Including Climate Change Adaptation Research Articles

Just nature-based solutions and the pursuit of climate resilient urban development

Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer pathways towards climate resilient development. For cities, these pathways translate to a host of benefits to address the climate crisis, including climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity protection and enhancement, and human well-being. In urban spaces, NbS are also about the design and re-design of the urban built and natural environment. This presents a need to create the institutions and governance mechanisms that allow for the co-production and co-design of NbS alongside local communities in ways that serve to address justice and legacies of inequality. In this perspective, I examine three areas of focus to deliver just nature-based solutions: problem, process, and progress. Problem focuses on the types of relationships nature-based solutions seek to transform—the race and class-based inequalities embedded in urban form. Process addresses how nature-based solutions can deliver justice through design and co-production. Finally, progress is about developing indicators and measuring progress towards achieving just nature-based solutions and how they reflect diverse and pluralistic value systems. Collectively these should move just NbS towards the repair of social and ecological exploitation in and beyond the city.

The Existence of Blue Carbon and its Prospective Role in the Preservation of Carbon Stocks and the Mitigation of Climate Change

The substantial rise in carbon emissions can be attributed to the initiation of the industrial revolution in the 17th century. The increase in global temperature is linked to higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The anticipated increase in international sea levels is predicted to affect a considerable portion of the world's population significantly. The susceptibility of blue carbon ecosystems to climate change prompts inquiries regarding their capacity to operate effectively in the future while simultaneously delivering ecological advantages to coastal communities, including climate change adaptation. The primary emphasis of the study was on blue carbon, a term used to describe the process of carbon sequestration in coastal and marine ecosystems to mitigate the dangers associated with climate change.

Human Rights for Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation

Human Rights for Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps: Navigating uncertainty in environmental flow management

Uncertainty can be an impediment to decision making and result in decision paralysis. In environmental flow management, system complexity and natural variability increase uncertainty. Climate change provides further uncertainty and can hinder decision making altogether. Environmental flow managers express reluctance to include climate change adaptation in planning due to large knowledge gaps in hydro-ecological relationships. We applied a hybrid method of hypothetical scenarios and closed ended questions within a survey to investigate ecological trade off decision making behaviours and cognitive processes of environmental flow managers. The scenarios provided were both similar to participants’ past experiences, and others were entirely unprecedented and hence unfamiliar. We found managers were more confident making decisions in situations they are familiar with, and most managers show low levels of confidence in making trade off decisions under uncertain circumstances. When given a choice, the most common response to uncertainty was to gather additional information, however information is often unavailable or inaccessible–either it does not exist, or uncertainties are so great that decisions are deferred. Given future rainfall is likely to be different from the past, environmental flow managers must work to adopt robust decision making frameworks that will increase confidence in decision making by acknowledging uncertainties. This can be done through tools developed to address decision making under deep uncertainty. Adapting these tools and methods to environmental flow management will ensure managers can begin to consider likely, necessary future trade-offs in a more informed, transparent and robust manner and increase confidence in decision making under uncertainty.

A Decision Support Tool for Green Infrastructure Planning in the Face of Rapid Urbanization

Multifunctional green infrastructure, a key component of compact sustainable cities, is challenged by the pressures associated with rapid urbanization. In this paper, we present a method that uses remote sensing, GIS modeling and stakeholder engagement to produce a decision support tool that communicates the availability and need for green infrastructure benefits. The case study presented is the City of Tshwane, South Africa, a Global South city facing rapid urbanization. We found that this method of mapping green infrastructure benefits can provide simultaneous oversight on multiple objectives for green infrastructure, including climate change adaptation, biodiversity, and equitable distribution of urban green space. We found that low-scoring benefit areas occur in dense urban areas where small-scale nature-based solutions or rehabilitation activities are required. Moderate benefit scores occurred in parts of the city that are vulnerable to urban expansion and densification activities, warranting the careful planning of green infrastructure provision, and that moderate-to-high-scoring areas can be protected as conservation areas. The results are discussed in terms of the role of decision support tools for urban planning practice. Composite indexes can provide important guidance to decision-makers involved in spatial planning and urban upgrading and expansion activities.

