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- ItemSpatial-Explicit Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments Based on Impact Chains. Findings from a Case Study in Burundi(Basel : MDPI, 2020) Schneiderbauer, Stefan; Baunach, Daniel; Pedoth, Lydia; Renner, Kathrin; Fritzsche, Kerstin; Bollin, Christina; Pregnolato, Marco; Zebisch, Marc; Liersch, Stefan; Rivas López, María del Rocío; Ruzima, SalvatorClimate change vulnerability assessments are an essential instrument to identify regions most vulnerable to adverse impacts of climate change and to determine appropriate adaptation measures. Vulnerability assessments directly support countries in developing adaptation plans and in identifying possible measures to reduce adverse consequences of changing climate conditions. Against this background, this paper describes a vulnerability assessment using an integrated and participatory approach that builds on standardized working steps of previously developed ‘Vulnerability Sourcebook’ guidelines. The backbone of this approach is impact chains as a conceptual model of cause–effect relationships as well as a structured selection of indicators according to the three main components of vulnerability, namely exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. We illustrate our approach by reporting the results of a vulnerability assessment conducted in Burundi focusing on climate change impacts on water and soil resources. Our work covers two analysis scales: a national assessment with the aim to identify climate change ‘hotspot regions’ through vulnerability mapping; and a local assessment aiming at identifying local-specific drivers of vulnerability and appropriate adaptation measures. Referring to this vulnerability assessment in Burundi, we discuss the potentials and constraints of the approach. We stress the need to involve stakeholders in every step of the assessment and to communicate limitations and uncertainties of the applied methods, indicators and maps in order to increase the comprehension of the approach and the acceptance of the results by different stakeholders. The study proved the practical usability of the approach at the national level by the selection of three particularly vulnerable areas. The results at a local scale supported the identification of adaption measures through intensive engagement of local rural populations.
- ItemConsistency in Vulnerability Assessments of Wheat to Climate Change—A District-Level Analysis in India(Basel : MDPI, 2020) Dhamija, Vanshika; Shukla, Roopam; Gornott, Christoph; Joshi, PKIn India, a reduction in wheat crop yield would lead to a widespread impact on food security. In particular, the most vulnerable people are severely exposed to food insecurity. This study estimates the climate change vulnerability of wheat crops with respect to heterogeneities in time, space, and weighting methods. The study uses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework of vulnerability while using composite indices of 27 indicators to explain exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. We used climate projections under current (1975–2005) conditions and two future (2021–2050) Representation Concentration Pathways (RCPs), 4.5 and 8.5, to estimate exposure to climatic risks. Consistency across three weighting methods (Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Equal Weights (EWs)) was evaluated. Results of the vulnerability profile suggest high vulnerability of the wheat crop in northern and central India. In particular, the districts Unnao, Sirsa, Hardoi, and Bathinda show high vulnerability and high consistency across current and future climate scenarios. In total, 84% of the districts show more than 75% consistency in the current climate, and 83% and 68% of the districts show more than 75% consistency for RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climate scenario for the three weighting methods, respectively. By using different weighting methods, it was possible to quantify “method uncertainty” in vulnerability assessment and enhance robustness in identifying most vulnerable regions. Finally, we emphasize the importance of communicating uncertainties, both in data and methods in vulnerability research, to effectively guide adaptation planning. The results of this study would serve as the basis for designing climate impacts adjusted adaptation measures for policy interventions.
- ItemIntegrating climate change adaptation in coastal governance of the Barcelona metropolitan area(Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2021) Sauer, Inga J.; Roca, Elisabet; Villares, MíriamCoastal cities are exposed to high risks due to climate change, as they are potentially affected by both rising sea levels and increasingly intense and frequent coastal storms. Socio-economic drivers also increase exposure to natural hazards, accelerate environmental degradation, and require adaptive governance structures to moderate negative impacts. Here, we use a social network analysis (SNA) combined with further qualitative information to identify barriers and enablers of adaptive governance in the Barcelona metropolitan area. By analyzing how climate change adaptation is mainstreamed between different administrative scales as well as different societal actors, we can determine the governance structures and external conditions that hamper or foster strategical adaptation plans from being used as operational adaptation tools. We identify a diverse set of stakeholders acting at different administrative levels (local to national), in public administration, science, civil society, and the tourism economy. The metropolitan administration acts as an important bridging organization by promoting climate change adaptation to different interest groups and by passing knowledge between actors. Nonetheless, national adaptation planning fails to take into account local experiences in coastal protection, which leads to an ineffective science policy interaction and limits adaptive management and learning opportunities. Overcoming this is difficult, however, as the effectiveness of local adaptation strategies in the Barcelona metropolitan area is very limited due to a strong centralization of power at the national level and a lack of polycentricity. Due to the high touristic pressure, the legal framework is currently oriented to primarily meet the demands of recreational use and tourism, prioritizing these aspects in daily management practice. Therefore, touristic and economic activities need to be aligned to adaptation efforts, to convert them from barriers into drivers for adaptation action. Our work strongly suggests that more effectively embedding adaptation planning and action into existing legal structures of coastal management would allow strategic adaptation plans to be an effective operational tool for local coastal governance.
