Posters
An interactive poster session will take place on the evening of the first conference day in the foyer of the conference venue. Refreshments will be provided, offering a relaxed and informal atmosphere to peruse the many high-quality contributions. The posters will be loosely grouped according to the four key challenges to be addressed at the conference.
Counting the economic costs of climate change
(1) with a GIS dataset of housing transactions for 3 Finnish cities, including many dwelling and neighbourhood attributes, a spatial hedonic difference-in-differences estimation was used to assess deviations in price development in flood prone areas after the disclosure of the flood risks;
(2) the same dataset was used to assess the housing price premium of nearby small parks, from which a proxy was derived to estimate scenic value effect of green roofs on housing prices; the scenic value was inserted in a CBA of green roofs in downtown Helsinki;
(3) another cost-benefit analysis was carried out of the switching towards underground cabling of the power distribution network in peri-urban and rural areas; given the evidenced WTP for avoiding non-delivered electricity the net benefit-cost ratio for the entire project is rather modest; there is most probably a significant margin of replaced cabling of which the social benefits do not outweigh the costs;
(4) direct and induced costs of river flood (Pori) and extreme downpour (Helsinki) were assessed; the multiplier effect of macroeconomic effects (GDP) compared to direct costs vary from 2 to 12; the centrality effect implies much larger national economic effects for Helsinki than Pori despite equally sized initial costs.
Communal irrigations systems are composed of a natural common-pool resource, the water, which is distributed through a man-made common-pool resource, the irrigation infrastructure. Small-scale farmers are confronted with two decisions regarding the management of their communal irrigations systems: (i) how much to invest into the infrastructure maintenance and (ii) how much water to extract. Moreover, environmental variations affect the timing and quantity of available irrigation water, increasing production uncertainties,. Thus, small-scale farmers’ dilemmas are aggravated since the uncertainty of water availability might disincentivize individual infrastructure contributions while exacerbating the likelihood of water over-extraction. This research aims at understanding how small-scale farmers manage their communal irrigations systems under environmental variations. An economic experiment originally developed for laboratory conditions was modified as a framed field experiment and was conducted to address this question. The empirical evidence from two communal irrigations systems in Northwest Argentina tested the eight hypotheses that the author proposed based on previous research findings and the pertinent literature. Some of the results were consistent with prevailing findings, while others challenged them. This thesis found that in the case under analysis and under environmental variations: investment converged; the communal irrigations systems capacity deteriorated; earnings increased; inequality decreased; cooperation improved and groups reporting low levels of institutional robustness exceeded expectations. Furthermore, this research uncovered potential strategies that could improve communal irrigations systems management under environmental variations in the area of study, while also contributing to the theoretical development of common-pool resources and communal irrigations systems in particular.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C10.
Agricultural communities in Pakistan are highly vulnerable to climate change due to abundant livelihood dependence on climate-sensitive agriculture, lack of resources, adaptive infrastructure and institutional support. To build resilience of agriculture sector to climate change, the role of different stakeholders’ including researchers, policy makers, public and private office barriers and farmers is very important and need to be studied. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a SWOT analysis of different stakeholders involved in the agricultural sector to understand their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats specifically with respect to climate change impacts and adaptation perspective. The study uses secondary information collected mainly from peer reviewed papers, economic surveys, annual reports of provincial agricultural departments and bureaus of statistics. Further, this study will also identify current level of linkages and cooperation among different stakeholders and its role in local adaptation of agriculture to climate change. Based on the findings of the SWOT analysis and review of different cooperation frameworks, a conceptual framework will be designed in Pakistani context and recommendation will be drawn to enhance stakeholders’ cooperation and communication in agriculture sector of Pakistan. The findings of this study will be useful for policy, research and all other stakeholders involved in agriculture.