Intra-household gender differences in perception of climate change and eventual impacts: Empirical evidence from groundwater depleted zones of Bangladesh

Given the importance of gender in household and agricultural decision-making including climate change adaptation and mitigation decisions, understanding “within” household gender differences in perception of climate change and eventual impacts is crucial to formulate and design relevant policies and programs. However, studies on climate change, particularly perception studies, overlooked gender aspects. Therefore, aiming at a more nuanced gender analysis, this study attempted to measure “within” household gender differences in perception of climate change, its impact and explored the factors affecting such perceptions. We drew on empirical data obtained from farm household surveys conducted on 360 co-dwelling couples from three dissimilar drought-prone areas of northwest Bangladesh. Findings reveal that the significant difference in spouses' perceptions of unexpected rainfall and thunderstorms was perceived more by wives than husbands, nevertheless, increasing temperature was perceived more by husbands than wives. Similarly, spouses perceived that climate change has negative effects on agriculture and livelihoods. There were significant spatial differences in the responses across husbands and wives. The discrete choice modelling approaches employed to explore the determinants of perceptions by husbands and wives illustrated that wives inhabited in high water scarce areas (HSA) and medium water scarce areas (MSA), with higher education and age were more likely to perceive climate change and eventual impacts, whereas husbands' age and education were negatively allied with their perceptions. Intra-household gender differentiated perceptions suggest that policy interventions should provide gender disaggregated targeted human capital development and extend institutional facilities and support appropriate farm-level spatial program design and policy formulation.

Factors influencing the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices: the case of seven horticultural farms in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT The production of fruits and vegetables is expected to increase in the United Kingdom (UK) as a response to increasing consumers’ demand, coupled with impacts of Brexit on the imports from the European Union (EU). Retailers and consumers are more aware of the environmental impact and provenance of food and are demanding to their suppliers to implement sustainable agricultural practices. Seven horticultural farmers and farm managers across the UK were interviewed to investigate the implementation of sustainable practices, and the motivations and enablers for adoption, as well as perceptions on sustainability and climate change. Factors influencing adoption mainly were efficiency and cost reduction, regulations, and market demand, even though, environmental, and social consciousness also played a role in adoption. There was little evidence that participation in knowledge networks or the perception of climate change and impacts, and of carbon footprint assessments influenced the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, but this finding deserves further investigation. Farmers’ awareness of the importance of soil was clear and governments should encourage farmers’ involvement in the monitoring of soil health, as a mean of engaging them in the wider discussion about the implementation of sustainable land management, including climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Tackling the Science Usability Gap in a Warming World: Co-Producing Useable Climate Information for Natural Resource Management

Developing scientific information that is used in policy and practice has been a longstanding challenge in many sectors and disciplines, including climate change adaptation for natural resource management. One approach to address this problem encourages scientists and decision-makers to co-produce usable information collaboratively. Researchers have proposed general principles for climate science co-production, yet few studies have applied and evaluated these principles in practice. In this study, climate change researchers and natural resource managers co-produced climate-related knowledge that was directly relevant for on-going habitat management planning. We documented our methods and assessed how and to what extent the process led to the near-term use of co-produced information, while also identifying salient information needs for future research. The co-production process resulted in: 1) an updated natural resource management plan that substantially differed from the former plan in how it addressed climate change, 2) increased understanding of climate change, its impacts, and management responses among agency staff, and 3) a prioritized list of climate-related information needs that would be useful for management decision-making. We found that having a boundary spanner—an intermediary with relevant science and management expertise that enables exchange between knowledge producers and users—guide the co-production process was critical to achieving outcomes. Central to the boundary spanner’s role were a range of characteristics and skills, such as knowledge of relevant science, familiarity with management issues, comfort translating science into practice, and an ability to facilitate climate-informed planning. By describing specific co-production methods and evaluating their effectiveness, we offer recommendations for others looking to co-produce climate change information to use in natural resource management planning and implementation.