- ItemInterplay between Diets, Health, and Climate Change(Basel : MDPI, 2020) Pradhan, Prajal; Kropp, Jürgen P.The world is facing a triple burden of undernourishment, obesity, and environmental impacts from agriculture while nourishing its population. This burden makes sustainable nourishment of the growing population a global challenge. Addressing this challenge requires an understanding of the interplay between diets, health, and associated environmental impacts (e.g., climate change). For this, we identify 11 typical diets that represent dietary habits worldwide for the last five decades. Plant-source foods provide most of all three macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) in developing countries. In contrast, animal-source foods provide a majority of protein and fat in developed ones. The identified diets deviate from the recommended healthy diet with either too much (e.g., red meat) or too little (e.g., fruits and vegetables) food and nutrition supply. The total calorie supplies are lower than required for two diets. Sugar consumption is higher than recommended for five diets. Three and five diets consist of larger-than-recommended carbohydrate and fat shares, respectively. Four diets with a large share of animal-source foods exceed the recommended value of red meat. Only two diets consist of at least 400 gm/cap/day of fruits and vegetables while accounting for food waste. Prevalence of undernourishment and underweight dominates in the diets with lower calories. In comparison, a higher prevalence of obesity is observed for diets with higher calories with high shares of sugar, fat, and animal-source foods. However, embodied emissions in the diets do not show a clear relation with calorie supplies and compositions. Two high-calorie diets embody more than 1.5 t CO 2 eq/cap/yr, and two low-calorie diets embody around 1 t CO 2 eq/cap/yr. Our analysis highlights that sustainable and healthy diets can serve the purposes of both nourishing the population and, at the same time, reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.
- ItemEducation and Disaster Vulnerability in Southeast Asia: Evidence and Policy Implications(Basel : MDPI, 2020) Hoffmann, Roman; Blecha, DanielaThis article summarizes the growing theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of education on disaster vulnerability with a focus on Southeast Asia. Education and learning can take place in different environments in more or less formalized ways. They can influence disaster vulnerability as the capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from natural hazard in direct and indirect ways. Directly, through education and learning, individuals acquire knowledge, abilities, skills and perceptions that allow them to effectively prepare for and cope with the consequences of disaster shocks. Indirectly, education gives individuals and households access to material, informational and social resources, which can help reducing disaster vulnerability. We highlight central concepts and terminologies and discuss the different theoretical mechanisms through which education may have an impact. Supportive empirical evidence is presented and discussed with a particular focus on the role of inclusiveness in education and challenges in achieving universal access to high-quality education. Based on situation analysis and best practice cases, policy implications are derived that can inform the design and implementation of education and learning-based disaster risk reduction efforts in the region.
- ItemNo polarization–Expected Values of Climate Change Impacts among European Forest Professionals and Scientists(Basel : MDPI, 2020) Persson, Johannes; Blennow, Kristina; Gonçalves, Luísa; Borys, Alexander; Dutcă, Ioan; Hynynen, Jari; Janeczko, Emilia; Lyubenova, Mariyana; Martel, Simon; Merganic, Jan; Merganičová, Katarína; Peltoniemi, Mikko; Petr, Michal; Reboredo, Fernando H.; Vacchiano, Giorgio; Reyer, Christopher P.O.The role of values in climate-related decision-making is a prominent theme of climate communication research. The present study examines whether forest professionals are more driven by values than scientists are, and if this results in value polarization. A questionnaire was designed to elicit and assess the values assigned to expected effects of climate change by forest professionals and scientists working on forests and climate change in Europe. The countries involved covered a north-to-south and west-to-east gradient across Europe, representing a wide range of bio-climatic conditions and a mix of economic–social–political structures. We show that European forest professionals and scientists do not exhibit polarized expectations about the values of specific impacts of climate change on forests in their countries. In fact, few differences between forest professionals and scientists were found. However, there are interesting differences in the expected values of forest professionals with regard to climate change impacts across European countries. In Northern European countries, the aggregated values of the expected effects are more neutral than they are in Southern Europe, where they are more negative. Expectations about impacts on timber production, economic returns, and regulatory ecosystem services are mostly negative, while expectations about biodiversity and energy production are mostly positive.
- ItemTheoretical and paleoclimatic evidence for abrupt transitions in the Earth system(Bristol : IOP Publ., 2022) Boers, Niklas; Ghil, Michael; Stocker, Thomas F.Specific components of the Earth system may abruptly change their state in response to gradual changes in forcing. This possibility has attracted great scientific interest in recent years, and has been recognized as one of the greatest threats associated with anthropogenic climate change. Examples of such components, called tipping elements, include the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the polar ice sheets, the Amazon rainforest, as well as the tropical monsoon systems. The mathematical language to describe abrupt climatic transitions is mainly based on the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems and, in particular, on their bifurcations. Applications of this theory to nonautonomous and stochastically forced systems are a very active field of climate research. The empirical evidence that abrupt transitions have indeed occurred in the past stems exclusively from paleoclimate proxy records. In this review, we explain the basic theory needed to describe critical transitions, summarize the proxy evidence for past abrupt climate transitions in different parts of the Earth system, and examine some candidates for future abrupt transitions in response to ongoing anthropogenic forcing. Predicting such transitions remains difficult and is subject to large uncertainties. Substantial improvements in our understanding of the nonlinear mechanisms underlying abrupt transitions of Earth system components are needed. We argue that such an improved understanding requires combining insights from (a) paleoclimatic records; (b) simulations using a hierarchy of models, from conceptual to comprehensive ones; and (c) time series analysis of recent observation-based data that encode the dynamics of the present-day Earth system components that are potentially prone to tipping.
