Libraries and Climate Change: Pathways to Respond and Engage Communities

Water sprays from an open fire hydrant in Brooklyn, New York, in the midst of a July 2010 heat wave that affected much of the eastern United States.In 2007 the New York City Department of Environmental Protection first teamed up with Alianza Dominicana, a Washington Heights community organization, to educate city residents about the appropriate use of fire hydrants and other ways

Collectif Argos: Climate Refugees

The scientific community agrees that climate change is happening, is largely human induced, and will have serious consequences for human health (Field and others 2014). The health consequences of climate variability and change are diverse, potentially affecting the burden of a wide range of health outcomes. Changing weather patterns can affect the magnitude and pattern of morbidity and mortality from extreme weather and climate events, and from changing concentrations of ozone, particulate matter, and aeroallergens (Smith and others 2014). Changing weather patterns and climatic shifts may also create environmental conditions that facilitate alterations in the geographic range, seasonality, and incidence of some infectious diseases in some regions, such as the spread of malaria into highland areas in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Changes in water availability and agricultural productivity could affect undernutrition, particularly in some parts of Africa and Asia (Lloyd, Kovats, and Chalabi 2011). Although climate change will likely increase positive health outcomes in some regions, the overall balance will be detrimental for health and well-being, especially in low- and lower-middle-income countries that experience higher burdens of climate-sensitive health outcomes (Smith and others 2014).The pathways between climate change and health outcomes are often complex and indirect, making attribution challenging. Climate change may not be the most important driver of climate-sensitive health outcomes over the next few decades but could be significant past the middle of this century. Climate change is a stress multiplier, putting pressure on vulnerable systems, populations, and regions. For example, temperature is associated with the incidence of some food- and water-borne diseases that are significant sources of childhood mortality (Smith and others 2014). Reducing the burden of these diseases requires improved access to safe water and improved sanitation. Poverty is a primary driver underlying the health risks of climate change (Smith and others 2014). Poverty alleviation programs could improve the capacity of health systems to manage risks and reduce the overall costs of a changing climate.Climate change entails other unique challenges:Significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) in the next few years will be critical to preventing more severe climate change later in the century, but they will have limited effects on weather patterns in the short term. In terms of costing, another complexity is that these policies and technologies are associated with short-term health benefits (Garcia-Menendez and others 2015).Reducing and managing health risks over the next few decades will require modifying health systems to prepare for, cope with, and recover from the health consequences of climate variability and change; these changes are part of what is termed adaptation. Adaptation will be required across the century, with the extent of mitigation being a key determinant of health systems’ ability to manage risks projected later in the century (Smith and others 2014). No matter the success of adaptation and mitigation, residual risks from climate change will burden health systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).Given these complexities, estimating the costs of managing the health risks of climate variability and change is not straightforward. The wide range of health outcomes potentially affected means counting (1) costs associated with increased health care and public health interventions for morbidity and mortality from a long list of climate-sensitive health outcomes; (2) costs associated with lost work days and lower productivity; and (3) costs associated with well-being. Costs could also accrue from repeated episodes of malaria, diarrhea, or other infectious diseases that affect childhood development and health in later life. Costs associated with actions taken in other sectors are also important for health, such as access to safe water and improved sanitation. A portion of the costs of managing the health risks associated with migrants and environmental refugees could be, but has not been, counted.Further, costs and benefits will be displaced over time, with costs associated with increased health burdens occurring now because of past greenhouse gas emissions and benefits occurring later in the century because of mitigation implemented in the next few years. A few preliminary estimates have been made of the costs of adaptation. However, more work is needed to understand how climate variability and change could affect the ability of health systems to manage risks over long temporal scales.This chapter reviews the health risks of climate variability and change, discusses key components of those risks, summarizes the attributes of climate-resilient health systems, provides an overview of the costs of increasing health resilience that arise from other sectors, reviews temporal and spatial scale issues, and summarizes key conclusions regarding the costs of the health risks of climate change.

Mental health and climate change: tackling invisible injustice

Climate change is a complex and contentious public issue, but the risk-management options available to us are straightforward and have well-characterized strengths and weaknesses.

