Accounting for risk and uncertainty in determining preferred strategies for adapting to future climate change

Individuals, businesses, and policymakers face the problem of selecting a preferred strategy for adapting a managed ecosystem to future climate change when there is risk and/or uncertainty about future climate change and its ecosystem impacts, and the conditional outcomes of adaptive strategies (i.e., performance of an adaptive strategy given a particular future climate change scenario occurs). Evaluation methods for this purpose are described for two cases; one in which the decision-maker can (climate risk case) and cannot (climate uncertainty case) assign probabilities to future climate change scenarios. Fuzzy sets are used to characterize uncertainty regarding both future climate change, and the conditional outcomes of adaptive strategies. The preferred conditional adaptive strategy for a future climate change scenario is determined by ordering the adaptive strategies for that scenario using a fuzzy set operation. Two methods are described for determining the adaptive strategy that is preferred across all climate change scenarios. The preferred overall adaptive strategy for the climate risk case is determined by maximizing a performance index for strategies. The preferred overall adaptive strategy for the climate uncertainty case is determined using the minimax regret criterion, which selects the strategy that minimizes the maximum loss in performance that can occur across all strategies and climate change scenarios. Ways for making the evaluation methods dynamic are considered.     

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.     

Climate change and Ontario forests: Prospects for building institutional adaptive capacity

Institutions play an important role in the adaptive capacity of a system in responding to climate change. This review paper characterizes the status of the collective institutional response (government, industry, First Nation, community, civil society) to climate change in the forest sector of the Canadian province of Ontario, and highlights the presence and nature of inter-institutional networks as part of the response. Based on a synthesis of the commonalities in the public administration and policy literature on tackling wicked problems, and the resilience literature, inter-institutional networks, which foster exchange of different types of knowledge, are an important aspect of enhancing the adaptive capacity of social–ecological systems such as the forest sector. Based on a content analysis of publicly available documents and insights gained from representatives of government, community members and non-governmental organizations, mitigation and adaptations strategies are described. At the provincial level there have been some new innovations in inter-institutional networks, but expansion of the forest stakeholders involved in such networks would further enhance adaptive capacity. In particular, it is important to network with First Nations and other forest-dependent communities who have a heightened vulnerability to climate change. The presence of a collaborative capacity builder could foster the transfer, receipt and integration of knowledge across the networks, and ultimately build long-term collaborative problem-solving capacity in the Ontario forest sector.

Igniting change in local government: lessons learned from a bushfire vulnerability assessment

Local governments and communities have a critical role to play in adapting to climate variability and change. Spatial vulnerability assessment is one tool that can facilitate engagement between researchers and local stakeholders through the visualisation of climate vulnerability and the integration of its biophysical and socio-economic determinants. This has been demonstrated through a case study from Sydney, Australia where a bushfire vulnerability assessment was undertaken as the first-step in a project to investigate local government perceptions of climate vulnerability and adaptive capacity. A series of relevant biophysical and socio-economic indicators was identified that represented the region’s exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity with respect to bushfires. These indicators were then combined to develop maps of net landscape vulnerability to bushfire. When presented in a workshop setting, vulnerability maps were successful in capturing the attention of stakeholders while simultaneously conveying information regarding the diversity of drivers that can contribute to current and future vulnerability. However, stakeholders were reluctant to embrace representations of vulnerability that differed from their own understanding of hazard, necessitating the demonstration of agreement between the vulnerability assessment and more conventional hazard assessment tools. This validation opened the door for public dissemination of vulnerability maps, the uptake and use of the assessment in local government risk assessment and adaptation planning, and more focused case-studies on barriers to adaptation.     

New policies to deal with climate change and other drivers impacting on resilience to flooding in urban areas: the CORFU approach

In the context of urban flood management, resilience is equal to resisting, recovering, reflecting and responding. The variety of causes of flooding and their consequences underpin the need for increased and internationally coordinated efforts to enhance technologies and policies for dealing with floods. This paper addresses this issue and presents some novel research ideas related to resilience to flooding in urban areas, which are under development within the EU FP7 project ‘Collaborative research on flood resilience in urban areas’ (CORFU). The approach adopted in this project aims to quantify the cost-effectiveness of resilience measures and integrative and adaptable flood management plans for different scenarios of relevant drivers: urban development, socio-economic trends and climate changes. It is believed that the way in which the different models are being put together, combined with the variability of conditions in case study areas in Asia and in Europe, will ultimately enable more scientifically sound policies for the management of the consequences of urban flooding.     

