Policy implementation of catchment-scale flood risk management: Learning from Scotland and England

Recent years have seen a gradual adoption of a “catchment-scale” approach to flood risk management into European policy-making which, amongst other objectives, promotes rural land use change to reduce flood risk. While some exploratory studies of land managers’ attitudes exist, research is lacking on how public policies can be mobilised locally to implement these ideas. Two local initiatives were analysed in the transboundary River Tweed basin in Scotland and England during which public authorities negotiated with land managers. A combination of documents (N = 21) and interviews (N = 63) forms the basis of the data analysed. The results showed that implementation is highly dependent on the local policy framework, the activities of implementers, and land managers’ responses to (combination of) policy instruments. Several factors were identified influencing implementation such as devolution arrangements (i.e. from national to regional/local), the level of local interest on flood risk, local attitudes to compromise and collaboration, available policy instruments, and the existence of participatory catchment organisations. With limited scope for stand-alone regulatory action or funding in the short term, synergies and measures promoting co-benefits in flood risk management should be further sought in the Water Framework Directive River Basin Management Plans, as well as in cross-compliance and the new agri-environment-climate strategies of the common agricultural policy.     

The impact of privatization approaches on the productivity growth of the water industry: A case study of Chile

The water industry faces the challenge of implementing privatization reforms. This process mainly adopts the following two approaches: the privatization of public water and sewerage services (WSS) and the privatization of water companies’ ownership. This paper investigates the impact of both privatization approaches on changes in productivity in the water industry. In doing so, the Luenberger productivity indicator (LPI) was computed for a sample of Chilean water and sewerage companies (WaSCs) for the period 1997–2013. Unlike the most commonly applied index (Malmquist productivity index), the LPI simultaneously takes into account output expansion and input contraction. The results evidenced that productivity in the Chilean water industry decreased after its privatization. However, in the sub-periods in which the ownership of WaSCs was privatized, the productivity of the water industry increased due to technical improvements. On the other hand, the concession of WWS to private WaSCs involved a regression in productivity. From a policy perspective, regulators and managers of WaSCs at the international level can learn important lessons from the Chilean case to improve the productivity of the water industries in their countries.     

The social and spatial distribution of temperature-related health impacts from urban heat island reduction policies

Cities are developing innovative strategies to combat climate change but there remains little knowledge of the winners and losers from climate-adaptive land use planning and design. We examine the distribution of health benefits associated with land use policies designed to increase vegetation and surface reflectivity in three US metropolitan areas: Atlanta, GA, Philadelphia, PA, and Phoenix, AZ. Projections of population and land cover at the census tract scale were combined with climate models for the year 2050 at 4 km × 4 km resolution to produce future summer temperatures which were input into a comparative risk assessment framework for the temperature-mortality relationship. The findings suggest disparities in the effectiveness of urban heat management strategies by age, income, and race. We conclude that, to be most protective of human health, urban heat management must prioritize areas of greatest population vulnerability.     

Evidence of response of vegetation to environmental change on high-elevation sites in the Swiss Alps

Climate change has in the past led to shifts in vegetation patterns; in a future, warmer climate due to enhanced greenhouse-gas concentrations, vegetation is also likely to be highly responsive to such warming. Mountain regions are considered to be particularly sensitive to such changes. In this paper we present an approach to assess the impact of climate change on long-term vegetation plots at the high-elevation site of the Schynige Platte, 2000 m above sea level, in the Bernese Alps (Switzerland). Records of vegetation spanning the period from 1928 to today at two different sites, each with several plots, were considered. The observed change in the species composition was then related to changes in land use and climate. We used daily values of temperature, snow and precipitation from several high-elevation weather stations to conduct these analyses. The correlation between climate and vegetation patterns revealed that species that prefer low thermal conditions move out of the plots, i.e., their frequency of occurrence is negatively correlated with the average number of degree-days over the last six decades. On the other hand, species with higher thermal demands are seen to be invading the plots, i.e., their frequency of occurrence is positively correlated to the average number of degree-days. Nutrient changes – though independent from climate – also play an important role in the observed shifts in species. Received: 20 June 1999 · Accepted: 14 January 2000     

Climate change adaptation planning in large cities: A systematic global assessment