Tackling the Research Challenges of Health and Climate Change

![Figure][1] In August 2009, the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) held its 36th Congress in Kyoto in the same convention centre where the historic Kyoto Protocol was drawn up 12 years earlier. The symbolism of this coincidence was not missed by Malcolm Gordon, the Chair of

Despite overwhelming consensus among scientists about the reality of anthropogenic climate change (Bray, 2010; Oreskes, 2004), there remains significant reluctance on the part of citizens and politicians to take the action needed to address it. This resistance has been repeatedly identified in social research (Leiserowitz & Maibach, 2010; Leviston, Leitch, Greenhill, Leonard, & Walker, 2011; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon, 2006; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Reser, Bradley, Glendon, Ellul, & Callaghan, 2012) and is mirrored by the lack of progress made by salient political summits (Rogelj et al., 2010). Perhaps as a response to this, scholarly journals and articles that are focused on climate change are growing. Natural scientists tell us that we know what needs to be done to avert dangerous climate change (IPCC, 2014), and economists tell us that delaying action in the short term will lead to much greater costs in the long term (Stern, 2007). Understanding public responses to climate change and developing solutions to catalyse action is a critical challenge for the social sciences, and we propose that the development and elaboration of a social psychology of climate change would be a cornerstone of such an approach. We do not make the claim that social psychology has all the answers but rather that the theories, models and research methods of social psychology can provide a powerful arsenal to complement the approaches of other disciplines. Researchers have already begun to apply social psychological theory and methods to the issue of climate change, and we highlight in the following sections examples of the insights that have flowed from this. We cannot assume, though, that our theories and findings will automatically generalise to the climate change context. As Moser (2010) has noted, there are unique dimensions to climate change that make it distinct from other environmental, risk and health issues: The causes of climate change are invisible to humans, the impacts are distal and it is complex and riddled with uncertainties. Modern urban humans are to some extent insulated from their physical environment, and the lags between the climate and social systems make it difficult for people to understand their role in influencing climate. These factors suggest the importance of developing a social psychology of climate change, empirically testing, integrating and refining existing theories and models to develop new frameworks. The notion that psychology can play a role in understanding and addressing climate change is not a new one. The American Psychological Association's Task Force on the interface between psychology and global climate change comprehensively detailed the ways in which psychological research can help to understand people's perceptions of the risks of climate change, the contribution of human behaviour to climate change, the psychosocial impacts of climate change, the ways in which people can adapt and cope with climate change and the psychological barriers that could limit climate change action (Swim et al., 2009, 2011). It is also not a new idea that social psychology can play an important role in understanding and addressing environmental problems and solutions (Clayton & Brook, 2005). Social psychology, specifically, has a long tradition of theory and research that is relevant to addressing key climate change questions. Attitudes, social cognition, persuasion and attitude change, social influence, and intragroup and intergroup behaviour, for instance, are fundamental foci for social psychology and have direct relevance for understanding the human and social dimensions of climate change. The time is ripe to understand the range of research that has been developing in social psychology on attitudes, beliefs and actions, to build upon these insights, and integrate them with knowledge from other sciences to develop models and theories indigenous to the climate change context. In the following section, we provide a brief overview of recent social psychological research that addresses three broad themes relevant to understanding and responding to climate change. These themes are as follows: (i) social psychological influences on climate change attitudes and beliefs; (ii) facilitators and barriers to climate change action; and (iii) changing climate change attitudes and behaviour. Although there is some overlap in these themes, as an organising principle they intuitively map on to key questions that arise in relation to climate change. Our aim is to highlight recent examples of social psychological research that provide interesting and important insights in relation to these themes. Swim, Markowitz, and Bloodhart (2012) have noted that much of the social psychological research on climate change has emerged since 2006; we focus in on the most recent of this research that has been published since 2010. We also outline how the studies in the special issue relate to these themes. We recognise that these are not the only areas where social psychological research and theory can make important contributions but they nevertheless relate to key questions that need to be addressed. We conclude the introduction by proposing considerations that social psychologists could take into account in their future research on climate change. A major focus in the climate change literature and the media more broadly has been on describing climate change attitudes and beliefs. In many developed nations, questions about beliefs and attitudes related to climate change have become a standard component of political polling (e.g. Gallup polls and Lowy Institute polls), and there are comprehensive national and cross-national surveys that address this topic. Examples include US research by the Yale Climate Change Communication project (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Smith, 2010), national surveys conducted in Australia (Leviston et al., 2011; Reser et al., 2012), and the U.K. (Pidgeon, 2012) and the Eurobarometer research conducted in Europe (The European Opinion Research Group, 2002). As the study of attitudes—their conceptualization, measurement, formation, function and relationship with behaviour—has been a cornerstone of social psychological research, social psychology can make important contributions to these assessments. Note that although social psychological theories usually distinguish between attitudes and beliefs, these terms are often used interchangeably in the climate change research domain, and for the sake of simplicity, we will usually use attitudes to encompass both attitudes and beliefs. Recent reviews of the attitude