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.     

Lagged effect of exports,industrialization and urbanization on carbon footprint in Southeast Asia

The study aims to examine lagged causal effect of economic development policies on the carbon footprint of Southeast Asia. This study employs unit root test, cointegration test and panel data analysis methods to examine endogeneity concerns in observational data. The study applies panel data analysis methods to address unobserved country effect in the model. The balanced panel data includes a total of 240 observations with five cross sections of five nations in Southeast Asia and with 48 time-specific periods of 1970–2017. The results indicate that (1) exports, industrialization, urbanization and economic growth have lagged negative effect on the carbon footprint of the region in the short-run, and (2) there exists a long-run equilibrium relationship among exports, industrialization, urbanization, economic growth and carbon footprint in the region. The findings suggest that the economic growth, exports, industrialization and urbanization of the developing countries in Southeast Asia have been achieved at the cost of increasing the carbon footprint of the region. The findings imply that the environmental policy of the export-led growth countries never have been effective so far since the nations have achieved their economic growth at the high cost of harming the environment of the nations.     

Estimation of biomass distribution in Peninsular Malaysia and in the islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo based on multi-resolution remote sensing land cover analysis

In this study we used high resolution (20 m) land cover maps to derive detailed information on land cover structure within the classes of a regional medium resolution (500 m) land cover map. This enabled improved biomass estimation for the medium resolution land cover classes. Although our results suggested that land cover maps based merely on medium resolution remote sensing data can be used to monitor the extent of forest cover, they also showed that these maps alone are not sufficient to produce reliable regional estimates on above ground biomass in insular Southeast Asia. A quarter of the study area was covered by sub-pixel size (500 m) mosaic of various land cover types containing 14% of biomass. In total, non-forest areas covered over 60% of the study area and included 43% of biomass. In these areas, highly fragmented within class land cover structure was shown to significantly affect biomass estimates. Therefore we conclude that forest/land cover monitoring based merely on medium resolution remote sensing data can no longer be used to sufficiently quantify carbon fluxes connected to land cover changes in insular Southeast Asia, but multi-resolution approaches are needed to perform this task.     

东亚地区夏季旱涝分布与南海夏季风爆发时间关系

利用东亚地区529个代表站地面历史月降水资料和南海夏季风爆发时间的历史序列资料，对近55年（1951—2005年）南海夏季风爆发时间进行了多时间尺度变化特征分析，并依据夏季降水距平百分率确定了旱涝灾害等级标准，应用合成诊断分析方法研究了南海夏季风爆发时间偏早、偏晚和正常3种典型时态与东亚地区夏季旱涝分布的对应关系。结果表明：（1）在南海夏季风偏早爆发年份，中国长江流域、东北北部、华北局部以及韩国南部、日本南部、蒙古国东部易发生旱灾；中国的华南东部、淮河流域、环渤海北部及中朝边界、韩国北部易发生涝灾；（2）在南海夏季风偏晚爆发年份，中国江南地区、东南沿海、海南岛、东北局部以及日本的东部易发生旱灾；中国华南西部、淮河流域、华北大部、东北东部以及韩国南部、日本南部易发生涝灾；（3）在南海夏季风正常爆发年份，中国的华南南部、江淮地区、中朝边界、中蒙边界以及韩国局部、日本南部易发生旱灾；中国江南西部以及日本大部易发生涝灾。     

Connecting science,policy, and implementation for landscape‐scale habitat connectivity

We examined the links between the science and policy of habitat corridors to better understand how corridors can be implemented effectively. As a case study, we focused on a suite of landscape‐scale connectivity plans in tropical and subtropical Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, and Bhutan). The process of corridor designation may be more efficient if the scientific determination of optimal corridor locations and arrangement is synchronized in time with political buy‐in and establishment of policies to create corridors. Land tenure and the intactness of existing habitat in the region are also important to consider because optimal connectivity strategies may be very different if there are few, versus many, political jurisdictions (including commercial and traditional land tenures) and intact versus degraded habitat between patches. Novel financing mechanisms for corridors include bed taxes, payments for ecosystem services, and strategic forest certifications. Gaps in knowledge of effective corridor design include an understanding of how corridors, particularly those managed by local communities, can be protected from degradation and unsustainable hunting. There is a critical need for quantitative, data‐driven models that can be used to prioritize potential corridors or multicorridor networks based on their relative contributions to long‐term metacommunity persistence.     

