Sea-level rise impacts on Africa and the effects of mitigation and adaptation: an application of DIVA

This paper assesses sea-level rise impacts on Africa at continental and national scales including the benefits of mitigation and of applying adaptation measures, considering four scenarios of global mean sea-level rises from 64 to 126 cm in the period of 1995–2100. We find that in 2100, 16–27 million people are expected to be flooded per year, and annual damage costs range between US5 and US 5 and US 9 billion, if no adaptation takes place. Mitigation reduces impacts by 11–36%. Adaptation in the form of building dikes to protect against coastal flooding and nourishing beaches to protect against coastal erosion reduces the number of people flooded by two orders of magnitude and cuts damage costs in half by 2100. Following such a protection strategy would require substantial investment. First, Africa’s current adaptation deficit with respect to coastal flooding would need to be addressed. DIVA suggests that a capital investment of US300 billion is required to build dikes adapted to the current surge regime and US 300 billion is required to build dikes adapted to the current surge regime and US 3 billion per year for maintenance. In addition, between US2 and US 2 and US 6 billion per year needs to be spent on protecting against future sea-level rise and socio-economic development by 2100. This suggests that protection is not effective from a monetary perspective but may still be desirable when also taking into account the avoided social impact. We conclude that this issue requires further investigation including sub-national scale studies that look at impacts and adaptation in conjunction with the development agenda and consider a wider range of adaptation options and strategies.     

Sea-level rise vulnerability in the countries of the Coral Triangle

Sea-level rise is a major threat facing the Coral Triangle countries in the twenty-first century. Assessments of vulnerability and adaptation that consider the interactions among natural and social systems are critical to identifying habitats and communities vulnerable to sea-level rise and for supporting the development of adaptation strategies. This paper presents such an assessment using the DIVA model and identifies vulnerable coastal regions and habitats in Coral Triangle countries at national and sub-national levels (administrative provinces). The following four main sea-level rise impacts are assessed in ecological, social and economic terms over the twenty-first century: (1) coastal wetland change, (2) increased coastal flooding, (3) increased coastal erosion, and (4) saltwater intrusion into estuaries and deltas. The results suggest that sea-level rise will significantly affect coastal regions and habitats in the Coral Triangle countries, but the impacts will differ across the region in terms of people flooded annually, coastal wetland change and loss, and damage and adaptation costs. Indonesia is projected to be most affected by coastal flooding, with nearly 5.9 million people expected to experience flooding annually in 2100 assuming no adaptation. However, if adaptation is considered, this number is significantly reduced. By the end of the century, coastal wetland loss is most significant for Indonesia in terms of total area lost, but the Solomon Islands are projected to experience the greatest relative loss of coastal wetlands. Damage costs associated with sea-level rise are highest in the Philippines (US $6.5 billion/year) and lowest in the Solomon Islands (US $70,000/year). Adaptation is estimated to reduce damage costs significantly, in particular for the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia (between 68 and 99%). These results suggest that the impacts of sea-level rise are likely to be widespread in the region and adaptation measures must be broadly applied.     

A guide towards climate change adaptation in the livestock sector: adaptation options and the role of robust decision-making tools for their economic appraisal

Economic appraisal and technical effectiveness of adaptation options are key criteria for judging climate change adaptation investment decisions in all sectors. Yet relatively little methodological guidance exists for determining the most appropriate appraisal techniques for different adaptation options. This paper provides adaptation options and scopes relevant appraisal methods in agriculture focussing on livestock production specifically. We find that for many adaptation options for livestock agriculture, standard (expected) cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate tool. For adaptation options requiring long lead times or those with long lifetimes, techniques incorporating uncertainty (‘robust’ methods) are more suitable, including real options analysis, portfolio analysis and robust decision-making. From a comprehensive list of adaptation options in the livestock sector, we identify the most appropriate appraisal technique for each option and describe how the robust appraisal tools could be applied to heat stress, flood risk and water management.