literature from 1996 to 2009 highlight significant trends and directions in this area of research (Ajzen, 2001; Bohner & Dickel, 2011; Crano & Prislin, 2006). These trends include the role of attitude strength and attitude ambivalence, the distinction between implicit and explicit attitudes, the recognition that attitudes have cognitive and affective underpinnings, and the influence of bodily and external physical cues on attitudes. Recent social psychological research on climate change particularly provides examples of the influence of bodily and external cues and the distinction between cognitive and affective aspects of attitudes, and three of the papers in the special issue address the latter issue. The work on internal bodily and external physical cues is a growing research area with a special issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology devoted to the concept of embodied cognition (Schubert & Semin, 2009). As the distal nature of climate change and the relative insulation of humans from their physical environment are thought to be key barriers to greater engagement with climate change (Moser, 2010), it is perhaps not surprising that this area of research has extended into the climate change domain. Cues that help to 'bring to life' the experience of global warming could help to overcome these psychological barriers. Risen and Critcher (2011) have shown that feelings of warmth increased beliefs in global warming and that this effect was mediated through greater ease in constructing more fluent mental images of hot outdoor images. Other studies have shown that people had greater concern about global warming and donated more money to a global warming charity when they thought that the temperature outside was warmer than usual (Li, Johnson, & Zaval, 2011), that embodied temperature influenced concern for global warming and willingness to volunteer for a global warming group (Lewandowski, Ciarocco, & Gately, 2012) and that priming heat-related cognitions resulted in greater belief in global warming and willingness to pay to reduce global warming (Joireman, Truelove, & Duell, 2010). Physical external cues, in this case the presence of bare trees in the laboratory, also increased belief in global warming (Guéguen, 2012). These studies illustrate how subtle cues can influence climate change attitudes in the moment, although the longevity of these effects on attitudes has not been explored. Another important direction in attitude research that has relevance for climate change is the recognition that attitudes have affective as well as cognitive underpinnings. This is important when considering that the high levels of risk associated with climate change means that it could elicit strong emotional responses. Cognitive approaches to understanding attitudes (e.g. expectancy-value models) have been at the forefront of how we understand attitude formation (Ajzen, 2001). From this perspective, attitudes are the outcome of a cognitive process of evaluating beliefs about the attitude object; for example, a person who has positive beliefs about a climate change policy is likely to hold favourable attitudes to that policy. Consistent with the importance of cognitive, rational processes, Tobler, Visschers, and Siegrist (2012) have shown that perceived costs and benefits of climate change policies were significant predictors of support for these policies and, in most cases, were stronger predictors of behavioural willingness and policy support than other variables (e.g. demographics, climate change concern and climate change scepticism). But there is also evidence for the affective basis of attitudes and even for the primacy of affective aspects of attitudes (Verplanken, Jofstee, & Janssen, 1998; Zajonc, 1984). Recent reviews of the attitude literature suggest that, rather than attitudes being determined by one or the other, affect and cognition are both likely to be important for the formation of attitudes (Ajzen, 2001; Crano & Prislin, 2006). For example, whether affective or cognitive aspects of attitude objects are accessed more readily depends on whether the attitude object itself is more affectively or cognitively based (Giner-Sorolla, 2004). Three articles in the current issue pick up on the cognitive and affective aspects of climate change attitudes and perceptions. Although it seems intuitively likely that having greater knowledge about climate change should be related to climate change attitudes, findings in relation to knowledge have been mixed. Some research has shown that knowing more about the causes and consequences of climate change is associated with greater climate change risk judgments (Sunblad, Biel, & Gärling, 2009), whereas other studies have shown no effects or have suggested the possibility that having more knowledge could even be negatively related to climate change beliefs for those with a politically conservative orientation (Malka, Krosnick, & Langer, 2009; McCright & Dunlap, 2011). Yet, Guy, Kashima, Walker, and O'Neill (this issue) point out that knowledge is usually measured with proxy measures such as scientific literacy or self-reported climate change knowledge rather than objective knowledge of climate change, and therefore, it is premature to dismiss the positive relationship between knowledge and attitudes. Their study used an objective measure of climate change knowledge and shows that people who are more knowledgeable have greater belief that climate change is happening, and, moreover, knowledge attenuates the negative relationship between ideology (i.e. individualism) and climate change attitudes. Van der Linden (this issue) specifically addresses how affect and cognition relate to climate change perceptions. The study investigates the relationship between personal experiences of extreme weather events, affect relating to climate change, and climate change risk perceptions. The results of the structural equation modelling of a national British sample provides support for a dual-process model whereby cognitive appraisals activate risk perceptions, and risk and affect mutually reinforce each other in a feedback loop. The paper by Leviston, Price, and Bishop (this issue) explores the role of affect in climate change responses somewhat differently in that it looks at the images people bring to mind when they think about climate change and assesses the affect associated with these images. The research explores whether the types of images that people associate with climate change might be a way of psychologically and affectively engaging or distancing themselves from climate change. It is not enough that people endorse attitudes that are in tune with scientific consensus on climate change; these attitudes need to translate into positive action, whether that is individual private-sphere behaviours such as 'green' consumerism, public-sphere non-activist behaviour such as voting for political parties with environmentally responsible policies or collective environmental activism that seeks to influence