Natural Climate Change Research Articles

Finance Research and the UN Sustainable Development Goals – An analysis and forward look

The relationship between academic finance research and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) has gained increasing attention over recent years. This study conducts a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between the UN SDGs and scholarly output in financial journals from 2010 to 2022. Utilizing a framework that combines fuzzy matching, bibliometric analysis, and topic modelling techniques, the research traces the evolution of finance research and its alignment with the UN SDGs. Our findings indicate that academic finance research is unevenly spread across the SDG’s. Key areas around the natural world, sustainability and climate change are underresearched. The implications of our study are significant for both academic scholars and policymakers, suggesting a need for strategic redirection in research priorities to better support global sustainability initiatives in the future.

Resilience and sustainability of supply chains in the face of natural disasters and climate change

In the fast-paced global business, characterised by increasing competition and the necessity of being sustainable, the agility of supply chains (abbreviated as SCR) with their capability to withstand natural hazards and climate change have emerged as critical factors. This paper analyses the strategies and methods that are used to overcome the problems connected to SCR and sustainability in detail. A review of literature shows a wide variety of strategies of which some are comprehensive development plans, innovative risk management techniques, infrastructure adaptation measures, data analytics integration, adherence to quality management principles, strategic management approaches, collaborative efforts, stakeholder engagement initiatives, compliance with regulatory frameworks, and adoption of advanced technologies. With the use of a mixed method research approach, applying both quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, this study evaluates the strategies’ effectiveness and their contribution towards SCR and sustainability. The results show the importance of the immediate implementation of the necessary measures and the joint work to reduce the risks and to guarantee operational resilience. Additionally, the paper examines the interdependency across sectors, which demonstrates the significance of collaborative governance, stakeholder involvement and the linkage with regulatory frameworks in building resilient and sustainable supply chains.

Towards a new architecture for progressive international capital taxation

The application and operation of the Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Rules agreed at the OECD and released in December 2021 have both strengths and weaknesses for developing countries. Now is the time to address directly the multilateral institutional "architecture" in relation to international tax negotiations. Despite the current geopolitical tensions, the nature of climate change and increased possibility of future health pandemics have made the need for global public goods provision – and thus global tax coordination – even more necessary. Moreover, the GloBe rules reflect the underrepresentation of non-OECD members in the process of the "Inclusive Framework," as evidenced by their absence in key committee leadership, paucity of specialised delegates and lack of explicit voting rights. Therefore, it is correct to welcome the recent UN resolution to work towards a worldwide Tax Convention.

A Textual Analysis of Media Frames Toward Environmental Issues in India

Environmental sustainability and climate change are major geopolitical challenges today. Environmental protection is a global and local issue with few solutions. As governments around the world struggle with environmental politics, mass media organizations inform, advocate, and persuade for positive environmental change. Media reports, facts, and opinions on environmental issues shape public perceptions, so it’s important to evaluate their contexts. This paper examines how Indian news, documentaries, and social media frame environmental issues and how framing affects public perception. Study methods include qualitative comparative and thematic analysis. The environmental topics chosen for study are megacity air quality and pollution and, coastal city natural disasters and climate change. Language, image, and visual selection are evaluated in media frame construction. The study shows that cultural, political, and ideological biases shape these stories. The effectiveness and reach of different media, especially new media, can be compared. The report recommends several media strategies to improve environmental communication and eliminate fallacies like biased frames.

Dynamic Monitoring and Change Analysis of Lake Area on the Inner-Mongolian Plateau over the Past 22 Years

Lakes are essential components of the terrestrial water cycle. Their size and quantity reflect natural climate change and anthropogenic activities in time. Lakes on the Inner-Mongolian Plateau (IMP) have experienced significant changes in recent decades, but the current situation remains elusive. In this study, we conducted multi-decadal intensive monitoring of lake area and performed comprehensive variation analysis on the IMP. The study involved pre-processing, lake area extraction, post-processing, and lake area analysis procedures using multi-source satellite images. The results reveal the detailed variation in the lake from various aspects. The temporal analysis indicates that the lake area has undergone two distinct periods of decline followed by subsequent increase, and the variation pattern from January to December was diverse. The spatial analysis suggests that the lake area expanded slightly in the western and southern parts, while the area shrank in the other two. Variations in lakes of different sizes exhibited spatial heterogeneity. To some extent, effective actions have led to lake rehabilitation, but it has not yet reached or surpassed the level of 2000. This study provides a substantial data basis and technological guidance for conducting lacustrine surveys. The results can play important roles in fostering further analyses of the water cycle and the carbon cycle.