This article provides a review of recent scientific literature on social vulnerability to climate change, aiming to determine which social and demographic groups, across a wide range of geographical locations, are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts within four wellbeing dimensions: health, safety, food security, and displacement. We analyze how vulnerability changes over time, and ask whether there is evidence of critical thresholds beyond which social vulnerability drastically changes. The review finds that climate change is expected to exacerbate current vulnerabilities and inequalities. The findings confirm concerns about climate justice, especially its intergenerational dimensions. For example, deficiencies in early childhood may limit future educational and income generation opportunities. Evidence of clear thresholds is rare and is mainly related to the vulnerability of different age groups, household income level, and the impacts of different degrees of global warming.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
Sudden price changes of staple foods that are important to poor people, pose a great threat to food security. The aim of this analysis is to determine changes in the monetary accessibility of calories due to international grain price volatility for a historic baseline scenario and a future climate change scenario, and to estimate the impacts on hunger risk.
Within our model framework we introduce sets of exogenous supply shocks to a global non-linear partial-equilibrium trade model and generate frequency distributions of price shifts for maize, rice, soy and wheat. Distributions of real consumption in 36 countries and a non-linear regression model between total consumption and both the share of food (Engel ratio) and grain consumption are used to predict the real consumption of food and grains. The changing cost of a food bundle of 1800 kcal serves to approximate changes in the monetary accessibility of calories. Local baseline calorie prices are calculated with FAO GIEWS and WFP VAM price data. In order to translate international price changes into domestic prices, price transmission elasticities are taken from the current literature.
The results indicate that in the climate change scenario the strong rise of the international price volatility of maize and rice has significant negative implications for hunger risk in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, East and South Asia. According to our analysis, the number of people that could additionally become prone to hunger risk in our future scenario is more than 92 million people once in four years and more than 400 million people in a once-in-a-twenty-years price surge. The increment is substantial when compared to our reference scenario, in which price changes on average showed a positive effect on hunger risk.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
Uncertainty about future climate change impacts increases the complexity of addressing adaptation and evaluating risks at regional and local level. In modelling studies, such uncertainty may arise from climate projections, field data and crop models. Approaches are required for effectively quantifying climate impacts and the effect of adaptation options, managing inherent uncertainties and communicating the results. Here, we focus on assessing adaptation of wheat in a Mediterranean environment in 2030 and 2050 under the A1B scenario.
A probabilistic framework for evaluating the effect of feasible adaptation strategies for rainfed winter wheat in northern Spain was applied with an ensemble of 17 crop models. First, adaptations response surfaces (ARSs) were created. These are bi-dimensional surfaces in which the effect of an adaptation option (e.g. changes in crop yield compared to the unadapted situation) is plotted against two explanatory variables (e.g. changes in temperature and precipitation). Second, the magnitude of the effect of adaptations was calculated using ARSs. Then, the likelihood of a specific response was estimated by over imposing probabilistic projections (PP) of climate change over the ARSs. These PP are joint probabilities of changes in the same explanatory variables used for drawing the ARSs.
Results indicated that a wide scope for adaptation exists when considering more than one adaptation option together. The most promising strategies were based on a combination of spring wheat, longer growing cycle, advanced sowing date and supplementary irrigation. This provided a virtually certain (likelihood >99%) positive adaptation response (i.e. increase in yield compared to the standard management), with a median yield increase up to 37%. Other feasible strategies were also found for winter wheat with supplementary irrigation (extremely likely positive response, i.e. >95%; median of adaptation response up to 22%) and for spring wheat under rainfed conditions (extremely likely positive response; median up to 20%).
Aknowledgement: see (Ruiz-Ramos et al., 2017). Co-authors: P. Baranowski, S. Buis, D. Cammarano, Y. Chen, B. Dumont, F. Ewert, T. Gaiser, P. Hlavinka, H. Hoffmann, J.G. Höhn, F. Jurecka, K.C. Kersebaum, J. Krzyszczak, M. Lana, A. Mechiche-Alami, J. Minet, M. Montesino, C. Nendel, J.R. Porter, F. Ruget, M. A. Semenov. Steinmetz, P. Stratonovitch, I. Supit, F. Tao, M. Trnka, A. de Wit
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C5.