decision-makers (Stern, 2000). These types of distinctions are important as the different classes of behaviour might have quite different facilitators and barriers (Stern, 2000). Another important distinction when considering climate-change-related behaviour is the extent to which it is habitual and automatic versus reasoned and deliberative (Ouellette & Wood, 1998). Automaticity of environmentally harmful behaviour poses a serious barrier, whereas automaticity of environmentally protective behaviour makes future behaviour of this type more likely (Van Lange & Joireman, 2008). Yet another potentially important consideration is the goals associated with behaviours (Lindenberg & Steg, 2007). Behaviours can be performed for a range of reasons, and individuals' perception of their own motives could have implications for their future actions. As an example, energy conservation behaviours could be performed primarily to reduce carbon emissions or to save money; the issue with engaging in environmentally protective behaviours for non-environmental reasons is that it could undermine the development of an environmentalist identity (van der Werff, Steg, & Keizer, 2013) and reduce the likelihood of behavioural spillover (Thøgersen & Crompton, 2009). A range of social psychological theories outline the mechanisms that motivate people to take action, and these have had great reach both inside and outside of social psychology. These theories include (but are not limited to) theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and perspectives that foreground the role of norms (e.g. norm focus theory; Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990) and the social identity perspective (see Hornsey, 2008 for a recent review). The theory of planned behaviour has been used to examine determinants of a range of private-sphere environmental behaviours including employees' energy-saving behaviours (Greaves, Zibarras, & Stride, 2013; Zhang, Wang, & Zhou, 2014), private landholders' carbon sequestration and trading (Thompson & Hansen, 2013), renewable energy use (Alam et al., 2014) and opposition to wind farms (Read, Brown, Thorsteinsson, Morgan, & Price, 2013). Similarly, research drawing on self-determination theory has identified that experiencing more autonomous, self-determined motivation or perceiving that the government is more autonomy supportive is related to public-sphere and private-sphere environmental behaviours (De Groot & Steg, 2010; Lavergne, Sharp, Pelletier, & Holtby, 2010). Perhaps one of the most important contributions of social psychology to understanding human behaviour has been its theorisation of the influence of social norms (e.g. Cialdini et al., 1990). From a social identity perspective, the social groups to which we belong provide guidelines for appropriate behaviour through the internalisation of group norms (Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Hornsey, 2008). We only need to consider the powerful relationship between political party identification and climate change responses to see evidence of this process (Dunlap & McCright, 2008; Fielding, Head, Laffan, Western, & Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012). According to the social identity perspective, group norms are more likely to guide environmental behaviour when the social identity is more central and salient (Fielding, Terry, Masser, & Hogg, 2008; Terry, Hogg, & White, 1999). Furthermore, in salient intergroup contexts, in-group members tend to polarise away from out-group members, and their environmental intentions and behaviour will become more in-group normative (Ferguson, & 2011; & 2012). and (this issue) our understanding of how social identity and associated in-group norms influences climate-change-related behaviour. on social identity to distinguish between dimensions of group identification and whether different dimensions are more likely to guide behaviour. that extent to which group identity is important to the and rather than among group the relationship between group norms and when those behaviours are high Although much of the research to has focused on understanding and private-sphere environmental and (van & have extended their model of with collective to understand responses to climate change (Van & 2008). on a perspective & Swim, 2011), they propose and provide evidence for for people to with the climate and In the case of climate change, is a likely to be by and to the extent that they they be more likely to take action to reduce their can also be through that to their beliefs about whether group action will be in with climate change. and (this issue) this research by determinants of intentions to in collective climate emotional specifically on and as central and social norms into the Their findings that the perceived norm intentions to take part in a climate perceptions of and group In the section, we a brief overview of theories that could help to understand climate-change-related and these approaches suggest variables to to effect change. For example, research has shown the of to influence environmentally related behaviour et al., 2013; et al., 2010; Cialdini, & 2008; Cialdini, & 2008; & 2013; et al., 2012). In this section, we focus on research that addresses key that might be when to influence climate-change-related attitudes, beliefs and actions. important direction in research has been the of how to climate change to positive in climate change attitudes and beliefs. From a social psychological perspective, one of the of is the role of attitudes in & Dickel, 2011). A of the literature to a effect of attitudes on for versus et al., 2009), and there is evidence that this is more likely when people hold strong attitudes & 2007). This that people's attitudes will influence how they to to change climate-change-related attitudes and beliefs, and research is broadly with this. greater to on climate change with their own & and are more likely to climate when it to their beliefs & 2011; & 2013). In response to this, some have climate to be more when they with the For example, with greater had greater intentions when with that behaviour as the American way of & 2010), and climate greater intentions when with that the positive effects of climate change on the development of new Hornsey, & 2012). the of more we know from the work of and that people are risk and that risk in ways that highlight the of can be more than that focus on In the of climate change where is a of the and (2011) have shown that climate change that the the but the possibility of stronger intentions to and (this issue) on the model of & 2013) to provide a for climate change In they with one of policies that in renewable energy or limit The with the policies was when the with the policy. there was more with a policy of in renewable energy an when it was in terms of whereas greater was for a policy of emissions a when it was as also that the focus of their responses to the Another key issue that be is the possibility of to climate change and the risks to