气候变化下水资源适应性系统脆弱性评价——以鄱阳湖流域为例

从系统科学的视角出发,分析气候变化下水资源适应性系统脆弱性的内涵,基于脆弱性PSR分析框架,从胁迫性、敏感性、适应性3个维度构建了脆弱性评价指标体系,并采用熵值法和集对分析相结合的方法对脆弱性进行评价。结合2001～2010年鄱阳湖流域数据进行了实证研究,结果表明：10 a间鄱阳湖流域水资源适应性系统脆弱性的变化受胁迫性、敏感性和适应性的综合影响,脆弱性先明显增加后缓慢下降,但基本处于中等偏差水平。鄱阳湖流域水资源适应性系统脆弱性主要由降水量变化、自然灾害和经济发展产生的能源消耗、污染问题引发,提高系统适应性对缓解脆弱性有明显作用。根据评价分析,建议鄱阳湖流域未来从提高管理能力、经济及社会响应能力和加强环境生态治理等方面采取适应性对策;通过改善鄱阳湖流域发展方式和生态环境,减少脆弱性和提高可持续发展能力,更好地发挥鄱阳湖流域对国家生态安全的保障作用     

Does community resilience decrease social–ecological vulnerability? Adaptation pathways trade-off in the Bolivian Altiplano

Worsening climate change impacts and environmental degradation are increasingly supporting policies and plans in framing a linear understanding of resilience building and vulnerability reduction. However, adaptations to different but interacting drivers of change are unclear in the mix of opportunities and threats related to increasing connections, emerging technologies, new patterns of dependency and possible lock-in effects. This paper discusses a more open-ended understanding of the relationship between resilience and vulnerability, highlighting emerging trade-offs among adaptive capacities and exposures to different (and new) threats as they relate to social–ecological sustainability. The transition of the Southern Bolivian Altiplano, from being a remote rural area of subsistence farming to a global leader in quinoa production and exportation, has been taken as a study case. Results from 18 workshops organised within different communities provide insights about a range of trade-offs between community resilience attributes and social–ecological vulnerability induced from land use changes, livestock strategies, communities’ behavioural change and institutions’ emerging policies. The main theoretical advances of the paper relate to the need for critically framing multiple threat exposures and adaptive capacity trade-offs, contributing to arguing the usually positive meaning of resilience, and taking into account “to whom or to what is positive which adaptation” and “which trade-off should be accepted, and why”. Framing adaptive pathways through these questions would serve as a tool for addressing sustainable development goals, while avoiding lock-ins or unsustainable path dependencies.     

Combining qualitative and quantitative understanding for exploring cross-sectoral climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in Europe

Climate change will affect all sectors of society and the environment at all scales, ranging from the continental to the national and local. Decision-makers and other interested citizens need to be able to access reliable science-based information to help them respond to the risks of climate change impacts and assess opportunities for adaptation. Participatory integrated assessment (IA) tools combine knowledge from diverse scientific disciplines, take account of the value and importance of stakeholder ‘lay insight’ and facilitate a two-way iterative process of exploration of ‘what if’s’ to enable decision-makers to test ideas and improve their understanding of the complex issues surrounding adaptation to climate change. This paper describes the conceptual design of a participatory IA tool, the CLIMSAVE IA Platform, based on a professionally facilitated stakeholder engagement process. The CLIMSAVE (climate change integrated methodology for cross-sectoral adaptation and vulnerability in Europe) Platform is a user-friendly, interactive web-based tool that allows stakeholders to assess climate change impacts and vulnerabilities for a range of sectors, including agriculture, forests, biodiversity, coasts, water resources and urban development. The linking of models for the different sectors enables stakeholders to see how their interactions could affect European landscape change. The relationship between choice, uncertainty and constraints is a key cross-cutting theme in the conduct of past participatory IA. Integrating scenario development processes with an interactive modelling platform is shown to allow the exploration of future uncertainty as a structural feature of such complex problems, encouraging stakeholders to explore adaptation choices within real-world constraints of future resource availability and environmental and institutional capacities, rather than seeking the ‘right’ answers.     