Resilience of Polish cities and their rainwater management policies

Taking into account the literature at the intersection of climate change studies and urban studies, the authors examine and compare rainwater management policies in selected Polish cities. There is a special emphasis on urban resilience in order to define their role in ensuring safe living conditions for their residents, including processes of adapting to climate change. The aim is to show how rainwater in a city can be perceived as an opportunity and not only a problem or a challenge. The main research questions are: What measures do Polish cities undertake to build resilience in the context of water management policies? What kinds of documents at the local level are relevant to such measures? Are the provisions contained in these documents implemented or do they remain only a dead letter? The answers require the examination of various documents including climate change adaptation plans and development strategies adopted by Polish cities in this regard.

Weather Preferences for Urban Tourism: An Empirical Study in the Greek Capital of Athens, Greece

Several climate indices have been developed to analyze the relationship between climatic variables and tourist comfort at different destinations, although, none of the indices applied so far in cities have been informed by empirical data collected exclusively at urban tourist destinations. The present paper aims to cover this gap by developing an “Urban Climate Comfort Index” (UCCI) that integrates critical climate variables for urban tourism and is informed by empirical data from an in-situ survey conducted in southern Europe, namely, in close proximity to the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece. The survey provided input on the ideal and unacceptable climatic conditions as perceived by urban tourists and on the relevant weight of the selected climatic parameters. Tourist preferences were then translated into a numerical scale by assigning utility scores of 0% and 100% to the “unacceptable” and “ideal” values while using a linear change for the intermediate values. Hence, a best-fitting utility function for each climatic variable was created, and all utility functions were then aggregated through their relative weights to form the UCCI index. The new index can be applied to other similar urban tourist destinations and assist impact assessment studies and tourism management measures, including climate change adaptation.

International trade is a key component of climate change adaptation

Trade liberalization in the early 21st century increased the adaptation capacity of global food systems to climate change; further liberalization and trade facilitation could help to avoid dozens of millions being undernourished at mid-century. The global trade agenda should explicitly include climate change adaptation to achieve SDG 2 Zero Hunger.

Impact of climate change adaptation on food security: evidence from semi-arid lands, Kenya

The management of rangelands, including climate change adaptation strategies, is primarily responsible for stimulating livestock productivity, which consequently improves food security. This paper investigates the impact of climate change adaptations on food security among pastoralists in semi-arid parts of Kenya, who have not received due attention to date. Using an endogenous switching regression model, the current study revealed that pastoralists’ food security increased significantly when they employed measures to adapt to climate change. The study results also showed that wealthier households and those with more livestock were more food-secure than comparatively poorer households or those with less livestock. Furthermore, the study uncovered a high prevalence of food security among more educated households. The paper therefore recommends that, in Kenya’s semi-arid lands, where pastoralism is the primary means of livelihood, policies advocating adaptations to climate change should be strengthened. Also fundamental to building pastoralists’ adaptation strategies are the consistent monitoring of climate change, the use of early warning systems, and the communication of pertinent information to farmers—and particularly to pastoralists.

Helices of disaster memory: How forgetting and remembering influence tropical cyclone response in Mauritius

Tropical cyclones have had a considerable impact on Mauritius. Large cyclones are relatively rare, and in popular imagination are thought to hit Mauritius every 15 years. Yet it has been over 25 years since the last cyclone widely considered as ‘significant’. Critically, there is little known about the role of memory in responses to cyclones and details regarding responses to past cyclones in Mauritian history are scant.This article examines past experiences and impacts of cyclones in Mauritius, as well as contemporary perceptions of cyclone vulnerability and memories of historical cyclones. The analysis draws on both community interviews and archival research conducted in Mauritius and takes a longue durée approach. This approach combines an examination of both event and process with historical discourses in an effort to uncover the long-standing and slowly changing relationships between people and extreme events.The results reveal a number of repetitive patterns of responses that act out over the long term and repeat for many of the largest cyclones, indicating that tropical cyclone impact and recovery in Mauritius is strongly conditioned by complex, cultural, and place based memory (and forgetting). While these patterns could be characterised as cycles, the research instead presents a concept of ‘helices’ as a new conceptualisation of long term disaster memory patterns. This research is part of a growing literature arguing for the need to account for the historical processes fundamental to understanding vulnerability. This has implications for disaster risk reduction (including climate change adaptation) in Mauritius, other small islands, and elsewhere.