human and from climate change, of and are central to the of climate change. the effects of in relation to health behaviour & & 2000) provide evidence that elicit greater attitude and behaviour change but only when the is by of responses propose that people that response are and they have the to out the they will in behaviours to the there is this in to the such as or The for to climate change is in a study by and greater of climate change among with stronger beliefs who had been with about climate change, whereas this not on more Research has also shown that of to from climate change, particularly can be made more take the perspective of the by climate change (Swim & in to climate change also when social are & 1999). For example, when were to evidence of energy use by their own they were more likely to climate change to causes than when the was about 2013). Furthermore, this greater to causes was negatively associated with climate change concern and support for climate change that help reduce identity can greater engagement with climate change. on the and (2010) that a to reduce the of of climate change and personal with climate change and environmental behaviour. Although can help reduce to climate change, and (this issue) that the for to environmental problems can undermine individuals' willingness to take environmental as progress that can to future environmental and human health problems can reduce the likelihood of engaging in environmentally behaviour. The is perceptions of that a of in an as the idea of scientific progress our the need to through individual actions. The from this research is that it is important not to scientific of the major barriers that has been identified in relation to action to address climate change is the distal nature of the et al., major consequences will in the future and are perceived as more likely to affect other those who are already most This of climate change that that reduce the between and the future or between the and other humans help to overcome this In support of this, that focus on environmental consequences of climate change help climate change engagement & 2013), and to take the perspective of a future human experiencing environmental problems environmental engagement & 2013). The research of and (this issue) to whether our human identity can influence willingness to take environmental Consistent with research, they that are related to greater willingness to in environmental is though, is that priming people who have to think about to have high related to potentially it an intergroup context. This provides evidence of the of about climate change and the need to understand the Social psychology can also point to some and to greater willingness to in to address climate change. and (this issue) that that whether have an versus an can make a to how many behaviours they consider engaging In that had out behaviours they would not consider resulted in being to in more behaviours than an where people consider what they would consider from a In this introduction to the special we highlight areas where social psychological research has important insights to understanding climate change attitudes, beliefs and what influences these and how they can be We used recent social psychological research and the papers from this current issue to illustrate key The strength of a social psychological of climate change is that it can help us to understand the of responses to climate change, for example, how attitudes can be influenced by both affect and cognition, how attitudes and beliefs can responses to climate change and people to climate change with and It can also provide and to the of climate change It is to see the and of social psychological research that addresses important questions related to climate change, although this has been a recent (Swim et al., 2012). we are to to make important contributions to this area of research, though, we propose that social psychologists should consider the following in their future We noted that there are a range of that can take to address climate change, from private-sphere behaviours to non-activist public-sphere behaviours to environmental activism (Stern, 2000). Although all of these approaches can some have greater than & 2009). have greater to influence and and to effect Despite this, social psychological research often investigates private-sphere actions. As a we can our contribution to climate change research by our focus to individual behaviours and public-sphere responses to climate change & 2008). As a we are to what is about climate change. The groups we belong to and the social we can be powerful influences on our attitudes, beliefs and the effect of political identification on climate change attitudes is a of this. area where these have relevance is in the of national and climate change As an example, and (2012) on social identity to the in that when the of individual and other become a identity can that will lead to greater likelihood of The consideration of intergroup and how these or positive responses to climate change (e.g. climate change and introduction of climate change is an area that could provide important A critical distinction made in relation to climate change is between and According to the on Climate Change the to human to reduce the impacts of climate change, whereas the latter to that can be made to human or systems that can help to the or the that would from or climate change and are even the measures will not some of climate change, and is needed to with this (IPCC, Yet the issue of psychological has been in climate change & Swim, 2011). This is for at (i) as noted some of climate change is research on is and (ii) a lack of understanding of could in that to or reduce to climate change that impacts or of other or social & social psychological research is to be a serious to the climate change research greater needs to be focused on of The need to to the distinction between and to the need for social psychologists to work with other disciplines. et we social psychologists to become with the and research of other relevant that address climate change to the relevance and reach of social psychological research in this that solutions to climate change cannot be developed by one the issue systems including and A is and social psychology can make a significant contribution by methods and theories that help social and cognitive In we in this introduction to the special issue to foreground social psychological theories and findings relevant to key climate change questions. Although social psychology can a of and the social psychology of climate change is and more needs to be done we have a of and theories that are to climate change. we this, the of social psychology is likely to be at the of climate We that the special issue can help the progress that has been made and catalyse the development of an indigenous social psychology of climate change. We social psychologists to this that we can be part of the to one of the and environmental of our

