Framing adaptation to climate-related extreme events

Whilst mitigation has dominated policy and research agendas in recent years there is an increasing recognition that communities also need to be preparing for change that is unavoidable, partially a consequence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases already emitted to the atmosphere. The perceived need for adaptation has also received additional impetus through the high public profile now given to the impacts of current day weather variability, particularly the significant economic and social costs associated with recent extreme events. However, being a relatively new focus for both research and policy communities; practical evidence of the extent, feasibility, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of potential adaptation options remains largely lacking. In response, this paper seeks to make a contribution to this embryonic but evolving knowledge base by considering the theoretical underpinnings of adaptation and ultimately how this translates into practice ‘in the real world’. The analytical commentary, based on a bottom-up approach involving iterative engagement with key stakeholders and experts, reflects on the identification of measures that are either innovative or examples of good practice in reducing or transferring climate risks, as well as considering those ‘enabling’ institutional structures and processes that act to support implementation on the ground. The paper concludes by synthesising the key findings to date in order to highlight some of the opportunities for, and barriers to, adaptation activity.     

Modelling economic impacts and adaptation to extreme events: Insights from European case studies

Adaptation to climate change in Europe has only recently become a true policy concern with the management of extreme events one priority item. Irrespective of future climatic changes increasing the need for systematic evaluation and management of extremes, weather-related disasters already today pose substantial burdens for households, businesses and governments. Research in the ADAM project identified substantial direct risks in terms of potential crop and asset losses due to combined drought and heatwave, as well as flood hazards in Southern and Eastern Europe, respectively. This paper focuses on the indirect, medium to longer term economic risks triggered by the direct risks and mediated by policy responses. We present a selection of three economic impact and adaptation assessments and modelling studies undertaken on extreme event adaptation in Europe. Responding to a need for more economically based adaptation assessments, we address some relatively unresearched issues such as the understanding of past adaptation, the role of market response to impacts as well as government’s ability to plan for and share out extreme event risks. The first analysis undertakes an empirical exploration of observed impacts and adaptation in the agricultural sector in the UK comparing the impact of consecutive extreme events over time in order to determine whether adaptation has occurred in the past and whether this can be used to inform future estimates of adaptation rates. We find that farmers and the agricultural sector clearly have adapted to extreme events over time, but whether this rate can be maintained into the future is unclear, as some autonomous adaptation enacted seemed rather easy to be taken. Markets may mediate or amplify impacts and in the second analysis, we use an economic general equilibrium model to assess the economic effects of a reduction in agricultural production due to drought and heatwave risk in exposed regions in Spain. The analysis suggests that modelled losses to the local economy are more serious in a large-scale scenario when neighbouring provinces are also affected by drought and heatwave events. This is due to the supply-side induced price increase leading to some passing on of disaster costs to consumers. The simulation highlights the importance of paying particular attention to the spatial and distributional effects weather extremes and possibly changes therein induced by climate change may incur. Finally, we discuss how national governments may better plan their disaster liabilities resulting from a need to manage relief and reconstruction activities post event. We do so using a risk based economic planning model assessing the fiscal consequences associated with the coping with natural extremes. We identify large weather-related disaster contingent liabilities, particularly in the key flood hot spot countries Austria, Romania, and Hungary. Such substantial disaster liabilities (“hidden disaster deficits”) when interacting with weak fiscal conditions may lead to substantial additional stress on government budgets and reduced fiscal space for funding other relevant public investment projects. Overall, our paper suggests the importance of respecting the specific spatial and temporal characteristics of extreme event risk when generating information on adaptation decisions. As our adaptation decisions considered, such as using sovereign risk financing instruments are associated with a rather short time horizon, the analysis largely focuses on the management of today’s extreme events and does not discuss in detail projections of risks into a future with climate change. Such projections raise important issues of uncertainty, which in some instances may actually render future projections non-robust, a constraint to be kept in mind when addressing longer term decisions, which at the same time should account for both climate and also socioeconomic change.     

