Alternative Adaptation Strategies Research Articles

Long-term migration trends and rising temperatures: the role of irrigation

ABSTRACT Climate variability has the potential to affect both international and internal migration profoundly. Earlier work finds that higher temperatures reduce agricultural yields, which in turn reduces migration rates in low-income countries, due to liquidity constraints. We test whether access to irrigation modulates this temperature–migration relationship, since irrigation buffers agricultural incomes from high temperatures. We regress measures of international and internal migration on decadal averages of temperature and rainfall, interacted with country-level data on irrigation and income. We find robust evidence that, for poor countries, irrigation access significantly offsets the negative effect of increasing temperatures on internal migration, as proxied by urbanisation rates. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering access to alternative adaptation strategies when analysing the temperature-migration relationship.

Cross-Reactivity to Mutated Viral Immune Targets Can Influence CD8+ T Cell Functionality: An Alternative Viral Adaptation Strategy.

Loss of T cell immunogenicity due to mutations in virally encoded epitopes is a well-described adaptation strategy to limit host anti-viral immunity. Another described, but less understood, adaptation strategy involves the selection of mutations within epitopes that retain immune recognition, suggesting a benefit for the virus despite continued immune pressure (termed non-classical adaptation). To understand this adaptation strategy, we utilized a single cell transcriptomic approach to identify features of the HIV-specific CD8+ T cell responses targeting non-adapted (NAE) and adapted (AE) forms of epitopes containing a non-classical adaptation. T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire and transcriptome were obtained from antigen-specific CD8+ T cells of chronic (n=7) and acute (n=4) HIV-infected subjects identified by either HLA class I tetramers or upregulation of activation markers following peptide stimulation. CD8+ T cells were predominantly dual tetramer+, confirming a large proportion of cross-reactive TCR clonotypes capable of recognizing the NAE and AE form. However, single-reactive CD8+ T cells were identified in acute HIV-infected subjects only, providing the potential for the selection of T cell clones over time. The transcriptomic profile of CD8+ T cells was dependent on the autologous virus: subjects whose virus encoded the NAE form of the epitope (and who transitioned to the AE form at a later timepoint) exhibited an ‘effective’ immune response, as indicated by expression of transcripts associated with polyfunctionality, cytotoxicity and apoptosis (largely driven by the genes GZMB, IFNɣ, CCL3, CCL4 and CCL5). These data suggest that viral adaptation at a single amino acid residue can provide an alternative strategy for viral survival by modulating the transcriptome of CD8+ T cells and potentially selecting for less effective T cell clones from the acute to chronic phase.

Attending to the social–political dimensions of urban flooding in decision‐support research: A synthesis of contemporary empirical cases

AbstractPublic adaptation decision‐making entails a negotiation of disparate perspectives on risk, harm, and value in relation to understanding impacts, as well as in choosing among alternative adaptation strategies. Public adaptation decisions impact the distribution of resources and risk and thus, while not always acknowledged, such decisions are inherently social and political, with implications for equity and justice. We synthesize insights from 128 empirical case studies of processes of public decision‐making pertaining to infrastructural flood risk adaptation in urban areas. We focus on urban flood risk adaptation efforts because of the growing threat of flooding in urban areas globally, the technical orientation of such investments and the social equity issues associated with urban flood exposure and response. We explore the assumptions about the decision criteria and decision‐support needs presented in this research. And we document the extent to which these studies incorporate sources of knowledge on the social dimensions of flood impacts, consider social and political criteria in evaluating intervention strategies and account for issues of equity and justice in the adaptation process. We conclude with a discussion on the potential obstacles in the research community for deeper engagement with the social and political dimensions of adaptation decision support, and ways to address such obstacles.This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation

Adaptive opaque façades and their potential to reduce thermal energy use in residential buildings: A simulation-based evaluation

