From climate change impacts to adaptation: A development perspective for India

India has good reasons to be concerned about climate change as it could adversely affect the achievement of vital national development goals related to socio‐economic development, human welfare, health, energy availability and use, and infrastructure. The paper attempts to develop a framework for integrated impact assessment and adaptation responses, using a recently built railroad coastal infrastructure asset in India as an example. The framework links climate change variables — temperature, rainfall, sea level rise, extreme events, and other secondary variables — and sustainable development variables — technology, institutions, economic, and other policies. The study indicates that sustainable development variables generally reduce the adverse impacts on the system due to climate change alone, except when they are inadequately applied. The paper concludes that development is a vital variable for integrated impact assessment. Well crafted developmental policies could result in a less‐GHG intensive future, enhanced adaptive capacities of communities and systems, and lower impacts due to climate change.     

Water Access, Water Scarcity, and Climate Change

This article investigates the approaches of the various discourses operating in the water sector and how they address the issues of scarcity and equitable access under projected climate change impacts. Little synergy exists between the different approaches dealing with these issues. Whilst being a sustainable development and water resources management issue, a holistic view of access, scarcity and the projected impacts of climate change is not prevalent in these discourses. The climate change discourse too does not adequately bridge the gap between these issues. The projected impacts of climate change are likely to exacerbate the problems of scarcity and equitable access unless appropriate adaptation strategies are adopted and resilience is built. The successful delivery of accessible water services under projected climate change impacts therefore lies with an extension of the adaptive water management approach to include equitable access as a key driver.     

Development and Climate Change: A Mainstreaming Approach for Assessing Economic,Social, and Environmental Impacts of Adaptation Measures

The paper introduces the so-called climate change mainstreaming approach, where vulnerability and adaptation measures are assessed in the context of general development policy objectives. The approach is based on the application of a limited set of indicators. These indicators are selected as representatives of focal development policy objectives, and a stepwise approach for addressing climate change impacts, development linkages, and the economic, social and environmental dimensions related to vulnerability and adaptation are introduced. Within this context it is illustrated using three case studies how development policy indicators in practice can be used to assess climate change impacts and adaptation measures based on three case studies, namely a road project in flood prone areas of Mozambique, rainwater harvesting in the agricultural sector in Tanzania and malaria protection in Tanzania. The conclusions of the paper confirm that climate risks can be reduced at relatively low costs, but the uncertainty is still remaining about some of the wider development impacts of implementing climate change adaptation measures.     

Linkages between biodiversity conservation and global climate change in small island developing States (SIDS)

Global climate change is an important cause of biodiversity loss. The conservation, sustainable management and use of biodiversity resources are key factors that can be effectively used to minimize the adverse impacts of global climate change. Efforts to understand and address the linkages between global climate change and biodiversity loss are both urgent and timely. Integrating responses related to these two global environmental challenges is especially relevant for small island developing States (SIDS) because the adverse impacts of climate change can impose severe stresses on biodiversity resources that are fragile, vulnerable and already under stress and the people who depend upon them. This paper argues that comprehensive assessments of adverse impacts of global climate change on the biodiversity resources of SIDS, and an improved understanding of relevant climate change related adaptation measures and sustainable energy policies (that are based on the principles of conservation, sustainable management and use of biodiversity resources) will enable SIDS to become more resilient and to develop better response capacities.     

