Search results for: climate change; environment

Authors: Shafiqul Islam, Cordia Chu

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Bangladesh contributes little to global climate change, yet it is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews and literature review, focusing public spending distribution process, this paper demonstrates how the processes of political economy- enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment hinder the Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) efforts of Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF). Enclosure refers to when CCA projects allocated to less vulnerable areas or expand the roles of influencing actors into the public sphere. Exclusion refers to when CCA projects limit affected people's access to resources or marginalize particular stakeholders in decision-making activities. Encroachment refers to when allocation of CCA projects and selection of location and issues degrade the environmental affect or contribute to other forms of disaster risk. Entrenchment refers to when CCA projects aggravate the disempowerment of common people worsen the concentrations of wealth and income inequality within a community. In the case of Bangladesh, climate change policies implemented under the country’s National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) and Bangladesh Climate Change Strategic Action Plan (BCCSAP) have somehow enabled influential-elites to mobilize and distribute resources through bureaucracies. Exclusionary forms of fund distribution of CCA exist at both the national and local scales. CCA related allocations have encroached through the low land areas development project without consulting local needs. Most severely, CCA related unequal allocations have entrenched social class trapping the backward communities vulnerable to climate related disasters. Planners and practitioners of BCCTF need to take necessary steps to eliminate the potential risks from the processes of enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment happens in project fund allocations.

Keywords: Bangladesh, climate change adaptation, political economy, public fund distribution

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Authors: Lotsmart Fonjong

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The livelihood of rural communities in the West African state of Cameroon, which is largely dictated by natural forces (rainfall, temperatures, and soil), is today threatened by climate change and armed conflict. This paper investigates the extent to which rural communities are aware of climate change, how their perceptions of changes across different agro-ecological zones have impacted farming practices, output, and lifestyles, on the one hand, and the extent to which local armed conflicts are confounding their efforts and adaptation abilities. The paper is based on a survey conducted among small farmers in selected localities within the forest and savanna ecological zones of the conflict-ridden Northwest and Southwest Cameroon. Attention is paid to farmers’ gender, scale, and type of farming. Farmers’ perception of/and response to climate change are analysed alongside local rainfall and temperature data and mobilization for climate justice. Findings highlight the fact that farmers’ perception generally corroborates local climatic data. Climatic instability has negatively affected farmers’ output, food prices, standards of living, and food security. However, the vulnerability of the population varies across ecological zones, gender, and crop types. While these factors also account for differences in local response and adaptation to climate change, ongoing armed conflicts in these regions have further complicated opportunities for climate-driven agricultural innovations, inputs, and exchange of information among farmers. This situation underlines how poor communities, as victims, are forced into many complex problems outsider their making. It is therefore important to mainstream farmers’ perceptions and differences into policy strategies that consider both climate change and Anglophone conflict as national security concerns foe sustainable development in Cameroon.

Keywords: adaptation policies, climate change, conflict, small farmers, cameroon

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Authors: William Burdick

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Manmade climate change is an existential threat that must be mitigated at the earliest opportunity. The role of government in climate change mitigation is enacting and enforcing law and policy to affect substantial reductions in greenhouse gasses, in the short and long term, without substantial increases in the cost of energy. To be optimally effective those laws and policies must be established and enforced based on peer reviewed evidence and scientific facts and result in substantial outcomes in years, not decades. Over the next fifty years, New York’s 2019 Climate Change and Community Protection Act and 2021 All Electric Building Act that mandate replacing natural gas heating systems with heat pumps will, immediately double annual heating costs and by 2075, yield less than 16.2% reduction in CO₂ emissions from heating systems in new housing units, less than a 13% reduction in total CO₂ emissions, and affect a $40B in cumulative additional heating cost, compared to natural gas fueled heating systems.

Keywords: climate change, mandate, heat pump, natural gas

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Authors: Hafsah Javed

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Environment protection is a major issue grabbing widespread attention of policymakers, both, locally and globally. Pakistan is among the countries most affected by global climate changes; media, besides governments, have a prime responsibility to create awareness among people about its hazards, and managing strategies. Advances in Information Communication Technologies have eased people's access to information and created an interactive space to discuss environment related issues and influence the policy decisions on the issue. This study, therefore, aims to examine, from the perspective of the audience, the contribution of Pakistani traditional and social media in creating awareness about Environment Protection and its implications. The objectives are achieved through quantitative survey method. Young university students are selected as ‘audience’ for the study. The findings show lack of awareness among people regarding environment protection. Neither traditional media outlets like radio, TV and newspapers prioritize the issue on their agenda, nor audience pull information about the issue from social media. A stark indifference and non-serious attitude is being exercised towards the issue from two quarters. People do not know much about local and international laws on environment; media are used more than a source of entertainment than awareness. The study implicates that there is an exigency to launch a nationwide awareness campaign on the issue, and for that media need to be on the driving seat.