Agricultural adaptation to climate change in China

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Response of soil microorganisms to vegetational succession in Ziwuling Forest

This study investigates the changes in soil microbial populations as vegetational succession progress from abandoned farmland to climax forest in the Ziwuling Forest, which is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau, China. Different organic C and total extractable N between the fumigated and non-fumigated soils were assumed to be released from soil microorganisms. Soil microbial C was calculated using Kec = 0.38 and microbial N was calculated using Ken = 0.45. The released P was converted to microbial biomass P using Kep = 0.40. Soil bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes increased as the vegetational succession progressed. Microbial C was of the highest amount in farmland. Microbial C, N, and P generally increased from abandoned land to climax community. The results indicated significant (P < 0.05) diversities of soil microbial biomass under different vegetation. There was a significant correlation between microbial biomass and soil nutrients. Knowledge about soil microbial populations is important for forecasting vegetational succession and determining the ecological condition of the environment.     

极端降雨下绿基和灰基联用的雨洪控制效果

以福州大学为例,选取3种绿色基础措施（绿色屋顶、植被浅沟、渗透铺装）与2种灰色基础设施（增大管径、蓄水池）组合,设计了9种雨水系统改造措施方案,并根据3场不同历时极端天气降雨的实测数据,运用暴雨洪水管理模型（SWMM）模拟分析不同雨水系统改造措施方案对径流深、节点和管道的雨洪控制效果.情景模拟结果表明：3场强降雨下,绿色基础措施组合（SS7）在所有用地布局情景中对径流深的控制效果均为最优,其中中长历时强降雨下的削减比最高,达到了78%;在节点控制方面,由于3种绿色基础措施与增大管径组合措施（SS8）具备下渗、滞留和快排等特性,在3场降雨中,对节点的洪流流量和洪流时间的控制效果均为最优,接近100%;在管道控制方面,3种含绿色基础措施的组合方案（SS7,8,9）对管道满流时间与峰值流量发生时间的控制较好.通过对比这3种组合措施方案发现,在短历时强降雨中,3种绿色基础措施与蓄水池组合措施方案下（SS9）管道满流时间最短,峰值流量发生时间最迟;中长历时强降雨中3者差别不大;长历时强降雨中3种绿色基础措施组合下（SS7）管道满流时间最短,峰值流量发生时间最迟.     

水体沉积物中有效砷的测试新方法研究

一种氧化铁/醋酸纤维素复合膜(FeO/CAM)被用于太湖沉积物中砷的生物有效性评估.结果发现,在水介质中,FeO/CAM对沉积物中砷的富集量随土水比增加而呈乘幂函数减少,在土水质量比为0.025(即1:40)之后趋于某一平台值;在土水比为0.025并得到充分振荡的条件下,沉积物中释放的有效砷被FeO/CAM富集至膜中,并随时间增加而增加,至24 h后逐渐趋于平衡,这一过程恰当地模拟了生物对砷的吸收.因此,FeO/CAM可以用于有效砷的体外测试.利用FeO/CAM对12个总砷含量为6.4～34.6 mg·kg-1的太湖沉积物样品中的有效砷进行了测定.结果发现,FeO/CAM提取的有效砷含量与磷酸盐缓冲液提取的有效砷含量之间显著相关.太湖沉积物中的有效砷含量与总砷、总磷、有机质和吸附磷含量以及磷吸附饱和度显著相关,说明沉积物理化属性对有效砷含量有重要影响.FeO/CAM克服了化学试剂提取过程中引起的非有效态砷释放的根本缺陷,因此,FeO/CAM方法在沉积物有效砷含量的测定时比化学试剂提取法可能更准确.     

Financial adaptation to disaster risk in the European Union

Increasing losses from weather related extreme events coupled with limited coping capacity suggest a need for strong adaptation commitments, of which public sector responses to adjustments to actual and expected climate stimuli are key. The European Commission has started to address this need in the emerging European Union (EU) climate adaptation strategy; yet, a specific rationale for adaptation interventions has not clearly been identified, and the economic case for adaptation to extremes remains vague. Basing the diagnosis on economic welfare theory and an empirical analysis of the current EU and member states’ roles in managing disaster risk, we discuss how and where the public sector may intervene for managing climate variability and change. We restrict our analysis to financial disaster management, a domain of adaptation intervention, which is of key concern for the EU adaptation strategy. We analyse three areas of public sector interventions, supporting national insurance systems, providing compensation to the affected post event as well as intergovernmental loss sharing through the EU solidarity fund, according to the three government functions of allocation, distribution, and stabilization suggested by welfare theory, and suggest room for improvement.     

