sustainability. Taking 93 villages in the western suburbs of Tianjin as an example, and using spatial econometric methods such as remote sensing interpretation, GIS analysis, multiple linear regression, and random forest model testing, we analyze the relationship between external transportation construction, urban employment attraction, construction of land growth, rural risk factors, and the dimension of risk resistance. Finally, the influence of urban expansion on the spatial-temporal differentiation of rural systemic risk and the risk management strategy are discussed. The results show that the difference in the urban expansion intensities is the main factor of the spatial differentiation of rural systemic risk in the suburbs. With the acceleration of the land replacement rate between urban and rural areas, the proportion of urban construction of land is increasing, leading to various degrees of change in the rural land use pattern and the ecological security pattern. Meanwhile, because of the urban employment attraction, part of the rural labor force continues to decrease, leading to the spatial differentiation of rural industrial risks and social risks aggravated. Precise risk management strategies are put forward according to the systemic risks in different types of villages. In villages with a high proportion of urban construction land and inefficient land consolidation, ecological restoration projects should be carried out. For villages severely divided by transit roads, internal spatial connections should be strengthened by constructing public transport. For villages with good accessibility, the allocation of rural non-agricultural industries and service facilities should be strengthened to mitigate the impact of urban expansion on the rural social structure. From the perspective of risk management, the research results will provide a basis for making decisions regarding rural public policymaking and spatial resource allocation in the suburbs of developing countries.

Tian, J; Zeng, SP; Zeng, J; Wang, S

How Urban Expansion Triggers Spatio-Temporal Differentiation of Systemic Risk in Suburban Rural Areas: A Case Study of Tianjin, China

Land

https://doi.org/10.3390/land11111877

Trust is a critical precondition underpinning successful knowledge exchange among environmental scientists and decision-makers, and thus, evidence-informed decision-making processes. While the importance of trust is well established, however, specific approaches to building, managing and maintaining trust at the interface of environmental science and policy are lacking. Here, we seek to address this gap empirically via in-depth qualitative analysis, using the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) as a case study. Specifically, through interviews with members of the ICES secretariat and scientific community, this study aims to (i) explore the importance of trust for organisations working at the interface of environmental science and policy, (ii) identify a range of strategies that are available for building trust at the interface of science and policy, and (iii) identify specific mechanisms for trust repair in situations where trust has been compromised. Our results show that trust is an essential component of a successful relationship between environmental science and policy, although highly dynamic and fragile. For example, while considerable time and effort is required to build trust, it can be lost in only a matter of days. Further, our results show that for successful knowledge exchange, and the attainment of research impact, trust is needed on three levels: (i) trust in individuals, (ii) trust in the organisation, and (iii) trust in the process by which knowledge is generated and exchanged. We identify 14 strategies to building trust, including the need for transparency, the importance of not advocating for a specific outcome, having a clear process for developing and providing knowledge/advice, having regular contact (preferably face to face) and being able to demonstrate independence. Finally, we identify five steps to repair trust: (i) Do not become defensive, be honest that a mistake has occurred, (ii) identify, and explain, why the mistake occurred, (iii) implement measures to ensure that the mistake does not happen again, (iv) correct the mistake (e.g. by providing updated knowledge/advice), and (v) give the trust re-building process time, and ensure ongoing face to face contact throughout that time. In presenting these insights from ICES, this study seeks to provide practical and implementable strategies that can be used by environmental scientists and/or research institutions to help them foster trust with decision-makers.

Cvitanovic, C; Shellock, RJ; Mackay, M; van Putten, EI; Karcher, DB; Dickey-Collas, M; Ballesteros, M

Strategies for building and managing 'trust' to enable knowledge exchange at the interface of environmental science and policy

Environmental Science & Policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.05.020