Climate Change, Coral Reef Ecosystems, and Management Options for Marine Protected Areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) provide place-based management of marine ecosystems through various degrees and types of protective actions. Habitats such as coral reefs are especially susceptible to degradation resulting from climate change, as evidenced by mass bleaching events over the past two decades. Marine ecosystems are being altered by direct effects of climate change including ocean warming, ocean acidification, rising sea level, changing circulation patterns, increasing severity of storms, and changing freshwater influxes. As impacts of climate change strengthen they may exacerbate effects of existing stressors and require new or modified management approaches; MPA networks are generally accepted as an improvement over individual MPAs to address multiple threats to the marine environment. While MPA networks are considered a potentially effective management approach for conserving marine biodiversity, they should be established in conjunction with other management strategies, such as fisheries regulations and reductions of nutrients and other forms of land-based pollution. Information about interactions between climate change and more “traditional” stressors is limited. MPA managers are faced with high levels of uncertainty about likely outcomes of management actions because climate change impacts have strong interactions with existing stressors, such as land-based sources of pollution, overfishing and destructive fishing practices, invasive species, and diseases. Management options include ameliorating existing stressors, protecting potentially resilient areas, developing networks of MPAs, and integrating climate change into MPA planning, management, and evaluation.     

Living with climate change risks: stakeholders’ employment and coastal relocation in mediterranean climate regions of Australia and Spain

Climate change impacts are no longer just a future issue for communities in the Mediterranean climate regions. This comparative study offers insights on climate change risk perceptions and attitudes among environmental, economic and social stakeholders in coastal areas in northeastern Spain and South Australia, as well as compares interviewed stakeholders’ risk perceptions with available documentary data and participant observation. Using a community risk assessment approach, the results show that some stakeholders perceive that climate change is already and/or may further continue to affect their employment, mostly in a predominantly negative way. Interestingly, some other interviewed stakeholders consider that climate change creates opportunities through new and additional areas of work. The findings also suggest that climate change may influence relocation of coastal residential populations in both case studies, which is likely to be an acceptable option among the stakeholders. This acceptance can be linked to the fact that in both areas there is a significant percentage of resident population with migrant background. This study calls for a need to understand better the personal experience of climate change in industrialized countries, as well as to consider coastal relocation in the integrated coastal planning and other territorial and population policies.     

Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries

Adaptation to climate change is given increasing international attention as the confidence in climate change projections is getting higher. Developing countries have specific needs for adaptation due to high vulnerabilities, and they will in this way carry a great part of the global costs of climate change although the rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are mainly the responsibility of industrialized countries. This article provides a status of climate change adaptation in developing countries. An overview of observed and projected climate change is given, and recent literature on impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation are reviewed, including the emerging focus on mainstreaming of climate change and adaptation in development plans and programs. The article also serves as an introduction to the seven research articles of this special issue on climate change adaptation in developing countries. It is concluded that although many useful steps have been taken in the direction of ensuring adequate adaptation in developing countries, much work still remains to fully understand the drivers of past adaptation efforts, the need for future adaptation, and how to mainstream climate into general development policies.     

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING AND HEALTH1

ABSTRACT: We review published analyses of the effects of climate change on goods and services provided by freshwater ecosystems in the United States. Climate-induced changes must be assessed in the context of massive anthropogenic changes in water quantity and quality resulting from altered patterns of land use, water withdrawal, and species invasions; these may dwarf or exacerbate climate-induced changes. Water to meet instream needs is competing with other uses of water, and that competition is likely to be increased by climate change. We review recent predictions of the impacts of climate change on aquatic ecosystems in eight regions of North America. Impacts include warmer temperatures that alter lake mixing regimes and availability of fish habitat; changed magnitude and seasonality of runoff regimes that alter nutrient loading and limit habitat availability at low flow; and loss of prairie pothole wetlands that reduces waterfowl populations. Many of the predicted changes in aquatic ecosystems are a consequence of climatic effects on terrestrial ecosystems; shifts in riparian vegetation and hydrology are particularly critical. We review models that could be used to explore potential effects of climate change on freshwater ecosystems; these include models of instream flow, bioenergetics models, nutrient spiraling models, and models relating riverine food webs to hydrologic regime. We discuss potential ecological risks, benefits, and costs of climate change and identify information needs and model improvements that are required to improve our ability to predict and identify climate change impacts and to evaluate management options.     

