Sustainable Development in Small Island Developing States

This paper explores the status of sustainable development in small island developing states (SIDS), through the presentation of a case study on the Maldives, which is a typical small island developing state in the Central Indian Ocean. At the outset, a brief history of sustainable development as related to SIDS on the international agenda is outlined, starting from Rio to Barbados to Johannesburg. SIDS are expected to face many challenges and constraints in pursuing sustainable development due to their ecological fragility and economic vulnerability. It is the position of this paper that issues related to environmental vulnerability are of the greatest concern. A healthy environment is the basis of all life-support systems, including that of human well-being and socio-economic development. Priority environmental problems are: climate change and sea-level rise, threats to biodiversity, threats to freshwater resources, degradation of coastal environments, pollution, energy and tourism. Among these, climate change and its associated impacts are expected to pose the greatest threat to the environment and therefore to sustainable development. For small islands dependent on fragile marine ecosystems, in particular on coral reefs, for their livelihoods and living space, adverse effects of climate change such as increased frequency of extreme weather events and sea-level rise will exacerbate the challenges they already face. It is concluded that the paper path from Rio to Barbados to Johannesburg has made significant progress. However, much remains to be done at the practical level, particularly by the developed countries in terms of new and additional efforts at financial and technical assistance, to make sustainable development a reality for SIDS.     

Conceptions of vulnerability in adaptation projects: a critical examination of the role of development aid agencies in Timor-Leste

It is widely acknowledged that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to climate change and will continue to require external support to adapt to current and future impacts. The international development community plays an important role in supporting SIDS adapt to climatic changes, and calls for increased international commitment have been made. However, how the vulnerability of SIDS to climate change is being conceptualised and, subsequently, how adaptation programmes are conceived and designed by the international development community are yet to be critically explored. Using Timor-Leste as a case study, this study examines the conceptual trends underpinning 32 donor-led adaptation programmes implemented from 2010 to the present date. Results show that donor-led adaptation programmes continue to conceptualise climate change vulnerability as a biophysical issue rather than a consequence of the dynamic interactions between political, institutional, economic and social structures. Adaptation policy responses therefore have limited ability to target more nuanced and broader-scale structures affecting SIDS and may be falling short in their efforts to reduce the vulnerability of SIDS. We argue that it is critical that the international development community re-conceptualise its approach to vulnerability reduction in SIDS. We conclude by highlighting how the Paris Agreement, with its expanding understanding of vulnerability, can act as a useful instrument to promote such changes.     

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.     

Freshwater stress on small island developing states: population projections and aridity changes at 1.5 and 2 °C

Small island developing states (SIDS) face multiple threats from anthropogenic climate change, including potential changes in freshwater resource availability. Due to a mismatch in spatial scale between SIDS landforms and the horizontal resolution of global climate models (GCMs), SIDS are mostly unaccounted for in GCMs that are used to make future projections of global climate change and its regional impacts. Specific approaches are required to address this gap between broad-scale model projections and regional, policy-relevant outcomes. Here, we apply a recently developed methodology that circumvents the GCM limitation of coarse resolution in order to project future changes in aridity on small islands. These climate projections are combined with independent population projections associated with shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) to evaluate overall changes in freshwater stress in SIDS at warming levels of 1.5 and 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. While we find that future population growth will dominate changes in projected freshwater stress especially toward the end of the century, projected changes in aridity are found to compound freshwater stress for the vast majority of SIDS. For several SIDS, particularly across the Caribbean region, a substantial fraction (~?25%) of the large overall freshwater stress projected under 2 °C at 2030 can be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. Our findings add to a growing body of literature on the difference in climate impacts between 1.5 and 2 °C and underscore the need for regionally specific analysis.     