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

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

Defining response capacity to enhance climate change policy

Climate change adaptation and mitigation decisions made by governments are usually taken in different policy domains. At the individual level however, adaptation and mitigation activities are undertaken together as part of the management of risk and resources. We propose that a useful starting point to develop a national climate policy is to understand what societal response might mean in practice. First we frame the set of responses at the national policy level as a trade off between investment in the development and diffusion of new technology, and investment in encouraging and enabling society to change its behaviour and or adopt the new technology. We argue that these are the pertinent trade-offs, rather than those usually posited between climate change mitigation and adaptation. The preference for a policy response that focuses more on technological innovation rather than one that focuses on changing social behaviour will be influenced by the capacity of different societies to change their greenhouse gas emissions; by perceived vulnerability to climate impacts; and by capacity to modify social behaviour and physical environment. Starting with this complete vision of response options should enable policy makers to re-evaluate the risk environment and the set of response options available to them. From here, policy makers should consider who is responsible for making climate response decisions and when actions should be taken. Institutional arrangements dictate social and political acceptability of different policies, they structure worldviews, and they determine the provision of resources for investment in technological innovation and social change. The importance of focussing on the timing of the response is emphasised to maximise the potential for adjustments through social learning and institutional change at different policy scales. We argue that the ability to respond to climate change is both enabled and constrained by social and technological conditions. The ability of society to respond to climate change and the need for technological change for both decarbonisation and for dealing with surprise in general, are central to concepts of sustainable development.     

The perceived psychological distance of climate change impacts and its influence on support for adaptation policy

Factors influencing support for climate mitigation policy in the United States are well researched, however, research regarding individuals’ support for climate adaptation policy is relatively sparse. This study explores how an individual’s perception of climate change impacts may influence their support for adaptation actions. Results of a survey of the U.S. public (n = 653) indicates that individuals who believe climate change impacts are unlikely to happen or will primarily affect other people in other places are less likely to be concerned about climate change impacts and less likely to support climate adaptation. However, an individual’s support for climate change adaptation measures is not influenced by their perception of when climate change impacts will occur even when taking into account concern for climate impacts. Critical for policy-makers, a belief that climate adaptation measures will not be effective attenuates the relationship between psychological distance, concern for climate change impacts, and adaptation policy measures. Our results indicate that to effectively communicate about climate change, policy-makers should emphasize that: (i) climate change impacts are occurring, (ii) that their constituents are being affected now, or will be in the future, and (iii) communicate that adaptation measures can be effective in addressing risks associated with climate change impacts.     

Mitigation needs adaptation: Tropical forestry and climate change

The relationship between tropical forests and global climate change has so far focused on mitigation, while much less emphasis has been placed on how management activities may help forest ecosystems adapt to this change. This paper discusses how tropical forestry practices can contribute to maintaining or enhancing the adaptive capacity of natural and planted forests to global climate change and considers challenges and opportunities for the integration of tropical forest management in broader climate change adaptation. In addition to the use of reduced impact logging to maintain ecosystem integrity, other approaches may be needed, such as fire prevention and management, as well as specific silvicultural options aimed at facilitating genetic adaptation. In the case of planted forests, the normally higher intensity of management (with respect to natural forest) offers additional opportunities for implementing adaptation measures, at both industrial and smallholder levels. Although the integration in forest management of measures aimed at enhancing adaptation to climate change may not involve substantial additional effort with respect to current practice, little action appears to have been taken to date. Tropical foresters and forest-dependent communities appear not to appreciate the risks posed by climate change and, for those who are aware of them, practical guidance on how to respond is largely non-existent. The extent to which forestry research and national policies will promote and adopt management practices in order to assist production forests adapt to climate change is currently uncertain. Mainstreaming adaptation into national development and planning programs may represent an initial step towards the incorporation of climate change considerations into tropical forestry.     

A multiple timescales approach to assess urgency in adaptation to climate change with an application to the tourism industry

As climate change adaptation is increasingly discussed and becoming a mainstream concept, different types of users are asking themselves if and when they should develop an adaptation strategy, often not knowing where to begin. Climate experts, on the other hand, have access to an enormous amount of data that could be useful to users but often do not know how to translate it into something practical. Both users and experts can be linked through two timescales, the system lifespan and climate vulnerability. While the system lifespan relies on the user’s estimation of his planning timeframe, the climate vulnerability is estimated from climate model projections and observations. We propose a simple tool to relate user and climate expert knowledge by combining the two timescales. To be reliable, the interconnection implies a dialogue to first identify what sensitive climate variable will impact the system and subsequently the extent of the impact. Climate data can then be used to identify, with the use of a simple graph, how sensitive a system is likely to be and help users position themselves about the urgency of adaptation. The concept has been successfully presented and applied to the tourism industry, notably the ski industry, which is showcased in this paper.     