The sensitivity of forests to local climate and the long time periods involved in forest management combine to result in conditions where forests and forest management are vulnerable to climate change. Minimizing the risks and impacts of climate change on forest management outcomes and reducing the vulnerability of forest management systems requires adaptation. Forest management system adaptation is a multi-scale incremental process that involves diverse actors collaborating to define issues, develop options, and implement solutions. Enabling adaptation may require revising assumptions (e.g., assumptions about stationary climate), upgrading formal and informal institutions (including mandates), re-engineering governance, addressing knowledge gaps and information management issues, and changing practices. Given the heightened uncertainty associated with climate change, adaptation also includes enhancing capacities, reducing risks through diversification, increasing flexibility, and enhancing resiliency by creating decision environments conducive to learning, foresight, knowledge integration, and adaptive management. Forest management practitioners have a fundamental role in identifying, evaluating, and implementing climate change adaptation measures. This study develops and applies a framework (derived from recent scholarship on adaptation) for assessing the perceptions of forest management practitioners about issues, challenges, and factors that they consider important relative to their potential to contribute to climate change adaptation. The framework draws from, and ties together various aspects of adaptation process including psychological factors, knowledge management, forest management capacity, institutions and governance, and the state of information methods that support forest management (i.e., planning, monitoring, and assessment). The framework is applied utilizing the results of surveys of forest practitioners in British Columbia, Canada. The application provides an opportunity to test concepts and to identify key barriers from a practitioner perspective. Proof of concept is tested by evaluating the extent to which respondents were able and willing to provide answers to survey questions. In general, responses were robust suggesting some understanding and recognition of the importance and validity of the underlying adaptation concepts by forest professionals. The results suggest that forest professionals have diverse viewpoints about climate change. The majority is concerned and support adaptation. However, a significant minority do not support modification of current forest management. Discourse, education, and engagement are called for. Other key factors that from the perspective of professionals may reduce participation potential include knowledge deficits, lack of mandate to adapt, limited resources for adaptation, institutional barriers, inadequate assessment, and persistence of planning and monitoring approaches that do not account for climate change. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nelson, HW; Williamson, TB; Macaulay, C; Mahony, C

Assessing the potential for forest management practitioner participation in climate change adaptation

Forest Ecology And Management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2015.09.038

The purpose of this study is to unravel the changing nature of climate change impact on the food and human security sector of the Nigerian State. Design/methodology/approach This study is an in-depth case study that involves the use of both quantitative and qualitative data. Statistical data on climate variability in Nigeria obtained from reliable databases were use in the making of analysis. Also, data derived from semi-structure interviews and special reports from International Non-governmental organizations on the subject matter were also used in the study. The findings of the study were based on an in-depth analysis of both primary and secondary sources of data. The secondary data were derived from existing published academic works. The primary data was developed using qualitative data that were collected from January to November, 2018 to 2019 in the different regions of Nigeria. For the South East, primary data was collected from Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. In the South-South, primary data was collected from Asaba, Delta State. In the South West, primary data was collected from Barutin, Kwara State. In the North East, primary data was collected from Maiduguri, while in North West, data was collected from Gusau, Zamfara State. In the North Central, data was collected from Markurdi, Benue State. During the data collection, 48 semi-structured Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were carried out in the six selected research areas that represented their geo-political zones. Six Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were carried out, one for each of these six selected cities. Each of the Focus Group Discussions comprised between five and seven respondents. The idea of KIIs and FGDs is to allow the respondents to freely express their ideas comprehensively. Again, in other to get varied forms of responses, the respondents are mainly farmers however, a number of NGOs, civil servants, fertilizer sellers, government officials, transporters and aged men and women/retirees. It should be noted that the respondents cut across male and female gender of all ages and ethnic configuration. The respondents were also randomly selected through social networking. To avoid having people of similar The KIIs were three academics; two community leaders; two small scale fish farmers; rice, cassava, fish, livestock and crop farmers.

Ani, KJ; Anyika, VO; Mutambara, E

The impact of climate change on food and human security in Nigeria

International Journal Of Climate Change Strategies And Management

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-11-2020-0119

BACKGROUND: Residential moves (displacement) owing to climate- and weather-related disasters may significantly impact mental health. Despite the growing risk from climate change, health impacts of environmental-mobility remain understudied. OBJECTIVES: We assessed the effects of displacement on the association between landslides and changes in perceived mental well-being in Banjarnegara, Indonesia. We also investigated whether sociodemographics (age, sex, level of education, household-level income, or employment in agriculture) and landslide characteristics (number and severity of landslides) were associated with differing odds of relocation after experiencing landslides. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, we surveyed 420 individuals who experienced landslides between 2014 and 2018 to assess perceived changes in mental well-being, comparing after landslide exposure to before landslide exposure. We used a novel six-item measure that was created in collaboration with the local community to compare perceived changes between those who were displaced by landslides and those who were not displaced, using logistic and multinomial regressions adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics. We then assessed whether the odds of displacement differed based on sociodemographic characteristics and landslide exposure characteristics, using logistic regressions. RESULTS: Those who were displaced were more likely than those who were not displaced to report perceived increases in economic stability [odds ratio (OR)=3.06; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.45, 6.46], optimism (OR=4.01; 95% CI: 1.87, 8.61), safety (OR=2.71; 95% CI: 1.44, 5.10), religiosity (OR=1.92; 95% CI: 1.03, 3.65), and closeness with community (OR=1.90; 95% CI: 1.10, 3.33) after landslides compared with before their first landslide during the study period. More frequent landslide exposures were associated with reduced odds of relocation, but more severe landslides were associated with increased odds of relocation. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that landslides affect the mental well-being not only of those who are displaced but also of those who are left behind. Further, this work supports the need for community-based participatory research to fully capture the health impacts of environmental mobility.

