A policymaking perspective on disaster risk reduction in Mozambique

Academics and practitioners alike emphasise that public policy plays a key role to support efforts to reduce disaster risks and to buffer the impacts of natural hazards when they occur. This involves developing public policies to promote disaster risk reduction (DRR). However, the public policy dimension has only recently begun to receive attention in empirical research on DRR. Processes of policy change are discussed, yet less often studied, and more empirical research is needed to advance the understanding of the conditions for DRR policy change. Combining insights from adaptation research and public policy theory, this study investigates the long-term development of DRR policy in Mozambique as perceived by multiple stakeholders. The study identifies barriers and enabling factors influencing the DRR policy process over time. Using data from 37 semi-structured interviews, the study finds six main enabling factors supporting DRR policy change. Among the most important enabling factors are past disasters and broad stakeholder involvement. The study also unveils several barriers to DRR policy change, including resource insufficiency and lack of coordination among stakeholders. The study concludes with suggestions for integrating DRR and policy process research and lessons for policymaking in support of DRR over time.     

Impact of climate factors on cyanobacterial dynamics and their interactions with water quality in South Taihu Lake,China

Cyanobacterial bloom events in South Taihu Lake cause serious water quality problems and disturb aesthetic view of lake’s environment. In this study, correlations between cyanobacterial blooms and hydro-meteorological factors, including water quality, temperature and precipitation were investigated. Results demonstrated that South Taihu Lake was heavily affected by cyanobacteria and the proliferation of cyanobacteria due to variations in hydro-meteorological factors and water quality conditions. Water quality parameters, including COD, NH₃-N, TN and TP improved significantly since 2008 even at an elevated cyanobacterial bloom situation. Correlation analyses have shown that the development of cyanobacterial density and chlorophyll a concentration was sensitive to a wider temperature variation. The optimum temperature for cyanobacteria was 20°C, while extremely low and high temperatures were found to suppress their growth. Moreover, unusual rainfall patterns were measured during the study period (2003–2009), which showed an adverse impact on cyanobacterial development. Findings from this study suggested that seasonal lake’s water quality monitoring; suitable treatment of cyanobacterial blooms and strict policy implementation can solve the water quality issues in highly eutrophic lakes like Taihu.     

Per-capita estimations of long-term historical land use and the consequences for global change research

Changes in land use and land cover are important in global climate change, but the many uncertainties in historical estimates seriously hamper climate modelling. We collected new data on estimated per capita land use over the last two millennia, using new data sources from the Humanities. In general, and in agreement with literature, we found that per capita land use indeed has not been constant in the past, but differ per region and over time. Land use in the distant past was mostly less than 1 ha/cap. However, the recently colonised regions show much higher values and have experienced a much higher per capita land use for the recent past. Most known trajectories follow a concave or bell-shaped curve towards the present.     

Identifying the roots of Green Civil War over utility-scale solar energy projects on public lands across the American Southwest

Utility-scale solar energy (USSE) development is an emerging cause of land use change across the American Southwest. Many proposed projects in the region have encountered resistance from environmental groups because of concern about endangered, threatened, and special status species. Projects have also faced resistance from impacted local communities and Native American tribes. This research documents land use conflicts that surfaced during the initial wave of USSE development from 2009 to 2015. The goal is to identify potential roots of land use conflict over renewable energy development, to help explain why there is consistent support for renewables in general, but widespread opposition to projects during the proposal and development stages. The primary data presented include public comments to formal rule-making processes, semi-structured interviews conducted from 2009 to 2013, and various media sources. The paper concludes describing emerging planning frameworks that identify sites for USSE with fewer land use conflicts.     

Patterns and drivers of forest land cover changes in tropical semi-deciduous forests in Ghana

This study was conducted to determine the patterns and drivers of forest land cover changes in Bobiri and Oboyow Forest Reserves (BFR and OFR, respectively), Ghana. Landsat images were employed to determine forest land cover types and changes in 1990, 2000 and 2010 using supervised classification method. Factors that drive forest land cover changes in the forest reserves were determined using a semi-structured questionnaire and field observations. Generally, closed-canopy forest decreased by 49% in both forests over 20-year period resulting in a tremendous increase in open-canopy forest (BFR: 85%; OFR: 46%) and non-forest land cover types (BFR: 48–80% OFR: 127–350%). Factors such as logging manual illiteracy among timber operators, offences of authorised timber operators, ineffective community participation, harvesting schedule revision, chainsaw logging, illegal logging, bushfires, fuel gathering and weak penalty for offences were identified as contributing to rapid depletion of closed canopy forest cover in the forest reserves.     

