Assessing the components of adaptive capacity to improve conservation and management efforts under global change

Natural‐resource managers and other conservation practitioners are under unprecedented pressure to categorize and quantify the vulnerability of natural systems based on assessment of the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of species to climate change. Despite the urgent need for these assessments, neither the theoretical basis of adaptive capacity nor the practical issues underlying its quantification has been articulated in a manner that is directly applicable to natural‐resource management. Both are critical for researchers, managers, and other conservation practitioners to develop reliable strategies for assessing adaptive capacity. Drawing from principles of classical and contemporary research and examples from terrestrial, marine, plant, and animal systems, we examined broadly the theory behind the concept of adaptive capacity. We then considered how interdisciplinary, trait‐ and triage‐based approaches encompassing the oft‐overlooked interactions among components of adaptive capacity can be used to identify species and populations likely to have higher (or lower) adaptive capacity. We identified the challenges and value of such endeavors and argue for a concerted interdisciplinary research approach that combines ecology, ecological genetics, and eco‐physiology to reflect the interacting components of adaptive capacity. We aimed to provide a basis for constructive discussion between natural‐resource managers and researchers, discussions urgently needed to identify research directions that will deliver answers to real‐world questions facing resource managers, other conservation practitioners, and policy makers. Directing research to both seek general patterns and identify ways to facilitate adaptive capacity of key species and populations within species, will enable conservation ecologists and resource managers to maximize returns on research and management investment and arrive at novel and dynamic management and policy decisions.     

Safety I–II,resilience and antifragility engineering: a debate explained through an accident occurring on a mobile elevating work platform

Occupational health and safety (OHS) represents an important field of exploration for the research community: in spite of the growth of technological innovations, the increasing complexity of systems involves critical issues in terms of degradation of the safety levels. In such a situation, new safety management approaches are now mandatory in order to face the safety implications of the current technological evolutions. Along these lines, performing risk-based analysis alone seems not to be enough anymore. The evaluation of robustness, antifragility and resilience of a socio-technical system is now indispensable in order to face unforeseen events. This article will briefly introduce the topics of Safety I and Safety II, resilience engineering and antifragility engineering, explaining correlations, overlapping aspects and synergies. Secondly, the article will discuss the applications of those paradigms to a real accident, highlighting how they can challenge, stimulate and inspire research for improving OHS conditions.     

Adaptation Options Strategies for Hazards and Vulnerability Mitigation: An International Perspective

The broad objective of this special issue of Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change is to address some of the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the policies, programs, and measures that might be applied to natural hazards and their impacts in an era of climate change. Given the global impacts of climate change and world-wide pattern of increasing losses from natural hazards we necessarily adopt an international perspective. The specific goals of the special issue are to: (a) encompass experiential aspects, emphasizing current practice of mitigation and its associated measures, and their results; and (b) explore primary or root causes of alarming shifts in human and economic costs of environmental extremes. Special emphasis is placed on how human activities are playing a key role in enhancing vulnerability to NTEE (nature-triggered environmental extremes), quite independently from the anthropogenic causes of climate change. The goals are also (c) to examine costs, risks, and benefits (of all kinds including social, political, ecological) of mitigation, and adjustment and adaptation measures; and (d) analyze policy implications of alternative measures. These components are expected to make significant contributions to policy considerations – formulation, implementation and evaluation. There is much uncertainty about the rate of climate change; however, the fact of increase of the atmospheric temperature in the last century is no longer a subject of scientific or policy debate. Due to such changes in the geophysical parameters, certain types of nature-triggered environmental extreme events are likely to continue to increase. How global warming will affect regional climates and pertinent variables is not well known, limiting our ability to predict consequential effects. This factor poses serious constraints against any straightforward policy decisions. Research findings of the work of this volume reaffirm that human dimensions, specifically our awareness and decision-making behavior, are powerful explanatory factors of increasing disaster losses. Disaster mitigation through addressing human, social, and physical vulnerability is one of the best means for contributing to ‘climate change adaptation plans’, and sustainable development goals. Recent lessons from various countries have depicted that the formulation of mitigation strategies cannot be exclusively top-down as it requires social, political, and cultural acceptance and sense of ownership. An interactive, participatory process, involving local communities, produces best expected outcomes concerning mitigation, preparedness, and recovery. An emerging consensus is that there is a need to move towards the ‘mission’ of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction which aims at building disaster resilient communities by promoting increased awareness of the importance of disaster reduction as an integral component of sustainable development, with the goal of reducing human, social, economic and environmental losses due to natural hazards and related technological and environmental disasters. Sharing of best practices and lessons globally is certain to produce more efficiency and understanding in policy and decision making.     