Burrows, K; Pelupessy, DC; Khoshnood, K; Bell, ML

Environmental Displacement and Mental Well-Being in Banjarnegara, Indonesia

Environmental Health Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9391

Aim. The author aims to draw attention to the urgent need to accelerate the development of the scientific, technical and organizational basis for solving a global economic problem: reducing damage from natural disasters and, in this context, the issue of security and legal regulation of the use of geophysical technologies for active protection against them. Discussion. The thirty-year universal campaign conducted by the UN and consisting of special events, did not at any stage bring about the repeatedly planned significant reduction in the number of human victims and the amount of material damage. Its prolonged failure proves that the expected result cannot be obtained due to the attracted potential. In addition, it makes us critically evaluate the chosen means of implementing programmes and look for new ways to increase the effectiveness of the fight against the threat. In the natural sciences, the most promising prospect is methods that are being mastered in many developed countries and focused on a targeted influence on the destructive natural process. In this area, large-scale scientific work has been carried out for a long time and already productively to increase the capabilities and scope of the modifying effect. However, serious problems arise on the path; they have been caused by insufficient knowledge of the changing natural phenomena, military and environmental aspects of these technologies, low predictability of the long-term consequences of their use, conflicts between economic interests of different states. From a humanitarian point of view, the scale and dynamics of the adverse natural trend require a more radical and operational response than the implementation of methodological recommendations of a single plan for the widespread dissemination of a safety culture. The form of a collective solution adequate to the importance and significance of the universal task is a global disaster risk management which has a developed institutional base and a solid executive discipline. But it is absent today. Conclusion. It is impossible to overcome the indicated obstacles for raising efficiency except by relying on a special regulatory platform of a universal level, which, however, today consists almost entirely of declarative decisions. Here it is necessary to increase the imperativeness of regulation, giving it legal force which is capable of more than recommendatory one to ensure by 2030 a previously unattainable substantial reduction in losses. It is also necessary to move to binding specific measures and technical standards agreed upon and guaranteed by legal instruments. To what extent the special system of international security created on such a basis will satisfy national interests in the future, depends very much on the degree of state participation in this construction today.

Tikhomirov, SN

Comprehensive disaster damage management planning and the safety of advanced technologies to improve its efficiency (political and legal aspects)

South Of Russia-Ecology Development

https://doi.org/10.18470/1992-1098-2021-4-200-207

The objective of the study was to analyze the variability of various climate indicators across the agro-climatic zones (ACZs) of the Jema watershed. The variability was analyzed considering mean annual rainfall (MARF, mm), mean daily minimum temperature (MDMinT, degrees C), and mean daily maximum temperature (MDMaxT, degrees C). A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to test whether group mean differences exist in the values of the indicated climatic indicators among the ACZs of the watershed. The coefficient of variation was computed to analyze the degree of climate variability among the ACZs. Rainfall and temperature data sets from 1983 to 2017 were obtained from nearby meteorological stations. The effect of climate variability in the farming system was assessed with reference to local farmers' experience. Ultimately, the values of the stated indicators of exposure to climate variability were indexed (standardized) in order to run arithmetic functions. The MARF decreases towards sub-alpine ACZs. Based on the result of the ANOVA, the two-tailed p-value (<= 0.04) was less than 0.05; that is, there was a significant variation in MARF, MDMaxT (degrees C), and MDMinT (degrees C) among the ACZs. The coefficient of variation showed the presence of variations of 0.18-0.88 for MARF, 0.18 to 0.85 for MDMaxT, and 0.02-0.95 for MDMinT across the ACZs. In all of the indicators of exposure to climate variability, the lowest and highest indexed values of coefficient of variation were observed in the moist-cool and sub-alpine ACZs, respectively. Overall, the aggregate indexed values of exposure to various climate indicators ranged from 0.13-0.89 across the ACZs. The level of exposure to climate variability increased when moving from moist-cool to sub-alpine ACZs. The overall crop diversity declined across the ACZs of the watershed. Nevertheless, mainly because of the rise in temperature, the climate became suitable for cultivating maize and tef even at higher elevations. In order to adapt to the inter-annual variability of the rainy season, the process of adapting early-maturing crops and the use of improved seeds needs to be enhanced in the watershed.