Toward Resilience City: Potential Hazards and Scenario for Ternate Island, North Maluku

Natural hazards and climate change significantly threaten almost every small island. This is due to the small island's isolation and lack of resources. Ternate Island is a small island that is now afflicted by this issue. Geographically, the island is surrounded by active plates and volcanic paths, making it at risk of serious catastrophes. Population growth and limited land resources also contribute to a high disaster susceptibility. We characterize the features of the small island of Ternate by classifying the types of disasters that threaten it based on a literature database. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, extreme weather events, and tsunamis are natural disasters that occur often in Ternate. Additionally, these findings indicate the significant importance of a multi-hazard approach to disaster response. Our examination concludes with some recommendations for establishing the resilience of Ternate City.

Revealing trends and persistent cycles of non-autonomous systems with autonomous operator-theoretic techniques

An important problem in modern applied science is to characterize the behavior of systems with complex internal dynamics subjected to external forcings. Many existing approaches rely on ensembles to generate information from the external forcings, making them unsuitable to study natural systems where only a single realization is observed. A prominent example is climate dynamics, where an objective identification of signals in the observational record attributable to natural variability and climate change is crucial for making climate projections for the coming decades. Here, we show that operator-theoretic techniques previously developed to identify slowly decorrelating observables of autonomous dynamical systems provide a powerful means for identifying nonlinear trends and persistent cycles of non-autonomous systems using data from a single trajectory of the system. We apply our framework to real-world examples from climate dynamics: Variability of sea surface temperature over the industrial era and the mid-Pleistocene transition of Quaternary glaciation cycles.

Analysis of extreme precipitation variation characteristics in mountain grasslands of arid and semi-arid regions in China

Introduction: With global warming, the disaster losses caused by extreme precipitation events are increasing. The poor natural conditions and climate change make the arid and semi-arid mountainous grassland area a sensitive region of climate change. The study on the spatio-temporal variation characteristics of extreme precipitation events in this region is helpful to improve the ability of climate prediction and disaster prevention and reduction in grassland.Methods: Based on the daily precipitation data of four meteorological monitoring stations in the Yinshanbeilu from 1970 to 2020, the trend analysis, M-K test and wavelet analysis were used to select seven typical extreme precipitation indicators to analyze the temporal and spatial characteristics of extreme precipitation.Results and Discussion: The results showed that the precipitation in the Yinshanbeilu increased in the past 51a, and the number of heavy rain days increased significantly. The significance test of CDD and CWD showed that the number of continuous dry days and continuous wet days decreased abruptly. The spatial analysis showed that the high value areas of R95p, R95d and PRCRTOT were all located in Siziwang Banner, and it could be concluded that the extreme precipitation risk was the highest in Siziwang Banner, while the low value areas of SDII, Rx1day, R95p and PRCRTOT were all located in Sonid Right Banner, which could be inferred that the Sonid Right Banner was relatively dry. The first main cycle of the seven indexes of extreme precipitation almost runs through the whole time series, and the starting point of the minimum main cycle changes inconsistent. In addition to the number of consecutive dry days, the other indices have a good correlation with annual precipitation, flood season and monthly precipitation from June to September, and July is the peak period of extreme precipitation events.

Evaluation of Public Gardens in Terms of the Relationship Between Climate and Design

National gardens are an important element of green spaces in today's cities, meeting the needs of the community for recreation, sports and interaction. However, environmental and social challenges facing cities are leading to changes in the design and function of these gardens. The concept of resilient cities refers to the resilience of cities against natural disasters, climate change and other risks. National gardens can be designed as an important part of becoming resilient cities. Equipping these gardens with structures resistant to various natural disasters and adopting sustainable practices such as water management can increase the overall resilience of the city. Sustainable city and eco-city concepts are also important elements to consider in the design of community gardens. These concepts include principles such as environmental sustainability, energy efficiency and strengthening green infrastructure. National gardens can be equipped with sustainable practices such as rainwater recycling systems, the use of local plant species and waste management. Nation gardens designed in this way not only provide recreation and relaxation for city residents, but also contribute to the environmental and social sustainability of the city. In addition, these gardens encourage community cohesion and solidarity. As a result, community gardens are important elements of resilient, sustainable and ecologically balanced cities. Adopting the principles of resilient city, sustainable city and eco-city in the design and management of these gardens can help cities meet future challenges and improve their livability.

