Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Research Articles

Assessing Climate Change Vulnerability: A Conceptual and Theoretical Review

Assessing Climate Change Vulnerability: A Conceptual and Theoretical Review

Addressing Climate Change Vulnerability in the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems—Results Demonstrated for a Cross-Section of Major Vegetation-Based Ecosystem Types in the United States

The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) is a global standard for ecosystem risk assessment that integrates data and knowledge to document the relative risk status of ecosystem types as critically endangered (CR), endangered (EN), and vulnerable (VU). A series of indicators for each type gauge the probability of range wide “collapse”. Climate change vulnerability can factor into RLE assessments, especially as indicators of climate change severity under the criteria for environmental degradation over the recent and upcoming 50 years. We applied a new framework to assess climate change vulnerability—and thus, severity of climate change degradation—to a cross-section of 33 upland ecosystem types in the United States to demonstrate this input to the RLE. The framework addressed climate exposure and ecosystem resilience. Measures of climate change exposure used climate projections for the mid-21st century compared against a 20th century baseline. Augmenting measures in use for RLE assessment, measures of resilience included several for adaptive capacity, including topoclimate variability, diversity with functional species groups, and vulnerability of any keystone species. All 33 types were listed as VU (n = 22), EN (n = 9), or CR (n = 2) and 51% scored at least one step higher (e.g., LC up to VU) from climate change severity.

Household Level Assessment of Climate Change Vulnerability of North Bank Plains Zone Farmers of Assam

The study was carried out to assess the vulnerability of farmers to climate change in northbank plains zone of Assam. For this 2 districts were selected randomly from the northbank plains zone of Assam i.e., Sonitpur and Udalguri. A household level survey was carriedout with the selected farmers to obtain the primary data. For this, total 120 farmers wereselected from 6 different villages through proportionate random sampling. Vulnerabilityindex was worked out by considering 10 different indicators. Findings revealed that 69.17per cent of farmers belonged to medium vulnerability category followed by 16.67 per centand 14.17 per cent in high and low vulnerability category respectively. The meanvulnerability score was 0.455 indicating that, on an average, respondents had mediumvulnerability to climate change. Most of the respondents are belonged to medium category.

Climate Change Vulnerability and Risk Assessment of Heritage Tourism Sites within South African National Parks

Climate Change Vulnerability and Risk Assessment of Heritage Tourism Sites within South African National Parks

취약성 통합평가 및 해안가 농업지역특성 분석

Recently, climate change is a threat to a wide range of areas such as water resources, ecosystems, forests, agriculture, industry and energy. In particular, in the case of agriculture with high climate dependence, the actual level of damage is serious due to the increased risk of disasters as the occurrence of extreme weather such as drought, heavy rain, typhoon and heat waves increases.BR Therefore, in this study, the concept of evaluating climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity was established for the evaluation of vulnerability to climate change in the agricultural sector of Korea.BR In addition, in order to Integrated Assessment the vulnerability of climate change in the whole agricultural regions of Korea, which is classified and managed by sector, climate influencing factors such as drought and heavy rain were selected. And evaluation groups for agricultural sectors such as crops, livestock, and rural water were selected. Based on this, a total of 27 integrated assessment index were developed for the integrated assessment of climate change vulnerability in the agricultural sectors.BR Also, the evaluation was performed by applying the integrated evaluation index, and in particular, the characteristics of climate change in the coastal area were analyzed.BR The most important significance of this study established an integrated assessment methodology for climate change vulnerability in the whole agricultural regions of Korea, which has not yet been established amid the climate change crisis. And based on this, an indicator to comprehensively evaluate climate change vulnerability was developed and presented. In addition, an integrated information management platform with information accumulation, management, and monitoring functions was established for adaptation to climate change. This is significant in establishing a framework for adaptation to climate change in the Whole agricultural sectors.

IPCC's current conceptualization of ‘vulnerability’ needs more clarification for climate change vulnerability assessments

In this Short Communication, we raise the concern that the existing conceptualization of ‘vulnerability’, introduced in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), is not facilitative for standalone vulnerability assessments and that this conceptualization has not been well accepted by the vulnerability researchers. We identify three key reasons for low adoption of the AR5 conceptualization in climate change vulnerability assessments, and urge the IPCC Working Group II to clarify how the current conceptualization of ‘vulnerability’ can facilitate standalone climate change vulnerability assessments. We propose treating ‘exposure’ not only as a precondition for vulnerability but also as a secondary driver of vulnerability to capture the influence of differential exposure.