Taye, M; Simane, B; Zaitchik, BE; Selassie, YG; Setegn, S

Rainfall Variability across the Agro-Climatic Zones of a Tropical Highland: The Case of the Jema Watershed, Northwestern Ethiopia

Environments

https://doi.org/10.3390/environments6110118

Large uncertainties about the impacts of climate change and adaptation options on the livestock component of heterogeneous African fanning systems hamper tailored decision making towards climate-smart agriculture. This study addressed this knowledge gap through the development and use of a dynamic modelling framework integrating climate, crop, pasture and livestock models. The framework was applied to a population of 91 farms located in semi-arid Zimbabwe to assess effects on livestock production resulting from climate change and management interventions. Climate scenarios representing relative cool-wet, hot-dry and middle conditions by mid-century (2040-2070) for two representative concentration pathways were compared with the baseline climate. On-farm fodder resources and rangeland grass production were simulated with the crop model APSIM and the pasture model GRASP respectively. The simulated fodder availability was used in the livestock model LIVSIM to generate various production indicators including milk, offtake, mortality, manure, and net revenue. We investigated the effects of two adaptation packages targeting soil fertility management and crop diversification and quantified the sensitivity to climate change of both current and improved systems. Livestock productivity was constrained by dry-season feed gaps, which were particularly severe for crude protein and caused by the reliance on rangeland grazing and crop residues, both of low quality in the dry season. Effects on grass and stover production depended on the climate scenario and the crop, but year-to-year variation generally increased. Relative changes in livestock net revenue compared to the baseline climate varied from a 6% increase to a 43% decrease, and the proportion of farmers negatively affected varied from 20% to 100%, depending on the climate scenario. Adverse effects of climate change on average livestock production usually coincided with increased year-to-year variability and risk. Farms with larger stocking density faced more severe feed gaps and were more sensitive to climate change than less densely stocked farms. The first adaptation package resulted in increased stover production and a small increase in livestock productivity. The inclusion of grain and forage legumes with the second package increased milk productivity and net revenues more profoundly by 30%. This was attributed to the alleviation of dry-season feed gaps, which also reduced the sensitivity to climate change compared to the current system. Clearly, individual farms were affected differently by climate change and by improved farm management, illustrating that disaggregated impact assessments are needed to effectively inform decision making towards climate change adaptation.

Descheemaeker, K; Zijlstra, M; Masikati, P; Crespo, O; Tui, SHK

Effects of climate change and adaptation on the livestock component of mixed farming systems: A modelling study from semi-arid Zimbabwe

Agricultural Systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2017.05.004

The changing climate has negatively impacted food systems by affecting rainfall patterns and leading to drought, flooding, and higher temperatures which reduce food production. This study examined the ability of communities to cope with food insecurity due to the changing climate in the Serere and Buyende districts, which are two different agro-ecological zones of Uganda. We administered 806 questionnaires to households, a sample size which was determined using Yamane's formula, with the snowball sampling method used to select the households. The questionnaire sought information, including that regarding the respondents' resources, the effects of climate change on households, and the coping mechanisms employed to reduce the impact of climate change on food security. The data collected was coded and analyzed using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). Agriculture was found to be the main source of income for 42.4% of male adults and 41.2% of female adults in Serere. In Buyende, 39.9% of males and 33.7% of females rely on selling animal, poultry, and food crops. Aggregate results further showed that 58.3% of females and 42.2% of the males from both districts had suffered from the impacts of climate change, and that the effects were more evident between March and May, when communities experienced crop failure. The study further found that the percentage of households who had three meals a day was reduced from 59.7% to 43.6%, while the number of households with no major meals a day increased from 1.3% to 1.6%. We also found that 34.3% of households reported buying food during periods of crop failure or food scarcity. Moreover, despite reporting an understanding of several coping mechanisms, many households were limited in their ability to implement the coping mechanisms by their low incomes. This reinforced their reliance on affordable mechanisms, such as growing drought-resistant crops (32.7%), rearing drought-resistant livestock breeds (26.1%), and reducing the number of meals a day (14.5%), which are mechanisms that are insufficient for solving all the climate-related food insecurity challenges. We recommend that the government intervenes by revising policies which help farmers cope with the negative effects of climate change, promoting the sensitization of farmers to employing the coping mechanisms, and subsidizing agricultural inputs, such as resistant varieties of crops, for all to afford.

Nsabagwa, M; Mwije, A; Nimusiima, A; Odongo, RI; Ogwang, BA; Wasswa, P; Mugume, I; Basalirwa, C; Nalwanga, F; Kakuru, R; Nahayo, S; Sansa-Otim, J; Musiime, I

Examining the Ability of Communities to Cope with Food Insecurity due to Climate Change

Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.3390/su131911047

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate climate change perceptions and adaptation strategies in the communities of Morogoro region of Tanzania. Climate change is a vital issue of global concern. Design/methodology/approach - Rain fall data trends collected from different meteorological stations in the region were useful in assessment of climate variability and change trends from the historical perspective. In addition, quantitative interviews, surveys and focussed discussion groups were used to collect data capturing past and present trends in the catchment, and reasons provided by 199 respondents from a total of six villages. The data were collected with the aid of trained research assistants and trained graduates selected from each of the randomly select villages. Findings - Significant differences in rainfall intensities have been recorded by use of feedback results from analysis of variance tests conducted. Major indicators of climate variability and change include: increased dry spells (39.7 per cent), drying of rivers (34.7 per cent), a reduction in water flows (14.6 per cent) and poor economy of the area (11.1 per cent). Research limitations/implications - The scope of the study does not cover certain aspects such as the spatial and temporal changes in daily temperature which could have provided important and additional dimension. This study also did not take into consideration institutional arrangements required to successfully implement national adaptation programmes to climate change. Finally, it is important to remember that peoples' perceptions determine the social mental picture of climate change. Practical implications - The study suggests the need for leverage on resource use through education and good governance strategies to be employed by resource planners, leaders and policy makers. Social implications - This study links scientific and participatory data as an approach for incorporating modern technologies and local knowledge into the design of useful practices and strategies as well as their successful implementation. Opinions from communities supported the urgent need for effective use and management of resources while laying emphasis on advancement of both indigenous and imported technologies. Originality/value - An understanding of how the community views climate change is crucial in design of practices aimed at improving their well-being. In this regard, a study investigating smallholder farmers' views regarding major drivers of change, assessing main factors leading to changes in climate experienced and identifying potential coping strategies against climate change, was conducted in East Africa, Tanzania between 2009 and 2010. This paper identifies potential resilient practices intended to minimize destruction and maximize opportunities likely to benefit Morogoro region.

Ojoyi, MM; Kahinda, JMM

An analysis of climatic impacts and adaptation strategies in Tanzania

International Journal Of Climate Change Strategies And Management

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-12-2012-0072

As Inuit hunters living in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, we (N. Simonee and J. Alooloo) travel extensively on land, water, and sea ice. Climate change, including changing sea ice and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, hasmade it riskier and harder for us to travel and hunt safely. Inuit knowledge supporting safe travel is also changing and is shared less between generations. We increasingly use online weather, marine, and ice products to develop locally relevant forecasts. This helps us to make decisions according to wind, waves, precipitation, visibility, sea ice conditions, and floe edge location. We apply our forecasts and share them with fellow community members to support safe travel. In this paper, we share the approach that we developed from over a decade of systematically and critically assessing forecasting products such as Windy. com, weather and marine forecasts, tide tables, C-CORE's floe edge monitoring service, SmartICE, Zoom Earth, and time-lapse cameras. We describe the strengths and challenges we face when accessing, interpreting, and applying each product throughout different seasons. Our analysis highlights a disconnect between available products and local needs. This disconnect can be overcome by service providers adjusting services to include more seasonal and real-time information, nontechnical language, familiar units of measurement, data size proportional to internet access cost and speed, and clear relationships between weather, marine, and ice information and safe travel. Our findings have potential relevance in the circumpolar Arctic and beyond, wherever people combine Indigenous weather forecasting methods and online information for decision-making. We encourage service providers to improve product relevance and accessibility. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: As Inuit hunters in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, we combine our knowledge of environmental conditions with weather, marine, and ice forecasting products to travel safely. Products developed for urban environments or economic sectors are not directly relevant to our seasonal activities, so we have had to learn how to access and interpret them. Like other Indigenous peoples, we face challenges such as limited and expensive bandwidth, having to consult multiple sources, doing mathematical unit conversions, vague or unfamiliar terminology, and insufficient geographical coverage. We have worked hard to develop a clearer understanding of the relationships between information provided and our local travel conditions. Information services can help further by being more user-friendly, complete, and locally applicable to cultural and geographic context.

Simonee, N; Alooloo, J; Carter, NA; Ljubicic, G; Dawson, J

Qanuippa? (How's the Weather?): Integrating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and Environmental Forecasting Products to Support Travel Safety around Pond Inlet, Nunavut, in a Changing Climate

Weather Climate And Society

https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-20-0174.1

Pastoralists and researchers (and others) are finding new ways of working together worldwide, attempting to sustain pastoral livelihoods and rangelands in the face of rapid and profound changes driven by globalization, growing consumption, land-use change, and climate change. They are doing this partly because of a greater need to address increasing complex or wicked problems, but also because local pastoral voices (and sometimes science) still have little impact on decision-making in the governmental and private sectors. We describe here, using six worldwide cases, how collaborative rangelands partnerships are transforming how we learn about rangelands and pastoralists, whose knowledge gets considered, how science can support societal action, and even our fundamental model of how science gets done. Over the long-term, collaborative partnerships are transforming social-ecological systems by implementing processes like building collaborative relationships, co-production/co-generation of knowledge, integration of knowledges, social learning, capacity building, networking and implementing action. These processes are changing mental models and paradigms, creating strong and effective leaders, changing power relations, providing more robust understanding of rangeland systems, reducing polarization and supporting the implementation of new practices and policies. Collaborative partnerships have recurring challenges and much work is yet to be done. These challenges rest on the enduring complexity of social-ecological problems in rangelands. At a practical level, partnerships struggle with listening, amplifying and partnering with diverse (and sometimes marginalized) voices, the time commitment needed to make partnerships work, the bias and naivete of scientists, the recognition that partnerships can promote negative transformations, management of power relations within the partnership, and the need to attribute impacts to partnership activities. We think that the future of this work will have more focus on systems transformations, morals and ethics, intangible and long-term impacts, critical self-assessment, paradigm shifts and mental models, and power. Overall, we conclude that these partnerships are transformative in unexpected and sometimes intangible ways. Key transformations include changing mental models and building the next generation of transformative leaders. Just as important is serendipity, where participants in partnerships take advantage of new windows of opportunity to change policy or create new governance institutions. We also conclude that collaborative partnerships are changing how we do science, creating new and transformative ways that science and society interact that could be called transformative science with society.