Socio Economic Factors Contributing to Riparian Ecosystem Degradation along Kaiti River in Makueni County

The degradation of riparian ecosystems threatens the livelihoods of communities that depend on these socio-ecological systems (SES) for their well-being. This is because; riparian ecosystems provide ecosystem services like fodder, timber, soil development, water regulation and habitat for wildlife. The riparian ecosystem in Kenya's Eastern Semi-Arid Region is one of the affected zones and information is required to understand the causes therein. This case study focussed on the Kaiti River in Makueni County to analyse the socio-economic factors leading to its riparian degradation. Data was collected between September 2018 to March 2019 using questionnaires, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and photographs. To analyse the data, SPSS version 26 interface with regression and correlation analysis was used to analyse the causes of riparian ecosystem degradation along the river. Crop farming was found to be a leading cause of degradation (R-Square =0.849, F (1, 99) =9.4495, p-value=0.0003<0.05) showing that farming accounts for 84.9% of the variations in degradation of River Kaiti riparian ecosystem. A calculated beta value implied that a unit raise in crop farming would lead to a rise in the degradation of the River Kaiti riparian ecosystem by 0.782 (p-value=0.001<0.05). The results of the study also revealed that livestock farming (R-Square =0.615, β=0.211, p-value =0.002≤0.05), lack of riparian conservation awareness (R-Square =0.573, β=-0.757, p-value= 0.002<0.05) and Commercial sand harvesting R-Square=0.659, β=0.205, p value=0.000<0.05) significantly contribute to River Kaiti riparian ecosystem degradation. Other causes significantly contributing to degradation (R-Square =0.520, β=0.212, p-value=0.001≤0.05,) were poor natural resource governance, poverty, poor infrastructure, climate change and land use changes. The study concludes that awareness creation and control of human activity in the Kaiti riparian zone would significantly reduce riparian ecosystem degradation. A multi-stakeholder approach whereby the community takes centre stage in monitoring and implementing riparian conservation measures is recommended.

Developing a cultural geomorphology of hazards for heritage conservation: reflections from Majuli Island of India

Cultural Geomorphology attempts to find the relationships between cultural elements and geomorphological features of a region. Such studies have proven invaluable to understanding the interactions between culture and geomorphology and have formed an important part of the epistemology of nature-society studies. Using concepts of Cultural Geomorphology, the current study argues for the need to develop a Cultural Geomorphology of hazards. The study shows that such a work will be invaluable in preserving the knowledge of cultural heritage sites that are at risk of being permanently lost because of the changing landscape brought about by natural hazards or climate change related events.

Bangladesh's Climate Vulnerability and Overseas Migration: Navigating Challenges and Paving the Way Forward

Bangladesh ranks seventh on the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, which identifies the nations most susceptible to natural catastrophes, demonstrating how sensitive the country is to both climate change and natural disasters. Millions of people are forced to migrate to neighboring cities and urban areas in search of work and a living each year as a result of climate change and natural disasters such as river bank erosion, salinity intrusion, floods, cyclones, and landslides in Bhola, Khulna, Bagerhat, Patuakhali, and Gaibandha. Urban life is strained by this influx, especially in terms of housing, water supply, and sanitation. Many of these individuals also seek overseas employment as a means of survival. While numerous organizations, including government institutions, are working to promote safe and regular international migration and overseas employment, a portion of these individuals fall prey to labor trafficking due to a lack of information, monitoring, and services from the administration. Additionally, communities in climate-risk areas are ultimately forced to choose between internal and international migration due to the sluggish adoption of climate-resilient agricultural methods and technologies, as well as the dearth of technical and vocational education options. For these regions of significant natural disasters and climate change, the government has to provide more secure migration policies and encourage productive remittance investment.

Circular economy and waste: a bibliometric analysis of global scientific production

The Circular Economy (CE) has emerged as an alternative to combat the linear production model, which significantly contributes to the environmental impacts faced today, such as depletion of natural resources, energy scarcity, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. Introduced in 1989, CE is a burgeoning research area, highlighting the need for a more in-depth analysis of its development. This research aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of publications in CE related to waste, using the Web of Science database. Between 2007 and 2022, the study identified the countries and authors with the highest production, the most cited journals and articles, and thematic analysis through keyword co-occurrence. The research demonstrated the evolution of studies, particularly from 2020 to 2022, revealing Europe as a leader in publications and indicating the need for encouragement in the African continent. Studies on plastic recycling and energy recovery proved to be extensively explored areas, unlike electronic and construction waste recycling, which emerged as promising fields.