Adaptive façades are a promising choice to achieve comfortable low-energy buildings. Their effective performance is highly dependent on the local boundary conditions of each application and on the way the dynamic properties are controlled. The evaluation of whole building performance through building performance simulation can be useful to understand the potential of different Adaptive opaque façades (AOF) in a specific context. This paper evaluates through dynamic simulations promising design solutions of AOF for a residential building use in six different climates. It quantifies the total delivered thermal energy of 15 typologies of AOFs which consist of alternative adaptation strategies: (i) variation of solar absorptance of the cladding, (ii) variation of the convective heat transfer of air cavities and (iii) adaptive insulation strategies. For the first time, it also quantifies the performance of AOF which combine more than one adaptation strategy. The results show that the variation of the heat transfer by means of Adaptive Insulation components has the most significant impact on the reduction of the thermal energy use. The variation of the solar absorptance has also a significant positive impact when reducing heating consumption, but only if this adaptation strategy is actively controlled and combined with Adaptive Insulation components.

A Safety Reinforced Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control Strategy Accounting for Dynamic Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication Failure.

Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) is an advanced technique for organizing and managing a vehicle platoon, which employs the Vehicle-to-Vehicle/Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2V/V2I, or V2X) wireless communication to minimize the inter-vehicle distance while guaranteeing string-stability. Consequently, the conventional CACC system relies heavily on the quality of communications, which means that the regular CACC platoon is sensitive to the communication failure. Therefore, in this paper, a Safety Reinforced Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (SR-CACC) strategy is proposed to resist unexpected communication failure. Different from the regular CACC system, the safety enhanced platoon control system is embedded with a dual-branch control strategy. When a fatal wireless communication failure is detected and confirmed, the SR-CACC system will automatically activate the alternative sensor-based adaptive cruise control strategy. Moreover, to make the transforming process smooth, a linear smooth transition algorithm is added to the SR-CACC system. Then, to verify the performance of the proposed SR-CACC system, we conducted a simulation experiment with a heterogonous platoon constructed with eight vehicles. The experiments results reveal that, under the extremely poor communication environment, the proposed SR-CACC strategy can significantly improve the safety performance of the organized vehicle platoon.

Smallholder farmers’ perception of climate change and adaptation strategy choices in Central Ethiopia

Purpose Smallholder farmers have always been profoundly the first to be impacted by climate change, and therefore, farmers understanding of climate change and accessibility to alternative adaptation strategies are crucial for reducing the effect of climate change. The purpose of this study is to assess the perception of farmers to climate change, adaptation strategies and determinants of adaptation choice in central Ethiopia. Design/methodology/approach The study used data from randomly selected 240 farm households. Descriptive statistics were used to describe farmers’ perceptions of climate change and adaptation strategies. Also, a multivariate probit model was used to identify the major factors affecting farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies to climate change in central Ethiopia. Findings Smallholder farmers perceive climate change in the past two decades in response; the majority (91.47%) of farmers used adaptation options. Improved crop varieties and input intensity, crop diversification, planting date adjustment, soil and water conservation activities and changing of the crop type were used as adaptation options in the study area. A few of these strategies were significantly confirmed a complementary and supplementary relationship. The study identified sex, family size, agroecology, climate information, crop-fail history and formal extension service as significant determinants for farmers’ adaptation choices as these variables significantly affected more than two farmers’ adaptation strategies simultaneously. Research limitations/implications Farmers’ choice of adaptation was highly constrained by institutional factors and all these identified factors can be possibly addressed through a better institutional service provision system. It is, therefore, recommended that local administrators should explore the institutional service provision system for a better farm-level adaptation while considering demographic characteristics as well. Originality/value This study identified factors affecting farmers’ several adaptation strategies at a time and provides information for the policymaker to make cost-effective interventions for better farm-level adaptation practices.

Mind-the-Gap! Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Text-Video Retrieval

When can we expect a text-video retrieval system to work effectively on datasets that differ from its training domain? In this work, we investigate this question through the lens of unsupervised domain adaptation in which the objective is to match natural language queries and video content in the presence of domain shift at query-time. Such systems have significant practical applications since they are capable generalising to new data sources without requiring corresponding text annotations. We make the following contributions: (1) We propose the UDAVR (Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Video Retrieval) benchmark and employ it to study the performance of text-video retrieval in the presence of domain shift. (2) We propose Concept-Aware-Pseudo-Query (CAPQ), a method for learning discriminative and transferable features that bridge these cross-domain discrepancies to enable effective target domain retrieval using source domain supervision. (3) We show that CAPQ outperforms alternative domain adaptation strategies on UDAVR.