Cultural heritage and sea level rise threat: risk assessment of coastal fortifications in the Canary Islands

Abstract Climate change impacts on coastal fortifications due to changing groundwater levels, flood risks, or rising sea levels, are threatening the conservation of these assets. Some castles and fortifications have a high level of structural instability due to their high exposure to changing environmental conditions, especially those in direct contact with the sea. This article focuses on identifying the level of risk posed by climate change to coastal fortifications in the Canary Islands. The methodology implemented identifies the exposure and vulnerability of these fortifications, based on a scorecard assigning values of risk to rising sea levels. Four risk categories were selected based on their exposure to either coastal flooding, coastal erosion or coastline retreat, and taking into account its sensitivity through a structural analysis of buildings. There are currently fifteen coastal fortifications from the Early Modern Period in this archipelago and two have been identified as being especially threatened by rising sea levels. Results highlight a need to increase their adaptive capacity, incorporating changes in legislation, including climate change adaptation measures as a basic strategy in cultural heritage management. Options such as the construction of submerged defenses or dikes in order to dissipate the force of the waves could be successful adaptation measures, considered from the perspective of preserving both the landscape and the environment of these historical sites. This assessment provides support to policy makers for the management of coastal fortifications in the context of climate change.

Evaluation of Water Governance Processes Required to Transition towards Water Sensitive Urban Design—An Indicator Assessment Approach for the City of Cape Town

In the face of water related risks resulting from climate change and rapid urbanization, water resources in South African cities have increasingly come under pressure. Following the most recent drought period (2015–2018), local authorities such as the City of Cape Town are being tasked with restructuring policy to include climate change adaptation strategies to adapt more adequately and proactively to these new challenges. This paper describes an evaluation of the water governance processes required to implement Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) in Cape Town—with a specific focus on the barriers to, and opportunities for, those processes related to wastewater treatment, flood risk and the pressing issue of water scarcity. The City Blueprint Approach (CBA) was selected as the indicator assessment approach for this task. The CBA is a set of diagnostic tools comprising the Trends and Pressures Framework, the City Blueprint Framework and the Governance Capacity Framework. This was applied to Cape Town based on in-depth interviews and publicly available information. The analysis revealed that smart monitoring, community knowledge and experimentation with alternative water management technologies are important when considering uncertainties and complexities in the governance of urban water challenges. We conclude that there is potential for Cape Town to transition to a water sensitive city through learning from this experimentation and by implementing WSUD strategies that address water scarcity following the shifts in governance caused by the 2015–2018 drought.

Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation Over South Asia: Challenges and Ways Forward

South Asia is vulnerable to a variety of hydrometeorological hazards, which are often cross-boundary in nature. Climate change is expected to influence many of these hazards. Thus, climate-related risks over South Asia make disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) key policy goals. Recently there is an increasing consensus that DRR including CCA should be embedded in development planning. Disaster risk reduction including CCA has progressively gained importance in global governance. Across South Asia, however, such integration is only in a preliminary stage. This review was to assess the existing status and scope of DRR including CCA in development projects across South Asia, so that an effective and achievable deliberation may be made to regional policymakers. A total of 371 projects relevant to CCA and DRR were reviewed. The project inventory was diverse in nature with respect to location, scale, sectoral focus, and strategic importance. Bangladesh, India, and Bhutan were observed to be proactive in implementing DRR- and CCA-related projects. Meta-analysis of the project inventory suggests an urgent need for an individual and collaborative convergence of processes for DRR and CCA through policies, plans, strategies, and programs.

Disaster risk reduction amidst armed conflict: informal institutions, rebel groups, and wartime political orders.

Extant research has explored the effect of natural hazards on the risk of armed conflict, but very few studies have examined how conflict dynamics affect disaster risk reduction (DRR), including climate change adaptation. This is surprising given the empirical evidence that indicates how often disasters and armed conflicts collide. To understand better the impact of armed conflict on DRR, this paper develops a conceptual typology that is based on rebel groups' territorial control and on the strength of informal institutions. It documents three main political orders amid conflict: rebel stability; informal stability; and fragmented landscape. These wartime political orders will have different effects on DRR and other development programmes, revealing the importance of desegregating armed conflict to facilitate tailor-made and more efficient interventions. The paper provides empirical evidence from Mali and the Philippines that illustrates the influence of these wartime political orders on DRR programmes.