Vulnerability and adaptation to climate risks in Ontario agriculture

A vulnerability approach to climate change adaptation research is employed to explore prospects of agricultural adaptation to climatic variability and change. The methodological approach focuses on the system of concern, in this case, farms in Perth County, Ontario. Twenty-five interviews and four focus groups with farmers were used to identify climate risks on farms, and to document farmers’ responses to conditions and risks associated with climate and weather. The information collected describes a complex decision-making environment, with many forces both external and internal to the farm operation influencing management decisions. Within this environment, climate and weather are consistently referred to as a significant force influencing both farm operations and management decisions. Farmers have, however, developed a wide-range of anticipatory and reactive management strategies to manage climate risks. While these have potential to address future climate-related risks and opportunities, there are limits to adaptation, and an increase in the frequency of extreme events may exceed their adaptive capacities. Farmers are also generally unaware and/or unconcerned about future climate change, which could constrain opportunities to adopt long-term climate change adaptations.     

Integrated assessment of river health based on the conditions of water quality,aquatic life and physical habitat

The health conditions of Liao River were assessed using 25 sampling sites in April 2005, with water quality index, biotic index and physical habitat quality index.Based on the method of cluster analysis (CA) for water quality indices, it reveals that heavily polluted sites of Liao River are located at estuary and mainstream.The aquatic species surveyed were attached algae and benthic invertebrates.The result shows that the diversity and biomass of attached algae and benthic index of biotic integrity (B-IBI) are degrading as the chemical and physical quality of water bodies deteriorating.Physiochemical parameters, BOD5, CODCr, TN, TP, NH3-N, DO, petroleum hydrocarbon and conductivity, were statistically analyzed with principal component analysis and correlation analysis.The statistical results were incorporated into the integrated assessing water quality index, combining fecal coliform count, attached algae diversity, B-IBI and physical habitat quality score, a comprehensive integrated assessing system of river ecological health was established.Based on the systimetic assesment, the assessed sites are categorized into 9 "healthy" and "sub-healthy" sites and 8 "sub-sick" and "sick" sites.     

Water resources management strategy for adaptation to droughts in China

Water Scarcity and drought are recurrent phenomena in China. In the context of environmental change, an increasing tendency in drought frequency and severity is observed in China in recent years. Therefore, it is imperative to take necessary initiatives to reduce the impacts of drought. In this paper, an attempt is made to identify the best water management strategies to cope with droughts. For this objective the records of historical droughts and their impacts in China over the period of 1950?C2009 are analyzed. It is observed that the drought affected area has increased nearly by 12 folds and the drought damaged area has increased by about 22 times in China in last 60?years. Over 87,000 reservoirs were built with a total water storage capacity of about 7,064 billion m³ to cope with droughts. However, this structural supply-based management strategy was not enough to meet the increasing water demand caused by rapid economic development and population growth. A typical relationship between socio-economic development and water resources management strategy to attain sustainability in water management is developed in this study. The relationship shows that the demand-side water management strategies can be the best option to meet the challenges posed by increased severity of drought, population growth, economic development and possible climate change. The concept is later verified through the analysis of changing pattern of water consumptions by different sectors in last 60?years.     

三种有机磷萃取剂对水生生物的毒性效应

通过３种有机磷萃取剂：甲基磷酸二仲辛酯（P350）、异辛基磷酸单异辛酯（P507）和磷酸二异辛酸（P204）对不同营养级水平的单种生物：藻类（斜生棚藻）、草履虫（尾草履虫）、类（大型）、鱼类（鱼苗）的毒性试验,结果表明：３种有机磷萃取剂的毒性效应浓度（半致死浓度或半抑制浓度）为P350：0.40～9.30mg/L,P507：23.32～112.00mg/L,P204：59.50～138.00mg/L;毒性强弱的顺序为P350＞P507＞P204;建议把P350、P507、P204在水体中的安全浓度暂分别定为0.04mg/L、2.33mg/L和4.71mg/L。     

含氮杂环化合物对水生生物的毒性作用研究

研究了6种典型含氮杂环化合物对水生生物的急性毒性,获得了吲哚、吡啶、喹啉、异喹啉、2-甲基喹啉和8-羟基喹啉对小球藻的48 hEC50、对大型蚤的48 h LC50、对斑马鱼的96h LC50及对发光细菌的15min EC50值.6种物质对大型蚤、斑马鱼及发光细菌的毒性与其价分子连接性指数、辛醇/水分配系数显著相关.发光细菌毒性结果与大型蚤、斑马鱼的毒性结果显著相关,而与小球藻不相关.     