Keywords: awareness, climate change, environment protection, new media, role of media, youngsters

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Authors: Wan Noorul Hafilah Binti Wan Ariffin

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Dam safety management is the crucial infrastructure as dam failure has a catastrophic effect on the community. Dam safety management is the effective framework of key actions and activities for the dam owner to manage the safety of the dam for its entire life cycle. However, maintaining dam safety is a challenging task as there are changes in current dam states. These changes introduce new risks to the dam's safety, which had not been considered when the dam was designed. A new framework has to be developed to adapt to the changes in the dam risk and make the dams resilient. This study proposes a risk-based decision-making adaptation framework for dam safety management. The research focuses on climate change's impact on hydrological situations as it causes floods and damages the dam structure. The risk analysis framework is adopted to improve the dam management strategies. The proposed study encompasses four phases. To start with, measuring the effect by assessing the impact of climate change on embankment dam, the second phase is to analyze the potential embankment dam failures. The third is analyzing the different components of risks related to the dam and, finally, developing a robust decision-making framework.

Keywords: climate change, embankment dam, failure, risk-informed decision making

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Authors: Lilian Mbinya Muasa

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Climate change is inevitable and a global challenge with long term implications to the sustainable development of many countries today. The negative impacts of climate change are creating far reaching social, economic and environmental problems threatening lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the world. Developing countries especially sub-Saharan countries are more vulnerable to climate change due to their weak ecosystem, low adaptive capacity and high dependency on rain fed agriculture. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are more vulnerable to climate change impacts due to their weak adaptive capacity and over-reliance on rain fed agriculture. In Kenya, 78% of the rural communities are poor farmers who heavily rely on rain fed agriculture thus are directly affected by climate change impacts.Currently, many parts of Kenya are experiencing successive droughts which are contributing to persistently unstable and declining agricultural productivity especially in semi arid eastern Kenya. As a result, thousands of rural communities repeatedly experience food insecurity which plunge them to an ever over-reliance on relief food from the government and Non-Governmental Organization In addition, they have adopted poverty coping strategies to diversify their income, for instance, deforestation to burn charcoal, sand harvesting and overgrazing which instead contribute to environmental degradation.This research was conducted in Makueni County which is classified as one of the most food insecure counties in Kenya and experiencing acute environmental degradation. The study aimed at analyzing the adaptive capacity to climate change across farming households of Makueni County in Kenya by, 1) analyzing adaptive capacity to climate change and agricultural productivity across farming households, 2) identifying factors that contribute to differences in adaptive capacity across farming households, and 3) understanding the relationship between climate change, agricultural productivity and adaptive capacity. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to determine adaptive capacity and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) to determine Agricultural productivity per household. Increase in frequency of prolonged droughts and scanty rainfall. Preliminary findings indicate a magnanimous decline in agricultural production in the last 10 years in Makueni County. In addition, there is an over reliance of households on indigenous knowledge which is no longer reliable because of the unpredictability nature of climate change impacts. These findings on adaptive capacity across farming households provide the first step of developing and implementing action-oriented climate change policies in Makueni County and Kenya.

Keywords: adaptive capacity, agricultural productivity, climate change, vulnerability

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Authors: Aziz Larbi, Widad Sadok

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In Morocco, the mountainous regions extend over about 26% of the national territory where 30% of the total population live. They contain opportunities for agriculture, forestry, pastureland and mining. The production systems in these zones are characterised by crop diversification. However, these areas have become vulnerable to the effects of climate change. To understand these effects in relation to the population living in these areas, a study was carried out in the zone of Taliouine, in the Anti-Atlas. The vulnerability of crop productions to climate change was analysed and the different ways of adaptation adopted by farmers were identified. The work was done on saffron, the most profitable crop in the target area even though it requires much water. Our results show that the majority of the farmers surveyed had noticed variations in the climate of the region: irregularity of precipitation leading to a decrease in quantity and an uneven distribution throughout the year; rise in temperature; reduction in the cold period and less snow. These variations had impacts on the cropping system of saffron and its productivity. To cope with these effects, the farmers adopted various strategies: better management and use of water; diversification of agricultural activities; increase in the contribution of non-agricultural activities to their gross income; and seasonal migration.

Keywords: climate change, Taliouine, saffron, perceptions, adaptation strategies

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Authors: Assaad Ghazouani, Ati Abdessatar

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In the world, agriculture maintains a social and economic importance in the national economy. Its importance is distinguished by its ripple effects not only downstream but also upstream vis-à-vis the non-agricultural sector. However, the situation is relatively fragile because of weather conditions. In this work, we propose a model to highlight the impacts of climate change (CC) on economic growth in the world where agriculture is considered as a strategic sector. The CC is supposed to directly and indirectly affect economic growth by reducing the performance of the agricultural sector. The model is tested for Tunisia. The results validate the hypothesis that the potential economic damage of the CC is important. Indeed, an increase in CO2 concentration (temperatures and disruption of rainfall patterns) will have an impact on global economic growth particularly by reducing the performance of the agricultural sector. Analysis from a vector error correction model also highlights the magnitude of climate impact on the performance of the agricultural sector and its repercussions on economic growth

Keywords: Climate Change, Agriculture, Economic Growth, World, VECM, Cointegration.

