Social Perspectives on Climate Emotions

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Debra J. Davidson. 2024. Feeling Climate Change: How Emotions Govern Our Responses to the Climate Emergency. London: Routledge. Jade Sasser. 2024. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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  • 10.4337/9781800888241.00015
Futures-thinking: concepts, methods and capacities for adaptive governance
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Uncertain and transformative futures are faced because of accelerated impacts of climate change and other global drivers. Whilst some social-ecological transformations will likely be forced upon society, proactive and deliberate transformations towards more sustainable futures are possible. As such, futures-thinking and "futures methods" that can be used to anticipate and proactively engage with uncertain futures and transformative change will be increasingly essential in adaptive governance. Futures methods provide strategies and tools to explore, identify, and navigate choices when anticipating and responding to socio-political and environmental change. The chapter contributes to discussions regarding how futures-thinking relates to adaptive governance by exploring how futures methods support adaptive and transformative capacities. We propose that thinking critically, systematically, and strategically about the future is vital for adaptive governance scholarship and practice. We conclude by arguing for an expanded approach to adaptive governance, capable of confronting long-term perspectives of future uncertainty and transformative change.

  • Research Article
  • Cite Count Icon 9
  • 10.1086/292470
Whither the Welfare State? Professionalization, Bureaucracy, and the Market AlternativeStreet-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. Michael LipskyPeople-Processing: The Street-Level Bureaucrat in Public Service Bureaucracies. Jeffrey Manditch ProttasThe Welfare Industry: Functionaries and Reprients in Public Aid. David Street , Georte T. Martin, Jr. , Laura KramerSocial Welfare: Why and How?. Noel Timms
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  • Ethics
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Recent election returns suggest that welfare state may be on eve of profound change. A once stable base of popular support for social services has become quite unsteady. Disillusionment is genuine and widespread. Confidence in efficacy of governmental programs appears to be on wane, and many people see the as heart of problem. Market alternatives have risen in appeal. As accumulated discontents present welfare state with an uncertain future, there are a number of pressing questions scholars can address: Why is there such dissatisfaction with welfare state, especially with public bureaucracies and professionally directed staffs who provide assistance? Is welfare state vulnerable to demands for basic change, and, if so, what direction might change take? What about market alternatives specifically-are they politically attractive and socially desirable? The four books reviewed here tell us much that is helpful in responding to these questions. The books by Lipsky and Prottas dissect bureaucratic performance by social agencies, especially at lower levels of administration; and Lipsky in particular places that performance in broad social and political context. The study by Street, Martin, and Gordon examines bureaucratization and professionalization throughout welfare system and provides an overview that includes not only upper levels of policymaking and reform activity but pressure group context as well. The Timms book, a collection of essays by British writers, takes a broad social and philosophical perspective. In several essays it considers possible consequences of proposals from political Right to minimize public bureaucracy and rely heavily on private market and market incentives. While each book standing alone is a useful analysis, it is from reading four together that one gets keenest appreciation of ways in which social policy goes awry and why market alternatives are likely to compound current shortcomings.

  • Research Article
  • Cite Count Icon 54
  • 10.1002/ejsp.2058
Developing a social psychology of climate change
  • Jul 28, 2014
  • European Journal of Social Psychology
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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

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Equitable adaptation planning under deep uncertainty for the upper Vietnam Mekong Delta
  • Mar 4, 2021
  • Bramka Arga Jafino + 1 more

<p>The importance of considering equity in climate change adaptation planning is increasingly being acknowledged. A preferred adaptation strategy is one that not only yields robust outcomes under multiple futures, but also has a fair distribution of benefits and harms across affected actors. In this study we propose two complementary approaches for assessing the equity of impacts of adaptation strategies. First, in the explorative approach, we explore what different multi-actor inequality patterns might emerge under different policy and uncertainty scenarios. Put differently, we identify who benefits and who loses under which kind of circumstances. Second, in the normative approach, we attempt to rank alternative strategies based on their performance across uncertain futures. Identifying which strategy is more preferable requires us to define what kind of distribution is considered to be ‘good’. We thus employ six alternative distributive moral principles that each has its own maxim in justifying the moral righteousness of a distribution: utilitarianism, prioritarianism, sufficientarianism, envy measures, weighted utilitarianism, and the Rawlsian difference principle.</p><p>We apply both approaches to a case study on agricultural adaptation planning in An Giang and Dong Thap, two provinces in the upper Vietnam Mekong Delta. We develop an integrated assessment metamodel to assess the equity implications of six alternative adaptation strategies, including dikes (de)construction policies, fertilizer subsidy, and seeds upgrading. We evaluate the distributional impacts of the alternative strategies to 23 districts in the two provinces under a large number of strategic scenarios, i.e., combinations of policy scenarios and uncertain futures. From the explorative approach, we discover six distinctive inequality patterns and identify the strategic scenarios that give rise to each inequality pattern. We find a trade-off between districts located along the Mekong river and those located further away. In some strategic scenarios the former group of districts are substantially better-off than the latter, and vice versa.</p><p>From the normative approach, we find a mixed result of preferred strategies depending on what moral principle is being adopted. The dikes deconstruction policy in Dong Thap, which performs best from a utilitarian point of view, ranks fifth from a prioritarian perspective. Upgrading seed is the most preferred strategy from the prioritarian view, but it performs the worst when looked at from a sufficientarian point of view. We further find that the results from each principle are strongly affected by uncertainties. For example, the fertilizer subsidy policy ranks last in approximately 70% of the uncertain futures according to the sufficientarian principle, but it becomes the most preferable in the other 20% of the uncertain futures. Our findings further emphasize the simultaneous consideration of both uncertainties and alternative distributive principles in adaptation planning. By using multiple moral principles, we expand the information base upon which adaptation decisions are made, and thus minimizing potential surprises and unintended consequences from our choice.</p>