Derivation of a household-level vulnerability index for empirically testing measures of adaptive capacity and vulnerability

Recent studies have projected significant climate change impacts in Africa. In order to understand what this means in terms of human well-being at local level, we need to understand how households can cope and adapt. This need has led many authors to argue for approaches to adaptation that are based on vulnerability analysis. Vulnerability is one of the key terms in the climate change literature, but little progress has been made in the field of its quantification. Typically, indicators are combined according to a weighing scheme, with the identification of indicators and the weighing schemes based on expert judgment rather than empirical evidence. In addition, most quantitative assessments are applied to countries or other administrative units, whereas managing climate risk has traditionally been the responsibility of households. We therefore focus on the adaptive capacity of households. We analyze the coping strategies and vulnerability to climatic stresses of agro-pastoralists in Mozambique and test the validity of a number of commonly used vulnerability indicators. We derive a household-level vulnerability index based on survey data. We find that only 9 out of 26 indicators tested exhibit a statistically significant relationship with households’ vulnerability. In total, they explain about one-third of the variation in vulnerability between households, confirming the need for more research on underlying determinants and processes of vulnerability. With inclusion of local knowledge, our study findings can be used for local targeting, priority setting and resource allocation. Complemented with studies analyzing climate change impacts and findings from country-level adaptive capacity studies, governmental policy can be informed.     

Physical basis of coastal adaptation on tropical small islands

Small tropical islands are widely recognized as having high exposure and vulnerability to climate change and other natural hazards. Ocean warming and acidification, changing storm patterns and intensity, and accelerated sea-level rise pose challenges that compound the intrinsic vulnerability of small, remote, island communities. Sustainable development requires robust guidance on the risks associated with natural hazards and climate change, including the potential for island coasts and reefs to keep pace with rising sea levels. Here we review these issues with special attention to their implications for climate-change vulnerability, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction in various island settings. We present new projections for 2010–2100 local sea-level rise (SLR) at 18 island sites, incorporating crustal motion and gravitational fingerprinting, for a range of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change global projections and a semi-empirical model. Projected 90-year SLR for the upper limit A1FI scenario with enhanced glacier drawdown ranges from 0.56 to 1.01 m for islands with a measured range of vertical motion from ?0.29 to +0.10 m. We classify tropical small islands into four broad groups comprising continental fragments, volcanic islands, near-atolls and atolls, and high carbonate islands including raised atolls. Because exposure to coastal forcing and hazards varies with island form, this provides a framework for consideration of vulnerability and adaptation strategies. Nevertheless, appropriate measures to adjust for climate change and to mitigate disaster risk depend on a place-based understanding of island landscapes and of processes operating in the coastal biophysical system of individual islands.     

Climate change vulnerability and resilience: current status and trends for Mexico

Climate change alters different localities on the planet in different ways. The impact on each region depends mainly on the degree of vulnerability that natural ecosystems and human-made infrastructure have to changes in climate and extreme meteorological events, as well as on the coping and adaptation capacity toward new environmental conditions. This study assesses the current resilience of Mexico and Mexican states to such changes, as well as how this resilience will look in the future. In recent studies (Moss et al. in Vulnerability to climate change: a quantitative approach. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Washington DC, 2001; Brenkert and Malone in Clim Change 72:57–102, 2005; Malone and Brenkert in Clim Change 91:451–476, 2008), the Vulnerability–Resilience Indicators Model (VRIM) is used to integrate a set of proxy variables that determine the resilience of a region to climate change. Resilience, or the ability of a region to respond to climate variations and natural events that result from climate change, is given by its adaptation and coping capacity and its sensitivity. On the one hand, the sensitivity of a region to climate change is assessed, emphasizing its infrastructure, food security, water resources, and the health of the population and regional ecosystems. On the other hand, coping and adaptation capacity is based on the availability of human resources, economic capacity, and environmental capacity. This paper presents two sets of results. First, we show the application of the VRIM to determine state-level resilience for Mexico, building the baseline that reflects the current status. The second part of the paper makes projections of resilience under socioeconomic and climate change and examines the varying sources and consequences of those changes. We used three tools to examine Mexico’s resilience in the face of climate change, i.e., the baseline calculations regarding resilience indices made by the VRIM, the projected short-term rates of socioeconomic change from the Boyd–Ibarrarán computable general equilibrium model, and rates of the IPCC-SRES scenario projections from the integrated assessment MiniCAM model. This allows us to have available change rates for VRIM variables through the end of the twenty-first century.     

