Climate change in the urban environment: Advancing,measuring and achieving resiliency

Climate change poses new and unique challenges that threaten lives and livelihoods. Given the increasing risks and looming uncertainty of climate change, increasing attention has been directed towards adaptation, or the strategies that enable humanity to persist and thrive through climate change the best it can. Though climate change is a global problem often discussed at the national scale, urban areas are increasingly seen as having a distinct role, and distinctive motivation and capacity, for adaptation. The 12 articles in this special issue explore ways of understanding and addressing climate change impacts on urban areas. Together they reveal young but rapidly growing scholarship on how to measure, and then overcome, challenges of climate change. Two key themes emerge in this issue: 1) that we must identify and then overcome current barriers to urban adaptation and 2) frameworks/metrics are necessary to identify and track adaptation progress in urban settings. Both of these themes point to the power of indicators and other quantitative information to inform priorities and illuminate the pathway forward for adaptation. As climate change is an entirely new challenge, careful measurement that enables investment by private and public parties is necessary to provide efficient outcomes that benefit the greatest number of people.     

Climate change adaptation in the Sahel

Climate change adaptation now occupies central stage on the agenda of most environmental initiatives in Africa. Our current understanding on the state of adaptation is limited, however, both globally and in Africa in particular. This study examines the status of adaptation in the Sahel by reviewing the primary peer review literature that reports concrete climate change adaptation actions. Based on an analysis of 70 peer review papers that document 414 discrete adaptations, we create a snap shot of adaptations developed between 1975 and 2015, and also calculate the percentages of adaptation. The results show that from a country to country perspective, Kenya has the highest number of reported adaptation actions (75 or 18.1%). The percentages indicate that the adaptive capacity of the entire study area is generally low for all the countries being that the highest country-level percentage is recorded in Kenya and it is 18%. Regionally, West Africa has more adaptation actions (261 or 63%) when compared to other regions of the Sahel. Regional level percentages suggest a higher level of adaptation at the regional level being that the percentage falls within the high scale range. The most commonly used adaptation actions reported are income diversification and water harnessing respectively. When categorized, technically related adaptation actions dominate the adaptation charts. The decade 2008–2016 recorded the highest number of adaptations (65.2%). Adaptation actions are also reported to be triggered by climatic and non-climatic drivers which both record high frequencies but the climatic drivers (98%) of adaptation are slightly dominant relative to the non-climatic drivers (95%). These results should be viewed as proxies of climate change adaptation as much information may be found in grey literature and non-peer review national communications which are left out here because of their relative low standardization and acceptability due to the absence of peer review.     

Climate change and transdisciplinary science: Problematizing the integration imperative

In this article we critically examine the ‘integration imperative’ in transdisciplinary environmental science and build on social constructivist and political theories to suggest alternative approaches of knowledge co-production in transdisciplinary settings. Our argument builds upon a body of literature in social studies of science to cull insights about knowledge co-production, social learning, and the ecology of team science, particularly as it relates to climate change adaptation. Couched in this transdisciplinary literature, we demonstrate, is the assumption that integration necessarily can and should be a regulative ideal. We critique this assumption by examining the ‘messy’ politics of achieving consensus among radically different, and sometimes irreconcilable, ways of knowing. We argue that the integration imperative conceals the friction, antagonism, and power inherent in knowledge co-production, which in turn can exclude innovative and experimental ways of understanding and adapting to climate change. By way of conclusion, the final section explores three alternative models of knowledge co-production – triangulation, the multiple evidence-based approach, and scenario building – and illustrates their application in the context of transdisciplinary research in climate change adaptation in the arctic, focusing on alternative means of cross-boundary engagement with indigenous ways of knowing.     

