Water Resources of Central Asia and Adaptation Measures for Climate Change

A large part of the Central Asian region is located within the inner flow of the Aral Sea basin. The water resources are formed from renewed superficial and underground waters of natural origin, and also with returnable waters. The intensive increase of water intake, that took place in the second half of the twentieth century caused practically complete assimilation of the river inflow. That was the main reason for the Aral Sea crisis. On the basis of the analysis of long periodical rows of observation by meterological and hydrological stations, the estimation of regional water resources and calculations of changes of some components of the hydrological cycle due to the expected climate changes are presented. Measures for adaptation in the southern part of the Aral Sea region are considered.     

Climate Change and Climate Variability: Adaptations to Reduce Adverse Health Impacts

Global climate change is likely to have a range of consequences for human health as a result of disturbance or weakening of the biosphere's natural or human-managed life support systems. The full range of potential human health impacts of global climate change is diverse and would be distributed differentially spatially and over time. Changes in the mortality toll of heatwaves and changes in the distribution of vector-borne infectious diseases may occur early. The public health consequences of sea level rise and of regional changes in agricultural productivity may not occur (or become apparent) for several decades. Vulnerability is a measure of both sensitivity to climate change and the ability to adapt in anticipation of, or in response to, its impacts. The basic modes of adaptation to climate-induced health hazards are biological, behavioural and social. Adaptation can be undertaken at the individual, community and whole-population levels. Adaptive strategies should not introduce new health hazards. Enhancement of the acknowledged public health infrastructure and intervention programmes is essential to reduce vulnerability to the health impacts of climate change. In the longer-term, fundamental improvements in the social and material conditions of life and in the reduction of inequalities within and between populations are required for sustained reduction in vulnerability to environmental health hazards.     

Enhancing Financial Transparency to Mitigate Climate Change: Toward a Climate Risks and Opportunities Reporting Index

Environmental Modeling & Assessment - Climate change is introducing more risks and uncertainties into the economy and the financial system, but information failures limit the understanding of...     

Adaptation to Climatic Variability and Change: Asian Perspectives on Agriculture and Food Security

The impacts of climate change on potential rice production in Asia are reviewed in the light of the adaptation to climatic variability and change. Collaborative studies carried out by IRRI and US-EPA reported that using process-based crop simulation models increasing temperature may decrease rice potential yield up to 7.4% per degree increment of temperature. When climate scenarios predicted by GCMs were applied it was demonstrated that rice production in Asia may decline by 3.8% under the climates of the next century. Moreover, changes in rainfall pattern and distribution were also found suggesting the possible shift of agricultural lands in the region. The studies however have not taken the impacts of climatic variability into account, which often produce extreme events like that caused by monsoons and El Niño. Shifts in rice-growing areas are likely to be constrained by land-use changes occurring for other developmental reasons, which may force greater cultivation of marginal lands and further deforestation. This should be taken into account and lead to more integrated assessment, especially in developing countries where land-use change is more a top-down policy rather than farmers' decision. A key question is: To what extent will improving the ability of societies to cope with current climatic variability through changing design of agricultural systems and practices help the same societies cope with the likely changes in climate?     