Regional challenges in tourist wetland systems: an integrated approach to the Ria Formosa in the Algarve, Portugal

Coastal change and coastal erosion have been a long-existing source of environmental changes. Traditionally, regional changes in wetland systems and their relations to agriculture, industry and urbanization are a major cause for concern. Nowadays, coastal distress has reached even global proportions: the problems of coastal change are strongly linked to the loss of fragile ecosystems, eutrophication and loss of biodiversity. Given that over 70 % of all human activity is in coastal areas, it is clear that many environmental and socio-economic changes occur at a local level and manifest themselves in a spatial context. The physical effect on the geographic morphology is evident in the related consequences for land use. A deep understanding of the changes in land use, and simultaneously in coastal erosion, calls for the integrated monitoring of the most relevant effects in fragile regions. The Ria Formosa wetland system is a unique and very special wetland system in the Algarve (Portugal) and has been integrated in the NATURA 2000 network. The strong symbiosis between nature, agriculture and fisheries, as well as tourism, in the Algarve has led to spatial-ecological synergy. By using coastal recession analysis techniques by means of remote-sensed imagery from 1987, 1989, 2000 and 2007 and by combining this information with available data sets on surface erodibility, a cost surface on multitemporal transitions of land-use classes from the CORINE Land Cover data allows us to assess and integrate a decision-making framework by means of GIS. The novelty of this combined approach to land-use management is the blend of spatial analysis and remote-sensing techniques that share important information on ecosystems at risk. Our findings suggest a growing concern to the area brought by anthropogenic activity. This is studied to a spatial accounting of the distribution of land changes and transitions, where (1) a significant loss of coastal area is witnessed along the Ria Formosa, leading in particular to loss of agricultural land. (2) This loss is underpinned by an increase in leisure facilities to respond to the tourism demand of the region of the Algarve, while landscape metrics suggest that these areas are more volatile for coastal erosion. (3) Simulation through Markov chains on the land use and effects of urban, agricultural, forest and wetland dynamics suggests that by 2026, it is expected to continue to have an increase in urban land, leading to an augmented vulnerability of coastal erosion processes brought by the loss of forest areas which protect from erosion given the root system that directly protects from the existing wave energy and helps sedimentation processes. The above methodology and the availability of data that are freely available render such a combined approach interesting for many other regions of the world, where tourism, coastal change and regional balance are of the utmost importance for sustainable development. The advanced research tools presented here are of critical importance for coastal zone degradation management.     

Geo-based model of intrinsic resilience to climate change: an approach to nature-based solution

A substantial amount of researches have been done on the understanding and assessment of resilience from multiple perspectives, e.g., ecological, social, economic, and disaster management; however, recent international approach is trending toward more systematic and comprehensive risk assessment processes. Pivotal element of such approach is to emphasizing on promoting resilience in the face of climate change impacts. Conceptualization and identification of parameters to assess climate change resilience is one of the remaining challenges that academia is facing. Reviewing the principles of the climate change resilience highlighted in the literature, the goal of this study is to introduce a theoretical model about the climate change resilience concept to facilitate and enhance future climate change resilience-related researches. The model proposed in this study is named as the climate change resilience of place (C-CROP) model, a geo-based model which is designed to assess climate change resilience for any geographic region with an approach to the incorporation of nature-based solution (NBS). C-CROP model considers vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity to climate change on one side; another side is co-benefit, climate proofing, and disservices of proposed NBS. An operational framework of the C-CROP model is also proposed, that allows spatially explicit assessment of climate change resilience in real world by developing an indicator-based framework and comprehensive mapping using the geospatial approach. Therefore, this model includes vulnerability hotspots identification; better understanding of the pathways of resilience; and solutions (i.e., NBS) to infer the impacts and effectiveness of resilience-building interventions.

