Participatory scenario planning for developing innovation in community adaptation responses: three contrasting examples from Latin America

Environmental change requires adaptive responses that are innovative, forward-looking and anticipatory, in order to meet goals for sustainability in socio-ecological systems. This implies transformative shifts in understanding as conceptualised by the idea of ‘double’- or ‘triple-loop learning’. Achieving this can be difficult as communities often rely on shorter-term coping mechanisms that purport to maintain the status quo. The use of participatory scenario planning to stimulate forward-looking social learning for adaptation was investigated through three contrasting community case studies on natural resource management in Latin America (in Mexico, Argentina and Colombia). Exploratory scenario narratives that synthesised local knowledge and future perceptions were used iteratively to define response options considered robust across multiple futures. Despite its intensive format, participants in each case agreed that scenario planning enabled a more systematic appraisal of the future. Scenarios facilitated innovation by providing scope to propose new types of responses and associated actions. Differences in local context meant that learning about future change developed in diverse ways, showing a need for a reflexive process. Reframing of key issues characteristic of double-loop learning did occur, albeit through different forms of interaction in each location. However, a shift towards transformative actions characteristic of triple-loop learning was less evident. Achieving this would appear to require ongoing use of scenarios to challenge social norms in light of changing drivers. Use of learning loops as a diagnostic to evaluate adaptive responses provided a useful reference framework although in practice both innovation and consolidative approaches can develop concurrently for responses to different issues.     

Operational approach to the environmental problems in the developing countries

Environmental problems are basic to overall socio-economic development, including the health status of the population. Unfortunately, the importance of these problems is often neglected, mostly because they are very complex and difficult to manage. The situation in developing countries seems to be even worse as the problems are relatively greater compared with these in the developed countries, while the resources are very limited.An environmental analysis for Surabaya City, the second largest city in Indonesia, has been conducted. A method for environmental analysis and a mathematical model for an integrated environmental program are proposed.     

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.     

Climate Adaptation Services for the Netherlands: an operational approach to support spatial adaptation planning

There is a growing availability of climate change information, offered to scientists and policy makers through climate services. However, climate services are not well taken up by the policy-making and planning community. Climate services focus on primary impacts of climate change, e.g., the disclosure of precipitation and temperature data, and this seems insufficient in meeting their needs. In this paper, we argue that, in order to reach the spatial planning community, climate services should take on a wider perspective by translating climate data to policy-relevant indicators and by offering support in the design of adaptation strategies. We argue there should be more focus on translating consequences of climate change to land-use claims and subsequently discuss the validity, consequences and implications of these claims with stakeholders, so they can play a role in spatial planning processes where much of the climate adaptation takes place. The term Climate Adaptation Services is introduced as being a stepwise approach supporting the assessment of vulnerability in a wider perspective and include the design and appraisal of adaptation strategies in a multi-stakeholder setting. We developed the Climate Adaptation Atlas and the Climate Ateliers as tools within the Climate Adaptation Services approach to support decision-making and planning processes. In this paper, we describe the different steps of our approach and report how some of the challenges were addressed.     

Physical development trend and green space destruction in developing cities: a GIS approach

Green spaces considered natural remnants in urban environments play a key role in promoting environmental quality and forming a sustainable city. Nowadays, development of urban spaces has taken a hasty growth. In the meanwhile, the natural green spaces are severely damaged. The current study aims at investigating the trend of changes in green space of Tabriz City, the second large industrial city in Iran, on the basis of landscape ecology principles. In order to prepare the land-cover maps, Landsat TM and IRS LISS-III of the years 1989 and 2006 were applied. Alongside, landscape percentage metrics, the largest patch index, number of patches, patch density, edge density, total edge, class area and landscape shape index were also used to analyse the changes. Metric analysis of the landscape within the studied years revealed that a large part of the region has enjoyed a rapid growth (equivalent to 64.5 %) in constructions. As the obtained results showed, the smallest landscape percentage (3.9 %) in the study area is belonged to the municipal green space, while the largest landscape percentage (66 %) is allocated to the barren land. This shows that the constructions have not balanced with creation of new green spaces, and the lack of green space per capita continues to be felt.     

Knowledge and information needs of adaptation policy-makers: a European study

Across Europe, national governments have started to strategically plan adaptation to climate change. Making adaptation decisions is difficult in the light of uncertainties and the complexity of adaptation problems. Already large amounts of research results on climate impacts and adaptive measures are available, and more are produced and need to be mediated across the boundary between science and policy. Both researchers and policy-makers have started to intensify efforts to coproduce knowledge that is valuable to both communities, particularly in the context of climate change adaptation. In this paper, we present results from a study of adaptation governance and information needs, comparing eight European countries. We identify sources and means for the retrieval of information as well as gaps and problems with the knowledge provided by scientists and analyzed whether these appear to be contingent on the point in the policy-making cycle where countries are. We find that in this early phase of adaptation planning, the quality of the definition of needs, the way uncertainty is dealt with, and the quality of science–policy interaction are indeed contingent on the stage of adaptation planning, while information needs and sources are not. We conclude that a well-developed science–policy interface is of key importance for effective decision-making for adaptation.     