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Authors: Nuria Vargas, Frances Rodriguez

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Neotropical medium cities have opportunities to develop in a good manner. Xalapa City (Veracruz capital, Mexico) and its metropolitan region, near to the Gulf of Mexico, has already <1 million inhabitants, a medium city size, but it’s growing rapidly as several cities in Latin America. Inside a landscape where it had been a forest cloud and coffee land, emerges the city with an irregular topography. The rapid grow of the urbanization and the loss of vegetation has result in a change on the climate parameters. Frequently warms spells, floods and landslides had been impacted last 2 decades, also a higher incidence of dengue and diarrhea is mentioned in the region. Therefore, the analysis of hydrometeorological events is crucial to understand the role they play in its problem. The urbanization and others radiative forces has created a modulation that can explain the decadal climate changes on the Xalapa region. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation directly influences the temperature and precipitation of the region, even more than climate change does. The total effect of these drivers can create a significant context that origin more risk. However, the most policies frequently consider only the climate change as a principal factor, but other drivers are important to consider and evaluate for the implementation of actions that improve our ambient and cities, in a context of climate change. Medium-sized cities could create better conditions for future citizens, preventing with urban planning that considers possible risks associated with weather and climate.

Keywords: natural variability, urbanization, atlantic multidecadal oscillation, land use changes

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Authors: Saeed Jahanbakhsh Asl, Yaghob Dinpazhoh, Masoumeh Foroughi

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Reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) is an important element in the water cycle that integrates atmospheric demands and surface conditions, and analysis of changes in ET₀ is of great significance for understanding climate change and its impacts on hydrology. As ET₀ is an integrated effect of climate variables, increases in air temperature should lead to increases in ET₀. ET₀ estimated by using the globally accepted Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Penman-Monteith (FAO-56 PM) method in 18 meteorological stations located in the West of Iran. The trends of ET₀ detected by using the Mann-Kendall (MK) test. The slopes of the trend lines were computed by using the Sen’s slope estimator. The results showed significant increasing as well as decreasing trends in the annual and monthly ET₀. However, ET₀ trends were increasing. In the monthly scale, the number of the increasing trends was more than the number of decreasing trends, in the majority of warm months of the year.

Keywords: climate change, Mann–Kendall, Penman-Monteith method (FAO-56 PM), reference crop evapotranspiration

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Authors: Bamlaku Tadesse Mengistu

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This article explores the link between climate change/variability and its adaptation/coping strategies with resource-based ethnic conflicts among the Afar, Issa-Somali, and Ittu-Oromo ethnic groups. The qualitative data were collected from community leaders, ordinary members of the communities, and administrative and political bodies at various levels through one-on-one interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. The quantitative data were also collected through a household survey from the randomly selected 128 households drawn from the three districts of Mieso-Mullu, Mieso, and Amibara districts. The study shows that there is a causal relationship between resource scarcity impacted by climate change/variability and ethnic conflicts. The study reveals that the increasing nature of resource scarcity and environmental problems, and also the changing nature of ethnic diversity will aggravate the resource-based inter-ethnic conflicts.

Keywords: Eastern Ethiopia, ethnic conflict, climate change, Afar, Issa, Ittu

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Authors: Suresh Hettiarachchi, Conrad Wasko, Ashish Sharma

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The ever changing and expanding urban landscape increases the stress on urban systems to support and maintain safe and functional living spaces. Flooding presents one of the more serious threats to this safety, putting a larger number of people in harm’s way in congested urban settings. Climate change is adding to this stress by creating a dichotomy in the urban flood response. On the one hand, climate change is causing storms to intensify, resulting in more destructive, rarer floods, while on the other hand, longer dry periods are decreasing the severity of more frequent, less intense floods. This variability is creating a need to be more agile and innovative in how we design for and manage urban flooding. Here, we argue that to cope with this challenge climate change brings, we need to move towards urban flood management through resilience rather than flood prevention. We also argue that dealing with the larger variation in flood response to climate change means that we need to look at flooding from all aspects rather than the single-dimensional focus of flood depths and extents. In essence, we need to rethink how we manage flooding in the urban space. This change in our thought process and approach to flood management requires a practical way to assess and quantify resilience that is built into the urban landscape so that informed decision-making can support the required changes in planning and infrastructure design. Towards that end, we propose a Simple Urban Flood Resilience Index (SUFRI) based on a robust definition of resilience as a tool to assess flood resilience. The application of a simple resilience index such as the SUFRI can provide a practical tool that considers urban flood management in a multi-dimensional way and can present solutions that were not previously considered. When such an index is grounded on a clear and relevant definition of resilience, it can be a reliable and defensible way to assess and assist the process of adapting to the increasing challenges in urban flood management with climate change.

Keywords: urban flood resilience, climate change, flood management, flood modelling

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Authors: Victoria Bessonova, Robert Dorrell, Nina Dethlefs, Evdokia Tapoglou, Katharine York

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As the global pursuit of renewable energy intensifies, offshore wind farms have emerged as a promising solution to combat climate change. The global offshore wind installed capacity is projected to increase 56-fold by 2055. However, the impacts of climate change, particularly changes in wave climate, are not widely understood. Offshore wind installation and maintenance activities often require specific weather windows, characterized by calm seas and low wave heights, to ensure safe and efficient operations. However, climate change-induced alterations in wave characteristics can reduce the availability of suitable weather windows, leading to delays and disruptions in project timelines. it applied the operational limits of installation and maintenance vessels to past and future climate wave projections. This revealed changes in the annual and monthly accessibility of offshore wind farms at key global development locations. When accessibility is only defined by significant wave height, spatial patterns in the annual accessibility roughly follow changes in significant wave height, with increased availability where significant wave height is decreasing. This resulted in a 1-6% increase in Europe and North America and a similar decrease in South America, Australia and Asia. Monthly changes suggest unchanged or slightly decreased (1-2%) accessibility in summer months and increased (2-6%) in winter. Further assessment includes assessing the sensitivity of accessibility to operational limits defined by wave height combined with wave period and wave height combined with wind speed. Results of this assessment will be included in the presentation. These findings will help stakeholders inform climate change adaptations in installation and maintenance planning practices.