     

A review of vulnerability indicators for deltaic social–ecological systems

The sustainability of deltas worldwide is under threat due to the consequences of global environmental change (including climate change) and human interventions in deltaic landscapes. Understanding these systems is becoming increasingly important to assess threats to and opportunities for long-term sustainable development. Here, we propose a simplified, yet inclusive social–ecological system (SES)-centered risk and vulnerability framework and a list of indicators proven to be useful in past delta assessments. In total, 236 indicators were identified through a structured review of peer-reviewed literature performed for three globally relevant deltas—the Mekong, the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna and the Amazon. These are meant to serve as a preliminary “library” of potential indicators to be used for future vulnerability assessments. Based on the reviewed studies, we identified disparities in the availability of indicators to populate some of the vulnerability domains of the proposed framework, as comprehensive social–ecological assessments were seldom implemented in the past. Even in assessments explicitly aiming to capture both the social and the ecological system, there were many more indicators for social susceptibility and coping/adaptive capacities as compared to those relevant for characterizing ecosystem susceptibility or robustness. Moreover, there is a lack of multi-hazard approaches accounting for the specific vulnerability profile of sub-delta areas. We advocate for more comprehensive, truly social–ecological assessments which respond to multi-hazard settings and recognize within-delta differences in vulnerability and risk. Such assessments could make use of the proposed framework and list of indicators as a starting point and amend it with new indicators that would allow capturing the complexity as well as the multi-hazard exposure in a typical delta SES.     

Coastal management, climate change adaptation and sustainability in small coastal communities: leatherback turtles and beach loss

Beaches are frequently subjected to erosion and accretion that are influenced by coastal development interventions and natural variations due to storms and changes in river flow. Climate change may also exacerbate beach erosion and accretion. Natural scientists are concerned with the sustainability of species dependent on the beach ecosystem. Policymakers are pre-occupied with the economic sustainability of coastal communities should species decline and prolonged beach loss occur. The aim of this paper is to explore the linkage between science and policy by reporting the findings of a study of coastal change impacts on leatherback turtle nesting and analysing the socio-economic and adaptation implications of these changes for coastal communities. Grande Riviere, Trinidad, was used as a case study. Primary fieldwork investigated unsustainable coastal management practices. A questionnaire was administered to examine livelihoods, including ecotourism based on leatherback turtle nesting, and knowledge and awareness of climate change. One key finding of the study was that the community’s livelihoods were natural resources dependent, and that natural beach dynamics and unsustainable coastal management practices posed major threats to natural resource and economic sustainability. Another key finding was that, despite these impacts, community knowledge and awareness of climate change in general was low, and there was a perception of state responsibility for climate change adaptation. The research findings have global applicability for coastal communities at risk of exposure and that are highly vulnerable to natural resources damage arising from anthropogenic stress and potential climate change. These communities require policy reforms to strengthen current coastal management practices and adaptation responses aimed at ensuring long-term sustainability.     

The Gathering Storm: managing adaptation to environmental change in coastal communities and small islands

Small island communities are inherently coastal communities, sharing many of the attributes and challenges faced by cities, towns and villages situated on the shores of larger islands and continents. In the context of rapidly changing climates, all coastal communities are challenged by their exposure to changing sea levels, to increasingly frequent and severe storms, and to the cumulative effects of higher storm surges. Across the globe, small island developing states, and small islands in larger states, are part of a distinctive set of stakeholders threatened, not only by climate change but also by shifting social, economic, and cultural conditions. C-Change is a collaborative International Community–University Research Alliance (ICURA) project whose goal is to assist participating coastal communities in Canada and the Caribbean region to share experiences and tools that aid adaptation to changes in their physical environment, including sea-level rise and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events associated with climate change. C-Change researchers have been working with eight partner communities to identify threats, vulnerabilities, and risks, to improve understanding of the ramifications of climate change to local conditions and local assets, and to increase capacity for planning for adaptation to their changing world. This paper reports on the knowledge gained and shared and the challenges to date in this ongoing collaboration between science and society.     