Differing spatial patterns of the urban heat exposure of elderly populations in two megacities identifies alternate adaptation strategies

Mapping the elderly population exposure to heat hazard in urban areas is important to inform adaptation strategies for increasingly-deadly urban heat under climate change. However, fine-scale mapping is lacking, because global climate change projections have not previously been integrated with urban heat island effects especially with urban three-dimensional characteristics for within-city heat risk analyses. This study compared the spatial patterns of deadly heat exposure for elderly populations in two East Asian megacities, Seoul and Tokyo, using current climate (2006–2015) and two future periods (2040s and 2090s). We integrated global warming projections (the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 5 based on Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5) with local urban characteristics and demographics. We found that, for the historical period, the overall hotspots of elderly population exposure to urban heat was larger in Tokyo because of relatively higher maximum air temperatures and lack of green spaces, whereas in the future periods, Seoul will have larger hotspots because the elderly population density will have increased. About 20% of the area in Seoul and 0.3–1% of Tokyo will be hotpots in the 2040s, and the size of these hotspots increases to 25–26% and 2–3%, respectively, in the 2090s. The spatial patterns of hotspots identify different types of priority areas and suggest that alternative adaptation strategies for two cities are appropriate. The approach introduced here will be useful for identifying sustainable thermal environments in other cities with high density elderly population and severe heat hazard. • Integrating climate change and UHI effect detects intra-city heat hazard variations. • Tokyo had more heat hazard hotspots for elderly exposure than Seoul in the past. • Climate change will increase the number of hotspots in both Seoul and Tokyo. • Demographic change will increase the hotspots in Seoul but decreases them in Tokyo. • Hotspot results suggest priority location and measures for adaptation strategies.

A qualitative study of the migration-adaptation nexus to deal with environmental change in Tinghir and Tangier (Morocco)

ABSTRACT Over the last two decades, migration-as-adaptation discourses have theorized and studied how migration could facilitate adaptation to deal with the effects of adverse environmental change. However, contextual factors, such as migration trends and local social and economic contexts, as well as perceptions of this linkage have often been neglected. This study aims to understand how people perceive this relationship and whether and how migration, often in the form of remittances, is used for adaptation purposes. For this study, 48 semi-structured interviews were conducted with inhabitants of Tangier and Tinghir (Morocco). These regions are confronted differently by environmental change impacts. While both face increasing precipitation and temperature changes, Tinghir is additionally confronted with drought, desertification, water scarcity, and a growing number of more extreme weather events. Furthermore, both regions receive internal migrants and experienced significant emigration towards Europe. Results indicate that migration, as well as the sending of remittances, could produce a multitude of adaptation outcomes towards environmental change, resulting in an exacerbation of existing social vulnerabilities, alter economic development at the community level, and impact the development of alternative adaptation strategies, at both the individual/household and community levels. Findings demonstrate that migration-as-adaptation discourses must be considered within social, political, economic, and environmental contexts. These discourses should consider local migration histories and prevalent cultures of migration.

Alternative Adaptation Strategy during the Paleolithic–Neolithic Transition: Potential Use of Aquatic Resources in the Western Middle Yangtze Valley, China

The middle Yangtze Valley is an important region for studying the origin of rice agriculture. Archaeological remains of rice have been found in sites such as Pengtoushan and Bashidang as early as 8000 years ago. However, we know little about the adaptive diversity in this region as research has mostly focused on rice cultivation. With the help of new discoveries, this paper explores another adaptation behavior pattern that emphasizes the utilization of aquatic resources in the western part of the Jianghan Plain during the Paleolithic–Neolithic transition. Although the sea level was continuously rising with the warming process of early Holocene, the lakes that later became widely distributed were still in formation, thus not available for human utilization in the middle Yangtze Valley. However, most notably, the amelioration of the environment was producing a sort of new niche: utilizing aquatic resources became possible at least in parts of this region. A case study from the Guanzhou Site, based on lithics, suggests there were increasing demands for the utilization of aquatic resources. The study proposes that at least two different adaptation strategy changes occurred in the western Jianghan Plain during the Paleolithic–Neolithic transition, i.e., rice agriculture or complex hunting–gathering. These strategies represent adaptations to the different ecological conditions at the crossroads of habitat types.