A confirmation of the indirect impact of sugarcane on deforestation in the Amazon

A widely discussed assumption that the expansion of sugarcane indirectly contributes to deforestation in Brazil has been backed statistically by only a handful of studies. The present research measures the indirect effect of sugarcane in Brazil’s frontier counties as a weighted summation of changes in sugarcane area in agricultural (non-frontier) counties, where weights are constructed using road distances and the bandwidth that minimizes overall model error. In addition to economic variables, indirect effect variables are employed to create a model that explains deforestation. Parameters are estimated following fixed-effects methodology. The results reveal that sugarcane indirectly contributed to deforestation in Brazil during the period from 2002 to 2012. The effect was estimated to be sizeable; in particular, 16.3 thousand km² of forest was cut by economic actors displaced by expanding sugarcane plantations. This figure constitutes 12.2% of deforestation in Brazil from 2002 to 2012 and is equivalent to 189.4 million Mg of carbon emissions.     

Transformational change: governance interventions for climate change adaptation from a continuous change perspective

Although transformational change is a rather new topic in climate change adaptation literature, it has been studied in organisational theory for over 30 years. This paper argues that governance scholars can learn much from organisation theory, more specifically regarding the conceptualisation of change and intervention strategies. We reconceptualise the divide between transformational change and incremental change by questioning the feasibility of changes that are concurrently in-depth, large scale, and quick; and the assumption that incremental change is necessarily slow and can only result in superficial changes. To go beyond this dichotomy, we introduce the conceptualisation of continuous transformational change. Resulting intervention strategies include (1) providing basic conditions for enabling small in-depth wins; (2) amplifying small wins through sensemaking, coupling, and integrating; and (3) unblocking stagnations by confronting social and cognitive fixations with counterintuitive interventions. These interventions necessitate a modest leadership. Governing transformational change thus requires transformation of the governance systems themselves.     

Climate change adaptation in the urban planning and design research: missing links and research agenda

This paper investigates the extent and the nature of how the urban planning literature has addressed climate change adaptation. It presents a longitudinal study of 157 peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2013 in the leading urban planning and design journals whose selection considered earlier empirical studies that ranked them these journals. The findings reveal that the years 2006–07 represent a turning point, after which climate change studies appear more prominently and consistently in the urban planning and design literature; however, the majority of these studies address climate change mitigation rather than adaptation. Most adaptation studies deal with governance, social learning, and vulnerability assessments, while paying little attention to physical planning and urban design interventions. This paper identifies four gaps that pertain to the lack of interdisciplinary linkages, the absence of knowledge transfer, the presence of scale conflict, and the dearth of participatory research methods. It then advocates for the advancement of participatory and collaborative action research to meet the multifaceted challenges of climate change.     

Proportionate and disproportionate policy responses to climate change: core concepts and empirical applications

A fresh perspective on policy-making and planning has emerged which views disproportionate policy as an intentional policy response. A disproportionate policy response is understood to be a lack of ‘fit’ or balance between the costs of a public policy and the benefits that are derived from this policy, and between policy ends and means. This paper applies this new perspective on the proportionality of policy-making to the area of climate change. The first part of the paper discusses the underlying causes of disproportionate policy responses in broad terms and then applies the theoretical reasoning to understand the conditions in which they are likely to appear in relation to climate change. These conditions are hypothesized to relate to four main factors: economic considerations; levels of public demand; focusing events; and strategic considerations. It concludes with the suggestion that societal actors may be able to manipulate these four factors to encourage politicians to adopt policies that mitigate climate change more rapidly than is currently the case in most countries.     

Fabrication and characterization of electrospun porous cellulose acetate nanofibrous mats incorporated with capric acid as form-stable phase change materials for storing/retrieving thermal energy

Electrospun cellulose acetate (CA) nanofibrous mats incorporated with capric acid was studied to fabricate form-stable phase change materials (PCMs) for storing/retrieving thermal energy. Electrospun CA nanofibrous mats with different porous structures and specific surface areas were firstly prepared through regulating the volume ratio of mixture solvent of acetone/dichloromethane (DCM). Effects of different volume ratio of mixture solvent and mat thickness on the morphological structure, specific surface area, and absorption capacity of CA nanofibrous mats were systematically investigated. The results indicated that CA nanofibrous mats were highly porous on the surface; hence, they were capable of absorbing a large amount of capric acid. The maximum absorption capacity of CA mats via electrospinning with volume ratio of acetone/DCM being 5/5 was ~95.8 wt%, due to its higher specific surface area of ~17.1 m²/g. The specific surface area and capric acid absorption capacity of CA nanofibrous mats increased with the increases of mat thickness. As the thickness of nanofibrous mats increased from 10 to 85 μm, the corresponding specific surface area and capric acid absorption capacity of mats increased respectively from 7.2 to 29.0 m²/g and 92.1 to 98.5%. Morphological structures, as well as the properties of thermal energy storage and thermal insulation of the fabricated form-stable PCMs, were studied by scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and measurement of freezing times, respectively. The results indicated that the resulting form-stable PCMs could well maintain their phase transition characteristics and demonstrated great thermal energy storage capability and temperature regulation ability.