Urban heat indicator map for climate adaptation planning

By 2050, 75 % of the world’s population will live in cities and the occurrence of heat wave events might have doubled. Mapping the climate and land use change impact for urban heat events should set the agenda for adaptation planning at the local scale. Literature on urban heat mapping does not reveal a clear indicator to visualise the urban heat impacts that includes consequences of land use and climate changes for planning purposes. This paper introduces a stepwise approach to develop a single complex indicator to map the urban heat impact for local climate adaptation planning processes. Information on climatic drivers and land use characteristics are combined and projected for future land use and climate change impacts. Next, several visualisation techniques are developed to investigate which techniques are most effective to visualise complex information with multiple variables in one visualisation. A usability test is performed to investigate how indicator and map meet the information and communication needs of policy makers. Our findings reveal that it is important to add information on future impacts to set the agenda for adaptation planning at the local scale. Applying cartographic techniques in a map series presentation has proven to be effective to map complex information in a single image and fulfil most of the identified information needs. Based on our finding, we introduce the information enrichment chain as a promising approach to support local adaptation planning.     

Will funding to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and (forest) Degradation (REDD+) stop conversion of peat swamps to oil palm in orangutan habitat in Tripa in Aceh,Indonesia?

Tripa is the last remaining peat-swamp forest that harbours a potentially viable Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) sub-population in a formally but not effectively protected area. It appears to be a simple showcase where current efforts to financially support reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) converge with biodiversity and social co-benefits. In practice, however, situation is more complex. REDD+ efforts interact with global palm oil trade and regulatory approaches (the moratorium) to achieve national goals for emissions reduction under umbrella of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMA). To contextualize this debate, we assessed (i) land-use history and formal basis of palm-oil companies’ rights; (ii) carbon (C) stocks, historical emission levels and potential emissions that can be avoided; (iii) economic benefits of land-use options and opportunity costs of avoiding emissions; (iv) biodiversity and environmental services; and (v) alternative options for “high C stock development” and employment generation. Natural forest cover declined (54 % in 1995, 18 % in 2009) while oil palm increased 4–39 %. Aboveground C stocks decreased from 148 Mg ha^?1 in 1990 to 61 Mg ha^?1 in 2009, leading to average annual emissions of 14.5 Mg (carbon dioxide) CO₂e ha^?1 year^?1. While 41 % of these emissions yield less than American Dollar (USD) 5 of current economic benefits per Mg CO₂e emitted and might be compensated by REDD+, nearly all new emissions derive from a breach of existing laws, regulations and voluntary palm-oil standards. Substantial investment in alternative employment is needed, rather than carbon payments per se, to support livelihoods in a low carbon emissions economy.     

e-Serem – A Web-Based Manual For The Estimation of Emission Reductions From JI and CDM Projects

This paper presentse-SEREM (Smart Emission ReductionEstimation Manual), a cost-free, easilyaccessed and updated, web-based manual forestimating emission reductions from Joint Implementation (JI) andClean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects. e-SEREM's main functions arethe selection of a benchmark for a specificproject type in the power or heat sectorand the calculation of the annual andcumulative emission reductions accrued bythis project for its crediting lifetime.e-SEREM was developed in order to test itsapplicability and practicality in assistingproject developers and evaluators toelaborate baselines easily and calculatethe emission credits earned by candidate JIor CDM projects hosted in several countries.