- ItemClimate impact emergence and flood peak synchronization projections in the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna basins under CMIP5 and CMIP6 scenarios(Bristol : IOP Publ., 2022) Gädeke, Anne; Wortmann, Michel; Menz, Christoph; Islam, AKM Saiful; Masood, Muhammad; Krysanova, Valentina; Lange, Stefan; Hattermann, Fred FokkoThe densely populated delta of the three river systems of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna is highly prone to floods. Potential climate change-related increases in flood intensity are therefore of major societal concern as more than 40 million people live in flood-prone areas in downstream Bangladesh. Here we report on new flood projections using a hydrological model forced by bias-adjusted ensembles of the latest-generation global climate models of CMIP6 (SSP5-8.5/SSP1-2.6) in comparison to CMIP5 (RCP8.5/RCP2.6). Results suggest increases in peak flow magnitude of 36% (16%) on average under SSP5-8.5 (SSP1-2.6), compared to 60% (17%) under RCP8.5 (RCP2.6) by 2070-2099 relative to 1971-2000. Under RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 (2070-2099), the largest increase in flood risk is projected for the Ganges watershed, where higher flood peaks become the ‘new norm’ as early as mid-2030 implying a relatively short time window for adaptation. In the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers, the climate impact signal on peak flow emerges after 2070 (CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections). Flood peak synchronization, when annual peak flow occurs simultaneously at (at least) two rivers leading to large flooding events within Bangladesh, show a consistent increase under both projections. While the variability across the ensemble remains high, the increases in flood magnitude are robust in the study basins. Our findings emphasize the need of stringent climate mitigation policies to reduce the climate change impact on peak flows (as presented using SSP1-2.6/RCP2.6) and to subsequently minimize adverse socioeconomic impacts and adaptation costs. Considering Bangladesh’s high overall vulnerability to climate change and its downstream location, synergies between climate change adaptation and mitigation and transboundary cooperation will need to be strengthened to improve overall climate resilience and achieve sustainable development.
- ItemAttributing observed permafrost warming in the northern hemisphere to anthropogenic climate change(Bristol : IOP Publ., 2022) Gudmundsson, Lukas; Kirchner, Josefine; Gädeke, Anne; Noetzli, Jeannette; Biskaborn, Boris KPermafrost temperatures are increasing globally with the potential of adverse environmental and socio-economic impacts. Nonetheless, the attribution of observed permafrost warming to anthropogenic climate change has relied mostly on qualitative evidence. Here, we compare long permafrost temperature records from 15 boreholes in the northern hemisphere to simulated ground temperatures from Earth system models contributing to CMIP6 using a climate change detection and attribution approach. We show that neither pre-industrial climate variability nor natural drivers of climate change suffice to explain the observed warming in permafrost temperature averaged over all boreholes. However, simulations are consistent with observations if the effects of human emissions on the global climate system are considered. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the effect of anthropogenic climate change on permafrost temperature is detectable at some of the boreholes. Thus, the presented evidence supports the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is the key driver of northern hemisphere permafrost warming.
- ItemImpacts of climate change on global food trade networks(Bristol : IOP Publ., 2022) Hedlund, Johanna; Carlsen, Henrik; Croft, Simon; West, Chris; Bodin, Örjan; Stokeld, Emilie; Jägermeyr, Jonas; Müller, ChristophCountries’ reliance on global food trade networks implies that regionally different climate change impacts on crop yields will be transmitted across borders. This redistribution constitutes a significant challenge for climate adaptation planning and may affect how countries engage in cooperative action. This paper investigates the long-term (2070-2099) potential impacts of climate change on global food trade networks of three key crops: wheat, rice and maize. We propose a simple network model to project how climate change impacts on crop yields may be translated into changes in trade. Combining trade and climate impact data, our analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we use network community detection to analyse how the concentration of global production in present-day trade communities may become disrupted with climate change impacts. Second, we study how countries may change their network position following climate change impacts. Third, we study the total climate-induced change in production plus import within trade communities. Results indicate that the stability of food trade network structures compared to today differs between crops, and that countries’ maize trade is least stable under climate change impacts. Results also project that threats to global food security may depend on production change in a few major global producers, and whether trade communities can balance production and import loss in some vulnerable countries. Overall, our model contributes a baseline analysis of cross-border climate impacts on food trade networks.