Optimizing the biodiversity gain from agri-environment schemes

How best to optimize the biodiversity gain from agri-environment schemes (AES) has recently been identified as a key policy-relevant question. Here, the effects of two features of lowland agricultural landscapes on the abundance and diversity of larger moths are contrasted. Although both features bring about positive effects, hedgerow trees have a larger impact than 6 m wide grassy field margins. Whilst AES payments are given to create and maintain grass margins, no financial reward is currently offered for the retention of hedgerow trees. Furthermore, it was only in areas where the amount of land under AES was experimentally increased, by targeting farmers, that the presence of hedgerow trees resulted in a substantially higher abundance (+60%) and diversity (+38%) of moths. Thus, by using larger moths as bio-indicators of landscape-scale quality, it is demonstrated that improvements to the cost-effectiveness of AES could be achieved, firstly, by providing more appropriate financial rewards to farmers for different landscape features, and secondly, through landscape-scale targeting of farmers to encourage participation in AES.     

Does Wetland Location Matter When Managing Wetlands for Watershed‐Scale Flood and Drought Resilience?

Wetland protection and restoration strategies that are designed to promote hydrologic resilience do not incorporate the location of wetlands relative to the main stream network. This is primarily attributed to the lack of knowledge on the effects of wetland location on wetland hydrologic function (e.g., flood and drought mitigation). Here, we combined a watershed‐scale, surface–subsurface, fully distributed, physically based hydrologic model with historical, existing, and lost (drained) wetland maps in the Nose Creek watershed in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America to (1) estimate the hydrologic functions of lost wetlands and (2) estimate the hydrologic functions of wetlands located at different distances from the main stream network. Modeling results showed wetland loss altered streamflow, decreasing baseflow and increasing stream peakflow during the period of the precipitation events that led to major flooding in the watershed and downstream cities. In addition, we found that wetlands closer to the main stream network played a disproportionately important role in attenuating peakflow, while wetland location was not important for regulating baseflow. The findings of this study provide information for watershed managers that can help to prioritize wetland restoration efforts for flood or drought risk mitigation.     

Disaster risk from a macroeconomic perspective: a metric for fiscal vulnerability evaluation

The Disaster Deficit Index (DDI) measures macroeconomic and financial risk in a country according to possible catastrophic scenario events. Extreme disasters can generate financial deficit due to sudden and elevated need of resources to restore affected inventories. The DDI captures the relationship between the economic loss that a country could experience when a catastrophic event occurs and the availability of funds to address the situation. The proposed model utilises the procedures of the insurance industry in establishing probable losses, based on critical impacts during a given period of exposure; for economic resilience, the model allows one to calculate the country's financial ability to cope with a critical impact. There are limitations and costs associated with access to resources that one must consider as feasible values according to the country's macroeconomic and financial conditions. This paper presents the DDI model and the results of its application to 19 countries of the Americas and aims to guide governmental decision‐making in disaster risk reduction.     