Climate Change Adaptation: Operational Taxonomy and Metrics

The development of adaptation indicators and metrics that can be aggregated and compared to support environmental management is a key challenge for climate experts, finance institutions, and decision-makers. To provide an operational ex-ante evaluation of alternative adaptation strategies, statistical evaluation was conducted on 1562 adaptation projects contained in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by almost all parties who signed the Paris Agreement in 2015. As a preliminary stage, we are suggesting a physical risk taxonomy derived from climate model databases and an adaptation project taxonomy using a text analysis. The second stage, consisting of an evaluation metric using a correspondence analysis between adaptation projects and risk classes, was inspired by the analogy with adaptation mechanisms in living organisms—assessing the correct correspondence between threats from the environment and adaptive solutions. It allowed us to develop a coefficient ranging from 0 to 1, expressing the degree of correspondence between adaptive measures’ categories and hazard levels, which we refer to as fitness. Our coefficient would make it possible to compare project classes with each other ex-ante or, conversely, to deduce the most relevant adaptation solutions from climate-change-related hazards. The fitness coefficient could also be used as a preliminary stage of assessment to create a short-list of adaptation projects that are relevant to address a given physical hazard with a given intensity.

Early adaptation to heat waves and future reduction of air-conditioning energy use in Paris

Some actions intended to adapt to climate change may do more harm than good, especially when they consume energy, making it more difficult to shift to decarbonized energy, or when, in meeting the needs of one group of people, they increase the vulnerability of others. Heat wave risk provides a typical example: air conditioning (AC) equipment may trigger large energy consumption and worsen outdoor heat stress. Alternative adaptation strategies exist, but it is not clear whether they can prevent the massive use of AC. Here, with an interdisciplinary modeling platform, taking Paris as a case study, we provide a first quantified analysis of the efficiency of adaptation strategies (large scale urban greening, building insulation policy, and generalized behavioral changes in AC use) in reducing future potential AC need. We find that even ambitious strategies do not appear sufficient to totally replace AC and ensure thermal comfort, under a median climate change scenario. They can, however, reduce AC energy use by half during heat waves and compensate for the heat released to the outdoor environment. Our results show that adaptation actions, implemented early, may play a key role if we are to remain on a low-carbon pathway.

Inequality in the Economic Impacts from Climate Shocks in Fisheries: The Case of Harmful Algal Blooms

Climate impacts disproportionately affect people that are most vulnerable and least able to adapt. The extent to which these equity impacts extend to fishing communities in the developed world is a question that has received surprisingly little attention. Here we explore the distributional impacts of a climate shock in one of the largest and most valuable fisheries on the West Coast of the United States. Specifically, we examine whether a series of two harmful algal blooms (HABs), occurring during the 2014–2016 Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave, differentially affected small and large vessels in the commercial California Dungeness crab fishery. The HAB events were managed with localized fishery closures in response to elevated levels of the HAB toxin, domoic acid, in crab tissue. We find evidence that large vessels had a greater ability to mitigate losses from the HAB events. Thus, the proportion of total revenue going to small-vessel operators and the proportion of small-vessel participation in the fishery fell in response to the HAB events in several California fishing ports. Our results, therefore, offer empirical evidence that climate impacts on fishing communities are not uniform and offer insights into potential alternative adaptation strategies for different ocean user groups.

IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE INDUCED COPING AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES ON SEAWEED PRODUCTION IN TANZANIA: A CASE OF JAMBIANI VILLAGE, UNGUJA ISLAND

Climate change remains to be the biggest challenge of 21st century threatening to negatively impacts seaweed production levels in Tanzania. Seaweed farmers have coped and adapted to the impacts of the changes for several years but the implication of their efforts measured by the level of seaweed production is still not documented. The study investigated implications of various coping and adaptation strategies employed by farmers on seaweed production. A cross sectional study was adopted to collection information’s September-November, 2016. Primary data collection tools includes Questionnaires and Focus Group Discussion from 100 seaweed farmers and analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, measures of central tendency and variation, and liner regression model at 5% confidence level. The results indicated that, seaweed farmers continued to employ documented and have recently developed new undocumented coping and adaptation strategies, documented for the first time by this study which include, setting seaweed plot in partially drilled area and tying of big sized seedling as well as planting plenty of seaweeds during cooler months. Nevertheless, production level declined from 80 to 130 sacks per harvest before notable environmental changes to 20 sacks per harvest in a situation of weather and climate changes. It was shown that only planting plenty of seaweeds during cooler months slightly improved seaweed production and others, none at all. The study recommends initiation of ceased extension services to offer technical education and services to seaweed farmers on the best ways to integrate available coping and adaptation strategies on seaweed production as well as developing the best alternative coping and adaptation strategies.

Village prototypes: a survival strategy for Chinese minority rural villages

Rural Chinese villages are disappearing at an alarming rate. Unprecedented urban growth either has or is in the process of decimating the physical and cultural identity of the village. This paper explores an alternative adaptive strategy for the Dong Minority rural villages of Southern China. Through the implementation of various forms of architectural prototypes, an operational tool to interrogate the village, local crafts and traditional customs are transformed through design propositions. Dong's inherently social and spatial structures become agents of change, assisting the prototype to calibrate an incremental modernisation approach; a paradigm for the community to realise that coexistence with the times doesn't necessarily equate with the erosion of heritage.

When can decision analysis improve climate adaptation planning? Two procedures to match analysis approaches with adaptation problems

Climate adaptation decisions are difficult because the future climate is deeply uncertain. Combined with uncertainties concerning the cost, lifetime, and effectiveness of adaptation measures, this implies that the net benefits of alternative adaptation strategies are ambiguous. On one hand, a simple analysis that disregards uncertainty might lead to near-term choices that are later regretted if future circumstances differ from those assumed. On the other hand, careful uncertainty-based decision analyses can be costly in personnel and time and might not make a difference. This paper considers two questions adaptation managers might ask. First, what type of analysis is most appropriate for a particular adaptation decision? We answer this question by proposing a six-step screening procedure to compare the usefulness of predict-then-act analysis, multi-scenario analysis without adaptive options, and multi-scenario analysis incorporating adaptive options. A tutorial application is presented using decision trees. However, this procedure may be cumbersome if managers face several adaptation problems simultaneously. Hence, a second question is how can managers quickly identify problems that would benefit most from thorough decision analysis? To address this question, we propose a procedure that ranks multiple adaptation problems in terms of the necessity and value of comprehensive analysis. Analysis can then emphasize the highest-ranking problems. This procedure is illustrated by a ranking of adaptation problems in the Chesapeake Bay region. The two complementary procedures proposed here can help managers focus analytical efforts where they will be most useful.

From flood risk mapping toward reducing vulnerability: the case of Addis Ababa

Flood risk maps for the built environment can be obtained by integrating geo-spatial information on hazard, vulnerability and exposure. They provide precious support for strategic urban planning and decision-making. These maps, generated in a probabilistic framework, can consider various sources of uncertainty in the flood risk assessment such as the occurrence of extreme flooding events, future land use and land cover, characteristics of the buildings, and exposure to flooding. This paper investigates how these maps can be used in complicated urban context such as developing countries, where engineers are forced to work with scarce or little data. Specifically, a detailed investigation on the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has been conducted. Although the city of Addis Ababa is undergoing extensive formal housing development, it is most likely that the informal settlements will continue to constitute a significant portion of urban housing landscape in the years to come. Recent research findings and field work from a large project (FP7-CLUVA) are employed in order to provide a quantified basis for decision-making between alternative adaptation strategies for informal buildings in Addis Ababa. Risk maps, obtained by up-scaling more accurate risk assessment results at neighborhood level, are adopted for risk zoning of the urban residential texture within the city. This provides risk-based criteria for both identifying suitable flood adaptation strategies and prioritizing between viable risk mitigation measures.