A decision inventory approach for improving decision support for climate change impact assessment and adaptation

Assessing and adapting to the impacts of climate change requires balancing social, economic, and environmental factors in the context of an ever-expanding range of objectives, uncertainties, and management options. The term decision support describes a diverse class of resources designed to help manage this complexity and assist decision makers in understanding impacts and evaluating management options. Most climate-related decision support resources implicitly assume that decision making is primarily limited by the quantity and quality of available information. However, a wide variety of evidence suggests that institutional, political, and communication processes are also integral to organizational decision making. Decision support resources designed to address these processes are underrepresented in existing tools. These persistent biases in the design and delivery of decision support may undermine efforts to move decision support from research to practice. The development of new approaches to decision support that consider a wider range of relevant issues is limited by the lack of information about the characteristics, context, and alternatives associated with climate-related decisions. We propose a new approach called a decision assessment and decision inventory that will provide systematic information describing the relevant attributes of climate-related decisions. This information can be used to improve the design of decision support resources, as well as to prioritize research and development investments. Application of this approach will help provide more effective decision support based on a balanced foundation of analytical tools, environmental data, and relevant information about decisions and decision makers.     

Livelihoods, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in Morogoro, Tanzania

This article examines farmers’ livelihood responses and vulnerability to climate variability and other stressors in Morogoro, Tanzania, to understand their implications for adaptation to climate change by agricultural households in developing world more generally. In Morogoro, agricultural households have extended cultivation, intensified agriculture, diversified livelihoods and migrated to gain access to land, markets and employment as a response to climatic and other stressors. Some of these responses have depleted and degraded natural resources such as forest, soil and water resources, which will complicate their living with climate change in the future. This will be particularly problematic to vulnerable groups such as women, children and pastoralists who have limited access to employment, markets and public services. In this light, fair adaptation to climate change by agricultural households in Morogoro and elsewhere in developing countries requires several complementary responses. Adaptation efforts should involve effective governance of natural resources because they function as safety nets to vulnerable groups. In addition, strengthening of national markets by infrastructure investments and institutional reforms is needed to give incentives to intensification and diversification in agriculture. Market participation also demands enhancement of human capital by public programs on health, education and wellbeing.     

Simulating sensitivities of Changbai Mountain forests to potential climate change

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Analysing countries’ contribution to climate change: scientific and policy-related choices

This paper evaluates the influence of different policy-related and scientific choices on the calculated regional contributions to global climate change (the “Brazilian Proposal”). Policy-related choices include the time period of emissions, the mix of greenhouse gases and different indicators of climate change impacts. The scientific choices include historical emissions and model representations of the climate system. We generated and compared results of several simple climate models. We find that the relative contributions of different nations to global climate change—from emissions of greenhouse gases alone—are quite robust, despite the varying model complexity and differences in calculated absolute changes. For the default calculations, the average calculated contributions to the global mean surface temperature increase in 2000 are about 40% from OECD, 14% from Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union, 24% from Asia and 22% from Africa and Latin America. Policy-related choices, such as time period of emissions, climate change indicator and gas mix generally have larger influence on the results than scientific choices. More specifically, choosing a later attribution start date (1990 instead of 1890) for historical emissions, decreases the contributions of regions that started emitting early, such as the OECD countries by 6 percentage points, whereas it increases the contribution of late emitters such as Asia by 8 percentage points. However, only including the fossil CO₂ emissions instead of the emissions of all Kyoto gases (fossil and land use change), increases the OECD contributions by 21 percentage points and decreases the contribution of Asia by 14 percentage points.     

Adaptation for crop agriculture to climate change in Cameroon: Turning on the heat

The Cameroonian agricultural sector, a critical part of the local ecosystem, is potentially vulnerable to climate change raising concerns about food security in the country’s future. Adaptations policies may be able to mitigate some of this vulnerability. This article investigates and addresses the issue of selected adaptation options within the context of Cameroonian food production. A methodology is applied where transient diagnostics of two atmosphere–ocean general circulation models, the NASA/Goddard Institute GISS and the British HadCM3, are coupled to a cropping system simulation model (CropSyst) to simulate current and future (2020, 2080) crop yields for selected key crops (bambara nut, groundnut, maize, sorghum, and soybean) in eight agricultural regions of Cameroon. Our results show that for the future, substantial yield increases are estimated for bambara groundnut, soybean and groundnut, while little or no change or even decreases for maize and sorghum yields, varying according to the climate scenario and the agricultural region investigated. Taking the “no regrets” principle into consideration, we explore the advantages of specific adaptation strategies specifically for three crops viz. maize, sorghum and bambara groundnut, under GISS A2 and B2 marker scenarios only. Changing sowing dates may be ineffective in counteracting adverse climatic effects because of the narrow rainfall band that strictly determines the timing of farm operations in Cameroon. In contrast, the possibility of developing later maturing new cultivars proved to be extremely effective in offsetting adverse impacts, giving the highest increases in productivity under different scenario projections without management changes. For example, under climate change scenario GISS A2 2080, a 14.6% reduction in maize yield was converted to a 32.1% increase; a 39.9% decrease in sorghum yield was converted to a 17.6% increase, and for bambara groundnut (an under-researched and underutilised African legume), yields were almost trebled (37.1% increase above that for sowing date alone (12.9%)) due to increase length of growing period and the positive effects of higher CO₂ concentrations. These results may better inform wider studies and development strategies on sustainable agriculture in the area by providing an indication as to the potential direction in shifts in production capabilities. Our approach highlights the benefit of using models as tools to investigate potential climate change impacts, where results can supplement existing knowledge. The results provide useful guidance and motivation to public authorities and development agencies interested in food security issues in Cameroon and elsewhere.     