Reid, RS; Fernández-Giménez, ME; Wilmer, H; Pickering, T; Kassam, KAS; Yasin, A; Porensky, LM; Derner, JD; Nkedianye, D; Jamsranjav, C; Jamiyansharav, K; Ulambayar, T; Oteros-Rozas, E; Ravera, F; Bulbulshoev, U; Kaziev, DS; Knapp, CN

Using Research to Support Transformative Impacts on Complex, Wicked Problems With Pastoral Peoples in Rangelands

Frontiers In Sustainable Food Systems

https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.600689

Pakistan is one of those countries which are victim of climate change and is already facing many problems like poverty and food insecurity leading to threats to agriculture expansion. Climate change is ahead of all these due to decreasing agriculture production prolonged water scarcity and declined income growth. Agriculture plays a big role in economy of Pakistan and climate change is matter of serious concern. The main objective of the present study was to find out the factors affecting the strategies of farmers regarding the impact of climate change in Punjab, Pakistan. Three districts from rice-wheat cropping zone (Narowal, Sialkot and Gujranwala) were selected randomly. A total sample of four hundred eight respondents was selected by systematic random sample technique. A well-structured interview schedule was used as research instrument for data collection. Collected data were analyzed statistically. In addition, descriptive and inferential statistics were applied for the data analysis. It was found that education level of the farmers was low in the study area. Most farmers had small land holdings and were used to self-cultivation. Mean area of wheat and rice was 7.31 +/- 6.06 and 6.25 +/- 5.60 acres, respectively. It was observed that long summer and short winter season and high temperature were the main perceptions of climate change in the study area. Industrial smoke, excessive felling of forests and human activities were also perceived as the factors leading to change in environment. A vast majority of the farmers observed that climate change had negative impact on crop production and annual income. It was also found that recommended varieties (2.58 +/- 0.72), applying more industrial pesticides (2.50 +/- 0.76) and practicing crop diversification (2.36 +/- 0.81), increased use of irrigation (2.19 +/- 0.89) and integrated farming system (0 2.15 +/- 0.91) were the major coping strategies for minimizing the effect of climate changes and these strategies had positive impact on crop productivity. Binary Logistic Model showed that increase in education, income, agricultural experience, contributes in to adoption of strategies to cope climate changes of farmers. It is recommended that farmers should use approved varieties, fertilizers and practice crop diversification. Investment on improved agricultural technology by government and other stakeholders are very necessary for agriculture to be able to cope with climate change.

Akhtar, MS; Maann, AA; Awan, KA; Shahbaz, B

COPING STRATEGIES OF FARMERS REGARDING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN RICE-WHEAT ZONE OF THE PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

Pakistan Journal Of Agricultural Sciences

https://doi.org/10.21162/PAKJAS/19.8089

Mixed crop-livestock farming systems provide food for more than half of the world's population. These agricultural systems are predicted to be vulnerable to climate change and therefore require transformative adaptations. In collaboration with farmers in the wheatbelt of Western Australia (WA), a range of systemic and transformative adaptation options, e.g. land use change, were designed for the modelled climate change projected to occur in 2030 (0.4-1.4 degrees increase in mean temperature). The effectiveness of the adaptation options was evaluated using coupled crop and livestock biophysical models within an economic and environmental framework at both the enterprise and farm scales. The relative changes in economic return and environmental variables in 2030 are presented in comparison with a baseline period (1970-2010). The analysis was performed on representative farm systems across a rainfall transect. Under the impact of projected climate change, the economic returns of the current farms without adaptation declined by between 2 and 47%, with a few exceptions where profit increased by up to 4%. When the adaptations were applied for 2030, profit increased at the high rainfall site in the range between 78 and 81% through a 25% increase in the size of livestock enterprise and adjustment in sowing dates, but such profit increases were associated with 6-10% increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At the medium rainfall site, a 100% increase in stocking rate resulted in 5% growth in profit but with a 61-71% increase in GHG emissions and the increased likelihood of soil degradation. At the relatively low rainfall site, a 75% increase in livestock when associated with changes in crop management resulted in greater profitability and a smaller risk of soil erosion. This research identified that a shift toward a greater livestock enterprises (stocking rate and pasture area) could be a profitable and low-risk approach and may have most relevance in years with extremely low rainfall. If transformative adaptations are adopted then there will be an increased requirement for an emissions control policy due to livestock GHG emissions, while there would be also need for soil conservation strategies to be implemented during dry periods. The adoption rate analysis with producers suggests there would be a greater adoption rate for less intensified adaptations even if they are transformative. Overall the current systems would be more resilient with the adaptations, but there may be challenges in terms of environmental sustainability and in particular with soil conservation.