Payments for environmental services (PES) have become increasingly popular tools to promote forest conservation as well as re- and afforestation including in developing countries. A common challenge in the design of PES in developing country contexts is to balance conservation and poverty alleviation goals. Addressing this challenge requires targeting strategies that integrate knowledge about farm-household characteristics and the potential for additional ecosystem service provision. In this article we test alternative approaches to predicting farm-household opportunity costs of reforestation contracts against a revealed preference benchmark derived from hypothetical auctions conducted in the Upper East Region of Ghana.
Our prediction models are based on GPS-tracked household survey data and geo-spatial variables that are typically associated with opportunity costs according to theoretical and empirical literature, for example on, sustainable livelihood framework and chronic poverty of remote rural areas.
A hierarchical linear model turned out to produce the best prediction of revealed preference estimates albeit at generally low levels of accuracy. Community specific effects remain one of the strongest predictors of revealed opportunity costs, suggesting that model-based targeting strategies can substantially over- and underestimate actual opportunity costs. The regression models, nonetheless, provide important insights in terms of farm-household level determinants these costs. We find, for example, that rainfall dependent farmers with a subsistence orientation and spatially scattered plots tend to have particularly high opportunity costs of joining reforestation programs.
The past decade has seen an increase in discussions and possible interventions to climate change and its effects worldwide. Despite the availability of information, the understanding of climate change and its effects vary tremendously among populations. Rural/indigenous populations are often sidelined in consultation and or decision making on matters affecting them including climate change. Despite the minimal understanding of scientific concepts and facts regarding climate change, rural/indigenous populations have noticed changes in rainfall patterns, and frequency of extreme weather conditions and some are adapting to living with these changes. Southern and East Africa has been hit by bouts of floods and droughts in the past two decades. These have affected not only the livelihood of rural/indigenous populations but also their health and socio-economic status. The changes in the weather patterns have affected the planting season, crop yield and income of most rural populations in this region; who often depend on farming as a source of livelihood. The reduction and or loss of income resulting from climate change may also affect the treatment seeking behaviour for treatable and preventable tropical diseases, including vector-borne diseases; thereby contributing to poor health and poverty. Lack of income could mean families seeking treatment only when deemed necessary (most often when someone is critically ill), and individuals taking greater risks (e.g. cross border migration, taking up jobs that present a high health risk) in order to feed and support their families. In Malawi, a decrease in malaria prevalence has been observed and this has been attributed to interventions such us increased use of bed nets and increased community coverage for bed nets. How climate change is affecting vector population and distribution in Malawi is yet to be determined. But the main question remains what does climate change mean to rural/indigenous populations?
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C10.
The most recent EEA CCIV report presents nearly 40 quantitative indicators on observed and projected climate change and its impacts, most of them with European-wide coverage. The systems and sectors covered include terrestrial and marine ecosystems, coastal zones, human health, agriculture, energy, transport, and tourism. This EEA report was produced with the active involvement of more than 100 scientists from relevant research projects, networks and organisations, and it underwent several rounds of peer review.
This presentation summarizes the availability of quantitative information on the observed and projected impacts of climate change across many climate-sensitive sectors and systems in Europe. It also identifies major knowledge gaps and how particular assessment methods shape the results. All key findings from the previous EEA CCIV report are still valid. However, several long-term climate records globally and in Europe were broken in recent years, some of them repeatedly, including land and ocean temperatures, sea level, and Arctic sea ice. Furthermore, there is new and stronger evidence on the attribution of observed changes in extremes and of observed impacts to anthropogenic climate change, which provides important information for adaptation policy development.
The most recent EEA CCIV Report extends the indicator-based assessment by a systematic review of multi-sectoral CCIV assessments for Europe and transnational regions. This assessment aims to answer the question what is known about the risks and opportunities from climate change across European regions. We find considerable similarities as well as important differences between the results of different CCIV studies, which reflect the particular focus and approach of the various assessments. Hence, the provision of credible policy advice requires transparency on the specific assumptions and approaches of CCIV assessments, and on their importance for the assessment results.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C5.