Keywords: climate change, offshore wind, offshore wind installation, operations and maintenance, wave climate, wind farm accessibility

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Authors: Abdullah Al Mamoon, Niels E. Joergensen, Ataur Rahman, Hassan Qasem

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Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth Assessment Report AR4 predicts a more extreme climate towards the end of the century, which is likely to impact the design of engineering infrastructure projects with a long design life. A recent study in 2013 developed new design rainfall for Qatar, which provides an improved design basis of drainage infrastructure for the State of Qatar under the current climate. The current design standards in Qatar do not consider increased rainfall intensity caused by climate change. The focus of this paper is to update recently developed design rainfalls in Qatar under the changing climatic conditions based on IPCC's AR4 allowing a later revision to the proposed design standards, relevant for projects with a longer design life. The future climate has been investigated based on the climate models released by IPCC’s AR4 and A2 story line of emission scenarios (SRES) using a stationary approach. Annual maximum series (AMS) of predicted 24 hours rainfall data for both wet (NCAR-CCSM) scenario and dry (CSIRO-MK3.5) scenario for the Qatari grid points in the climate models have been extracted for three periods, current climate 2010-2039, medium term climate (2040-2069) and end of century climate (2070-2099). A homogeneous region of the Qatari grid points has been formed and L-Moments based regional frequency approach is adopted to derive design rainfalls. The results indicate no significant changes in the design rainfall on the short term 2040-2069, but significant changes are expected towards the end of the century (2070-2099). New design rainfalls have been developed taking into account climate change for 2070-2099 scenario and by averaging results from the two scenarios. IPCC’s AR4 predicts that the rainfall intensity for a 5-year return period rain with duration of 1 to 2 hours will increase by 11% in 2070-2099 compared to current climate. Similarly, the rainfall intensity for more extreme rainfall, with a return period of 100 years and duration of 1 to 2 hours will increase by 71% in 2070-2099 compared to current climate. Infrastructure with a design life exceeding 60 years should add safety factors taking the predicted effects from climate change into due consideration.

Keywords: climate change, design rainfalls, IDF, Qatar

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Authors: Akinwale Adeyinka

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Critical natural resources such as clean ground water, fertile topsoil, and biodiversity are diminishing at an exponential rate, orders of magnitude above that at which they can be regenerated. Based on news on world population record, over 6 billion people on earth, and almost a quarter million added each day, the scale of human activity and environmental impact is unprecedented. Soaring human population growth over the past century has created a visible challenge to earth’s life support systems. In addition, the world faces an onslaught of other environmental threats including degenerated global climate change, global warming, intensified acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion and health threatening pollution. Overpopulation and the use of deleterious technologies combine to increase the scale of human activities to a level that underlies these entire problems. These intensifying trends cannot continue indefinitely, hopefully, through increased understanding and valuation of ecosystems and their services, earth’s basic life-support system will be protected for the future.To say the fact, human civilization is now the dominant cause of change in the global environment. Now that our relationship to the earth has change so utterly, we have to see that change and understand its implication. These are actually 2 aspects to the challenges which we should believe. The first is to realize that our power to harm the earth can indeed have global and even permanent effects. Second is to realize that the only way to understand our new role as a co-architect of nature is to see ourselves as part of a complex system that does operate according to the same simple rules of cause and effect we are used to. So understanding the physical/biological dimension of earth system is an important precondition for making sensible policy to protect our environment. Because we believe Sustainable Development Is a matter of reconciling respect for the environment, social equity and economic profitability. Also, we strongly believe that environmental protection is naturally about reducing air and water pollution, but it also includes the improvement of the environmental performance of existing process. That is why we should always have it at the heart of our business that the environmental problem is not our effect on the environment so much as our relationship with the environment. We should always think of being environmental friendly in our operation.

Keywords: Stratospheric ozone depletion ion , Climate Change, global warming, social equity and economic profitability