Ghahramani, A; Bowran, D

Transformative and systemic climate change adaptations in mixed crop livestock farming systems

Agricultural Systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.04.011

Extreme events are of interest worldwide given their potential for substantial impacts on social, ecological, and technical systems. Many climate-related extreme events are increasing in frequency and/or magnitude due to anthropogenic climate change, and there is increased potential for impacts due to the location of urbanization and the expansion of urban centers and infrastructures. Many disciplines are engaged in research and management of these events. However, a lack of coherence exists in what constitutes and defines an extreme event across these fields, which impedes our ability to holistically understand and manage these events. Here, we review 10 years of academic literature and use text analysis to elucidate how six major disciplines-climatology, earth sciences, ecology, engineering, hydrology, and social sciences-define and communicate extreme events. Our results highlight critical disciplinary differences in the language used to communicate extreme events. Additionally, we found a wide range in definitions and thresholds, with more than half of examined papers not providing an explicit definition, and disagreement over whether impacts are included in the definition. We urge distinction between extreme events and their impacts, so that we can better assess when responses to extreme events have actually enhanced resilience. Additionally, we suggest that all researchers and managers of extreme events be more explicit in their definition of such events as well as be more cognizant of how they are communicating extreme events. We believe clearer and more consistent definitions and communication can support transdisciplinary understanding and management of extreme events. Plain Language Summary Extreme events, such as heat waves, widespread flooding, or very strong storms, are of interest to scientists and managers because of their potential to cause extensive damage and impacts on people, infrastructure, and nature. With climate change causing more of these events to happen, it is important that we understand how or when they might occur, and how to better respond to them to prevent disastrous impacts. For these reasons, researchers from many different subject areas study extreme events. However, we show that researchers from different backgrounds may use very different words to communicate about these events and different ways of deciding what makes an extreme event extreme. In order for researchers, managers, and planners to help everyone better prepare for and respond to extreme events, we encourage all researchers to improve how they explain why they are studying a particular event and make greater effort to understand the work that colleagues in other subject areas are doing and how that may affect our own research and practice.

McPhillips, LE; Chang, H; Chester, MV; Depietri, Y; Friedman, E; Grimm, NB; Kominoski, JS; McPhearson, T; Mendez-Lazaro, P; Rosi, EJ; Shiva, JS

Defining Extreme Events: A Cross-Disciplinary Review

Earths Future

https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000686

In Niger (a fully Sahelian country), the use of climate information is one of the early warning strategies (EWSs) for reducing socio-economic vulnerabilities in farmer communities. It helps farmers to better anticipate risks and choose timely alternative options that can allow them to generate more profit. This study assesses the impacts of the use of climate information and services that benefit end-users. Individual surveys and focus groups were conducted with a sample of 368 people in eight communes in Southwestern Niger. The survey was conducted within the framework of the ANADIA project implemented by the National Meteorological Direction (NMD) of Niger. The survey aims to identify different types of climate services received by communities and evaluates the major benefits gained from their use. Mostly, the communities received climate (73.6%) and weather (99%) information on rainfall, temperature, dust, wind, clouds, and air humidity. Few producers in the area (10%) received information on seasonal forecasts of the agrometeorological characteristics of the rainy season. The information is not widely disseminated in the villages during the roving seminars conducted by the NMD. For most people, this information is highly relevant to their needs because of its practical advice for options to be deployed to mitigate disasters for agriculture, livestock, health, water resources, and food security. In those communities, 82% of farmers have (at least once) changed their routine practices as a result of the advice and awareness received according to the climate information. The information received enables farmers (64.4%) to adjust their investments according to the profile of the upcoming rainfall season. The use of climate information and related advice led to an increase of about 64 bunches (equivalent to 10 bags of 100 kg) in annual millet production, representing an income increase of about 73,000 FCFA from an average farmland of 3 ha per farmer. In addition, the use of climate information helps to reduce the risks of floods and droughts, which often cause massive losses to crop production, animal and human life, infrastructure, materials, and goods. It has also enabled communities to effectively manage seeds and animal foods and to plan social events, departures and returns to rural exodus. These analyses confirm that the use of climate information serves as an EWS that contributes to increasing the resilience of local populations in the Sahel.