Arboreality drives heat tolerance while elevation drives cold tolerance in tropical rainforest ants.

Determining how species thermal limits correlate with climate is important for understanding biogeographic patterns and assessing vulnerability to climate change. Such analyses need to consider thermal gradients at multiple spatial scales. Here we relate thermal traits of rainforest ants to microclimate conditions from ground to canopy (microgeographic scale) along an elevation gradient (mesogeographic scale) and calculate warming tolerance to assess climate change vulnerability in the Australian Wet Tropics Bioregion. We test the thermal adaptation and thermal niche asymmetry hypotheses to explain interspecific patterns of thermal tolerance at these two spatial scales. We tested cold tolerance (CTmin ), heat tolerance (CTmax ), and calculated thermal tolerance range (CTrange ), using ramping assays for 74 colonies of 40 ant species collected from terrestrial and arboreal habitats at lowland and upland elevation sites and recorded microclimatic conditions for one year. Within sites, arboreal ants were exposed to hotter microclimates and on average had a 4.2°C (95% CI: 2.7-5.6°C) higher CTmax and 5.3°C (95% CI: 3.5-7°C) broader CTrange than ground-dwelling ants. This pattern was consistent across the elevation gradient, whether it be the hotter lowlands or the cooler uplands. Across elevation, upland ants could tolerate significantly colder temperatures than lowland ants, whereas the change in CTmax was less pronounced, and CTrange did not change over elevation. Differential exposure to microclimates, due to localized niche preferences, drives divergence in CTmax , while environmental temperatures along the elevation gradient drive divergence in CTmin . Our results suggest that both processes of thermal adaptation and thermal niche asymmetry are at play, depending on the spatial scale of observation, and we discuss potential mechanisms underlying these patterns. Despite the broad thermal tolerance range of arboreal rainforest ants, lowland arboreal ants had the lowest warming tolerance and may be most vulnerable to climate change.

Correction to: The role of land use and land cover change in climate change vulnerability assessments of biodiversity: a systematic review

Correction to: The role of land use and land cover change in climate change vulnerability assessments of biodiversity: a systematic review

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of Cool-Season Grasslands Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process Method

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of Cool-Season Grasslands Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process Method

Developing Concept of Healthy Island: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: The archipelago region is a vulnerable area to human health problems. Several problems in the archipelago area including climate change, lack of a holistic management plan, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, economic problems, population growth, health facilities, and access to health services. The development of a healthy island concept is a solution to overcoming health problems in the archipelago. AIM: This article aims to identify the formation of the concept of a healthy island. METHODS: Article review was conducted using three bibliographic databases. Articles were selected based on the 2010–2020 publication using PRISMA flow diagram 2015. RESULTS: Based on the review article, it was found that twelve programs or concepts were used to overcome various problems in the archipelago which were obstacles to the realization of a healthy island, namely, a healthy diet; health development review; the concept of a climate change and adaptation health vulnerability assessment and planning project by the world health organization; the world health organization assessment; modeling exposure to tetrachlorethylene; conceptual model of the European Health Literacy Project (HLS-EU); community involvement in the Child Healthy Life Program; Pacific Island Health Care project; data analysis of newly registered TB cases; RHRW; approach to Community-Based Participatory Research; and descriptive epidemiology. CONCLUSION: To solve health problems on the island is not easy, first, we need to elaborate on the health problems and second, we need to determine health project initiative based on community development.