How do you build back better so no one is left behind? Lessons from Sint Maarten,Dutch Caribbean,following Hurricane Irma

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals call for action to build back better in ways that leave no one behind. At the same time, ensuring a local voice is increasingly central to humanitarian engagement. These aims contrast with limited analysis of how local actors might be supported in these respects during response and recovery, and how far recommendations are specific or generalisable across richer and poorer national contexts. The paper begins by comparing lessons learnt by survivors and community organisations in Sint Maarten, Dutch Caribbean, following a high‐income state‐led response to Hurricane Irma in 2017 with the priorities of lower income, humanitarian‐led endeavours. The differences reveal the importance of economic resources as the basis for individual self‐reliance and a fragmented civil society with limited leadership ambitions in Sint Maarten. Strong cross‐cultural alignment nevertheless allows for a globally‐relevant and yet contextually‐sensitive framework for survivor‐led action and reconstruction.     

The barriers to environmental sustainability in post‐disaster settings: a case study of transitional shelter implementation in Haiti

Disaster recovery operations that do not account for environmental sustainability (ES) risk exacerbating the impact of the disaster and hindering long‐term recovery efforts. Yet aid agencies do not always consider ES. This research is a case study of the recovery that followed the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Using timber and concrete procurement as proxies for broader post‐disaster operations, research examined perceptions of ES as well as attempts at and barriers to incorporating it into programming. Identified barriers can be grouped into two categories: (1) prioritisations and perceptions within the disaster response sector that resulted in limited enthusiasm for incorporating ES into programming, and (2) structural and organisational barriers within the disaster response framework that impeded ES attempts and served as a further disincentive to incorporating ES into programming. As a result of those barriers, incorporation of ES was sporadic and inconsistent and often depended on the capacity and motivation of specific implementers.     

The adoption of a Climate Disaster Resilience Index in Chennai,India

Results derived from the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI)—consisting of five dimensions (economic, institutional, natural, physical, and social), 25 parameters, and 125 variables—reflect the abilities of people and institutions to respond to potential climate‐related disasters in Chennai, India. The findings of this assessment, applied in the 10 administrative zones of the city, reveal that communities living in the northern and older parts of Chennai have lower overall resilience as compared to the flourishing areas (vis‐à‐vis economic growth and population) along the urban fringes. The higher resilience of communities along the urban fringes suggests that urbanisation may not necessarily lead to a deterioration of basic urban services, such as electricity, housing, and water. This indication is confirmed by a strong statistical correlation between physical resilience and population growth in Chennai. The identification of the resilience of different urban areas of Chennai has the potential to support future planning decisions on the city's scheduled expansion.     

Modeling and optimizing efficiency gap between managers and operators in integrated resilient systems: The case of a petrochemical plant

The reliability issue in complex industrial systems such as oil, gas, petrochemical companies, nuclear and aviation industries has been of great importance. Resilience engineering (RE) is a new attitude toward the improvement of safety and reliability in the stated systems. One of the challenges a resilient system might face is the gap between work as imagined by managers and work as actually done by operators. This study will introduce a new framework named integrated resilience engineering (IRE) as a result of developing the concept of RE. The data used in this research have been obtained by means of questionnaire from a petrochemical company. Thereafter, the efficiency of operators and managers are calculated in RE and IRE frameworks through data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Then, the gaps between managers and operators are analyzed in two frameworks. The results are indicative of a significant growth in the number of efficient operators and managers in IRE framework compared to RE framework. Besides, the efficiency mean of managers and operators in IRE framework has experienced the growth of 1.8% and 5% compared to RE framework, respectively. The efficiency gap between managers and operators in IRE framework has also enjoyed the improvement of 88% compared to RE framework. Generally, it can be said that the suggested items of this research has led to the betterment of managers and operators’ efficiency and of the efficiency gap between them. Therefore, these items can improve the resilience and safety of complex systems. The results of Spearman test show that there is a strong direct correlation between the DEA results in two frameworks. This is the first study that examines the efficiency gap between operators and managers based on the RE principles and by means of DEA approach.