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Authors: Malay K. Pramanik

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In recent years, climate change has become a major threat and has been widely documented in the geographic distribution of many plant species. However, the impacts of climate change on the distribution of ecologically vulnerable medicinal species remain largely unknown. The identification of a suitable habitat for a species under climate change scenario is a significant step towards the mitigation of biodiversity decline. The study, therefore, aims to predict the impact of current, and future climatic scenarios on the distribution of the threatened Garcinia indica across the northern Western Ghats using Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) modelling. The future projections were made for the year 2050 and 2070 with all Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenario (2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5) using 56 species occurrence data, and 19 bioclimatic predictors from the BCC-CSM1.1 model of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s (IPCC) 5th assessment. The bioclimatic variables were minimised to a smaller number of variables after a multicollinearity test, and their contributions were assessed using jackknife test. The AUC value of 0.956 ± 0.023 indicates that the model performs with excellent accuracy. The study identified that temperature seasonality (39.5 ± 3.1%), isothermality (19.2 ± 1.6%), and annual precipitation (12.7 ± 1.7%) would be the major influencing variables in the current and future distribution. The model predicted 10.5% (19318.7 sq. km) of the study area as moderately to very highly suitable, while 82.60% (151904 sq. km) of the study area was identified as ‘unsuitable’ or ‘very low suitable’. Our predictions of climate change impact on habitat suitability suggest that there will be a drastic reduction in the suitability by 5.29% and 5.69% under RCP 8.5 for 2050 and 2070, respectively. Finally, the results signify that the model might be an effective tool for biodiversity protection, ecosystem management, and species re-habitation planning under future climate change scenarios.

Keywords: Garcinia Indica, maximum entropy modelling, climate change, MaxEnt, Western Ghats, medicinal plants

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Authors: Atefeh Kalantari

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The increase in population and energy consumption has caused environmental crises such as the energy crisis, increased pollution, and climate change, all of which have resulted in a decline in the quality of life, especially in urban environments. Iran is one of the developing countries which faces several challenges concerning energy use and environmental sustainability such as air pollution, climate change, and energy security. On the other hand, due to its favorable geographic characteristics, Iran has diverse and accessible renewable sources, which provide appropriate substitutes to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Sustainable development programs and post-carbon cities rely on implementing energy policies in different sectors of society, particularly, the built environment sector is one of the main ones responsible for energy consumption and carbon emissions for cities. Because of this, several advancements and programs are being implemented to promote energy efficiency for urban planning, and city experts, like others, are looking for solutions to deal with these problems. Among the solutions provided for this purpose, low-carbon design can be mentioned. Among the different scales, the neighborhood can be mentioned as a suitable scale for applying the principles and solutions of low-carbon urban design; Because the neighborhood as a "building unit of the city" includes elements and flows that all affect the number of CO2 emissions. The article aims to provide criteria for designing a low-carbon and carbon-free neighborhood through descriptive methods and secondary data analysis. The ultimate goal is to promote energy efficiency and create a more resilient and livable environment for local residents.

Keywords: climate change, low-carbon urban design, carbon-free neighborhood, resilience

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Authors: Leila Rashidian

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Temperature rise on Earth has had harmful effects on the Earth's surface and has led to change in precipitation patterns all around the world. The present research was aimed to study the process of climate change according to the data simulation in future and compare these parameters with current situation in the studied stations in Semnan province including Garmsar, Shahrood and Semnan. In this regard, LARS-WG software, HADCM₃ model and A₂ scenario were used for the 2010-2030 period. In this model, climatic parameters such as maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation and radiation were used daily. The obtained results indicated that there will be a 4.4% increase in precipitation in Semnan province compared with the observed data, and in general, there will be a 1.9% increase in temperature. This temperature rise has significant impact on precipitation patterns. Most of precipitation will be raining (torrential rains in some cases). According to the results, from west to east, the country will experience more temperature rise and will be warmer.

Keywords: climate change, Semnan province, Lars.WG model, climate parameters, HADCM₃ model

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Authors: Peter Carter

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Comprehensive climate change indicators and trends inform the state of the climate (system) with respect to present and future climate change scenarios and the urgency of mitigation and adaptation. With data records now going back for many decades, indicator trends can complement model projections. They are provided as datasets by several climate monitoring centers, reviewed by state of the climate reports, and documented by the IPCC assessments. Up-to-date indicators are provided here. Rates of change are instructive, as are extremes. The indicators include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (natural and synthetic), cumulative CO2 emissions, atmospheric GHG concentrations (including CO2 equivalent), stratospheric ozone, surface ozone, radiative forcing, global average temperature increase, land temperature increase, zonal temperature increases, carbon sinks, soil moisture, sea surface temperature, ocean heat content, ocean acidification, ocean oxygen, glacier mass, Arctic temperature, Arctic sea ice (extent and volume), northern hemisphere snow cover, permafrost indices, Arctic GHG emissions, ice sheet mass, sea level rise, and stratospheric and surface ozone. Global warming is not the most reliable single metric for the climate state. Radiative forcing, atmospheric CO2 equivalent, and ocean heat content are more reliable. Global warming does not provide future commitment, whereas atmospheric CO2 equivalent does. Cumulative carbon is used for estimating carbon budgets. The forcing of aerosols is briefly addressed. Indicator interactions are included. In particular, indicators can provide insight into several crucial global warming amplifying feedback loops, which are explained. All indicators are increasing (adversely), most as fast as ever and some faster. One particularly pressing indicator is rapidly increasing global atmospheric methane. In this respect, methane emissions and sources are covered in more detail. In their application, indicators used in assessing safe planetary boundaries are included. Indicators are considered with respect to recent published papers on possible catastrophic climate change and climate system tipping thresholds. They are climate-change-policy relevant. In particular, relevant policies include the 2015 Paris Agreement on “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels” and the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate change, which has “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

Keywords: climate change, climate change indicators, climate change trends, climate system change interactions