Despite widespread interest in SDGs, research evaluating the impact of climate change on SDG1: poverty elimination remains quite limited. Most existing climate assessments have focused on food prices as a metric of well-being for the world’s poor – inferring that higher food prices must lead to greater food insecurity and lower food prices to improved food security. Yet the majority of the world’s poor reside in rural areas – often relying on farming for their primary income source (Hertel, 2016). Such households stand to benefit from higher prices in those cases where the adverse climate impacts on their farm is relatively modest. Farm labor may also benefit. In light of this uncertainty, we offer a comprehensive assessment of the agricultural impacts of climate change on those households living in absolute poverty across the entire Latin America and Caribbean region. This is undertaken using a nested global/national/household modeling framework (GTAP-POV) which allows us to take account of the global commodity market impacts of climate change, linking these to national commodity prices and factor returns, and ultimately assessing the consequences for real income and poverty rates across seven different household types within each country. We characterize the impacts of climate change on agriculture using a newly available meta-analysis of climate impacts on agriculture that encompasses more than 1,000 IPCC estimates (Moore et al., 2017). Preliminary results suggest, despite considerable uncertainty in the food price impacts of climate change in 2050, the poverty impacts across the LAC region are remarkably robust. While commodity prices rise under the most adverse climate scenarios, and decline in the most favorable ones, national level poverty rates rise across most of the region in both scenarios. We analyze of the patterns of poverty, as well as the sources of income and spending for the poor to explain this surprising outcome.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C2.
Progresses on local adaptation decision-making have been slow due to deep uncertainties in the frequency, intensity and timing of impacts, the complexity in negotiating consensus within communities and limited financial and technical resources. Economic assessment models, which employ deterministic cost-benefits and cost-effectiveness analysis, have become increasingly widespread to support the decision making process when it comes to adaptation. However, their employability is limited at the local level due to their poor performance under condition of deep uncertainties. Here, we present an alternative approach, which uses dynamic programming for the economical appraisal of local adaptation measures under the uncertain evolution of climate impacts and uncertain socio-economic conditions. We use a case study approach located in the Swiss Alpine valley of Grimsel to economically appraise the different local adaptation options in face of the uncertain evolution of debris flow and debris flows triggered floods. The valley was selected in virtue of extreme events of unprecedented magnitude and frequency occurred between 2009 and 2015. Moreover, the initiation of the debris flows has its origin in a process that can be attributed to climate change, i.e. permafrost warming and thawing of neighbouring mountains. In particular, we investigate the optimality of three possible adaptation measures, namely building a dam, relocating inhabitants of vulnerable houses and building an alternative road. In addition, we study under which condition more flexible measures such as riverbed excavation might become a viable adaptation option. The case study was the results of intense consultations with national and local environmental officers, climate scientists, economists and consultants. The results indicate that the approach of dynamic programming is promising at the local scales under conditions of deep uncertainties and suggest that flexible adaptation measures are more economically optimal in the long run than their rigid counterparts.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C2.
Greenhouse gas emissions increased by more than three times between 1950 to 2014. However, the contributions of countries to this trend is not uniform. The characteristics of the emissions of a country are trifold, as the emissions differ in quantity, sources, and changes over time. The objective of this study is generate a better understanding of the dynamics of sectoral per capita emissions.
In this study, we evaluate the sensitivity of existing trade linkages between the different NUTS-2 regions in Europe to the coupled occurrence of hydro-meteorological drought events, and their associated production losses. Using a multi-regional supply-use model for Europe, we have, on a product level, insight in the existing trade linkages between NUTS-2 regions. Using this information in combination with historical drought data, we assessed and identified for a selection of water related products: 1) the dependency-structures of the NUTS-2 regions within Europe for the import and export of products (and therein water); 2) the coupled nature of drought events occurring in regions that are linked via these trade-patterns; 3) the probability of not meeting demands (on a product level) due to drought events and the associated (indirect economic) impacts; and 4) regions that lose or benefit from their selection of trade-partners given the coupled nature of drought events, as well as the net effects for Europe as a whole.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C7.