A new method for analysing socio-ecological patterns of vulnerability

This paper presents a method for the analysis of socio-ecological patterns of vulnerability of people being at risk of losing their livelihoods as a consequence of global environmental change. This method fills a gap in methodologies for vulnerability analysis by providing generalizations of the factors that shape vulnerability in specific socio-ecological systems and showing their spatial occurrence. The proposed method consists of four steps that include both quantitative and qualitative analyses. To start, the socio-ecological system exposed to global environmental changes that will be studied needs to be determined. This could, for example, be farmers in drylands, urban populations in coastal areas and forest-dependent people in the tropics. Next, the core dimensions that shape vulnerability in the socio-ecological system of interest need to be defined. Subsequently, a set of spatially explicit indicators that reflect these core dimensions is selected. Cluster analysis is used for grouping the indicator data. The clusters found, referred to as vulnerability profiles, describe different typical groupings of conditions and processes that create vulnerability in the socio-ecological system under study, and their spatial distribution is provided. Interpretation and verification of these profiles is the last step in the analysis. We illustrate the application of this method by analysing the patterns of vulnerability of (smallholder) farmers in drylands. We identify eight distinct vulnerability profiles in drylands that together provide a global overview of different processes taking place and sub-national detail of their distribution. By overlaying the spatial distribution of these profiles with specific outcome indicators such as conflict occurrence or migration, the method can also be used to understand these phenomena better. Analysis of vulnerability profiles will in a next step be used as a basis for identifying responses to reduce vulnerability, for example, to facilitate the transfer of best practices to reduce vulnerability between different places.     

Fine-grain spatial patterning and dynamics of land use and agrobiodiversity amid global changes in the Bolivian Andes

Our research addresses the gap in scientific research on the fine-grain spatial patterns and social–ecological interactions of land use and agrobiodiversity. The spatial dimension of agrobiodiversity dynamics potentially strengthens the social–ecological resilience and food security of smallholders by buffering risk and vulnerability. Our research integrates the scientific theories, concepts, and methods of spatial externalities, social–ecological interactions, geospatial land and global change sciences, and political ecology. We designed a case study of the Arbieto-Tarata landscape in the Bolivian Andes that comprises a globally significant agrobiodiversity hot spot of Andean maize. The Arbieto-Tarata landscape, which contains nearly 8000 fields at 2500–2800 masl, is representative of mixed-use smallholder agri-food systems amid global changes. Our research predicts spatial spillover and edge effects of combined social and environmental factors leading to the clustering of same-crop fields. Findings reveal significant levels of the predicted clustering between 2006 and 2012. The degree of this clustering is found to differ among geographic and environmental sub-areas reflecting fine-grain variation of local causal linkages. Extra-local causal linkages include high levels of migration, water resource shortages, and urbanization. Results show the influences of informal and formal coordination in the spatial clustering of same-crop fields. This field-level coordination improves the efficiency of resource allocations and lowers costs of production. It enables the viability of high-agrobiodiversity Andean maize in smallholder land use and agri-food systems amid global changes. The article discusses the broader policy and scientific implications of these findings including scaling up and support of the social–ecological resilience of agrobiodiversity globally.     

Livelihoods and landscapes at the threshold of change: disaster and resilience in a Chiapas coffee community

In 2005, torrential rains associated with Hurricane Stan devastated farm systems in southern Mexico. We present a case study on the impacts of and responses to Hurricane Stan by coffee households in three communities in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, with the objective of illuminating the linkages between household vulnerability and resilience. We analyze data from 64 household surveys in a cluster analysis to link household impacts experienced to post-Stan adaptive responses and relate these results with landscape-level land-cover changes. The degree of livelihood change was most significant for land-constrained households whose specialization in coffee led to high exposure and sensitivity to Stan and little adaptive capacity. Across the sample, the role of coffee in livelihood strategies declined, as households sought land to secure subsistence needs and diversified economically after Stan. Nevertheless, livelihoods and landscape outcomes were not closely coupled, at least at the temporal and spatial scale of our analysis: We found no evidence of land-use change associated with farmers’ coping strategies. While households held strong attitudes regarding effective resource management for risk reduction, this knowledge does not necessarily translate into capacities to manage resilience at broader scales. We argue that policy interventions are needed to help materialize local strategies and knowledge on risk management, not only to allow individual survival but also to enhance resilience at local, community and landscape scales.     