Climate change refers to future fluctuations of temperature, precipitation, wind and alternative components of Earth’s climate system. Global climate change within the style of higher temperature, reduced downfall, and inflated downfall variability reduces crop yield and threatens food security in low financial gain and agriculture primarily based economies. Ethiopia is one of the most vulnerable countries experiencing drought and floods as a result of climate variability and change. The general objective of this review is to administer and summary on adaptation and mitigation measures initiative in Ethiopia in response to climate change. In Ethiopia the foremost vulnerable sectors to global climate change and variability are agriculture, road, water energy and health. Thus Mitigation and adaptation measures pursued to effectively address climate change. In Ethiopian farming communities have important indigenous knowledge, skills and technologies that are essential for tackling hazardous environmental conditions including climate variability and change. They employ a number of short- and long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation measures to cope with and overcome the impacts of climate variability and change. On the opposite hand, Ethiopia has shown both conservation and policy responses to combat climate change. Protected area systems, a forestation and reforestation programmes, renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, ecological agriculture, flexible livestock production, agro forestry systems, harvesting and climate change education, are all feasible strategies for mitigating and adapting climate change.

Abstract. We investigate projected 2000–2050 changes in concentrations of aerosols in China and the associated transboundary aerosol transport by using the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem driven by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) general circulation model (GCM) 3 at 4° × 5° resolution. Future changes in climate and emissions projected by the IPCC A1B scenario are imposed separately and together through sensitivity simulations. Accounting for sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, black carbon (BC), and organic carbon (OC) aerosols, concentrations of individual aerosol species change by −1.5 to +0.8 μg m−3, and PM2.5 levels are projected to change by about 10–20% in eastern China as a result of 2000–2050 change in climate alone. With future changes in anthropogenic emissions alone, concentrations of sulfate, BC, and OC are simulated to decrease because of assumed reductions in emissions, and those of nitrate are predicted to increase because of higher NOx emissions combined with decreases in sulfate. The net result is a predicted reduction of seasonal mean PM2.5 concentrations in eastern China by 1–8 μg m−3 (or 10–40%) over 2000–2050. It is noted that current emission inventories for BC and OC over China are judged to be inadequate at present. Transboundary fluxes of different aerosol species show different sensitivities to future changes in climate and emissions. The annual outflow of PM2.5 from eastern China to the western Pacific is estimated to change by −7.0%, −0.7%, and −9.0% over 2000–2050 owing to climate change alone, changes in emissions alone, and changes in both climate and emissions, respectively. The fluxes of nitrate and ammonium aerosols from Europe and Central Asia into western China increase over 2000–2050 in response to projected changes in emissions, leading to a 10.5% increase in annual inflow of PM2.5 to western China with future changes in both emissions and climate. Fluxes of BC and OC from South Asia to China in spring contribute a large fraction of the annual inflow of PM2.5. The annual inflow of PM2.5 from South Asia and Southeast Asia to China is estimated to change by −8%, +281%, and +227% over 2000–2050 owing to climate change alone, changes in emissions alone, and changes in both climate and emissions, respectively. While the 4° × 5° spatial resolution is a limitation of the present study, the direction of predicted changes in aerosol levels and transboundary fluxes still provides valuable insight into future air quality.