Climate change,food security,and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Multiple biophysical, political, and socioeconomic stresses interact to increase the region’s susceptibility and constrain its adaptive capacity. Climate change is commonly recognized as a major issue likely to have negative consequences on food security and livelihoods in the region. This paper reviews three bodies of scholarship that have evolved somewhat separately, yet are inherently interconnected: climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, food security, and sustainable livelihoods. The paper develops a conceptualization of the relationships among the three themes and shows how food security’s vulnerabilities are related to multiple stresses and adaptive capacities, reflecting access to assets. Food security represents one of several livelihood outcomes. The framework shows how several research paradigms relate to the issue of food security and climate change and provides a guide for empirical investigations. Recognizing these interconnections can help in the development of more effective policies and programs. The framework is applied here to synthesize findings from an array of studies in sub-Saharan Africa dealing with vulnerability to climate change, food security, and livelihoods.     

Towards adaptation of agriculture to climate change in the Mediterranean

This study links climate change impacts to the development of adaptation strategies for agriculture on the Mediterranean region. Climate change is expected to intensify the existing risks, particularly in regions with current water scarcity, and create new opportunities for improving land and water management. These risks and opportunities are characterised and interpreted across Mediterranean areas by analysing water scarcity pressures and potential impacts on crop productivity over the next decades. The need to respond to these risks and opportunities is addressed by evaluating an adaptive capacity index that represents the ability of Mediterranean agriculture to respond to climate change. We propose an adaptive capacity index with three major components that characterise the economic capacity, human and civic resources, and agricultural innovation. These results aim to assist stakeholders as they take up the adaptation challenge and develop measures to reduce the vulnerability of the sector to climate change.     

Towards a spatially explicit and quantitative vulnerability assessment of environmental change in Europe

Over the next century, society will increasingly be confronted with the impacts of global change (e.g. pollution, land use changes, and climate change). Multiple scenarios provide us with a range of possible changes in socio-economic trends, land uses and climate (i.e. exposure) and allow us to assess the response of ecosystems and changes in the services they provide (i.e. potential impacts). Since vulnerability to global change is less when society is able to adapt, it is important to provide decision makers with tools that will allow them to assess and compare the vulnerability of different sectors and regions to global change, taking into account exposure and sensitivity, as well as adaptive capacity. This paper presents a method that allows quantitative spatial analyses of the vulnerability of the human-environment system on a European scale. It is a first step towards providing stakeholders and policy makers with a spatially explicit portfolio of comparable projections of ecosystem services, providing a basis for discussion on the sustainable management of Europe’s natural resources.

Climate change,sustainable water management and institutional adaptation in rural sub-Saharan Africa

Much current work on climate adaptation options vis-à-vis water management in rural sub-Saharan Africa has tended to focus more on technological and infrastructural alternatives and less on institutional alternatives. Yet, vulnerability to climate variability and change in these contexts is a function not just of biophysical outcomes but also of institutional factors that can vary significantly at relatively finer scales. This paper seeks to contribute towards closing this gap by examining institutional options for sustainable water management in rural SSA in the context of climate change and variability. It explores challenges for transforming water-related institutions and puts forward institutional alternatives towards adapting to increasingly complex conditions created by climate change and variability. The paper suggests revisiting the Integrated Water Resources Management approach which has dominated water institutional debates and reforms in Africa over the recent past, towards actively adopting resilience and adaptive management lenses in crafting water institutional development initiatives.     