  • Dissertation
  • 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/305
The phosphorus transfer continuum under climate change
  • Jan 1, 2018
  • Kirsty J Forber

Phosphorus (P) is a key nutrient in governing crop growth, and its fate and behaviour in the environment is critical to water quality. Climatic changes such as hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters will cause changes to the movement of P across the land-water continuum yielding potentially detrimental impacts to water quality which underpin many ecosystem services. This thesis uses the ‘P transfer continuum’ as a framework to discuss and explore the possible impacts of climate change to P in the environment. I use the three National Demonstration Test Catchment (DTC) platforms (Eden, Cumbria; Wensum, Norfolk; and Avon, Hampshire) which are representative of typical catchment typologies and agricultural activities in the UK to frame this work. Potential changes to the P transfer continuum are essential to consider and react to if we are to improve water quality in order to preserve ecosystem services into an ever uncertain future. Estimations of dry period characteristics (duration and temperature) under current and predicted climate (determined using data from the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) Weather Generator tool) were used to design a laboratory experiment to examine whether changes in the future patterns of drying/re-wetting will affect the amount of soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) solubilised from soil. This study is focused on the second tier of the P transfer continuum: mobilisation via solubilisation. For three UK soils critical breakpoints (6.9-14.5 d) of drying duration have been identified; before the breakpoint an increase in SRP loss with the number of dry days was observed; after this point the amount of SRP lost decreased or stayed fairly constant. It is likely that longer periods of dry days followed by rapid re-wetting events will not yield more SRP via solubilisation than at the breakpoint. However, because the frequency of longer dry periods will increase under climate change, the solubilisation of SRP from soil (-1 to +13%) will also change. Using the Hydrological Predictions in the Environment (HYPE) model for three distinct UK DTC catchments, and Extended End-Member Mixing Analysis (EEMMA), I explore how climate change (UKCP09 scenarios) might impinge on catchment total phosphorus (TP) retention and sensitivity, which is determined by catchment characteristics to P input pressures. This study encompasses the all tiers of the P transfer continuum: source, mobilisation, transfer (or delivery), and impact. Under a high emissions scenario (2080s), an increase of catchment TP retention was predicted in three UK catchments. I conclude that catchment sensitivity to climate change should be accounted for in determining appropriate water quality targets that can be effectively delivered via catchment stakeholders and government. I use the Newby Beck (Eden DTC) sub-catchment as a critical example of how anthropogenic point sources of P can alter the retention of P even at the headwater scale where agricultural diffuse sources dominate. I use bi-weekly sampling of P, chloride (Cl- ) and flow (Q), load apportionment modelling (LAM) and mass balance, alongside sediment sampling to investigate retention at the headwater scale. I found that although diffuse sources contributed to more of the TP load, point sources dominate more frequently and are therefore proportionally perhaps more important in terms of continuous downstream water quality. Under climate change the transfer of diffuse sources is likely to increase, therefore it might be hypothesised that climate change will yield extremes between nutrient quality in summer (high concentrations, low flows) and winter (high loads, high flows). This calls for policy and regulation to reflect the urgency of the impacts of climate change on the riparian health in rural headwater communities. I conclude by discussing the implications of climate change on the P transfer continuum. I highlight the possible risks of climate change exacerbating, rather than changing, the processes described in the P transfer continuum for the Newby Beck catchment. My findings, in addition to those from the NUTCAT team, call for climate change to be taken seriously in forming new effective policies which preserve the health of UK water bodies, the sustainability and profitability of UK agriculture, the enjoyment and amenity value of our water courses, and avoid large financial costs into the future. I therefore provide a new framework which can be used to aid the challenges which surround the preservation of water quality into the future.

  • Research Article
  • Cite Count Icon 64
  • 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.06.003
Identifying uncertainties in scenarios and models of socio-ecological systems in support of decision-making
  • Jul 1, 2021
  • One Earth
  • Mark D.A Rounsevell + 14 more

Identifying uncertainties in scenarios and models of socio-ecological systems in support of decision-making

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