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.

     

Public disclosures: using information to reduce pollution in developing countries

The failure of formal regulation and market-based approaches to control pollution has highlighted the significance of informal regulation in the form of ‘public disclosure’ and ‘rating’ for achieving environmental goals in the nineties. In developing countries where pollution information is often scarce, disclosure can make a firm’s emissions more costly. This is because it increases penalties from regulators, local communities, consumer organizations and factor markets. Public or information disclosure combines conventional environmental monitoring, self-regulation and public pressure using environmental ratings to promote better environmental management. Thus, it forms an effective tool to control pollution in developing countries like India, China or Kenya and countries-in-transition like Poland, Russia, etc. The different examples given in the paper indicate that effective public disclosure requires a credible scheme with scrutiny at different checkpoints similar to the one used for PROPER in Indonesia or GRP in India.     

Climate proofing the Zuidplaspolder: a guiding model approach to climate adaptation

Climate change will have an impact on various sectors, such as housing, infrastructure, recreation and agriculture. Climate change may change spatial demands. For example, rising temperatures will increase the need for recreation areas, and areas could be assigned for water storage. There is a growing sense that, especially at the local scale, spatial planning has a key role in addressing the causes and impacts of climate change. This paper promotes an approach to help translate information on climate change impacts into a guiding model for adaptive spatial planning. We describe how guiding models can be used in designing integrated adaptation strategies. The concept of guiding models has been developed in the 1990s by Tjallingii to translate the principles of integrated water management in urban planning. We have integrated information about the present and future climate change and set up a climate adaptation guiding model approach. Making use of climate adaptation guiding models, spatial planners should be able to better cope with complexities of climate change impacts and be able to translate these to implications for spatial planning. The climate adaptation guiding model approach was first applied in the Zuidplaspolder case study, one of the first major attempts in the Netherlands to develop and implement an integrated adaptation strategy. This paper demonstrates how the construction of climate adaptation guiding models requires a participatory approach and how the use of climate adaptation guiding models can contribute to the information needs of spatial planners at the local scale, leading to an increasing sense of urgency and integrated adaptation planning process.     

How developing countries can engage in GHG reduction: a case study for China

It has been clearly recognized that future global climate change will limit the possibilities for sustainable development in China. To minimize these negative effects, as a practical strategy, we suggest that the Chinese government engage in international cooperation as a key contributor in the prevention of global warming. This suggestion results from numerical estimations of China’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trends accompanied with economic growth up to 2100. The results show that China’s gross domestic product (GDP), measured in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), may overtake the sum of the GDPs of the United States and Canada in 2020. It is predicted that GDP per capita may reach US$20,000 and $80,000 in 2050 and 2100, respectively; meanwhile, CO₂ emissions in China will increase from 6.6 billion tons (in carbon equivalent units) in 1990 to 54.6 billion tons in 2100. This means that the global peak concentration of GHG cannot be practically reduced without significant contributions from China. For international cooperation in mitigating global climate change, we introduce a new option, “per-capita emission restricted by assigned amount,” as an accounting rule for GHG reduction. This baseline classifies global CO₂ reduction actions into three categories: compulsory reduction, self-imposed reduction, and voluntary reduction. We suggest that China contribute to world CO₂ reduction according to the following timetable: voluntary reduction until 2012, self-imposed reduction until 2020, and compulsory reduction from 2020. The simulation results also indicate that China can benefit from this strategy in terms of improvements in its domestic economy and environment, for instance, by reducing fossil fuel consumption and the emission of pollutants.

Social cost of environmental pollution and application of counter measures through clean development mechanism: in the context of developing countries