Community-based scenario planning: a process for vulnerability analysis and adaptation planning to social–ecological change in coastal communities

The current and projected impacts of climate change make understanding the environmental and social vulnerability of coastal communities and the planning of adaptations important international goals and national policy initiatives. Yet, coastal communities are concurrently experiencing numerous other social, political, economic, demographic and environmental changes or stressors that also need to be considered and planned for simultaneously to maintain social and environmental sustainability. There are a number of methods and processes that have been used to study vulnerability and identify adaptive response strategies. This paper describes the stages, methods and results of a modified community-based scenario planning process that was used for vulnerability analysis and adaptation planning within the context of multiple interacting stressors in two coastal fishing communities in Thailand. The four stages of community-based scenario planning included: (1) identifying the problem and purpose of scenario planning; (2) exploring the system and types of change; (3) generating possible future scenarios; and (4) proposing and prioritizing adaptations. Results revealed local perspectives on social and environmental change, participant visions for their local community and the environment, and potential actions that will help communities to adapt to the changes that are occurring. Community-based scenario planning proved to have significant potential as an anticipatory action research process for incorporating multiple stressors into vulnerability analysis and adaptation planning. This paper reflects on the process and outcomes to provide insights and suggest changes for future applications of community-based scenario planning that will lead to more effective learning, innovation and action in communities and related social–ecological systems.     

Unravelling the association between the impact of natural hazards and household poverty: evidence from the Indian Sundarban delta

Coastal regions have long been settled by humans due to their abundant resources for livelihoods, including agriculture, transportation, and rich biodiversity. However, natural and anthropogenic factors, such as climate change and sea-level rise, and land subsidence, population pressure, developmental activities, pose threats to coastal sustainability. Natural hazards, such as fluvial or coastal floods, impact poorer and more vulnerable communities greater than more affluent communities. Quantitative assessments of how natural hazards affect vulnerable communities in deltaic regions are still limited, hampering the design of effective management strategies to increase household and community resilience. Drawing from Driving Forces–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR), we quantify the associations between household poverty and the likelihood of material and human loss following a natural hazard using new survey data from 783 households within Indian Sundarban Delta community. The results suggest that the poorest households are significantly more likely to endure material and human losses following a natural hazard and repeated losses of livelihood make them more vulnerable to future risk. The results further suggest that salinization, tidal surge, erosion, and household location are also significant predictors of economic and human losses. Given the current and projected impact of climate change and importance of delta regions as the world’s food baskets, poverty reduction and increase societal resilience should be a primary pathway to strengthen the resilience of the poorest populations inhabiting deltas.     

Assessing coastal vulnerability to climate change: comparing segmentation at global and regional scales