Rural households\u2019 livelihood vulnerability to climate variability and extremes: a livelihood zone-based approach in the Northeastern Highlands of Ethiopia

BackgroundThe adverse effects of climate variability and extremes exert increasing pressure on rural farm households whose livelihoods are dependent on nature. However, integrated and area-specific vulnerability assessments in Ethiopia in general and the study area, in particular, are scarce and insufficient for policy implications. Therefore, this study aims to quantify, map, classify, and prioritize the level of vulnerability in terms of the components of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity in the Northeastern Highlands of Ethiopia. The study area is divided into six livelihood zones, namely, Abay-Beshilo Basin (ABB), South Wollo and Oromia eastern lowland sorghum and cattle (SWS), Chefa Valley (CHV), Meher-Belg, Belg, and Meher. A total of 361 sample households were selected using proportional probability sampling techniques. Survey questionnaire, key informant interview, and focus group discussions were used to collect the necessary data. Rainfall and temperature data were also used. Following the IPCC’s climate change vulnerability assessment approach, the climate vulnerability index (CVI) framework of Sullivan and Meigh’s model was used to assess the relative vulnerability of livelihoods of rural households. Twenty-four vulnerability indicators were identified for exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity components. In this regard, Iyengar and Sudarshan’s unequal weighting system was applied to assign a weight to indicators.ResultsThe results revealed that Belg and Meher were found to be the highest exposure livelihood zones to vulnerability with an aggregated value of 0.71. Equally, SWS, ABB, Belg, and CHV livelihood zones showed moderate level of sensitivity to vulnerability with an aggregated value between 0.45 and 0.60. The study noted that livelihood zone of Belg (0.75) was found to be at high level of livelihood vulnerability. ABB (0.57) and CHV (0.45) were at a moderate level of livelihood vulnerability while Meher-Belg (0.22) was the least vulnerable livelihood zone due to a high level of adaptive capacity such as infrastructure, asset accumulation, and social networks.ConclusionIt was identified that disparities of livelihood vulnerability levels of rural households were detected across the study livelihood zones due to differences in the interaction of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity components. The highest levels of exposure and sensitivity combined with low level of adaptive capacity have increased households’ livelihood vulnerability. More importantly, the biophysical and socioeconomic sensitivity to livelihood vulnerability were exacerbated by slope/topography, soil erodibility, and population pressure. Therefore, designing livelihood zone-based identifiable adaptation strategies are essential to reduce the exposure and sensitivity of crop-livestock mixed agricultural systems to climate calamity.

Global assessment of marine and freshwater recreational fish reveals mismatch in climate change vulnerability and conservation effort.

Recreational fisheries contribute substantially to the sociocultural and economic well-being of coastal and riparian regions worldwide, but climate change threatens their sustainability. Fishery managers require information on how climate change will impact key recreational species; however, the absence of a global assessment hinders both directed and widespread conservation efforts. In this study, we present the first global climate change vulnerability assessment of recreationally targeted fish species from marine and freshwater environments (including diadromous fishes). We use climate change projections and data on species' physiological and ecological traits to quantify and map global climate vulnerability and analyze these patterns alongside the indices of socioeconomic value and conservation effort to determine where efforts are sufficient and where they might fall short. We found that over 20% of recreationally targeted fishes are vulnerable to climate change under a high emission scenario. Overall, marine fishes had the highest number of vulnerable species, concentrated in regions with sensitive habitat types (e.g., coral reefs). However, freshwater fishes had higher proportions of species at risk from climate change, with concentrations in northern Europe, Australia, and southern Africa. Mismatches in conservation effort and vulnerability were found within all regions and life-history groups. A key pattern was that current conservation effort focused primarily on marine fishes of high socioeconomic value rather than on the freshwater and diadromous fishes that were predicted to be proportionately more vulnerable. While several marine regions were notably lacking in protection (e.g., Caribbean Sea, Banda Sea), only 19% of vulnerable marine species were without conservation effort. By contrast, 72% of freshwater fishes and 33% of diadromous fishes had no measures in place, despite their high vulnerability and cultural value. The spatial and taxonomic analyses presented here provide guidance for the future conservation and management of recreational fisheries as climate change progresses.

Piloting a Climate-Change Adaptation Index on US National Forest Lands

Abstract Climate change presents a novel and significant threat to the sustainability of forest ecosystems worldwide. The United States Forest Service (USFS) has conducted climate change vulnerability assessments for much of the 193 million acres of national forest lands it manages, yet little to no research exists on the degree to which management units have adopted considerations of climate change into planning or project implementation. In response to this knowledge gap, we piloted a survey instrument in USFS Region 1 (Northern region) and Region 6 (Pacific Northwest region) to determine criteria for assessing the degree to which national forests integrate climate-change considerations into their management planning and activities. Our resulting climate-change adaptation index provides an efficient quantitative approach for identifying where, how, and, potentially, why some national forests are making more progress toward incorporating climate-change adaptations into forest planning and management.