     

Looking beyond the average agricultural impacts in defining adaptation needs in Europe

The effects of climate change on agriculture are often characterised by changes in the average productivity of crops; however, these indicators provide limited information regarding the risks associated with fluctuations in productivity resulting from future changes in climate variability that may also affect agriculture. In this context, this study evaluates the combined effects of the risks associated with anomalies reflected by changes in the mean crop yield and the variability of productivity in European agro-climatic regions under future climate change scenarios. The objective of this study is to evaluate adaptation needs and to identify regional effects that should be addressed with greater urgency in the light of the risks and opportunities that are identified. The results show differential effects on regional agriculture and highlight the importance of considering both regional average impacts and the variability in crop productivity in setting priorities for the adaptation and maintenance of rural incomes and agricultural insurance programmes.     

Environmental externalities in relation to agricultural sector in Thailand with trade-linked analysis

Thailand plays an important role in the international trade of food and agricultural products, which is in alignment with its national strategy of serving as the “kitchen of the world.” When looking at its agricultural promotion and export policies, the country only counts the value gains from exports while neglecting environmental externalities related to plantation practices. The purpose of this study was to perform a trade-off analysis between consumptive water, land, and fertilizer use together with the economic values of major crops for export and consumption in the country. The results show that to gain income from agricultural exports, the country has exploited various natural resources. The area used to harvest rice, sugarcane, cassava, and rubber adds up to approximately 15.3 million ha: 7.2 million ha of which is for domestic consumption and 8.1 ha for export. To produce Thailand’s agricultural exports, total water use is estimated to be 49.8–67.5 billion m³ per year (61–65 %), while the amount used to produce crops for domestic consumption is 26.5–43.7 billion m³ per year (35–39 %). Meanwhile, 1,056–1,826 thousand tons (54 %) of fertilizer was used on crops for domestic consumption, and 1,222–1,370 thousand tons (46 %) of fertilizer was used on export crops. The best crop choice for export in terms of its export value, land use, fertilizer use, and water consumption is rubber. The worst crop choices for export are rice and cassava. More sustainable agricultural practices are needed to effect improvements such as increased yields and reduced fertilizer and water use.     

The research-policy nexus in climate change adaptation: experience from the urban water sector in South East Queensland,Australia

Despite an exponential growth in the volume of adaptation research over the last decade, there is still a research gap in regard to the provision of suitable information to adequately inform climate change adaptation policy makers. Contributing to this gap is a paucity of research reporting on the effectiveness of implemented adaptation strategies. This paper reports on the success, failures and future risks of the responses taken by the South East Queensland (SEQ) water sector during the Millennium Drought. The adaptation strategy employed a portfolio approach mixing ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ adaptations. Strategies included the following: large-scale water manufacturing facilities and distribution networks; the exploitation of local water resources; regulatory instruments; institutional reforms; support for research and training and a range of demand management programmes. The strategies employed were innovative and in many cases required rigorous scientific evidence for their development, implementation and follow-up assessments. However, we show that there has been considerable disparity between anticipated and actual policy outcomes, which points to maladaptive consequences. By revisiting the effectiveness of implemented adaptation strategies in the SEQ water sector, our paper provides evidence for the need for integrative studies with genuine policy integration.     

Linking agricultural adaptation strategies,food security and vulnerability: evidence from West Africa