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Authors: Vathanachannbo Veth, Ilan Ich, Sophea Rom Phy, Ty Sok, Layheang Song, Sophal Try, Chantha Oeurng

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Climate change is one of the major global challenges inducing disaster risks and threatening livelihoods and communities through adverse impacts on food and water security, ecosystems, and services. Prek Thnot River Basin of Cambodia is one of the largest tributaries in the Lower Mekong that has been exposed to hazards and disasters, particularly floods and is said to be the effect of climate change. Therefore, the assessment of precipitation and streamflow changes under the effect of climate change was proposed in this river basin using Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model and different flow indices under baseline (1997 to 2011) and climate change scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 with three General Circulation Models (GCMs): GFDL, GISS, and IPSL) in two time-horizons: near future (the 2030s: 2021 to 2040) and medium future (2060s: 2051 to 2070). Both intensity and frequency indices compared with the historical extreme rainfall indices significantly change in the GFDL under the RCP8.5 for both 2030s and 2060s. The average rate change of Rx1day, Rx10day, SDII, and R20mm in the 2030s and 2060s of both RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 was found to increase in GFDL and decrease in both GISS and IPSL. The mean percentage change of the flow analyzed in the IHA tool (Group1) indicated that the flow in the Prek Thnot River increased in GFDL for both RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 in both 2030s and 2060s, oppositely in GISS, the flow decreases. Moreover, the IPSL affected the flow by increasing in five months (January, February, October, November, and December), and in the other seven months, the flow decreased accordingly. This study provides water resources managers and policymakers with a wide range of precipitation and water flow projections within the Prek Thnot River Basin in the context of plausible climate change scenarios.

Keywords: IHA, climate change, disaster risk, Prek Thnot River Basin, Cambodia

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Authors: Priyatma Singh, Manpreet Kaur

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Climate change is progressively being identified as a global crisis and this has immediate repercussions for Fiji Islands due to its geographical location being prone to natural disasters. In the Pacific, it is common to find significant differences between men and women, in terms of their roles and responsibilities. In the pursuit of prudent preparedness before disasters, Fijian women’s engagement is constrained due to socially constructed roles and expectation of women here in Fiji. This vulnerability is aggravated by viewing women as victims, rather than as key people who have vital information of their society, economy, and environment, as well as useful skills, which, when recognized and used, can be effective in disaster risk reduction. The focus of this study on disaster management is to outline ways in which Fijian women can be actively engaged in disaster risk management, articulating in decision-making, negating the perceived ideology of women’s constricted roles in Fiji and unveiling social constraints that limit women’s access to practical disaster management strategic plan. This paper outlines the importance of gender mainstreaming in disaster risk reduction and the ways of mainstreaming gender based on a literature review. It analyses theoretical study of academic literature as well as papers and reports produced by various national and international institutions and explores ways to better inform and engage women for climate change per ser disaster management in Fiji. The empowerment of women is believed to be a critical element in constructing disaster resilience as women are often considered to be the designers of community resilience at the local level. Gender mainstreaming as a way of bringing a gender perspective into climate related disasters can be applied to distinguish the varying needs and capacities of women, and integrate them into climate change adaptation strategies. This study will advocate women articulation in disaster risk management, thus giving equal standing to females in Fiji and also identify the gaps and inform national and local Disaster Risk Management authorities to implement processes that enhance gender equality and women’s empowerment towards a more equitable and effective disaster practice.

Keywords: disaster risk management, climate change, gender mainstreaming, women empowerment

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Authors: Malay K. Pramanik

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Climate change is continuously affecting the ecosystem, species distribution as well as global biodiversity. The assessment of the species potential distribution and the spatial changes under various climate change scenarios is a significant step towards the conservation and mitigation of habitat shifts, and species' loss and vulnerability. In this context, the present study aimed to predict the influence of current and future climate on an ecologically vulnerable medicinal species, Garcinia gummi-gutta, of the southern Western Ghats using Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) modeling. The future projections were made for the period of 2050 and 2070 with RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) scenario of 4.5 and 8.5 using 84 species occurrence data, and climatic variables from three different models of Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment. Climatic variables contributions were assessed using jackknife test and AOC value 0.888 indicates the model perform with high accuracy. The major influencing variables will be annual precipitation, precipitation of coldest quarter, precipitation seasonality, and precipitation of driest quarter. The model result shows that the current high potential distribution of the species is around 1.90% of the study area, 7.78% is good potential; about 90.32% is moderate to very low potential for species suitability. Finally, the results of all model represented that there will be a drastic decline in the suitable habitat distribution by 2050 and 2070 for all the RCP scenarios. The study signifies that MaxEnt model might be an efficient tool for ecosystem management, biodiversity protection, and species re-habitation planning under climate change.