Treatment of climate change in extinction risk assessments and recovery plans for threatened species

AbstractThe ongoing threat of climate change poses an increasing risk to biodiversity, especially for currently threatened species. Climate change can both directly impact species and interact with other pre‐existing threats, such as habitat loss, to further amplify species' risk of extinction. Recognizing the threat of climate change in extinction risk assessments and recovery planning for imperilled species is essential for tailoring and prioritizing recovery actions for climate‐threatened species. Using species legally listed in Canada we show that 44.1% of species' risk assessments identify the threat of climate change, nonetheless, 43.5% of assessments completely omit climate change. Species assessed more recently were more likely to be identified as climate‐threatened, however, the strength of this relationship varied across taxonomic groups. The likelihood that climate change was identified as a threat was also strongly affected by the use of a standardized threat assessment process. Of the climate‐threatened species, less than half (46.0%) of species' recovery plans specified actions aimed explicitly at minimizing climate impacts and only 3.8% of recovery plans recommended habitat or population management actions. Climate‐targeted recovery actions were more likely to be included in more recent plans, and were marginally more likely for species where climate change was considered a major threat. Our findings highlight the urgent need for consistent and standardized assessments of the threat of climate change, including the consideration of potential synergies between climate change and other existing threats. Performing species‐specific climate change vulnerability assessments may serve to complement existing assessment and recovery planning processes. We provide additional recommendations aimed at threatened species recovery planners for improving the integration of the threat of climate change into species extinction risk assessments and recovery planning processes for listed species.

Climate change vulnerability assessment of urban informal settlers in Nepal, a least developed country

Urban poor with limited resources and residing in precarious informal settlements are often one of the most vulnerable populations to climate variability and change. The present study seeks to assess the vulnerability of informal settlers to climate variability and change. Drawing from natural hazards, politico-economic, and ecological resilience strands of vulnerability literature we developed an integrated set of indicators for vulnerability assessment. The vulnerability of informal settlement dwellers was assessed in the hilly district of Kathmandu and the plain regions of the Nawalpur district of Nepal by collecting primary data from 300 randomly selected households, 150 from each district. Communities living in informal settlements experienced higher exposure to climate risk with lower adaptive capacity. Informal settlements with scarce resources, depilated infrastructure, fewer livelihood opportunities and knowledge gaps pose considerable vulnerability to climate variability and change. Our findings reveal that the inhabitants of informal settlements in the plain region are more vulnerable than that of the informal settlements of the hilly region due to higher exposure and sensitivity and lower adaptive capacities of the informal settlers of the plains. Enabling factors such as livelihood diversification, improved infrastructure, health facilities, social capitals, and support from local government with contextual policies and interventions, can facilitate better adaptation among the informal settlers and make them resilient to climate variability and change.

Assessment of Vulnerability to Climate Change – A Systematic Bibliometric Visualization Analysis with a Focus on Indian Agriculture

Climate change induced vulnerability is a complex and dynamic phenomenon, which attracted the attention of researchers and policy makers in the recent past. This paper aims to provide a systematic bibliometric review (1991 to 2021) on vulnerability analysis to climate change, mainly covering the evolution of vulnerability concepts, approaches and methods for vulnerability assessments followed by visualization of research collaboration using the VOSviewer tool. The USA has been identified as the leading country in research on climate change vulnerability assessment. India has the maximum collaborative research with the USA and Australia. Indicator-based assessment method is widely used in most of the research and the most popular scale of assessment is district level in case of Indian agriculture. Despite several evolving methods of vulnerability assessment, each one is suffering from some shortcomings. Thus, integrated and holistic approaches based on the experiences of advanced and leading countries in climate change related vulnerability assessment like the USA, UK and Australia need to be comprehended for formulating various action plans. Further, sufficient fund allocation to local governments and its utilization enables climate action policy initiatives.