Seydou, TH; Agali, A; Aissatou, S; Seydou, TB; Issaka, L; Ibrahim, BM

Evaluation of the Impact of Seasonal Agroclimatic Information Used for Early Warning and Farmer Communities' Vulnerability Reduction in Southwestern Niger

Climate

https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11020031

Indentifying common priorities in shared natural resource systems constitutes an important platform for implementing adaptation and a major step in sharing a common responsibility in addressing climate change. Predominated by discourses on REDD + (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries) with little emphasis on adaptation there is a risk of lack of policy measures in addressing climate change in the Congo Basin. Forest products and ecosystem services provide security portfolios for the predominantly rural communities, and play major roles in national development programmes in both revenue and employment opportunities. Thus, raising the profile of forests in the policy arena especially in the twin roles of addressing climate change in mitigation and adaptation and achieving resilient development is crucial. Within the framework of the Congo Basin Forests and Climate Change Adaptation project (COFCCA) project, science policy dialogue was conducted to identify and prioritize forest based sectors vulnerable to climate change but important to household livelihoods and national development. The goal of the prioritization process was for the development of intervention in forest as measures for climate change adaptation in Central Africa. Participants constituted a wide range of stakeholders (government, Non Governmental Organizations, research institutions, universities, community leaders, private sectors etc.) as representatives from three countries directly involved in the project: Cameroon, Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo. Building on national priorities, four forest related sectors were identified as common priorities at the regional level for focus on climate change adaptation. These sectors included: (1) energy with emphasis on fuel wood and Charcoal; (2) Water principally quality, quantity, accessibility, etc.; (3) Food with emphasis on Non Timber Forest Products, and (4) Health linked to healthcare products (medicinal plants). Using these prioritized sectors, the project focused on addressing the impacts of climate change on local communities and the development of adaptation strategies in the three pilot countries of the Congo Basin region. The four sectors constitute the key for development in the region and equally considered as priority sectors in the poverty reduction papers. Focused research on these sectors can help to inject the role of forests in national and local development and their potentials contributions to climate change adaptation in national and public discourses. Mainstreaming forest for climate change adaptation into national development planning is the key to improve policy coherence and effectiveness in forest management in the region.

Sonwa, DJ; Nkem, JN; Idinoba, ME; Bele, MY; Jum, C

Building regional priorities in forests for development and adaptation to climate change in the Congo Basin

Mitigation And Adaptation Strategies For Global Change

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-011-9335-5

The growth of pen-urban areas is increasingly recognised as a dominant planning and urban design challenge for the 21st century. In burgeoning poor urban settlements growing on city margins, autonomous adaptation strategies are often the only measures to respond to increasing climatic and compounding stressors. Yet, in both research and practice there remains lack of understanding regarding the dynamics of adaptation and risk reduction at the level of the community. In this paper, we argue urban slums are ideal places to consider adaptation because they offer examples of more extreme social-ecological stress than one finds in more established communities - the kind we can anticipate more broadly in the face of climate change. A framework for identifying local adaptation processes is presented and applied to analyse the case of Mathare Valley Slums in Nairobi, Kenya - a densely populated suburb, where residents are regularly exposed to flooding from heavy rainfall. Findings reveal that slums, often viewed as illegitimate, makeshift, and temporary settlements, are places experienced by many residents as permanent communities characterised by rapid environmental change. Processes of adaptation in Mathare have become institutionalised through time, as anew generation of people imagine themselves staying and (re)organise to achieve a higher level of functioning through various strategies to reduce risk. Innovative and revitalising adaptation occurs as residents shift from employing more generic and expected coping strategies, such as evacuating homes or economic diversification, to creating gated communities and savings schemes to maintain and improve the settlement, despite uncertain tenure. Both formal and informal institutions, such as youth groups, play an important role in governing such heterogeneous localities, incrementally upgrading the slum and providing critical public services. Long-term residents' increasing recognition of the permanence of the slum community and its stressful conditions appears to lead to more collective action toward adaptation pathways. However, this is in marked contrast to the dominant non-local perspective of Mathare's status as both impermanent and illegal, which prevails among government officials. As such, strategies are generally not incorporated into planned interventions. While progressive policies designed to reduce risk exist, they remain nascent in their establishment and fail to benefit slumdwellers. The case illustrates the need to incorporate the wealth of knowledge, techniques, and experience extant at the community level in the development of adaptation planning. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thorn, J; Thornton, TF; Helfgott, A

Autonomous adaptation to global environmental change in peri-urban settlements: Evidence of a growing culture of innovation and revitalisation in Mathare Valley Slums, Nairobi

Global Environmental Change-Human And Policy Dimensions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.12.009