Keywords: Garcinia gummi gutta, maximum entropy modeling, medicinal plants, climate change, western ghats, MaxEnt

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Authors: Felix Y. Mahenge, Abiud L. Kaswamila, Davis G. Mwamfupe

Abstract:

Grapevine is a drought resistant crop, although in recent years it has been observed to be affect by climate change. This compelled investigation of grapevine farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate change in Dodoma, Tanzania. A mixed research approach was adopted. Likewise, purposive and random sampling techniques were used to select individuals for the study. About 248 grapevine farmers and 64 key informants and members of focus group discussions were involved. Primary data were collected through surveys, discussions, interviews, and observations, while secondary data were collected through documentary reviews. Quantitative data were analysed through descriptive statistics by means of IBM (SPSS) software while the qualitative data were analysed through content analysis. The findings indicate that climate change has adversely affected grapevine production leading to the occurrence of grapevine pests and diseases, drought which increases costs for irrigation and uncertainties which affect grapevine markets. For the purpose of lessening grapevine production constraints due to climate change, farmers have been using several adaptation strategies. Some of the strategies include application of pesticides, use of scarers to threaten birds, irrigation, timed pruning, manure fertilisers and diversification to other farm or non-farm activities. The use of pesticides and industrial fertilizers were regarded as increasing human health risks in the study area. The researchers recommend that the Tanzania government should strengthen the agricultural extension services in the study area so that the farmers undertake adaptation strategies with the consideration of human health safety.

Keywords: grapevine farmers, adaptation, climate change, human health

Procedia PDF Downloads 61

Authors: Fitih Ademe, Kibebew Kibret, Sheleme Beyene, Mezgebu Getnet, Gashaw Meteke

Abstract:

Changes in precipitation, temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration are expected to alter agricultural productivity patterns worldwide. The interactive effects of soil moisture and nutrient availability are the two key edaphic factors that determine crop yield and are sensitive to climatic changes. The study assessed the potential impacts of climate change on maize yield and corresponding water productivity and nutrient use efficiency under climate change scenarios for the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia by mid (2041-2070) and end century (2071-2100). Projected impacts were evaluated using climate scenarios generated from four General Circulation Models (GCMs) dynamically downscaled by the Swedish RCA4 Regional Climate Model (RCM) in combination with two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and RCP8.5). Decision Support System for Agro-technology Transfer cropping system model (DSSAT-CSM) was used to simulate yield, water and nutrient use for the study periods. Results indicate that rainfed maize yield might decrease on average by 16.5 and 23% by the 2050s and 2080s, respectively, due to climate change. Water productivity is expected to decline on average by 2.2 and 12% in the CRV by mid and end centuries with respect to the baseline. Nutrient uptake and corresponding nutrient use efficiency (NUE) might also be negatively affected by climate change. Phosphorus uptake probably will decrease in the CRV on average by 14.5 to 18% by 2050s, while N uptake may not change significantly at Melkassa. Nitrogen and P use efficiency indicators showed decreases in the range between 8.5 to 10.5% and between 9.3 to 10.5%, respectively, by 2050s relative to the baseline average. The simulation results further indicated that a combination of increased water availability and optimum nutrient application might increase both water productivity and nutrient use efficiency in the changed climate, which can ensure modest production in the future. Potential options that can improve water availability and nutrient uptake should be identified for the study locations using a crop modeling approach.

Keywords: crop model, climate change scenario, nutrient uptake, nutrient use efficiency, water productivity

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Authors: Khan R. Rahaman, Quazi K. Hassan

Abstract:

Global changes in climate, environment, economies, populations, governments, institutions, and cultures converge in localities. Changes at a local scale, in turn, contribute to global changes as well as being affected by them. Our hypothesis is built on a consideration that temperature does vary at local level (i.e., termed as local warming) in comparison to the predicted models at the regional and/or global scale. To date, the bulk of the research relating local places to global climate change has been top-down, from the global toward the local, concentrating on methods of impact analysis that use as a starting point climate change scenarios derived from global models, even though these have little regional or local specificity. Thus, our focus is to understand such trends over the southern Alberta, which will enable decision makers, scientists, researcher community, and local people to adapt their policies based on local level temperature variations and to act accordingly. Specific objectives in this study are: (i) to understand the local warming (temperature in particular) trend in context of temperature normal during the period 1961-2010 at point locations using meteorological data; (ii) to validate the data by using specific yearly data, and (iii) to delineate the spatial extent of the local warming trends and understanding influential factors to adopt situation by local governments. Existing data has brought the evidence of such changes and future research emphasis will be given to validate this hypothesis based on remotely sensed data (i.e. MODIS product by NASA).

Keywords: local warming, climate change, urban area, Alberta, Canada

Procedia PDF Downloads 302

Authors: Rajendra Kumar Isaac, Monisha Isaac

Abstract:

Climate variability and changes are the emerging challenges for Indian agriculture with the growing population to ensure national food security. A study was conducted to assess the Climatic Change effects in medium to low altitude areas of the Himalayan region causing changes in land use and cereal crop productivity with the various climatic parameters. The rainfall and temperature changes from 1951 to 2013 were studied at four locations of varying altitudes, namely Hardwar, Rudra Prayag, Uttar Kashi and Tehri Garwal. It was observed that there is noticeable increment in temperature on all the four locations. It was surprisingly observed that the mean rainfall intensity of 30 minutes duration has increased at the rate of 0.1 mm/hours since 2000. The study shows that the combined effect of increasing temperature, rainfall, runoff and urbanization at the mid-Himalayan region is causing an increase in various climatic disasters and changes in agriculture patterns. A noticeable change in cropping patterns, crop productivity and land use change was observed. Appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies are necessary to ensure that sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture. Appropriate information is necessary for farmers, as well as planners and decision makers for developing, disseminating and adopting climate-smart technologies.