Measuring the adaptation gap: A framework for evaluating climate hazards and opportunities in urban areas

Urban areas are increasingly seen as having distinct need for climate adaptation. Further, as resources are limited, it is essential to prioritize adaptation actions. At the municipal scale, we suggest that priorities be placed where there is a gap between adaption need and existing adaptation effort. Taking Seattle, USA, as an example, we present this gap in terms of four categories of adaptation options (no-regret, primary, secondary, and tertiary) for the three primary urban hazards—flooding, heat wave, and drought. To do so, we first establish current adaptation need by identifying and categorizing adaptation options. Next, we consider for each option the number of hazards addressed and benefit to and beyond climate adaptation, the projected magnitude of the hazards addressed, the projection’s uncertainty, and the required scale and irreversibility of investment. Third, we assessed Seattle’s current adaptation efforts by reviewing adaptation plans and related materials. Finally, we identify the distance or “gap” as the proportion of adaptation options not identified by existing adaptation plans.For Seattle, we categorized seven options as no-regret adaptation, five as primary, two as secondary, and three as tertiary. Each level’s adaptation gap highlights significant opportunities to take steps to reduce climate risks in key areas.     

Evaluation that counts: A review of climate change adaptation indicators & metrics using lessons from effective evaluation and science-practice interaction

Amid growing effort to move towards implementation of climate change adaptation, serious interest is emerging about how to use indicators and metrics (I&M) to evaluate adaptation success. Cities are among the leading experimenters developing I&M, but many other entities also view I&M as a tool for providing clarity and accountability about the goals and progress of adaptation. The current landscape of this work is scattered: I&M examples, frameworks, and guidance documents reflect motivations, contexts, and approaches as diverse as the field of adaptation itself. This study systematically surveys the “growth industry” of I&M, including a special focus on I&M approaches developed for cities anywhere and by US cities in particular. We classify these I&M efforts into four domains: those developed in academia, by program sponsors, boundary organizations, and on-the-ground implementers. With attention to theory on (program) evaluation and on science-practice interaction, we reveal a broad range of I&M evaluation purposes and collaboration practices. We conclude that evaluation of adaptation progress and effectiveness – if it is to usefully inform the work of cities or other implementers – would benefit from greater attention to the best practices and guidance offered in the related, but largely still separate, fields of evaluation and science-practice interaction.     

全球气候变化对森林生态系统的影响

人类活动所引起的温室效应及由此造成的全球气候变化和对全球生态环境的影响正越来越引起人们的关注。作为全球陆地生态系统一个重要组分的森林对未来气候变化的响应更是人们关注的重点。文中系统地论述了未来气候变化对森林生态系统树种组成、林分结构、分布和生产力的潜在响应,提出了今后需要加强的一些研究领域。     

Integrating mitigation and adaptation as responses to climate change: a synthesis

Integrating mitigation and adaptation (M&A) is a practical reality for climate change response policy, despite a range of conceptual and methodological challenges. Based on the papers in this special issue, some preliminary findings about appropriate integrated portfolios are offered, along with several implications for climate policy.     

Extended impacts of climate change on health and wellbeing

Anthropogenic climate change is progressively transforming the environment despite political and technological attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to tackle global warming. Here we propose that greater insight and understanding of the health-related impacts of climate change can be gained by integrating the positivist approaches used in public health and epidemiology, with holistic social science perspectives on health in which the concept of ‘wellbeing’ is more explicitly recognised. Such an approach enables us to acknowledge and explore a wide range of more subtle, yet important health-related outcomes of climate change. At the same time, incorporating notions of wellbeing enables recognition of both the health co-benefits and dis-benefits of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies across different population groups and geographical contexts. The paper recommends that future adaptation and mitigation policies seek to ensure that benefits are available for all since current evidence suggests that they are spatially and socially differentiated, and their accessibility is dependent on a range of contextually specific socio-cultural factors.