Temporal matching of occurrence localities and forest cover data helps improve range estimates and predict climate change vulnerabilities

Improved quantification of species’ ranges is needed to provide more accurate estimates of extinction risks for conservation planning. Highland tropical biodiversity may be particularly vulnerable to the anthropogenic changes in land cover and climate and is subject to overestimation of geographic range size in IUCN assessments. Here, we demonstrate a novel and practical approach for quantifying inferred range reductions based upon temporal matching of recent species occurrence localities and vegetation data. As an illustration pertinent to montane forest-associated species with limited distribution data, we use Gymnuromys roberti, an endemic Malagasy rodent with a Least Concern conservation status. We estimated climatic suitability and climate change vulnerability using species distribution modeling (SDM). We then determined deforestation tolerance thresholds for the species by temporally matching recent occurrence localities with percent forest cover values from MODIS forest cover layers. Finally, we applied these thresholds in postprocessing SDM-based range estimates. These estimates demonstrate that the lack of sufficient forest cover substantially reduces the species’ current estimated range compared with the IUCN range map. Projections to 2050 suggest that there will be a loss of climatic suitability over three quarters of the currently suitable habitat along with increased fragmentation, highlighting the need to include climate change vulnerability assessments as an integral part of conservation planning. Broader application of SDMs could assist practitioners at various stages of conservation planning, stressing the need for improved accessibility of methodologically complex SDM approaches.

Climate change vulnerability assessment of the coastal resources in Moalboal, Cebu, Central Philippines

The municipality of Moalboal (Cebu, Central Philippines) falls under Cluster XI (coastal and marine areas of the south Sulu Sea are most prone to sea level rise) in the climate-ocean hazard typology. Coastal activities, such as aquaculture, fishing, recreation, and tourism are integral to Moalboal’s economy. Its economy is partly dependent on coastal resources and could be vulnerable to sea level rise. Hence, there is a need to determine the vulnerability profile of the municipality, through indicator-based vulnerability assessment. Results using vulnerability assessment tools coupled with GIS-based workflows showed that the overall vulnerability to climate change of mangroves was moderate and low for both seagrasses and corals. A better understanding of how human activities may directly and indirectly affect coastal resources is urgently needed. Integrated coastal zone management provides a major opportunity to address the many issues and challenges of climate change in an effort to design and develop adaptation strategies.

Cold-water species need warm water too

Climate change vulnerability assessments of cold-water species have focused on protecting cold summer habitats in high-elevation streams. Now, a study shows that seasonally warm rivers can provide the majority of growth potential for cold-water fishes, unveiling a notable blind spot in freshwater climate research and planning.

Climate Change Vulnerability in Agriculture Sector: An Assessment and Mapping at Divisional Secretariat Level in Sri Lanka

Climate change vulnerability assessment is a technique used to identify vulnerable areas for adaptation planning. This study focuses on developing a conceptual framework to assess and map the vulnerability of the agriculture sector in Sri Lanka to climate change at Divisional Secretariat (DS), an administrative level. Vulnerability indices were formulated based on the definition of vulnerability by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Data were collected from secondary sources and aggregated using a composite index. The index was further expanded by two methods to include the impacts of neighbouring DS divisions, considering the mean vulnerability index (VI) of neighbours and maximum VI among neighbours. A two-third was taken as the contribution from the own DS while one-third was accounted for the surrounding DS divisions for the final vulnerability index. The study identified a considerable spatial variability in vulnerability. Agriculture sector in Northern and Eastern, Northwestern parts of the country and Southwestern part of the wet zone are the most vulnerable to drought. About 50% of area in the wet zone and Northern and Eastern coasts were identified as the most vulnerable to floods while Central highlands are vulnerable to landslides. Vulnerability of agriculture for cyclones has spread throughout the dry zone except few areas. Neighbourhood analysis using the mean vulnerability index (VI) of neighbours (N) shows that the agriculture sector is highly vulnerable to droughts (D), floods (F), landslides (L), cyclones (C) in the DS divisions of Galgamauwa (VIDNAvg is1), Manmunai West (VIFNAvg is 0.84), Akurana (VILNAvg is 0.85), Kuchchaveli (VICNAvg is 0.83), respectively, and to all types of disaster in Manmunai West (VINAvg is 0.62) DS division. This study indicates that the characteristics of the neighbours are a vital factor in determining the vulnerability status of an area of interest. Since vulnerability assessments are useful in policy formulations and launching development projects, these assessments should include the influence of neighbours.