Adaptation strategies to reduce smallholder farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability and seasonality are needed given the frequency of extreme weather events predicted to increase during the next decades in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in West Africa. We explored the linkages between selected agricultural adaptation strategies (crop diversity, soil and water conservation, trees on farm, small ruminants, improved crop varieties, fertilizers), food security, farm household characteristics and farm productivity in three contrasting agro-ecological sites in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana and Senegal). Differences in land area per capita and land productivity largely explained the variation in food security across sites. Based on land size and market orientation, four household types were distinguished (subsistence, diversified, extensive, intensified), with contrasting levels of food security and agricultural adaptation strategies. Income increased steadily with land size, and both income and land productivity increased with degree of market orientation. The adoption of agricultural adaptation strategies was widespread, although the intensity of practice varied across household types. Adaptation strategies improve the food security status of some households, but not all. Some strategies had a significant positive impact on land productivity, while others reduced vulnerability resulting in a more stable cash flow throughout the year. Our results show that for different household types, different adaptation strategies may be ‘climate-smart’. The typology developed in this study gives a good entry point to analyse which practices should be targeted to which type of smallholder farmers, and quantifies the effect of adaptation options on household food security. Subsequently, it will be crucial to empower farmers to access, test and modify these adaptation options, if they were to achieve higher levels of food security.     

Obstacles to climate change adaptation decisions: a case study of sea-level rise and coastal protection measures in Kiribati

International aid is increasingly focused on adaptation to climate change. At recent meetings of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the developed world agreed to rapidly increase international assistance to help the developing world respond to the impacts of climate change. In this paper, we examine the decision-making challenges facing internationally supported climate change adaptation projects, using the example of efforts to implement coastal protection measures (e.g. sea walls, mangrove planting) in Kiribati. The central equatorial Pacific country is home to the Kiribati Adaptation Project, the first national-level climate change adaptation project supported by the World Bank. Drawing on interview and document research conducted over an 8-year period, we trace the forces influencing decisions about coastal protection measures, starting from the variability and uncertainty in climate change projections, through the trade-offs between different measures, to the social, political, and economic context in which decisions are finally made. We then discuss how sub-optimal adaptation measures may be implemented despite years of planning, consultation, and technical studies. This qualitative analysis of the real-world process of climate change adaptation reveals that embracing a culturally appropriate and short-term (~20 years) planning horizon, while not ignoring the longer-term future, may reduce the influence of scientific uncertainty on decisions and provide opportunities to learn from mistakes, reassess the science, and adjust suboptimal investments. The limiting element in this approach to adaptation is likely to be the availability of consistent, long-term financing.     

Constraints and capacities for novel livelihood adaptation: lessons from agricultural adoption in an African dryland pastoralist system

Regional Environmental Change - Climate change, land use change, and sociopolitical and institutional transitions in African drylands have resulted in the loss, fragmentation, and degradation of...     

An integrated decision-support process for adaptation planning: climate change as impetus for scenario planning in an agricultural region of Canada

The amount of information required to adapt to climate change is vast: downscaled climate projections, information on environmental impact, sectoral performance, external drivers, regional strategies, policies and practices. It can be argued that most of this information is accessible at the community/regional level, and thus, the important challenges to adaptation are not information gaps, but constraints created by fragmented planning decisions and a sector-by-sector basis for financial and human resource allocations. To strategically address this through adaptation planning, we developed and tested a place-based decision-making framework that creates an integrated platform for considering regional and global sectoral drivers in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Using available socioeconomic and biophysical information from regional authorities, alternative future scenarios were used to describe the range of socioeconomic futures and their vulnerabilities to climate change. We found that: (1) integration of diverse sets of available data (rather than narrowly focused sectoral assessments) helped identify shared common objectives (maximizing the long-term environmental, economic, social well-being within the region), (2) a high degree of congruence existed as the key drivers of change, irrespective of sector, (3) exploring the future scenarios highlighted shared regional priorities and helped identify adaptation priorities requiring more integrated regional planning.     