Using qualitative scenarios to understand regional environmental change in the Canadian North

This paper discusses the application of qualitative scenarios to understand community vulnerability and adaptation responses, based on a case study in the Slave River Delta region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Three qualitative, graphic scenarios of possible alternative futures were developed, focusing on two main drivers: climate change and resource development. These were used as a focal point for discussions with a cross-section of residents from the community during focus groups, interviews and a community workshop. Significant overlap among the areas of perceived vulnerability is evident among scenarios, particularly in relation to traditional land use. However, each scenario also offers insights about specific challenges facing community members. Climate change was perceived to engender mostly negative livelihood impacts, whereas resource development was expected to trigger a mix of positive and negative impacts, both of which may be more dramatic than in the “climate change only” scenario. The scenarios were also used to identify adaptation options specific to individual drivers of change, as well as more universally applicable options. Identified adaptation options were generally aligned with five sectors—environment and natural resources, economy, community management and development, infrastructure and services, and information and training—which effectively offer a first step towards prioritization of “no regrets” measures. From an empirical perspective, while the scenarios highlighted the need for bottom-up measures, they also elucidated discussion about local agency in adaptation and enabled the examination of multi-dimensional impacts on different community sub-groups. An incongruity emerged between the suite of technically oriented adaptation options and more socially and behaviourally oriented barriers to implementation. Methodologically, the qualitative scenarios were flexible, socially inclusive and consistent with the Indigenous worldview; allowed the incorporation of different knowledge systems; addressed future community vulnerability and adaptation; and led to the identification of socially feasible and bottom-up adaptation outcomes. Despite some caveats regarding resource requirements for participatory scenario development, qualitative scenarios offer a versatile tool to address a range of vulnerability and adaptation issues in the context of other Indigenous communities.     

A “toad’s eye” view of drought: regional socio-natural vulnerability and responses in 2002 in Northwest Colorado

Drought is a part of the normal climate variability and the life and livelihoods of the Western United States. However, drought can also be a high impact or extreme event in some cases, such as the exceptional 2002 drought that had deleterious impacts across the Western United States. Studies of long-term climate variability along with climate change projections indicate that the Western United States should expect much more severe and extended drought episodes than experienced over the last century when most modern water law and policies were developed, such as the 1922 Colorado River Compact. This paper will discuss research examining regional socio-natural climate vulnerability and adaptive response capacities to the 2002 drought in the Yampa–White Basins region of Colorado across sectors and will demonstrate how a bottom-up or “toad’s eye” approach to understanding drought is paramount to complement top-down, instrumental data-driven analyses of drought. The results of empirical observations through interviews and participant observation in combination with analysis of drought indicators will be presented. Implications for adaptation research and planning for climate variability and change will be discussed.     

Carnivores in corridors: estimating tiger occupancy in Kanha–Pench corridor,Madhya Pradesh,India

Elderly people are known to be more vulnerable than the general population to a range of weather-related hazards such as heat waves, icy conditions and cold periods. In the Nordic region, some of these hazards are projected to change their frequency and intensity in the future, while at the same time strong increases are projected in the proportion of elderly in the population. This paper reports results from three projects studying the potential impacts of climate change on elderly people in the Nordic region. An interactive web-based tool has been developed for mapping and combining indicators of climate change vulnerability of the elderly, by municipality, across three Nordic countries: Finland, Norway and Sweden. The tool can also be used for projecting temperature-related mortality in Finland under different projections of future climate. The approach to vulnerability mapping differs from most previous studies in which researchers selected the indicators to combine into an index. Here, while researchers compile data on indicators that can be accessed in the mapping tool, the onus is on the users of the tool to decide which indicators are of interest and whether to map them individually or as combined indices. Stakeholders with responsibility for the care and welfare of the elderly were engaged in the study through interviews and a workshop. They affirmed the usefulness of the prototype mapping tool for raising awareness about climate change as a potential risk factor for the elderly and offered suggestions on potential refinements, which have now been implemented. These included adding background information on possible adaptation measures for ameliorating the impacts of extreme temperatures, and improved representation of uncertainties in projections of future exposure and adaptive capacity.     