耐汞好氧反硝化菌的鉴定及适应汞离子的特性研究

从实验室保存的高效好氧反硝化菌种中筛选得到一株抗汞细菌并命名为X1,经生理生化特性和16SrRNA基因序列分析,初步鉴定该菌为恶臭假单胞菌(Pseudomonasputida).对菌株X1进行Hg2适应特性研究,结果表明,对于Hg2浓度为2、67++4、、mg·L-1的实验组,菌体分别需要被延滞12、284018、、h后进入对数期,而8mg·L-1实验组则不能进入对数期;在好氧反硝化过程中,Hg2浓度在7mg·L+-1范围内各实验组的好氧反硝化过程中NO3-N浓度变化速率、NO2-N累积峰值、pH特征点出现时刻随着Hg2浓度的增大而增大(延迟),而Hg2浓度呈现出同硝氮一致的下降趋势,并且在对数期内除汞率能达到100%.研究表明,菌株X1对Hg2最大适宜耐受浓度为7mg·L+-1,相应适应时间约为40h.在最大耐受浓度范围内,菌株X1的生长和好氧反硝化过程呈现出"被抑制-适应-受刺激"的变化规律,其中,被抑制的时间和受刺激的程度都随着Hg2浓度的增大而增大,主要表现为延滞期的延长和对数期的缩短.此外,在对数期,菌株X1的生长速率、达到稳定期的浓度和好+氧反硝化速率也都随着Hg2浓度的增大而增大,且大于无Hg2菌组.++     

Some Lessons Learned from Public Health on the Process of Adaptation

Lessons learned from more than 150 years of public health research and intervention can provide insights to guide public health professionals and institutions as they design and implement specific strategies, policies, and measures to increase resilience to climate variability and change. This paper identifies both some modifications to public health systems that may enhance adaptive capacity, and lessons drawn from the history of managing environmental and other threats in the public health sector that may have relevance for other sectors as they design approaches to increase their adaptive capacity to more effectively cope with climate variability and change. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent official US EPA policy.     

Water Appropriation Systems for Adapting to Water Shortages in Iraq

Climate variability and population growth have intensified the search internationally for measures to adapt to fluctuations in water supplies. An example can be found in the lower part of the transboundary Tigris‐Euphrates Basin where water shortages in 2008‐2009 resulted in high economic costs to irrigation farmers. Losses to irrigators in the lower basin have made a compelling case to identify flexible methods to adapt to water shortage. Few published studies have systematically examined ways to enhance the flexibility of water appropriation systems to adapt to water shortage. This article addresses an ongoing challenge in water governance by examining how profitability at both the farm and basin levels is affected by various water appropriation systems. Four water appropriation systems are compared for impacts on farm income under each of three water supply scenarios. Results show that a (1) proportional sharing of water shortages among provinces and (2) unrestricted water trading rank as the top two appropriation systems. The shadow price of water for irrigation rises from zero at a full water supply level to US$93/1,000 m³ when supply falls to 20% of full levels. Similar methods could be used to analyze challenges facing the design or implementation of water appropriation systems in the world's irrigated regions.     

Depoliticizing adaptation: a critical analysis of EU climate adaptation policy

The ways in which climate adaptation is understood in the European Union is examined via three key policy documents: the Strategy on adaptation and the Green and White Papers that preceded it. Drawing on Poststructuralist Discourse Theory, light is shed on the implicit values and assumptions that underpin this recent policy initiative. The findings demonstrate a tension between the declared ambition to act on adaptation and implicit suggestions that nothing really has to change, and the challenge can be addressed by market and technological innovations, and by mainstreaming adaptation into existing sectoral policies. The policy discourse effectively serves to depoliticize choices societies make in response to climate change, presenting adaptation as a non-political issue. Insight into European adaptation discourse enables deeper understanding of recent policy developments and opens up possible entry points for critique.     

Autonomous emergency braking systems adapted to snowy road conditions improve drivers' perceived safety and trust

Objective: This study investigated drivers' evaluation of a conventional autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system on high and reduced tire–road friction and compared these results to those of an AEB system adaptive to the reduced tire–road friction by earlier braking. Current automated systems such as the AEB do not adapt the vehicle control strategy to the road friction; for example, on snowy roads. Because winter precipitation is associated with a 19% increase in traffic crashes and a 13% increase in injuries compared to dry conditions, the potential of conventional AEB to prevent collisions could be significantly improved by including friction in the control algorithm. Whereas adaption is not legally required for a conventional AEB system, higher automated functions will have to adapt to the current tire–road friction because human drivers will not be required to monitor the driving environment at all times. For automated driving functions to be used, high levels of perceived safety and trust of occupants have to be reached with new systems. The application case of an AEB is used to investigate drivers' evaluation depending on the road condition in order to gain knowledge for the design of future driving functions.