Socioeconomic backwardness and vulnerability to climate change: evidence from Uttar Pradesh state in India

This study tests the thesis that ‘vulnerability to climate change is not only a result of biophysical events alone but also influenced by the socioeconomic conditions in which climate change occurs’. The study chose Uttar Pradesh (UP), a state in India, for its importance in the nation's food and nutrition security programme and its high sensitivity to climate change. It uses an indicator approach to see which districts of UP are the most vulnerable to climate change, and attempts to identify the factors on a set of explanatory variables. The study finds that infrastructurally and economically developed districts are less vulnerable to climate change; in other words, vulnerability to climate change and variability is linked with social and economic development. This observation is corroborated by the findings of relational analysis wherein livestock, forestry, consumption of fertilizer, per capita income, and infant mortality rate are observed to be important correlates of vulnerability to climate change.     

Assessing local climate action plans for public health co-benefits in environmental justice communities

Climate change presents a complex environmental health and justice challenge for the field of urban planning. To date, the majority of research focuses on measuring local climate efforts and evaluating the general efficacy of adopted climate action plans (CAPs). Cumulatively, these studies argue that socio-economic and demographic variables (such as the fiscal health of cities, city size, and median household income) are important factors in implementing climate policies. Less studied are issues of environmental justice and the impacts of climate change on population health. Through interviews with urban planners and a document analysis of CAPs, this study assesses how California cities with high levels of pollution and social vulnerability address climate change and public health. The findings of this study show that CAPs in these cities rarely analyse whether greenhouse gas reduction strategies will also yield health co-benefits, such as a reduction in the co-pollutants of climate change (i.e. ozone, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides). In many instances, the net co-benefits of health are not monetised, quantified, or even identified by local governments. In California's most impacted cities, climate planning activities and work on public health are happening in a parallel manner rather than through an integrated approach. The results suggest a need for increased opportunities for interagency coordination and staff training to conduct health analyses, free and easily accessible tools, methods for prioritising funding streams, and the development of partnerships with community-based organisations for linking climate planning with public health.     

CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATERSHED PLANNING IN WASHINGTON STATE1

ABSTRACT: This paper draws on interviews with Washington State Watershed Planning Leads (Planning Leads) and interactions with local watershed planning units to identify factors that may influence the inclusion of climate change in watershed planning efforts in Washington State. These factors include the interest of individual planning unit members in climate change; Planning Lead familiarity with climate impacts; the influence of trust, leadership, and “genetic knowledge” on planning units; and perceptions of strategic gain. The research also identifies aspects of the planning process that may create opportunities for addressing climate impacts in future planning. These aspects include continuation of watershed planning units after plans are developed; commitment to updating watershed plans; recognition of climate impacts in planning documentation; dedicated incentive funding; and the availability of hydrologic modeling tools for assessing hydrologic impacts. Additional types of technical assistance that could support integration of climate impacts are also identified. It is hoped that the insight provided by this analysis will help individuals involved in stakeholder‐based watershed planning recognize the various dynamics potentially affecting the inclusion of climate change in watershed planning and in doing so, contribute to the development of planning approaches and tools that will support local efforts to adapt to climate impacts.     

The Impact of Local versus National Framing on Willingness to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions: a case study from central Pennsylvania

This paper explores the impact of the frame in which people interpret global warming. In 1999, 637 respondents completed a mail survey in five counties in central Pennsylvania. Half of the sample received questionnaires that framed global warming in terms of the local impacts of mitigation policies, whereas the other half received questionnaires that framed global warming in terms of the national impacts of mitigation policies. The results show a statistically significant but small difference between the local and national frames in the respondents' willingness to support government policies, as well as to take voluntary actions to mitigate climate change.     