A spatially explicit and quantitative vulnerability assessment of ecosystem service change in Europe

Environmental change alters ecosystem functioning and may put the provision of services to human at risk. This paper presents a spatially explicit and quantitative assessment of the corresponding vulnerability for Europe, using a new framework designed to answer multidisciplinary policy relevant questions about the vulnerability of the human-environment system to global change. Scenarios were constructed for a range of possible changes in socio-economic trends, land uses and climate. These scenarios were used as inputs in a range of ecosystem models in order to assess the response of ecosystem function as well as the changes in the services they provide. The framework was used to relate the impacts of changing ecosystem service provision for four sectors in relation to each other, and to combine them with a simple, but generic index for societal adaptive capacity. By allowing analysis of different sectors, regions and development pathways, the vulnerability assessment provides a basis for discussion between stakeholders and policymakers about sustainable management of Europe’s natural resources. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Rural organizations and adaptation to climate change and variability in rural Kenya

Numerous studies have shown that collective action affects the type and efficiency of short- and long-term adaptation to climate change. This empirical study contributes to the body of the literature on collective action and adaptive capacity by demonstrating how organizations frame responses to climate variability and change in rural Kenya by promoting local rural institutions. By analyzing interviews, role-playing games, and household surveys, we ask how local rural organizations shape coping strategies to climate variability and how they may structure future adaptations to climate change. We also investigate what types of households participate in those organizations and how their participation may impact their vulnerability to climate change and variability. Our analysis shows that in places rendered especially vulnerable to climate change by arid climatic conditions, the disengagement of governmental services, and a limited access to income-generating activities, local rural organizations increase livelihood security. Those organizations reduce local vulnerabilities and enhance collective action. In contrast to common diversification and livelihood security strategies which rely on the access to urban or peri-urban structures, local rural institutions and organizations allow for rural and grassroots sustainable adaptation strategies. In that respect, they constitute a resilient and mostly untapped resource for visibly strengthening livelihood security and adaptive capacities in rural Kenya.     

基于RS-SVR模型的流域水资源脆弱性评价与预测研究——以黄河流域为例

水资源脆弱性是衡量水资源系统在气候变化以及人类活动影响下的流域承载能力的重要标准,流域水资源脆弱性评价与预测是评估流域水安全状况、辨识未来水资源系统存在的问题的重要手段。该文首先构建了黄河流域水资源脆弱性评价指标体系,利用粗糙集(Rough Set,缩写为RS)方法对原始指标体系进行降维去除冗余属性。然后,将降维后的评价指标标准值作为"评价样本",运用支持向量机回归(Support Vector Regression,缩写为SVR)模型对流域水资源脆弱性进行评价。最后,设定未来3种不同气候模式与社会经济情景,对黄河流域水资源脆弱性进行情景预测。结果表明:黄河流域过去16年间整体水资源脆弱性等级已从Ⅴ级提升到Ⅳ级水平,未来情景1、情景2下流域整体水资源脆弱性将会好转,但仍处于Ⅳ级中度脆弱水平。未来水质脆弱性与灾害脆弱性提升较为明显,水量脆弱性没有显著改善,在情景3下将恶化到Ⅴ级中高脆弱。因此未来采取积极的人工调控措施能使得水质与灾害方面获得明显的提升,而水量脆弱性则成为制约未来流域整体水资源脆弱性的瓶颈。     

Rural change and multidimensional analysis of farm’s vulnerability: a case study in a protected area of semi-arid northern Nicaragua