Methods: In a driving simulator, the conventional, nonadaptive AEB was evaluated on dry roads with high friction (μ = 1) and on snowy roads with reduced friction (μ = 0.3). In addition, an AEB system adapted to road friction was designed for this study and compared with the conventional AEB on snowy roads with reduced friction. Ninety-six drivers (48 males, 48 females) assigned to 5 age groups (20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, and 60–75 years) drove with AEB in the simulator. The drivers observed and evaluated the AEB's braking actions in response to an imminent rear-end collision at an intersection.

Results: The results show that drivers' safety and trust in the conventional AEB were significantly lower on snowy roads, and the nonadaptive autonomous braking strategy was considered less appropriate on snowy roads compared to dry roads. As expected, the adaptive AEB braking strategy was considered more appropriate for snowy roads than the nonadaptive strategy. In conditions of reduced friction, drivers' subjective safety and trust were significantly improved when driving with the adaptive AEB compared to the conventional AEB. Women felt less safe than men when AEB was braking. Differences between age groups were not of statistical significance.

Conclusions: Drivers notice the adaptation of the autonomous braking strategy on snowy roads with reduced friction. On snowy roads, they feel safer and trust the adaptive system more than the nonadaptive automation.     

Bridging the financial gap in climate adaptation: Dutch planning and land development through a new institutional lens

Based on a case study of the Stadshaven port redevelopment in Rotterdam, this paper explores whether existing spatial planning mechanisms and processes can be used to facilitate local-level investment in climate-resilient public infrastructure and/or whether new processes and mechanisms are required to encourage investment in climate adaptation. The study reveals several key findings. First, a lack of conventional funding sources or formalised regulatory framework allowed room for experimentation with existing mechanisms and flexible strategies. Second, project planners are currently ambivalent towards introducing new mechanisms as a means to overcome implementation challenges. The case provides evidence about the role of the governance process, not simply as a means of system coordination that exists in isolation from institutional norms and values, but rather as a space for innovation, which can contribute towards reducing the financial gap associated with climate adaptation.     

Using environmental and geographic data to optimize ex situ collections and preserve evolutionary potential

Maintenance of biodiversity through seed banks and botanical gardens, where the wealth of species’ genetic variation may be preserved ex situ, is a major goal of conservation. However, challenges can persist in optimizing ex situ collections if trade-offs exist among cost, effort, and conserving species evolutionary potential, particularly when genetic data are not available. We evaluated the genetic consequences of population preservation informed by geographic (isolation by distance [IBD]) and environmental (isolation by environment [IBE]) distance for ex situ collections for which population provenance is available. We used 19 genetic and genomic data sets from 15 plant species to assess the proportion of population genetic differentiation explained by geographic and environmental factors and to simulate ex situ collections prioritizing source populations based on pairwise geographic distance, environmental distance, or both. Specifically, we tested the impact prioritizing sampling based on these distances may have on the capture of neutral, functional, or putatively adaptive genetic diversity and differentiation. Individually, IBD and IBE explained limited population genetic differences across all 3 genetic marker classes (IBD, 10–16%; IBE, 1–5.5%). Together, they explained a substantial proportion of population genetic differences for functional (45%) and adaptive (71%) variation. Simulated ex situ collections revealed that inclusion of IBD, IBE, or both increased allelic diversity and genetic differentiation captured among populations, particularly for loci that may be important for adaptation. Thus, prioritizing population collections based on environmental and geographic distance data can optimize genetic variation captured ex situ. For the vast majority of plant species for which there is no genetic information, these data are invaluable to conservation because they can guide preservation of genetic variation needed to maintain evolutionary potential within collections.