Climate change scenarios to facilitate stakeholder engagement in agricultural adaptation

To prepare agricultural systems for climate change, scientists need to be able to effectively engage with land managers and policy makers to explore potential solutions. An ongoing challenge in engagement is to distil the complexity of climate-change-management-change interactions in agro-ecological systems to identify responses that are most important for adaptation planning. This paper presents an approach for selecting climate change scenarios to provide a focal point for engaging with stakeholders to evaluate adaptation options and communicate assessment outcomes. We illustrate how scenarios selected with the approach can be used by evaluating climate change impacts and an adaptation option for livestock industries in the north-east Australian rangelands. Climate change impacts on forage production, animal liveweight gain and soil loss are found to track projected climate changes in four pasture communities; increasing by up to 50% and declining by up to 110% in response to doubled atmospheric carbon-dioxide (CO₂), 4°C warming, and +20% to ?40% changes in mean annual rainfall. The effectiveness of reducing grazing pressure as an adaptation option shows a similar response; resulting in higher forage production (up to 40%), animal liveweight gains (up to 59%) and gross margins (up to 40%), and reduced soil erosion (down by 91%) per hectare relative to the baseline management. The results show that a few key scenarios may be selected to represent the range of global climate model (GCM) projections for use in assessing and communicating impacts and adaptation; simplifying the assessments and allowing limits to the effectiveness of adaptation options to be explored. The approach provides a framework for capturing and communicating trends in climate change impacts and the utility of options, which are required for successful engagement of stakeholders in finding viable adaption responses.     

不同填料负载微生物去除地表水氨氮的研究

氨氮浓度过高是黑臭水体难以治理的重要原因之一.本研究比较了经活性污泥驯化的菌株与市售硝化菌液两种不同菌剂分别在有机填料聚丙烯纤维和无机填料沸石上的挂膜特性,考察了不同挂膜填料性质、填料粒径、源水pH值等因素对氨氮去除效果的影响,并通过高通量测序解构不同填料生物膜的微生物群落差异,探究填料负载微生物的生物膜法去除氨氮的综...     

Resilience in practice: Five principles to enable societies to cope with extreme weather events

The concept of resilience is used by many in different ways: as a scientific concept, as a guiding principle, as inspirational ‘buzzword’, or as a means to become more sustainable. Next to the academic debate on meaning and notions of resilience, the concept has been widely adopted and interpreted in policy contexts, particularly related to climate change and extreme weather events. In addition to having a positive connotation, resilience may cover aspects that are missed in common disaster risk management approaches. Although the precise definition of resilience may remain subject of discussion, the views on what is important to consider in the management of extreme weather events do not differ significantly. Therefore, this paper identifies the key implications of resilience thinking for the management of extreme weather events and translates these into five practical principles for policy making.     

Using expert elicitation to define successful adaptation to climate change

This paper develops definitions of adaptation and successful adaptation to climate change, with a view to evaluating adaptations. There is little consensus on the definition of adapting to climate change in existing debates or on the criteria by which adaptation actions can be deemed successful or sustainable. In this paper, a variant of the Delphi technique is used to elicit expert opinion on a definition of successful adaptation to climate change. Through an iterative process, expert respondents coalesced around a definition based on risk and vulnerability and agreed that a transparent and acceptable definition should reflect impacts on sustainability. According to the final definition, agreed by the Delphi panel, successful adaptation is any adjustment that reduces the risks associated with climate change, or vulnerability to climate change impacts, to a predetermined level, without compromising economic, social, and environmental sustainability.     

处理乙硫醇废气生物滤池中微生物的初步鉴定

生物滤池是废气生物处理的主要技术之一 ,其生物相包括细菌和真菌 .对于疏水性有机物质 ,真菌具有更高的处理效率 ,而且真菌对环境的适应性也比细菌强 .本研究采用生物滤池处理含乙硫醇废气 ,通过对生物滤池填料上附着的微生物进行分离鉴定表明 ,初步判定分离出的菌株分别为常现青霉、宛氏拟青霉、文氏曲霉和顶孢头孢霉 .     

极端环境下的生命

想象现在是2030年．地勤人员把你送上了前往火星的宇宙飞船。你的任务就是在这个红色星球上寻找生命。天文学家认为火星和地球在年轻的时候非常相似。还有一些科学家发现地球上的化石表明地球上的生命“仅仅”诞生于10亿年前(而地球到现在则有45亿岁了)。也许火星上也有生命存在。