Recent concerns about potential climate-change effects on coastal systems require the application of vulnerability assessment tools in order to define suitable adaptation strategies and improve coastal zone management effectiveness. In fact, while various research efforts were devoted to evaluate coastal vulnerability to climate change on a national to global level, fewer applications were carried out so far to develop more comprehensive and site-specific vulnerability assessments suitable to plan possible adaptation measures at the regional scale. In this respect, specific indicators are needed to address climate-change-related issues for coastal zones and to identify vulnerable areas at the regional level. Two sets of coastal vulnerability indicators were selected, one for regional and one for global studies, respectively, concerning the same features of coastal systems, including topography and slope, geomorphological characteristics, presence and distribution of wetlands and vegetation cover, density of coastal population and number of coastal inhabitants. The proposed set of indicators for the regional scale was chosen taking into account the availability of environmental and territorial data for the whole coastal area of the Veneto region and was based on site-specific datasets characterized by a spatial resolution appropriate for a regional analysis. Moreover, a GIS-based segmentation procedure was applied to divide the coastline into linear segments, homogeneous in terms of vulnerability to climate change and sea-level rise at the regional scale. This approach allowed to divide the Veneto shoreline into 140 segments with an average length of about 1 km, while the global scale approach identified four coastal segments with an average length of about 66 km. The performed comparison indicated how the more detailed approach adopted at the regional scale is essential to understand and manage the complexities of the specific study area. In fact, the 25-m DEM employed at the regional scale provided a more accurate differentiation of the coastal area's elevation and thus of coastal susceptibility to the inundation risks, compared to the 1-km DEM used at the global level. Moreover, at the regional level the use of a 1:20,000 geomorphological map allowed to differentiate the unique landform class detected at the global level (e.g., fluvial plain) in a variety of more detailed coastal typologies (e.g., open coast eroding sandy shores backed by bedrock) characterized by a different sensitivity to climate change and sea-level rise. Accordingly, the information provided by regional indicators can support decision-makers in improving the management of coastal resources by considering the potential impacts of climate change and in the definition of appropriate actions to reduce inundation risks, to avoid the potential loss of valuable wetlands and vegetation and to plan the nourishment of sandy beaches subject to erosion processes.     

Climate Change in Southern and Eastern Africa During the Past Millennium and its Implications for Societal Development

Climatic records from equatorial eastern Africa and subtropical southern Africa have shown that both temperature and the amount of rainfall have varied over the past millennium. Moreover, the rainfall pattern in these regions varied inversely over long periods of time. Droughts started abruptly, were of multi-decadal to multi-centennial length and the changes in the hydrological budget were of large amplitude. Changing water resources in semi-arid regions clearly must have regional influences on both ecological and socio-economic processes. Through a detailed analysis of the historical and paleoclimatic evidence from southern and eastern Africa covering the past millennium it is shown that, depending on the vulnerability of a society, climatic variability can have an immense impact on societies, sometimes positive and sometimes disastrous. Therefore, the interconnected issue of world ecosystem and social resilience is the challenge for decision-makers if sustainable development is to be reached on global and local levels.     

Exposure and vulnerability to climate extremes: population and asset exposure to coastal flooding in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The paper provides a first quantitative estimate of the potential number of people and value of assets exposed to coastal flooding in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study used an elevation-based geographic information system-analysis based on physical exposure and socio-economic vulnerability under a range of climate and socio-economic scenarios. It particularly considered a worst-case scenario assuming even if defences (natural and/or man-made) exist, they are subjected to failure under a 100-year flood event. About 8% of Dar es Salaam lies within the low-elevation coastal zone (below the 10 m contour lines). Over 210,000 people could be exposed to a 100-year coastal flood event by 2070, up from 30,000 people in 2005. The asset that could be damaged due to such event is also estimated to rise from US35 million (2005) to US35 million (2005) to US10 billion (2070). Results show that socio-economic changes in terms of rapid population growth, urbanisation, economic growth, and their spatial distribution play a significant role over climate change in the overall increase in exposure. However, the study illustrates that steering development away from low-lying areas that are not (or less) threatened by sea-level rise and extreme climates could be an effective strategic response to reduce the future growth in exposure. Enforcement of such policy where informal settlements dominate urbanisation (as in many developing countries) could undoubtedly be a major issue. It should be recognised that this analysis only provides indicative results. Lack of sufficient and good quality observational local climate data (e.g. long-term sea-level measurements), finer-resolution spatial population and asset distribution and local elevation data, and detailed information about existing coastal defences and current protection levels are identified as limitations of the study. As such, it should be seen as a first step towards analysing these issues and needs to be followed by more detailed, city-based analyses.