Exploring the determinants of disaster and climate resilience building in Zimbabwe’s rural communities

With the burgeoning threats from natural hazards and extreme weather events driven by climate change in every section and sector of society, building resilience against disasters and risks posed by climate change has become an unescapable discourse. The study’s main thrust is to establish the determinants of resilience building in Zimbabwe’s rural communities. The study adopted the qualitative constructivist grounded theory approach in conjunction with participatory action research to gain insights from community members and traditional leaders. A total of forty-six participants from Chimanimani District, Zimbabwe participated in the study. The findings revealed that the availability of natural and human resources, collective efficacy, government and development agency support systems, indigenous knowledge systems, and livelihood diversification were crucial determinants of resilience building for rural communities in Zimbabwe. The identified determinants for resilience building signal that these determinants need to be harnessed to inform policy and practice interventions. Furthermore, the availability of the identified determinants implies that rural communities can minimise, and prevent losses, reduce exposure to natural hazards, disasters and climate change risks and manage the impacts of natural hazards whenever they emerge. The study recommends that these determinants be complemented by access to technology, resilient community infrastructures, robust social protection systems, and hazard risk assessment participatory processes by rural communities. In addition, effective emergency and health services, among other contingent measures essential to improve community resilience.

Environmental Health Predictions for Fire Resistant and Corrosion Protection Measures for Community Health Tourism Building Facilities Due to Climate Change

The recent expansion of green tourism building facilities and warehouse capacities entails the installation of integrated community health tourism facility for cultural events, safe mobility, sport activities, agricultural and veterinary activities at old heritage buildings for public health, environmental health, green circular economy promotion within safe structures, which operations increase the occurrence of compartment fires involving flammable dangerous substances i.e biogas from sanitary biomass treatment for renewable resources, electricity and heating. The aim of this research is to compare and analyze the fire resistant materials of structural members and design economic solutions made of different structural materials for natural hazards and climate change. Useful results are presented for sustainable design solutions at integrated community health tourism renew facilities at old heritage buildings, applying proper utilities. Then, are examined the possibility of reinforcing the beams with carbon fiber lamellae and proposed additional fire protection requirements. The examining results present useful solutions for stakeholders. The study outputs enable warehouse designers, operators, stakeholders, investors and safety experts to ensure safe building facilities. Finally, sanitary digital drawing utilities, monitoring schemes are demonstrated for safe green designs so as to protect the examining building facilities at foundations or roof top levels from flood events and high temperatures due to climate change and extreme weather events.

Human activities caused lake ecological transitions in the Chinese Loess Plateau over the past 1400 years

The combined effects of climate change and human disturbance has degraded lake ecosystems worldwide in recent times, but there are few studies that explore the relative impact of these factors over long timescales. In this paper, we use sedimentary pigment data to reveal variations in algal abundance and the lake ecological environment of a typical subalpine lake (Beilianchi Lake) in the southwestern Chinese Loess Plateau, to distinguish the relative effects of natural climate change and human disturbance over the past 5000 years. Our data show that between 5000 and 1400 cal yr BP, algal abundance exhibited a slow decline without obvious fluctuations, mainly driven by a gradually drying and cooling climate. After 1400 cal yr BP, algal abundance showed large and rapid fluctuations characterized by a pattern of a decline, then increase, and then decline again. During this period, human activities began to affect lake ecology and gradually overshadowed the role of climatic changes as the main driving factor. Enhanced human disturbances caused a rapid and synchronous decline in algal abundance due to increases in soil erosion and reductions in water transparency. Algal biomass levels recovered when the soil erosion intensity decreased during 800–500 cal yr BP corresponding to the period from Southern Song to Yuan Dynasties. Thereafter (during the period of Ming and Qing Dynasties), as human activities became further enhanced and the soil erosion intensity became very high, the lake ecosystem rapidly transitioned to a stable state of low algal growth. This indicates that the lake ecosystem may have had the capacity to recover from moderate external disturbances in the early stages of human activity, but the resilience of the lake ecosystem began to decrease under stronger human disturbances. Our findings provide important empirical evidence for evaluating the current state of lakes and for sound lake management in the future.

How to ‘repair’ repair? A conceptual model to escalate repair as urgent or important