Climate Change Impacts and Human Settlements in Africa: Prospects for Adaptation

Climate change impacts on African human settlements arise from a number of climate change-related causes, notably sea level changes, impacts on water resources, extreme weather events, food security, increased health risks from vector home diseases, and temperature-related morbidity in urban environments.Some coastlines and river deltas of Africa have densely populated low-lying areas, which would be affected by a rise in sea level. Other coastal settlements will be subjected to increased coastal erosion. Recent flooding in East Africa highlighted the vulnerability of flood plain settlements and the need to develop adaptive strategies for extreme weather events management and mitigation. In the semi arid and arid zones many settlements are associated with inland drainage water sources. Increases in drought will enhance water supply related vulnerabilities. Inter-basin and international water transfers raise the need for adequate legal frameworks that ensure equity among participating nations.Similarly, water supply and irrigation reservoirs in seasonal river catchments might fail, leading to poor sanitation in urban areas as well as food shortage. Hydroelectric power generation could be restricted in drought periods, and where it is a major contributor to the energy budget, reduced power generation could lead to a multiplicity of other impacts. States are advised to develop other sources of renewable energy.Temperature changes will lead to altered distribution of disease vectors such as mosquitoes, making settlements currently free of vector borne diseases vulnerable. Rapid breeding of the housefly could create a menace associated with enteric disorders, especially in conditions of poor sanitation.The dry savannahs of Africa are projected as possible future food deficit areas. Recurrent crop failures would lead to transmigration into urban areas. Pastoralists are likely to undertake more trans-boundary migrations and probably come into conflict with settled communities.Adaptive measures will involve methods of coastal defences (where applicable), a critical review of the energy sector, both regionally and nationally, a rigorous adherence to city hygiene procedures, an informed agricultural industry that is capable of adapting to changing climate in terms of cropping strategies, and innovations in environment design to maximise human comfort at minimum energy expenditure. In the savannah and arid areas water resource management systems will be needed to optimise water resource use and interstate co-operation where such resources are shared.Climate change issues discussed here raise the need for state support for more research and education in impacts of climate change on human settlements in Africa.     

Reconciling National and Global Priorities in Adaptation to Climate Change: With an Illustration from Uganda

Many developing countries, especially in Africa, contribute only very small amounts to the world total of greenhouse gas emissions. For them, the reduction of such emissions is not a priority, and the more important issue is to find ways to reduce their vulnerability to the projected climate change which is being imposed upon them largely as a result of emissions from developed countries. This priority does not accord with the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper reports upon studies in Uganda designed to help in the development of a national adaptation strategy, and addresses the need to reconcile such a strategy with the global priority accorded to mitigation and with national economic development priorities. Some features of a national climate change adaptation strategy are identified and questions are raised about the need for an international regime to facilitate and support adaptation.     

The Biodiversity Crisis and Adaptation to Climate Change: A Case Study from Australia's Forests

If current trends continue, human activities will drastically alter most of the planet's remaining natural ecosystems and their composite biota within a few decades. Compounding the impacts on biodiversity from deleterious management practices is climate variability and change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently concluded that there is ample evidence to suggest climate change is likely to result in significant impacts on biological diversity. These impacts are likely to be exacerbated by the secondary effects of climate change such as changes in the occurrence of wildfire, insect outbreaks and similar disturbances. Current changes in climate are very different from those of the past due to their rate and magnitude, the direct effects of increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and because highly modified landscapes and an array of threatening processes limit the ability of terrestrial ecosystems and species to respond to changed conditions. One of the primary human adaptation option for conserving biodiversity is considered to be changes in management. The complex and overarching nature of climate change issues emphasises the need for greatly enhanced cooperation between scientists, policy makers, industry and the community to better understand key interactions and identify options for adaptation. A key challenge is to identify opportunities that facilitate sustainable development by making use of existing technologies and developing policies that enhance the resilience of climate-sensitive sectors. Measures to enhance the resilience of biodiversity must be considered in all of these activities if many ecosystem services essential to humanity are to be sustained. New institutional arrangements appear necessary at the regional and national level to ensure that policy initiatives and research directed at assessing and mitigating the vulnerability of biodiversity to climate change are complementary and undertaken strategically and cost-effectively. Policy implementation at the national level to meet responsibilities arising from the UNFCCC (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol) and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity require greater coordination and integration between economic sectors, since many primary drivers of biodiversity loss and vulnerability are influenced at this level. A case study from the Australian continent is used to illustrate several key issues and discuss a basis for reform, including recommendations for facilitating adaptation to climate variability and change.     

Impact of Global Climate Change on China's Water Resources

It is indicated that up to the year 2030, the annual average temperatures in China will increase by 0.88 to 1.2°C, with increments in the south less than in the north. Annual average precipitation would raise slightly, but the increment could be 4% in northeastern China. The increment of annual mean runoff could rise over 6% in the northeastern area, and decrease in the other regions 1.4 to 10.5%. The increased water shortage due to climate change could achieve 160 to 5090 million m³ in some areas of China. Financial loss due to the lack of water could reach 1300 million yuan, and up to 4400 million yuan in serious drought years in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area.     