An Ecological and Economic Assessment Methodology for Coastal Ecosystem Management

An adaptation of the Drivers-Pressure-State-Impact-Response methodology is presented in this work. The differential DPSIR (ΔDPSIR) was developed to evaluate impacts on the coastal environment and as a tool for integrated ecosystem management. The aim of the ΔDPSIR is to provide scientifically-based information required by managers and decision-makers to evaluate previously adopted policies, as well as future response scenarios. The innovation of the present approach is to provide an explicit link between ecological and economic information related to the use and management of a coastal ecosystem within a specific timeframe. The application of ΔDPSIR is illustrated through an analysis of developments in a Southwest European coastal lagoon between 1985 and 1995. The value of economic activities dependent on the lagoon suffered a significant reduction (ca. −60%) over that period, mainly due to a decrease in bivalve production. During that decade the pressures from the catchment area were managed (ca. 176 million Euros), mainly through the building of waste water treatment plants. Notwithstanding this, the ecosystem state worsened with respect to abnormal clam mortalities due to a parasite infection and to benthic eutrophication symptoms in specific problematic areas. The negative economic impacts during the decade were estimated between −565 and −315 million Euros, of which 9–49% represent the cost of environmental externalities. Evaluation of these past events indicates that future management actions should focus on reducing the limitation on local clam seeds, which should result in positive impacts to both the local socio-economy and biodiversity.     

The Impact of Local versus National Framing on Willingness to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A case study from central Pennsylvania

This paper explores the impact of the frame in which people interpret global warming. In 1999, 637 respondents completed a mail survey in five counties in central Pennsylvania. Half of the sample received questionnaires that framed global warming in terms of the local impacts of mitigation policies, whereas the other half received questionnaires that framed global warming in terms of the national impacts of mitigation policies. The results show a statistically significant but small difference between the local and national frames in the respondents' willingness to support government policies, as well as to take voluntary actions to mitigate climate change.     

Modeling the Effects of Tile Drain Placement on the Hydrologic Function of Farmed Prairie Wetlands

The early 2000s saw large increases in agricultural tile drainage in the eastern Dakotas of North America. Agricultural practices that drain wetlands directly are sometimes limited by wetland protection programs. Little is known about the impacts of tile drainage beyond the delineated boundaries of wetlands in upland catchments that may be in agricultural production. A series of experiments were conducted using the well‐published model WETLANDSCAPE that revealed the potential for wetlands to have significantly shortened surface water inundation periods and lower mean depths when tile is placed in certain locations beyond the wetland boundary. Under the soil conditions found in agricultural areas of South Dakota in North America, wetland hydroperiod was found to be more sensitive to the depth that drain tile is installed relative to the bottom of the wetland basin than to distance‐based setbacks. Because tile drainage can change the hydrologic conditions of wetlands, even when deployed in upland catchments, tile drainage plans should be evaluated more closely for the potential impacts they might have on the ecological services that these wetlands currently provide. Future research should investigate further how drainage impacts are affected by climate variability and change.     

Context-dependent evaluation of climate change policies: competing policies,knowledge and emotions

Climate change policies can compete with policies on other social and environmental problems for limited economic resources. This paper investigates the potential influence of alternative policies on citizens’ preferences for climate change policies. A contingent valuation study was implemented to estimate the impact of observable and unobservable contextual effects of competing polices on climate change valuation. Individuals are also investigated about their endowment of knowledge and emotional reactions to such problems. The results show that citizens’ valuation of climate change policies crucially depends on the context-dependent competing policies. The valuation rises as the number of competing policies increases. This increment becomes economically significant when the competing policies are related to specific problems such as forest fires and development. In addition, the valuation also rises with the amount of knowledge endowed by the individual about the climate change problem, and with the experience of negative emotions such as fear and sadness.     