Globally, the volume of clothing waste is now catastrophic in scale. Further, the manufacturing sector of fast fashion garments will soon produce over 100 billion garments per year. Fast fashion promotes wastefulness – during clothing production, laundering and the quick discard of used and even new clothing to landfills throughout the world. This article presents a model for the mechanism of repair to become activated as ‘urgent’ and ‘important’. Firstly, repair can be activated by the vector of trauma. Urgency comes through the exigencies of two life experiences, when trauma follows natural disaster and/or climate change. As summarized in the section on the environmental costs from fashion overproduction, natural disasters and climate change have impacted severely on global communities. In addition, trauma occurs when people’s lives are ‘disenfranchised’ outside the norms of social well-being. These marginal communities include refugees, migrant workers, trafficked slaves, prisoners and discrimination by race, colour, gender, sexual identity, religion and more. Secondly, repair can be activated through the vector of value. Clothing is cherished and repaired because of initial cost, sentimentality and family history. Here clothing encapsulates a process of nostalgia; from a mindset of ‘casting back’ where garments are indelibly linked to memories. This conceptual model for ‘repairing’ repair is not lightly proposed. Complications can arise when repair is delegated to ‘women’s work’ that undermines feminist theories. A model can be useful, but the key to any model’s efficacy is its application to real-world activities. Fast fashion further relocates clothing to static objects, as photos viewed quickly on social media. It is postulated here that this analysis of repair as urgent and important, when driven by vectors of trauma and value offers a re-evaluation of how to relocate repair as a vital pathway to lessen global fast fashion overproduction and overconsumption.

Socialization of the Sustainable Construction Management Budget through Community Service in the Mekarsari Boarding House Construction Project

Sustainable construction management has become an important issue in this modern era due to limited natural resources, climate change and environmental problems. One construction sector that has great potential for implementing sustainable development principles is boarding houses. The demand for affordable and comfortable boarding houses continues to increase along with population growth and urbanization. However, unsustainable boarding house construction can have a negative impact on the environment and public health. Socialization of the sustainable construction management budget for the Mekarsari boarding house construction project through community service aims to introduce sustainable practices to relevant stakeholders. In the implementation method, identifying weaknesses, training, community formation, evaluation, and knowledge dissemination are key steps. The results of this community service include increasing the knowledge of project partners, forming a community that cares about sustainable development, and implementing sustainable practices in boarding house construction projects. Even though there are challenges, such as paradigm changes and regulatory complexity, this community service has great potential to become an inspiring example in the construction industry. The importance of continuing support for sustainable practices, increasing knowledge dissemination, realizing regulations, integrating technological innovation, and promoting cross-sector collaboration. By following these suggestions, this project can have a greater impact in driving positive change in the construction industry towards more sustainable development.

Textile advancements in civil engineering

This article explores the transformative impact of advancements in textile materials on sustainable development in civil engineering. Incorporating bast fibres like flax and hemp, along with innovative hybrid systems, has led to more robust, lighter, and cost-effective solutions for reinforcement. Geotextiles, developed from these textiles, are crucial in protecting against natural disasters and climate change impacts. Sustainable development is further supported by using natural fibre-reinforced composites, promoting economic growth in regions with abundant fibre resources. Integrating cutting-edge textiles in civil engineering projects offers enhanced structural strength, durability, and resistance to environmental factors. Additionally, the article highlights the role of textile technology in paving the way for green engineering solutions, addressing climate change impacts, and providing eco-friendly alternatives in construction. This article also emphasizes the future of building with eco-friendly reinforcement solutions, focusing on the benefits of textile reinforcement over traditional steel. Incorporating fabric sensors in advanced textiles enables real-time structural health monitoring, facilitating proactive maintenance and repairs. The potential of textiles to revolutionize infrastructure is discussed, emphasizing their contribution to a sustainable future for the construction industry. Next-generation textile materials are explored, showcasing their impact on structural integrity, sustainability, and economic development. The article concludes by underscoring the promising role of textile materials in addressing modern engineering challenges and fostering a more resilient, environmentally friendly, and economically beneficial approach to construction.

Hydroponics Water Analysis and Crop Recommendation

Soil based cultivation is now facing difficulties due to different man made reasons such as industrialization and urbanization. Also, sudden natural disasters, climate change and unrestricted utilization of chemicals for agriculture purposes cause the depletion of soil fertility and quality. That is why, scientists have developed a new alternative approach for cultivation system namely soil-less cultivation or hydroponics. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants in a water based, nutrient rich solution. Through hydroponics a large number of plants and crops or vegetables can be grown. The quality of yield, taste and nutritive value of end products produced through hydroponically is generally higher than the natural soil based cultivation. This cultivation is cost effective, disease free, ecofriendly and is gaining popularity all over the world, in both the developed and the developing countries. So, hydroponics would be a better technique to produce the different kinds of fruits, vegetables and fodder as well as meet the global nutrition demand with making advance future. In the future, hydroponics could be emerging techniques for the supplying of food to the world wide population Keywords: Hydroponics, Soil less agriculture, Water Analysis, Sensor Technology, Intelligent Algorithms, Nutrient rich solution, Eco-friendly, Real-time Monitoring.