Sanitation entrepreneurship in rural Indonesia: a closer look

Enterprises are playing increasing roles in facilitating access to sanitation products and services in Indonesia and other developing economies. This study investigated the factors affecting the sustainability of sanitation enterprises in rural Indonesia. Interviews with 33 organisations representing sanitation enterprises, associations of sanitation enterprises, national and international civil society organisations (CSOs), donor organisations and national and local government agencies were conducted to explore different stakeholder perceptions about enterprise roles. The research revealed factors specific to the sanitation entrepreneurs themselves, such as their skills, entrepreneurial traits, pro-social motivations and intrinsic motivations, as well as factors within their enabling environment. Insufficient customer demand, inadequate capacity building opportunities, lack of financing options for entrepreneurs and their customers, and limited government support were observed to undermine sanitation enterprise success. Industry associations were found to be a useful intermediary support mechanism, particularly in the absence of significant government support for enterprises. However, such associations could also stifle innovation, and their role needs to be carefully developed, including financially sustainable models for such associations. This study has implications for how governments and CSOs in Indonesia and elsewhere might best support the role of enterprises and entrepreneurship towards improved sanitation outcomes.     

Climate change and temperature rise in the Greater Beirut Area: implications on heat-related premature mortality

This study attempts to quantify climate change-induced increase in premature mortality associated with temperature rise with corresponding socioeconomic implications in the context of an urban coastal city, taking the Greater Beirut Area as a study area. Future climatic conditions under four different emissions scenarios were considered to cover a broad spectrum of driving forces and potential social, economic and technologic evolutions. During the first half of the twenty-first century, the expected life losses due to high temperatures in hot days are offset by expected life gains due to improved temperatures in cold days, except under the scenario which characterizes fossil fuel intensive development. By the year 2095, the annual average all-cause premature mortality is expected to increase by 3–15 %, depending on the scenario.     

Leadership within regional climate change adaptation networks: the case of climate adaptation officers in Northern Hesse,Germany

In the climate adaptation literature, leadership tends to be an understudied factor, although it may be crucial for regional adaptation governance. This article shows how leadership can be usefully conceptualized and operationalized within regional governance networks dealing with climate adaptation. It applies an integrative framework inspired by complexity leadership theory, distinguishing several leadership functions to enhance the adaptive capacity of regional networks. We focus on one specific institutional innovation, appointed climate adaptation officers, who seek to connect science and governance practice, and to mainstream climate adaptation. Our question is twofold: What is the potential of climate adaptation officers to advance the adaptation agenda and to what extent did their establishment and working practice mirror the various leadership functions needed to raise the adaptive capacity of the regional network they operated in? The integrative leadership framework structures the analysis of climate adaptation officers forming part of a government-funded project seeking to enhance adaptation to climate variability in the central German region of Northern Hesse. The data consist of interviews with scientists and regional authority employees and project documentation including an evaluation. We find that climate adaptation officers raised awareness for climate adaptation and helped to shape and implement a number of projects within the overall KLIMZUG programme, highlighting impeding and enabling factors. The process of setting up this institutional innovation involved all forms of leadership functions and is an example of vertical mainstreaming. Its operation involved most clearly enabling and connective leadership functions and is an example of horizontal mainstreaming.     

Autonomous adaptation to riverine flooding in Satkhira District,Bangladesh: implications for adaptation planning

Systematic understanding of adaptation measures utilised by households in developing countries is needed to identify the constraints they face, and the external interventions or adaptation planning needed to overcome them. Understanding of autonomous household adaptation patterns remains underdeveloped. In particular, little is known regarding whether households are implementing incremental or transformational adaptation measures as well as the implications of this for adaptation planning. We demonstrate the suitability of the risk hazard approach for understanding autonomous household adaptation patterns and discuss the implications for planned adaptation. To achieve this, we use an in-depth village case study from an area of Bangladesh particularly vulnerable to climate change, using qualitative semi-structured household interviews as primary material. We find that the risk hazard approach is ideal for exploring autonomous adaptations because of its capacity for understanding how households respond to livelihood risk, and what resources are required for it to be most effective. However, the risk hazard approach overlooks equity and fairness considerations need to be integrated due to the insufficient emphasis on these concerns.

     

Green banking initiatives: a qualitative study on Indian banking sector

Environment, Development and Sustainability - The environmental concern is on rise in all types of business; however, banking assumes a special niche due to its ability to influence the economic...     