Cities globally face significant risks from climate change, and are taking an increasingly active role in formulating and implementing climate change adaptation policy. However, there are few, if any, global assessments of adaptation taking place across cities. This study develops and applies a framework to track urban climate change adaptation policy using municipal adaptation reporting. From 401 local governments globally in urban areas with >1 m people, we find that only 61 cities (15%) report any adaptation initiatives, and 73 cities (18%) report on planning towards adaptation policy. We classified cities based on their adaptation reporting as extensive adaptors, moderate adaptors, early stage adaptors, and non-reporting. With few exceptions, extensive adaptors are large cities located in high-income countries in North America, Europe, and Oceania, and are adapting to a variety of expected impacts. Moderate adaptors usually address general disaster risk reduction rather than specific impacts, and are located in a mix of developed and developing countries. Early stage adaptors exhibit evidence of planning for adaptation, but do not report any initiatives. Our findings suggest that urban adaptation is in the early stages, but there are still substantive examples of governments taking leadership regardless of wealth levels and institutional barriers.     

Resilience of stocking capacity to changing climate in arid to Mediterranean landscapes

Small livestock is an important resource for rural human populations in dry climates. How strongly will climate change affect the capacity of the rangeland? We used hierarchical modelling to scale quantitatively the growth of shrubs and annual plants, the main food of sheep and goats, to the landscape extent in the eastern Mediterranean region. Without grazing, productivity increased in a sigmoid way with mean annual precipitation. Grazing reduced productivity more strongly the drier the landscape. At a point just under the stocking capacity of the vegetation, productivity declined precipitously with more intense grazing due to a lack of seed production of annuals. We repeated simulations with precipitation patterns projected by two contrasting IPCC scenarios. Compared to results based on historic patterns, productivity and stocking capacity did not differ in most cases. Thus, grazing intensity remains the stronger impact on landscape productivity in this dry region even in the future.     

根据具体情况优化EPA8310中色谱分离条件

运用Agilent（安捷伦）1200系列高效液相色谱和多环芳烃专用柱ZORBAX Eclipse PAH（4.6×250mm、5μm,P.N.959990-918,S.N.USPAB01066）,对16种多环芳烃化合物混合溶液进行分析,根据具体实验条件优化EPA8310中色谱分离条件并得到了更节省时间、分离效率更好的流动相梯度变化程序。     

Learning about climate change solutions in the IPCC and beyond

There has been much debate about the assessment process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet two of the most fundamental challenges that directly threaten the ability of the IPCC to fulfill its mandate have been largely neglected so far. Firstly, the magnitude and rapid expansion of the climate change literature makes it increasingly impossible for the IPCC to conduct comprehensive and transparent assessments without major innovations in assessment practices and tools. Secondly, the structure, organization and scientific practices across the social sciences and humanities prohibit systematic learning on climate change solutions and increasingly limit the policy-relevance of IPCC assessments. We highlight the need for responses along three avenues to prepare the IPCC for continued success in the future: 1) IPCC assessments must make better use of big-data methods and available computational power to assess the growing body of literature and ensure comprehensiveness; 2) systematic review practices need to be enshrined into IPCC procedures to ensure adequate focus and transparency in its assessments; 3) a synthetic research culture needs to be established in the social sciences and humanities in order to foster knowledge accumulation and learning on climate solutions in the future. As policymakers become more interested in understanding solutions, the future prospects of global environmental assessment enterprises will depend heavily on a successful transformation within the social sciences and humanities towards systematic knowledge generation. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented Global Environmental Assessments.     

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.     

Persuasiveness,importance and novelty of arguments about Carbon Capture and Storage

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a promising technology for reducing carbon emissions, but the public is often reluctant to support it. To understand why public support is lacking, it is crucial to establish what citizens think about the arguments that are used by proponents and opponents of CCS. We determined the persuasiveness, importance and novelty of 32 arguments for and against CCS using a discrete choice experiment in which respondents made consecutive choices between pairs of pro or con arguments. We used latent class models to identify population segments with different preferences. The results show that citizens find arguments about climate protection, which is the primary goal of CCS, less persuasive than other arguments, such as normative arguments (for example ‘a waste product such as CO₂ should be disposed of properly’) or arguments about benefits of CCS for energy production and economic growth. This discrepancy complicates communication that aims to convince citizens of the benefits of CCS for climate protection.