Three decades of changes in water environment of a large freshwater Lake and its relationship with socio-economic indicators

Tai Lake (Ch: Taihu) has attracted international attention forcyanobacteria blooms. However, the drivers of cultural eutrophication, especially long-term socio-economic indicators have been little researched. The results of research demonstrate how socio-economic development affected quality of water and how it has been improved by anthropogenic activities. This study described variability in indicators of water quality in Tai Lakeand investigated thedrivers. Significant relationships existed between concentrations of annual mean total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorous (TP), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD), and population, per capital gross domestic production (GDP) and sewage discharge (p?<?0.05). However, mechanisms causing change varied among TN, TP, COD and BOD. Before 2000, the main contributors to increases in concentrations of TN were human population, GDP and volumes of domestic sewage discharges. After 2000, discharges of industrial sewage become the primary contributor. After 1998, the regressions of annual mean TN, TP and COD on per capital GDP, population and domestic sewage discharge were reversed compared to the former period. Since 1999, an apparent inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental pollution and economic development has developed, which indicated that actions taken by governments have markedly improved quality of water in Tai Lake. The statistical relationship between BOD and per capital GDP didn’t conform to the Kuznet curve. The U-shaped Kuznet curve may offer hope for the future that with significant environmental investments a high GDP can be reached and maintained without degradation of the environment, especially through appropriate management of industrial sewage discharge.     

东亚地区硫污染物的空间分布特征

利用一个硫沉降模式分析了东亚地区ＳＯ２和ＳＯ４２－浓度的空间分布及其特征．不同天气条件下，ＳＯ２和ＳＯ４２－的浓度不同，高层ＳＯ２和ＳＯ４２－的浓度分别为０４—１０μｇ／ｍ３和０２—０５μｇ／ｍ３；中层为４０—１００μｇ／ｍ３和２０—６０μｇ／ｍ３；近地层为４０—３００μｇ／ｍ３和２０—８０μｇ／ｍ３．分析表明，近地面浓度分布受源的影响比较明显，高层的浓度分布与湿清除过程密切相关，其浓度的低值区与降水区和云区有较好的对应．中层浓度分布体现了源、中层气流及湿清除的共同作用．     

东北亚主要沿海国家海洋环境管理比较研究

海洋环境管理对于保护和保全海洋环境、推动海洋经济发展、构建生态文明具有重要意义。由于不同国家和地区的政治、经济、海洋战略和文化背景的差异,海洋环境管理的实施没有一个统一的标准模式,所解决的重点问题也不一样。这种多样性使得目前还没有一套通用的海洋环境管理评价体系。为此,本文以东北亚沿海各国为例,借鉴已有研究,从机构设置、法律体系和海洋环境状况三个方面出发,构建了包含定性和定量指标的海洋环境管理效果评价指标体系,在此基础上对东北亚沿海各国海洋环境管理效果进行定量评价与对比分析。结果表明,在机构设置和法律体系方面,日本领先于其他国家;在海洋环境管理方面,朝鲜较优;综合各方面后,日本表现最优,韩国、中国次之,朝鲜、俄罗斯较差。本研究提出的评价方法,可以较为客观地反映不同政治、经济和文化背景下国家在海洋环境管理方面的努力,可为我国审视自身不足、立足国情构建我国特色的海洋环境管理体制提供重要的方法指导和实践经验。     

Urban water-related environmental transitions in Southeast Asia

This article reviews water-related urban environmental conditions in Southeast Asia. It argues that the development of urban environmental challenges in the region follows a unique pattern compared with those experienced in the now developed world. The new pattern is defined by the so called time–space telescoping of the development process. The process of time–space telescoping reduces the levels of income at which environmental challenges emerge and forces their appearance in a simultaneous fashion, as sets of problems. During previous eras, cities experienced sequential environmental transitions. Urban water-related environmental burdens emerged on local scales and expanded geographically and temporally in impact, with growing levels of affluence. Moreover, certain environmental challenges appeared later in economic growth because the technologies and practices that induced these problems emerged at higher levels of income. The article has two main findings. First, except for wealthy urban centers, for example Singapore, cities in the region are experiencing multi-scaled water burdens simultaneously. Second, low-income and middle-income cities are experiencing burdens at lower levels of income than did their contemporaries in the north.

Deforestation and Avian Extinction on Tropical Landbridge Islands

Abstract: There are few empirical data, particularly collected simultaneously from multiple sites, on extinctions resulting from human‐driven land‐use change. Southeast Asia has the highest deforestation rate in the world, but the resulting losses of biological diversity remain poorly documented. Between November 2006 and March 2008, we conducted bird surveys on six landbridge islands in Malaysia and Indonesia. These islands were surveyed previously for birds in the early 1900s, when they were extensively forested. Our bird inventories of the islands were nearly complete, as indicated by sampling saturation curves and nonparametric true richness estimators. From zero (Pulau Malawali and Pulau Mantanani) to 15 (Pulau Bintan) diurnal resident landbird species were apparently extirpated since the early 1900s. Adding comparable but published extinction data from Singapore to our regression analyses, we found there were proportionally fewer forest bird extinctions in areas with greater remaining forest cover. Nevertheless, the statistical evidence to support this relationship was weak, owing to our unavoidably small sample size. Bird species that are restricted to the Indomalayan region, lay few eggs, are heavier, and occupy a narrower habitat breadth, were most vulnerable to extinction on Pulau Bintan. This was the only island where sufficient data existed to analyze the correlates of extinction. Forest preservation and restoration are needed on these islands to conserve the remaining forest avifauna. Our study of landbridge islands indicates that deforestation may increasingly threaten Southeast Asian biodiversity.