Widening the scope: linking coastal sedimentation with watershed dynamics in Java,Indonesia

Watershed processes and their effects on coasts are shaped by numerous interacting natural and societal factors. The knowledge of these factors and processes is often limited. This makes the field prone to politicisations with debates, research, and interventions being confined to a few selected factors. Debates on the causes of high river sediment loads and coastal sedimentation in Java have focussed on rainfed agriculture on peasants’ private lands, while other drivers have been neglected. This has undermined the effectiveness of watershed management. This paper links the sedimentation of the Segara Anakan lagoon on Java’s south coast with landscape characteristics and transformations in its catchment. Three-fourths of the lagoon have silted up since 1857/60. This is the result of a much broader range of drivers than commonly assumed to date. In addition to rainfed agriculture on peasants’ private lands, these drivers include coffee cultivation, timber extraction, plantation development, and in-migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; erosion on contested state forest and plantation lands; state forest management practices; slope cuts to enlarge agricultural fields; agriculture in riparian zones; erosion from roads, trails, and settlements; river channel and floodplain modifications; and volcanic eruptions. The choice and expectations of societal responses aimed at reducing river sediment loads and coastal sedimentation hence need to be reconsidered, and related debates and research agendas must be broadened.

     

Erratum to: Widening the scope: linking coastal sedimentation with watershed dynamics in Java,Indonesia

Regional Environmental Change -     

Community-based adaptation in low-lying islands in the Philippines: challenges and lessons learned

Community-based adaptation (CBA) seeks to address climate risks and socio-economic drivers of vulnerability simultaneously. However, as CBA activities appear very similar to standard development work, difficulties in identifying good practices arise. To clarify the role of CBA, this study elucidated how climate change can impact pre-existing development problems by investigating the experiences of four low-lying island communities in central Philippines. The islands currently suffer from frequent and extreme tidal flooding (following an earthquake-induced land subsidence in 2013, with a magnitude that is broadly similar to sea-level rise projections under a 1.5 to 2 °C global warming scenario), and endured a dry spell in 2016. The study also identified various publicly and privately initiated adaptation strategies, and evaluated their resilience against actual biophysical events. The study conducted focus group discussions with local leaders and in-depth interviews with government officials and residents in March 2016. Results show that tidal flooding impacted almost all aspects of daily life on the islands, while the dry spell completely depleted their limited water supplies. The strategies implemented by governments and NGOs (e.g., seawalls, rainwater collectors) were found to be inadequate in preventing tidal flooding and compensating for the dry spell. Also, communities used coral stones and plastic waste for raising the floors of their homes, which have an erosive effect on their capacity to adapt in the long term. Lack of community participation in publicly initiated projects and lack of adaptation funding for community-based strategies were the greatest obstacles to implementing climate-resilient solutions.     

Carbon price impacts on sector cost:based on an input-output model of Beijing

Under the pressure of sustained growth in energy consumption in China,the implementation of a carbon pricing mechanism is an effective economic policy measure for promoting emission reduction,as well as a hotspot of research among scholars and policy makers.In this paper,the effects of carbon prices on Beijing’s economy are analyzed using input-output tables.The carbon price costs are levied in accordance with the products’embodied carbon emission.By calculation,given the carbon price rate of 10 RMB/t-CO₂,the total carbon costs of Beijing account for approximately 0.22-0.40%of its gross revenue the same year.Among all industries,construction bears the largest carbon cost Among export sectors,the coal mining and washing industry has much higher export carbon price intensity than other industries.Apart from traditional energy-intensive industries,tertiary industry,which accounts for more than 70%of Beijing’s economy,also bears a major carbon cost because of its large economic size.However,from 2007 to 2010,adjustment of the investment structure has reduced the emission intensity in investment sectors,contributing to the reduction of overall emissions and carbon price intensity.