We analysed economic impacts of climate change in Korea for SSP(Shared Socioeconomic Pathway)-RCP (Representatve Concentration Pathway) scenario matrix using PAGE09 model. We found that climate change damage can reach up to 10% of GDP in Korea in 2100 under RCP8.5-SSP3 scenario. Economic impacts of climate change damage can be reduced to 1% of GDP for RCP2.6-SSP2 scenario. The difference of climate change damage between scenarios are bigger for different assumptions on socioeconomic development pathways (SSP scenarios), e.g., population and economic growth, than changes of climate forcing (RCP scenarios). The differences of climate change damage in the world between scenarios are more significant . The divergence between climate change impacts for RCP8.5-SSP2 and RCP 2.6-SSP2 scenario is 12% of GDP. The divergence of RCP 8.5-SSP1 and RCP8.5-SSP3 is 28% of GDP in 2100. Paris agreement aims to reduce almost 100% of 2010 GHG emissions in 2100 to minimize negative impacts of climate change damage. However, socioeconomic development pathways are as important as mitigation of GHG to reduce economic damage of climate change in the future.
This presentation will briefly review the JRC experience and focus on the main lessons and areas of further research, such as the need to better model the cost-benefit aspects of adaptation, the need to expand the set of impact areas (e.g. ecosystem services and other non-market impacts), the degree of transboundary effects and the possible modelling of climate tipping points.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C2.
From various historical archives, we know that floods of the past (e.g. during the little Ice Age) occurred even more frequent than nowadays. Despite available information about past floods, it is still challenging to make use of it for modelling practices. This is mainly due to uncertainties in chronologies and coping with lower resolution or non-continuous floods series. However, the knowledge about natural variability of floods importantly helps to improve models for the future. In the FloodRisk-7000 project, we aim at providing improved estimations on flood damage potential in Northern Austria for past, current and future climatic conditions by making use of and merging different kinds of data sets. These data sets include, damage data from municipalities, a 7000 years of paleoflood records derived from Lake Mondsee sediments (Upper Austria), and triggering cyclone tracks with their related precipitation totals.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
Today, business leaders face uncertainty when it comes to assessing the costs of climate change to their organizations. Risks are mainly concerned by the property insurance industry who realizes rising losses from natural catastrophes around the world. Recently, suppliers of the financial service industry such as credit rating agencies started engaging in ESG ratings, where climate change contributes to the environmental aspect. Risks are assessed through physical and econometric models. These models suffer from various drawbacks, one of which is the complexity to construct and operate such models.
We approach the modelling of climate risk and opportunities from the angle of data. Instead physical modelling, we use data driven methods to assess impacts of climate change onto entire value chains of businesses. We consider impacts in supply and demand, as well as social aspects such as attractiveness of locations and changing regulation.
The biggest challenge of data driven methods is the lack of available structured data. We overcome this challenge by crowdsourcing. On our platform, anybody is incentivized to share relevant data. We apply quality control through a mix of machine learning techniques and crowd supervision. We collect data of arbitrary granularity in terms of temporal and spatial resolution. In learning models, data is dynamically aggregated for any specific business question.
Our method results in probability distributions of lost revenue, increased costs, lost working hours, or respective positive changes, if applicable.
This approach shows advantages over traditional modelling. First, crowd based data sourcing generates a richer and more relevant data basis, with limited additional effort on data quality measures. Second, the approach is inherently self learning, with each new data point adding information and value. Third, data-driven approaches enable revealing unknown effects not foreseen in models.