Adaptation Scenarios of Agriculture in Poland to Future Climate Changes

This paper demonstrates the ability of Polish agriculture to adapt to predicted climate change according to GISS and GFDL scenarios. Both climate-change scenarios will significantly affect farming conditions in Poland through water deficit, shifts in planting and harvesting seasons, changes in crop yields and crop structure. Neither scenario seems to endanger the self-sufficiency of Poland as long as preventative measures are taken. Moreover, the realization of GISS creates the possibility of a surplus in production. It must be emphasized that regardless of the scenario, the adaptation of agriculture to an expected climate change cannot be handled by the farming community itself.     

A General Equilibrium Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Swiss Winter Tourism with Adaptation

Winter alpine tourism has been repeatedly identified as one of the economic sectors most at risk from climate change in Switzerland. However, all of the costs that have been estimated so far for the Swiss tourism sector are, to some extent, misleading as they do not, or only partially, incorporate adaptation possibilities and general equilibrium effects. We attempt to fill this gap using a computable general equilibrium model that is specifically designed for the purposes of this research. Our modeling efforts first consist in creating a tourism sector with a part of it being dependent on snow. We also carefully model the snowmaking technology. Using climate change scenarios on future snow cover, we analyze their impacts on the Swiss ski industry. We find welfare effects for the Swiss economy ranging from − 23 to 113 million CHF in 2050. This range arises from the use of various assumptions concerning adaptation possibilities. We also show that geographical substitutions between international ski destinations have large positive effects for Switzerland. From a more general perspective, our results exemplify the risks of estimating the consequences of climate change based only on domestic impacts of climate change with no adaptation being implemented.

     

浅论新疆资源的开发与环境保护

开发西部地区已经成为我国一项跨世纪的战略任务,搞好西部地区的生态环境保护是西部大开发的首要任务。新疆地处祖国西北边陲,其国土面积、资源储备和战略地位都在西部开发中占有重要地位。本文针对长期以来新疆在开发自然资源、发展经济的同时产生的环境问题,提出了建议和对策。     

Towards a Formal Framework of Vulnerability to Climate Change

There is confusion regarding the notion of “vulnerability” in the climate change scientific community. Recent research has identified a need for formalisation, which would support accurate communication and the elimination of misunderstandings that result from the use of ambiguous terminology. Moreover, a formal framework of vulnerability is a prerequisite for computational approaches to its assessment. This paper presents an attempt at developing such a formal framework. We see vulnerability as a relative concept in the sense that accurate statements about vulnerability are possible only if one clearly specifies (1) the entity that is vulnerable, (2) the stimulus to which it is vulnerable and (3) the preference criteria to evaluate the outcome of the interaction between the entity and the stimulus. We relate the resulting framework to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conceptualisation of vulnerability and two recent vulnerability studies. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Gerhard Petschel-Held, whose pioneering work on syndromes of global change has been a source of inspiration for us and for others across various schools of thought on vulnerability.     

Using Temporal Coherence to Determine the Response to Climate Change in Boreal Shield Lakes

Climate change is expected to have important impacts on aquatic ecosystems. On the Boreal Shield, mean annual air temperatures are expected to increase 2 to 4°C over the next 50 years. An important challenge is to predict how changes in climate and climate variability will impact natural systems so that sustainable management policies can be implemented. To predict responses to complex ecosystem changes associated with climate change, we used long-term biotic databases to evaluate how important elements of the biota in Boreal Shield lakes have responded to past fluctuations in climate. Our long-term records span a two decade period where there have been unusually cold years and unusually warm years. We used coherence analyses to test for regionally operating controls on climate, water temperature, pH, and plankton richness and abundance in three regions across Ontario: the Experimental Lakes Area, Sudbury, and Dorset. Inter-annual variation in air temperature was similar among regions, but there was a weak relationship among regions for precipitation. While air temperature was closely related to lake surface temperatures in each of the regions, there were weak relationships between lake surface temperature and richness or abundance of the plankton. However, inter-annual changes in lake chemistry (i.e., pH) were correlated with some biotic variables. In some lakes in Sudbury and Dorset, pH was dependent on extreme events. For example, El Nino related droughts resulted in acidification pulses in some lakes that influenced phytoplankton and zooplankton richness. These results suggest that there can be strong heterogeneity in lake ecosystem responses within and across regions.     