Keywords: climate variability, agriculture, land use, mitigation strategies

Procedia PDF Downloads 248

Authors: Arshad A. Narejo, M. Javed Sheikh, G. Mujtaba Khushk, Naeem A Qureshi, M. Ali Sheikh

Abstract:

Climate change not only influences on agriculture activities but also has certain effects on daily human activities, as well as on overall human health. Keeping in view the significance and huge research gap on the issues, the researchers have found an opportunity to conduct a study in Sindh province of Pakistan, in which the issue of climate shifting/change regarding temperature and precipitation were discussed with the local farmers of district Hyderabad. The quantified perception was gathered on a reliable and valid scale from 200 respondents and was analyzed through SPSS and AMOS software. The result of this study revealed that the significant changes are being occurred in summer (r²=0.96; M=6.78) and winter seasons (r²=0.71; M=6.57), therefore it is leaving bad effects on human health (r²=0.96) and behavior of the local population (r²=0.70). In addition, the change in the cropping calendar, i.e., timing of sowing (r²=0.69; M=8.42) and harvesting (r²=0.79; M=8.27) of different crops have been altered due to changes in local weather patterns. Since the local farmers are also facing seed germination (r²=0.57; M=7.98) problems, it is therefore recommended that concerned authorities/departments should revise the agricultural calendar. Besides this, respondents were in opinion that actual summer starts even before the vacation and cold season starts when winter vacations ended. Thus, the government and other concerned departments should reconsider or reschedule the vacation regulation policy (r²=0.70) at least at the provincial level.

Keywords: climate, climate shifting/change, impact on daily life, impact on agricultural activities

Procedia PDF Downloads 108

Authors: Khan R. Rahaman, Quazi K. Hassan

Abstract:

Global changes in climate, environment, economies, populations, governments, institutions, and cultures converge in localities. Changes at a local scale, in turn, contribute to global changes as well as being affected by them. Our hypothesis is built on a consideration that temperature does vary at local level (i.e., termed as local warming) in comparison to the predicted models at the regional and/or global scale. To date, the bulk of the research relating local places to global climate change has been top-down, from the global toward the local, concentrating on methods of impact analysis that use as a starting point climate change scenarios derived from global models, even though these have little regional or local specificity. Thus, our focus is to understand such trends over the southern Alberta, which will enable decision makers, scientists, researcher community, and local people to adapt their policies based on local level temperature variations and to act accordingly. Specific objectives in this study are: (i) to understand the local warming (temperature in particular) trend in context of temperature normal during the period 1961-2010 at point locations using meteorological data; (ii) to validate the data by using specific yearly data, and (iii) to delineate the spatial extent of the local warming trends and understanding influential factors to adopt situation by local governments. Existing data has brought the evidence of such changes and future research emphasis will be given to validate this hypothesis based on remotely sensed data (i.e. MODIS product by NASA).

Keywords: local warming, climate change, urban area, Alberta, Canada

Procedia PDF Downloads 317

Authors: Jen-Te Pai, Jao-Heng Liu, Shin-En Pai

Abstract:

The impact of climate change has intensified in recent years, causing Taiwan to face higher frequency and serious natural disasters. Therefore, it is imperative for industrial parks manufacturers to promote adaptation policies in response to climate change. On the other hand, with the rise of the international anti-terrorism situation, once a terrorist attack occurs, it will attract domestic and international media attention, especially the strategic and economic status of the science park. Thus, it is necessary to formulate adaptation and mitigation strategies under climate change and social economic disasters. After reviewed the literature about climate change, urban disaster prevention, vulnerability assessment, and risk communication, the study selected 62 industrial parks compiled by the Industrial Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan as the research object. This study explored the vulnerability and disaster prevention and disaster relief functional assessment of these industrial parks facing of natural and socio-economic disasters. Furthermore, this study explored planned adaptation of industrial parks management section and autonomous adaptation of corporate institutions in the park. The conclusion of this study is that Taiwan industrial parks with a higher vulnerability to natural and socio-economic disasters should employ positive adaptive behaviours.

Keywords: adaptive behaviours, analytic network process, vulnerability, industrial parks

Procedia PDF Downloads 114

Authors: Kamalpreet Kaur, Renu Dhir

Abstract:

Climate prediction is an essential component of climate research, which helps evaluate possible effects on economies, communities, and ecosystems. Climate prediction involves short-term weather prediction, seasonal prediction, and long-term climate change prediction. Climate prediction can use the information gathered from satellites, ground-based stations, and ocean buoys, among other sources. The paper's four architectures, such as ResNet50, VGG19, Inception-v3, and Xception, have been combined using an ensemble approach for overall performance and robustness. An ensemble of different models makes a prediction, and the majority vote determines the final prediction. The various architectures such as ResNet50, VGG19, Inception-v3, and Xception efficiently classify the dataset RSI-CB256, which contains satellite images into cloudy and non-cloudy. The generated ensembled S-E model (Sar-ensembled model) provides an accuracy of 99.25%.

Keywords: climate, satellite images, prediction, classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 37