Managing flood risks in a changing climate

Climate-smart agriculture and forestry: maintaining plant productivity in a changing world while minimizing production system effects on climate.

Climate and land use change pressures are critical to food production in Social-Ecological Systems (SESs). This study assessed farmers’ perceptions of the pressures of climate and land use changes alongside their impacts on food production in Mhahakanumulla Village Tank Cascade System (MVTCS), a SES maintained by traditional agricultural land use systems in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. This study used both rating and ranking scale questions to quantify farmers’ perceptions. The tobit regression model was employed to evaluate how farmer perception was influenced by socio-economic factors. The results showed that most of the farmers had experienced that the climate of the MVTCS area had changed over time, and they perceived variability of rainfall patterns as the most prominent and influential climate change. The increased cost of production, wildlife damage, and land degradation were ranked by the farmers as the most impactful factors of food production due to climate change. The farmers rated deforestation and land clearing as the most influential and impactful changes in land use, while wildlife damage and land degradation ranked as the highest impacts on food production due to land use changes. Among the socio-economic determinants, training and income/profit positively influenced farmer perceptions of the severity of both climate and land use change. The level of farmer’s adaptation to climate change had a negative association with their perception of the severity of climate change. Household size negatively influenced the perceptions of the severity of climate change while positively influencing perceptions of land use change impacts. Among the spatial determinants, farm size and downstream locations of MVTCS positively influenced perceptions of the severity of both climate and land use change. Thus, the effectiveness of adaptation strategies towards climate and land use change pressures depends on how well they are understood by the farmers. The study findings provide helpful insights for formulating localized land use policies and climate change adaptation strategies in these globally important landscapes with a combination of both top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Catchments in the future North: interdisciplinary science for sustainable management in the 21^st Century

Impacts of combined land-use and climate change on streamflow in two nested catchments in the Southeastern United States