Diversification and intensification of agricultural adaptation from global to local scales.

Smallholder farming systems are vulnerable to a number of challenges, including continued population growth, urbanization, income disparities, land degradation, decreasing farm size and productivity, all of which are compounded by uncertainty of climatic patterns. Understanding determinants of smallholder farming practices is critical for designing and implementing successful interventions, including climate change adaptation programs. We examine two dimensions wherein smallholder farmers may adapt agricultural practices; through intensification (i.e., adopt more practices) or diversification (i.e. adopt different practices). We use data on 5314 randomly sampled households located in 38 sites in 15 countries across four regions (East and West Africa, South Asia, and Central America). We estimate empirical models designed to assess determinants of both intensification and diversification of adaptation activities at global scales. Aspects of adaptive capacity that are found to increase intensification of adaptation globally include variables associated with access to information and human capital, financial considerations, assets, household infrastructure and experience. In contrast, there are few global drivers of adaptive diversification, with a notable exception being access to weather information, which also increases adaptive intensification. Investigating reasons for adaptation indicate that conditions present in underdeveloped markets provide the primary impetus for adaptation, even in the context of climate change. We also compare determinants across spatial scales, which reveals a variety of local avenues through which policy interventions can relax economic constraints and boost agricultural adaptation for both intensification and diversification. For example, access to weather information does not affect intensification adaptation in Africa, but is significant at several sites in Bangladesh and India. Moreover, this information leads to diversification of adaptive activities on some sites in South Asia and Central America, but increases specialization in West and East Africa.

Efficacy of a national hydrological risk communication strategy: Domestic wastewater treatment systems in the Republic of Ireland

A significant body of research has focused on the role of domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTSs) as sources of human-specific aquatic contaminants in both developed and developing regions. However, to date few studies have sought to investigate the awareness, attitudes and behaviours of DWWTS owners and the efficacy of associated communication initiatives. The current study provides an examination of a public national engagement campaign undertaken in the Republic of Ireland which seeks to minimise the impact of DWWTSs on human and ecological health via concurrent inspection and information dissemination. Overall, 1634 respondents were surveyed using a “before and after” study design to capture if and how awareness, attitudes and behaviours evolved over time. Findings suggest that whilst the campaign provided a modest baseline to raise general awareness associated with the basic operational and maintenance requirements of DWWTS, there has been little or no behavioural engagement as a result, suggesting a significant awareness-behaviour gap. Accordingly, efforts to minimise potential human and ecological impacts have been unsuccessful. Moreover, results suggest that public attitudes towards water-related regulation and policy became increasingly negative over the study period due to parallel political and economic issues, further complicating future engagement. Future strategies, both in Ireland and further afield, should focus on health-based demographically-focused message framing to achieve significant knowledge and attitudinal shifts amongst specific population cohorts, and thus bring about significant behavioural change. Study findings and recommendations may be used by myriad stakeholders including local, provincial and national authorities to effectively engage with individuals and communities prior to and during implementation of legislative and policy-based instruments within numerous spheres including climate change adaptation, environmental quality, hydrological risk, and hydro-ecology.

Sustainable livelihoods and effectiveness of disaster responses: a case study of tropical cyclone Pam in Vanuatu

Category 5 tropical cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu in March 2015, affecting thousands of people. Three months after the event, this study compared the responses from both external aid agencies and the disaster-affected communities to identify convergences, duplications and gaps. The research relies on 13 interviews with aid agencies and eight focus group discussions with participatory activities at local community level. While aid agencies actively responded during and after Pam, local people too responded to the event with strategies based on livelihoods diversification, food security techniques, traditional knowledge and cooperation intra- and inter-communities. The study emphasizes the need for an integrative approach where disaster responses from the top-down integrate that from the bottom-up. Aid agencies should build on the livelihood mechanisms developed at local level so responses and recovery can be more effective, socioculturally acceptable and may lead to sustainable outcomes of disaster risk reduction including climate change adaptation.