An intra-household analysis of farmers’ perceptions of and adaptation to climate change impacts: empirical evidence from drought prone zones of Bangladesh

The agricultural sector is highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly in drought-prone environments. An understanding of perceptions, adaptation strategies, and their determinants including a gender analysis can benefit vulnerable farmers and policy makers. Using a survey of 360 farming household heads and their spouses, this study identified the intra-household perceptions and their determinants, the major strategies adopted by the farmers to adapt to climate change, and the factors that affect their adaptation decision and choice of strategies including the role of intra-household decision making in a drought prone environment of Bangladesh. The adaptation methods identified include short-duration and drought-tolerant rice varieties, supplementary irrigation for crop production, non-rice winter and horticultural crops, and improved channels for irrigation and water harvesting. Discrete choice model results indicate that age, household size, membership in any organization, access to credit, drought severity, amount of cultivated land, and agricultural subsidy significantly influence farmers’ adaptation decision and choices. Results reveal that climate change perceptions of husbands and spouses within the same households differ significantly and intra-household decision making plays a significant role in adaptation decision and selection of alternative adaptation strategies. The results would improve our understanding of farms and farming households and their climate change perceptions and adaptation choices by location and gender, thereby enabling us to outline better strategies to adapt to the changing climate.

An hr-adaptive method for the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation

The nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) is one of the most important equations in quantum mechanics, and appears in a wide range of applications including optical fibre communications, plasma physics and biomolecule dynamics. It is a notoriously difficult problem to solve numerically as solutions have very steep temporal and spatial gradients. Adaptive moving mesh methods ( r -adaptive) attempt to optimise the accuracy obtained using a fixed number of nodes by moving them to regions of steep solution features. This approach on its own is however limited if the solution becomes more or less difficult to resolve over the period of interest. Adaptive mesh refinement ( h -adaptive), where the mesh is locally coarsened or refined, is an alternative adaptive strategy which is popular for time-independent problems. In this paper, we consider the effectiveness of a combined method ( h r -adaptive) to solve the NLSE in one space dimension. Simulations are presented indicating excellent solution accuracy compared to other moving mesh approaches. The method is also shown to control the spatial error based on the user’s input error tolerance. Evidence is also presented indicating second-order spatial convergence using a novel monitor function to generate the adaptive moving mesh.

Understanding stone tool-making skill acquisition: Experimental methods and evolutionary implications

Despite its theoretical importance, the process of stone tool-making skill acquisition remains understudied and poorly understood. The challenges and costs of skill learning constitute an oft-neglected factor in the evaluation of alternative adaptive strategies and a potential source of bias in cultural transmission. Similarly, theory and data indicate that the most salient neural and cognitive demands of stone tool-making should occur during learning rather than expert performance. Unfortunately, the behavioral complexity and extensive learning requirements that make stone knapping skill acquisition an interesting object of study are the very features that make it so challenging to investigate experimentally. Here we present results from a multidisciplinary study of Late Acheulean handaxe-making skill acquisition involving twenty-six naïve participants and up to 90 hours training over several months, accompanied by a battery of psychometric, behavioral, and neuroimaging assessments. In this initial report, we derive a robust quantitative skill metric for the experimental handaxes using machine learning algorithms, reconstruct a group-level learning curve, and explore sources of individual variation in learning outcomes. Results identify particular cognitive targets of selection on the efficiency or reliability of tool-making skill acquisition, quantify learning costs, highlight the likely importance of social support, motivation, persistence, and self-control in knapping skill acquisition, and illustrate methods for reliably reconstructing ancient learning processes from archaeological evidence.