This paper presents an empirical research in a protected area of northern Nicaragua, aimed at: (a) classifying predominant narratives surrounding present and future pathways of the local rural system, drivers of change, features of livelihoods’ vulnerability; (b) understanding current functioning of local metabolic patterns of rural systems by developing a typology of farms and (c) comparing types’ vulnerability to current drivers of change. To achieve these objectives, we integrated qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches. The different visions of rural spaces, which emerge from the analysis of the narratives, and the five types of farms, characterized by specific land-time budget and energy and monetary flows, suggest two emerging dynamics of local restructuration in protected areas: (1) a dominant land re-concentration process which is generating increasing inequality in access to resources and a progressive marginalization of the self-sufficient economy of landless and subsistence households; (2) an emergence of a paradigm of ‘environmentalization’ of rural spaces together with a valorization of small and medium-scale diversified economies. Moreover, the vulnerability assessment focuses on multidimensional features of types’ sensitivity to crisis, i.e. risk unacceptability, production instability, economic inefficiency, food and exosomatic energy dependency, as well as capacity to buffer and adapt to change, i.e. access to assets, including labour for men and women, social safety nets and degrees of economic diversification. The discussion highlights the occurrence of trade-off between the solutions adopted by farms within different development paths, suggesting the relevance of the proposed framework of analysis at the interface between science and policy.     

Sub-basin scale characterization of climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation in an Indian River basin

Knowledge of climate change vulnerability and impacts is a prerequisite for formulating locally relevant climate change adaptation policies. A participatory approach has been used in this study to determine climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation aspects for the Kangsabati River basin, India. The study approach involved engaging with stakeholders representing state (sub-national), district and community levels, through an interactive brainstorming method, to understand stakeholder perceptions regarding (a) local characteristics which influence vulnerability, (b) climate change impacts and (c) relevant adaptation options. The study reveals that vulnerability varies across upstream, midstream and downstream sections of the river basin. Suggested adaptation options, in this predominantly agricultural basin, are found to be applicable across spatial scales. Stakeholder perceptions, regarding vulnerability and impacts, vary with the level of interaction, academic background and type of experience. Interaction confirms the notion that stakeholders have inherent knowledge regarding adaptation, reveals their preferences and ability to think unconventionally. We discuss limitations of the approach while demonstrating its ability to deliver locally relevant and acceptable adaptation options, which could facilitate implementation. We conclude that engaging stakeholders at multiple levels was highly effective in assessing locally relevant aspects of climate change vulnerability, impacts and applicable adaptation options in the Kangsabati River basin. Based on this assessment, a sub-basin scale is recommended for evaluating these aspects, especially for water resources and agricultural systems, through multi-level stakeholder input.     

Cognitive and institutional influences on farmers’ adaptive capacity: insights into barriers and opportunities for transformative change in central Arizona

The prospect of unprecedented environmental change, combined with increasing demand on limited resources, demands adaptive responses at multiple levels. In this article, we analyze different attributes of farm-level capacity in central Arizona, USA, in relation to farmers’ responses to recent dynamism in commodity and land markets, and the institutional and social contexts of farmers’ water and production portfolios. Irrigated agriculture is at the heart of the history and identity of the American Southwest, although the future of agriculture is now threatened by the prospect of “mega-droughts,” urbanization and associated inter-sector and inter-state competition over water in an era of climatic change. We use farm-level survey data, supplemented by in-depth interviews, to explore the cross-level dimensions of capacity in the agriculture–urban nexus of central Arizona. The surveyed farmers demonstrate an interest in learning, capacity for adaptive management and risk-taking attitudes consistent with emerging theory of capacity for land use and livelihood transformation. However, many respondents perceive their self-efficacy in the face of future climatic and hydrological change as uncertain. Our study suggests that the components of transformational capacity will necessarily need to go beyond the objective resources and cognitive capacities of individuals to incorporate “linking” capacities: the political and social attributes necessary for collective strategy formation to shape choice and opportunity in the future.     

Climate change and natural disasters: macroeconomic performance and distributional impacts

Commonly occurring natural events become natural disasters when they affect the population through death and injury, and/or through the destruction of natural and physical capital on which people rely for their livelihood and quality of life. Climate change plays a role in that it tends to increase the frequency and intensity of weather-related natural disasters. Additionally, climate change may put people at risk by influencing access to water, coastal flooding, disease and hunger, and leaving them with a more degraded environment, leading, in turn, to increased vulnerability. The purpose of this paper is to present a review and synthesis of the literature and case studies addressing differential impacts of climate change-related natural disasters on a society and its economy. Developed and developing countries show different vulnerabilities to natural disasters. Even within countries, impacts vary significantly across population and economic sectors. When losses from natural disasters are large, their cumulative effect can have notable macroeconomic impacts, which feed back to further pronounce existing income inequalities and lower income levels. Impacts tend to be most pronounced for women, the young and elderly, and people of ethnic or racial minorities.