气候变化下的新疆生态环境脆弱性评价

选取了脆弱性、适应能力作为影响新疆生态环境脆弱性的条件层,进一步筛选出海拔、地质环境、沙尘暴、人口密度、降水量、植被类型、生态保护政策7个因子作为成因指标层,并用专家打分法对每个指标赋予权重。将研究区剖分成195个评价单元格,借助G玛强大的数据管理功能,建立与空间数据和属性数据相互关联的生态环境脆弱性数据库;首次采用模糊数学层次分析法作为新疆生态环境脆弱性等级计算的数学模型,计算出新疆生态环境脆弱性等级,并借助CIS进行成果表达。     

Holling's Figure-Eight Model: A Technical Reevaluation in Relation to Climate Change and Biodiversity

Holling proposed a four-phase conceptual model of ecosystem dynamics that includes exploitation, conservation, and destructive and renewal components to explain the failure of many natural resource management schemes. The model is drawn as a sideways figure-eight i.e. . There are two dimensions in this model, connectivity (abscissa) and the amount of capital stored in the system (ordinate). This conceptual model has been suggested as a guide to thinking about the impact of climate change on biodiversity, but the two dimensions are insufficient and the alignment of the figure-eight model is problematic when compared with actual data. Kay has adjusted the dimensions of the figure-eight model and renamed the abscissa as exergy stored and the ordinate as exergy consumed. We realign the original figure-eight model, labeling the abscissa as carbon stored and the ordinate as nutrients, such that the relative values of both axes are in qualitative agreement with data from four different studies. This new alignment is then shown to fit relatively well with Holling's original labels. This revision of the figure-eight model brings Holling's model into agreement with observations and provides insight into the linkages between biodiversity and climate change.     

Sharing the geo-Referenced Results of Climate Change Impact Research

The Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative (PARC) has implemented an Internet Map Server (IMS) at the PARC web site (www.parc.ca) to 1) disseminate the geo-referenced results of PARC sponsored research on climate change impacts and adaptation, and 2) address data, information and knowledge management within the PARC network of researchers and partners. PARC facilitates interdisciplinary research on adaptation to the impacts of climate change in the Canadian Prairie Provinces. The web site is intended as a platform for sharing information and encouraging discussion of climate change impacts and adaptation. The IMS enables scientists and stakeholders to apply simple climate change scenarios to geo-referenced biophysical and social data, and dynamically create maps that display the geographic distribution of potential impacts of climate change. With a limited capacity for spatial analysis, most geo-processing and the climate impact modeling is done offline within a GIS environment. The IMS will serve the output from climate impact models, such that the model results can be customized by the web site user and be most readily applied to the planning and analysis of adaptation strategies.     

Impact of Climate Change on Date Production in Tunisia

Around the Mediterranean basin, climate change is one of the major phenomena affecting agriculture. Therefore, the mode of production and crop management will have to change radically. Our objective in this article is to examine the long-run effects of climate change on date production in Tunisia using panel cointegration covering the period from 1980 to 2014 in 24 regions. The climate of Tunisia differs in our study because we find a Saharan climate in the south and a European climate in the north. The central regions are characterized by a Mediterranean climate. Our empirical results show that the effects of climate and weather variability on date production must be considered a serious threat in Tunisia. In addition, we estimate relatively negative and variable long-run effects of temperature increase and rainfall shortages across regions on date output over the last three decades.     

The Value of Better Information on Technology R&D Programs in Response to Climate Change

Expert elicitations are a promising method for determining how R&D investments are likely to have an impact on technological advance in climate change energy technologies. But, expert elicitations are time consuming and resource intensive. Thus, we investigate the value of the information gained in expert elicitations. More specifically, given baseline elicitations from one study, we estimate the expected value of better information (EVBI) from revisiting and improving these assessments. We find that the EVBI is very large in comparison with the cost of performing expert elicitations. We also find that EVBI is higher on technologies with larger budgets and with net values that are not too high or too low.