Adapting to Climate Change on Western Public Lands: Addressing the Ecological Effects of Domestic, Wild, and Feral Ungulates

Climate change affects public land ecosystems and services throughout the American West and these effects are projected to intensify. Even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, adaptation strategies for public lands are needed to reduce anthropogenic stressors of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and to help native species and ecosystems survive in an altered environment. Historical and contemporary livestock production—the most widespread and long-running commercial use of public lands—can alter vegetation, soils, hydrology, and wildlife species composition and abundances in ways that exacerbate the effects of climate change on these resources. Excess abundance of native ungulates (e.g., deer or elk) and feral horses and burros add to these impacts. Although many of these consequences have been studied for decades, the ongoing and impending effects of ungulates in a changing climate require new management strategies for limiting their threats to the long-term supply of ecosystem services on public lands. Removing or reducing livestock across large areas of public land would alleviate a widely recognized and long-term stressor and make these lands less susceptible to the effects of climate change. Where livestock use continues, or where significant densities of wild or feral ungulates occur, management should carefully document the ecological, social, and economic consequences (both costs and benefits) to better ensure management that minimizes ungulate impacts to plant and animal communities, soils, and water resources. Reestablishing apex predators in large, contiguous areas of public land may help mitigate any adverse ecological effects of wild ungulates.     

Effects of Climate and Land Cover on Hydrology in the Southeastern U.S.: Potential Impacts on Watershed Planning

The hydrologic response to statistically downscaled general circulation model simulations of daily surface climate and land cover through 2099 was assessed for the Apalachicola‐Chattahoochee‐Flint River Basin located in the southeastern United States. Projections of climate, urbanization, vegetation, and surface‐depression storage capacity were used as inputs to the Precipitation‐Runoff Modeling System to simulate projected impacts on hydrologic response. Surface runoff substantially increased when land cover change was applied. However, once the surface depression storage was added to mitigate the land cover change and increases of surface runoff (due to urbanization), the groundwater flow component then increased. For hydrologic studies that include projections of land cover change (urbanization in particular), any analysis of runoff beyond the change in total runoff should include effects of stormwater management practices as these features affect flow timing and magnitude and may be useful in mitigating land cover change impacts on streamflow. Potential changes in water availability and how biota may respond to changes in flow regime in response to climate and land cover change may prove challenging for managers attempting to balance the needs of future development and the environment. However, these models are still useful for assessing the relative impacts of climate and land cover change and for evaluating tradeoffs when managing to mitigate different stressors.     

Gendered dimensions of climate change response in Swedish municipalities

This article elaborates on and discusses gendered dimensions of climate change response in Swedish municipalities. There are indications that attitudes and behaviour to the environment and climate change are gendered. This evidence together with our own work further indicates that gender awareness is most probably an important influence on how municipalities respond to climate change. The aim of this study was to investigate if and how gendered aspects of climate change response are integrated in the Swedish response to climate change. The potential causal relationships between a high level of awareness of the gendered aspects of climate change and the levels of climate change response were investigated. We asked whether there is a positive relationship between gender awareness and the quality of the communities' climate change policies and practice. Indications of such a relationship prompt a change in research priorities – paying more attention to gender – and in subsequent policy developments.     

Barriers and enablers to climate change adaptation in hierarchical governance systems: the case of Vietnam

Governments fulfil important roles in increasing the adaptive capacity of local communities to respond to climate change impacts, particularly in developing countries. Existing studies on how governments enable and constrain the ways in which local level communities learn and build their adaptive capacity, however, generally adopt network or market-oriented types of governance. However, the most vulnerable regions to climate change impact in the world are generally governed through hierarchical policy systems. This research aims to understand how the hierarchical policy system in Vietnam creates enables and/or constrains the policy capacity of policy actors to contribute to effective climate change adaptation. We conducted interviews (n?=?26) with key actors at multiple levels of government. Our findings show the importance of clear legal institutions, available financing for implementing policies, and the training of governmental staff, particularly at district and commune levels where the policy capacities are generally too low to deal with climate change impacts. We conclude that any efforts to support local actors (i.e. smallholder farmers) should include investments in policy capacity to ensure uptake and upscaling of adaptation actions more broadly.