长江流域资源环境研究信息系统的研制和应用

介绍了长江流域资源与环境研究信息系统的建立与应用。长江流域资源与环境研究信息系统包括4个数据库：（1）长江流域资源与环境信息库,包括长江流域的自然，自然保护区，行政区，社会，经济等方面的信息；（2）长江流域资源生态环境科学文献数据库，收录了有关研究长江流域水，土地，能源，破产，人力等各类资源的保护与开发，生态保护与建设，环境保护与重要，大型工程建设中的移民问题，城市与城市化，农业与农村发展，区域经济发展，环境变化与生物多样性等的文献；（3）长江流域自然灾害数据库，收录了长江流域发生物气象灾害，地质灾害，生物灾害等各类自然灾害；（4）长江流域网站导航，收集了有关长江流域的信息网站，配合用户友好的检索系统，用户可以快捷地找到所需信息。     

Are South Indian farmers adaptable to global change? A case in an Andhra Pradesh catchment basin

Global changes are already having an impact on South Indian farmers. Climate change is affecting the agricultural sector since it is dependent on climatic conditions and water resource availability. The impacts tend to be greater in semi-arid hard rock areas with few water resources. Furthermore, South India area is experiencing a profound agrarian crisis, which is linked, among others, to debt and credit problems. The study reported in this paper aims to develop a methodology to compare and rank farmers according to their ability to adapt to global change. The definition of adaptive capacity is based on a livelihood assets approach. Indicators are evaluated through individual surveys among farmers, then, weighted using the analytic hierarchy process and aggregated via compromise programming. The result is a standardized score measuring the distance of each farmer from an ideal adaptive capacity. Farmers are ranked according to this distance, which allows a comparison of their relative ability to adapt. At the basin scale, it shows that the geographic position of farmers is a significant factor in adaptation performance. The proximity of an administrative center contributes to an increase of their adaptive capacity. Small farming areas limit the adaptive capacities of marginal and small farmers while the largest farmers are constrained by economic factors such as large loans. These study findings offer interesting indications on the variability of farmers’ weaknesses and are bringing a better understanding of the causes of poor performance.     

Livelihood vulnerability approach to assessing climate change impacts on mixed agro-livestock smallholders around the Gandaki River Basin in Nepal

Climate change vulnerability depends upon various factors and differs between places, sectors and communities. People in developing countries whose subsistence livelihood depends mainly upon agriculture and livestock production are identified as particularly vulnerable. Nepal, where the majority of people are in a mixed agro-livestock system, is identified as the world’s fourth most vulnerable country to climate change. However, there is limited knowledge on how vulnerable mixed agro-livestock smallholders are and how their vulnerability differs across different ecological regions in Nepal. This study aims to test two vulnerability assessment indices, livelihood vulnerability index and IPCC vulnerability index, around the Gandaki River Basin of central Nepal. A total of 543 households practicing mixed agro-livestock were surveyed from three districts, namely Dhading, Syangja and Kapilvastu representing three major ecological zones: mountain, mid-hill and Terai (lowland). Data on socio-demographics, livelihood determinants, social networks, health, food and water security, natural disasters and climate variability were collected and combined into the indices. Both indices differed for mixed agro-livestock smallholders across the three districts, with Dhading scoring as the most vulnerable and Syangja the least. Substantial variation across the districts was observed in components, sub-components and three dimensions (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) of vulnerability. The findings help in designing site-specific intervention strategies to reduce vulnerability of mixed agro-livestock smallholders to climate change.