The developing countries i.e., the non-Annex-I countries (parties to the Kyoto Protocol but not responsible to any reduction target yet) in the Kyoto Protocol whose economies are in transition are also allowed to reduce GHG emissions. Among these, the countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol may be benefited from CDM projects to promote sustainable development. The developed countries i.e., the Annex-I countries (that have signed the Kyoto Protocol & are responsible to have specific GHG emission reduction target) or the investing countries, in return, have privilege to purchase CER credits (in units equivalent to one tonne of CO₂ gas emission reduction) to meet the emission target as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. The key step in understanding about CDM is to grasp the concept of “baseline” and “additionality”. The “Baseline” is the emissions level that would have existed if a CDM project had not happened. The feature of an approved CDM project is that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reduction credits; this concept is known as “Additionality”. According to environmental additionality concept, baseline emission minus project emission is equal to emissions reduction. “Investment Additionality,” ultimately rejected during negotiation of the “Marrakech Accords” and “Financial Additionality,” are the two important concepts. The concept of trading of CER matches to the idea of Pigovian tax (equal to the negative externality and which is considered one of the “traditional” means of bringing a modicum of market forces) in Economics, making pollution more costly to the polluter, as the polluters have negative cost since they save money by polluting; hence, there are supposed negative externalities associated with the market activity. Economic theory predicts that in an economy where the cost of reaching mutual agreement between parties is high and where pollution is diffuse, Pigovian tax will be an efficient way to promote the public interest and will lead to an improvement of the quality of life measured by the Genuine Progress Indicator and other human economic indicators, as well as higher gross domestic product growth. We can seek a level of pollution such that the marginal savings (MS) to one polluting unit from pollution (−MC) is equal to marginal damage (MD) from pollution over the entire population, since pollution is a public bad i.e., MS (x*) = ∑MD_i (x*) where ∑D_i (x) is the total damage. Though the responsibility of reduction in emission does not lie on the non-Annex-I countries, still effort of maintaining global emission balance can be expected equally from developed and developing countries. The responsibilities of Kyoto Protocol are (a) to reduce global GHG emissions, (b) to bring about sustainable development in the developing countries lie on above two groups since its effect on February 16, 2005. Different polluters have different costs of pollution control. The least costly way of controlling pollution from various sources that reflects different costs of pollution control making the set of environmental regulations to achieve the emission target at the lowest cost makes the regulation cost-effective. Though efficiency is not attainable for many regulations, cost-effectiveness is attainable.     

Different perceptions of adaptation to climate change: a mental model approach applied to the evidence from expert interviews

We argue that differences in the perception and governance of adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events are related to sets of beliefs and concepts through which people understand the environment and which are used to solve the problems they face (mental models). Using data gathered in 31 in-depth interviews with adaptation experts in Europe, we identify five basic stakeholder groups whose divergent aims and logic can be related to different mental models they use: advocacy groups, administration, politicians, researchers, and media and the public. Each of these groups uses specific interpretations of climate change and specifies how to deal with climate change impacts. We suggest that a deeper understanding and follow-up of the identified mental models might be useful for the design of any stakeholder involvement in future climate impact research processes. It might also foster consensus building about adequate adaptation measures against climate threats in a society.     

A critical review of impact of and adaptation to climate change in developed and developing economies

Rapid change in climate is set to alter the delicate balance that exists between man and nature. It is more so for the region which are ecologically fragile. The literature to this effect points out that the poorest countries and communities are likely to suffer the most because of their geographic locations, low income and low institutional capacity, as well as their greater reliance on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture. Even if climate mitigations plans are implemented properly there will be some degree of warming due to inertia of emissions already released. As such, there is a strong consensus about the need of adaptation to changing climatic conditions. Adaptation is believed to enhance the resilience against increasing climate variability. In this backdrop, the objective of the present paper is, therefore, to systematically and critically review the existing literature on the impacts of climate change and choice of adaptations across countries and draw insights for suggesting a comprehensive policy framework particularly for developing countries in this regard. The paper finds that the role of government and civil society is crucial for enabling efficient adaptation methods. Development policies and programs having synergy effect with climate change initiatives help adapt with the changing climate better. However, the availability of clean technology in developing countries will play the decisive role in controlling their growth rate of emission. This will be made feasible only when there is a better understanding of the problem between the developed and developing world about the eminent danger arising out of climate change.     

New insight to tourism-environment nexus in Mediterranean countries: evidence from panel vector autoregression approach

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This paper analyzed the relationship between environmental performance and tourism sector development in Mediterranean countries for the period from...     

Resource management for sustainable development: a community- and GIS-based approach

A combined approach utilizing GIS, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) has been developed for resource mapping in a rural poverty-prone area of Bangladesh. This model integrated GIS and participatory tools to include the voices of the stakeholders in assessing available resources and needs. The resource mapping framework, developed using PRA with local community people and community gatekeepers, was aimed at sustainable resource management, and ArcView GIS was used to digitize the resource maps as a Decision Support System (DSS). A detailed assessment and analysis of the quality, quantity and physical status of resources was first mapped in the field and then digitized using GIS. FGD-based interaction with community people at each union in a subdistrict of Bangladesh revealed stakeholders’ opinions on land and water body management. The present paper demonstrates the power of this model as a policy-making tool for sustainable development and poverty eradication. It also recognized the need for collaboration between interdisciplinary policy planners and researchers to develop and implement a policy on agricultural resource management for poverty-prone areas.