Despite being industry agnostic, we demonstrate our method end-to-end with a case on the global cocoa supply chain.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
The transition to a low-carbon society is a complex process: economic, climatic, demographic, behavioral and social factors all significantly affect individuals’ energy decision-making. In this context, one important question is: What are the impacts of households’ energy efficient choices on GHG and air pollutant emissions under different socioeconomic and energy policy scenarios (SSPs)? In this study, we are developing a modelling framework that comprises the GAINS (Greenhouse Gas-Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies) model, developed and implemented at IIASA, Austria, and the BENCH agent-based model. BENCH is an ABM to study the Behavioral change in the ENergy Consumption of Households in the transition to a low-carbon economy. The BENCH model is going to cover the socio-economic heterogeneity and energy-saving behavior, and with the help of the GAINS, the impact of this heterogeneity in larger scale is examined on GHG emissions. In this research, we (1) investigate the impact of feedbacks between socio-economical, structural, psychological and social factors and households’ behavior in energy (electricity and heating) consumption, and (2) consequently investigate its impact on avoiding GHG and air pollutant emissions under different socioeconomic and energy policy scenarios (SSPs).
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C5.
Current review was conducted to analyze how climate change could adversely affect the availability of water resources in the Indus River Basin (IRB), and therefore limit the country’s future economic and social development. This research was also aimed to help improve decision–making capacity within government ministries, research institutes, and the general public in relation to water resources management in a changing climate particularly in water-agriculture nexus. For this purpose, a systematic review of existing research (2005-2015) regarding climate change triggered projected changes in water availability in the IRB was conducted. Our analysis revealed that volume and timing of water flowing within the IRB critically influences wide variety of economic and social activities in Pakistan with more prominent repercussions on agriculture, the primary water user withdrawing about 90% of water flowing through IRB. Agricultural water withdrawals will primarily be influenced by changes in irrigation efficiency, which is currently about 30%, as the country, s net sown area is relatively stagnant. Under Climate change impact scenario, assuming that temperatures increase by 3°C, would lead to an increase in agricultural water requirements of 6% by 2025 and 12-15% by 2050 while it is anticipated that total water flows in the Indus Basin in the near-term (i.e. before 2050) will remain relatively stable. Climate change will disproportionally impact agricultural production across the country with more pronounced impacts on southern belt. Changes in water flow could result in 20% and 30% decline in cereal and livestock production respectively. It is anticipated that 4°C increase in temperatures and 3% rise in precipitation by 2080 could reduce agricultural productivity up to 13% compromising water and food security. Adversaries of climate change may be overcome by introducing drought tolerant crop varieties, encouraging rain and flood water harvesting, enhancing water storage capacity and initiating water conservation technologies (drip/sprinkler).
It is often claimed that renewable energies are not yet competitive with most conventional energy sources. But what costs are incurred when renewable energies are not used? The unused solar and wind energy potential of today is lost forever tomorrow. Every day during which potential renewable energy sources are not utilised but exhaustible fossil fuels burnt instead speeds up the depletion of these non-renewable fuels. Using burnt fossil fuels for non-energy related purposes (e.g. in the petro-chemical industry) in the future is obviously impossible. Thus, their burning – whenever they could have been replaced by renewables – is costly capital destruction. Every entity of fossil raw material that can be replaced by renewable energy retains its value as a raw material to be used in the future for non-energetic uses in a circular economy. For the energetic use of fossil raw material there is the alternative of using renewable energies, whose current usage, unlike that of e.g. oil, does not exclude further usage.Previous studies to assess the costs of the non-use of renewable energies consist mostly of attempts to ascertain the costs arising from expected climate damage caused by burning fossil fuels. By internalising these costs the apparent competitive advantage of fossil fuels often disappears. More challenging is the question of how to monetise future damages, with previous studies often criticised for their methodology. This study raises a different, hitherto ignored issue. Externalised costs from burning fossil fuels are incurred not only through damages from climate change but also through the lack of future availability of fossil raw materials consumed to meet our current energy demands, although alternatives exist. The goal of this study is to provide a realistic estimate of the costs resulting from this non-use of renewable energies.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C1.
Climate change is a serious threat to crop production and food security in Pakistan. A growing literature on climate change has examined potential impacts of climate change on crop and livestock production; water and food security. However, studies assessing the strength and shortcoming of applied methodologies in climate change literature are rare in Pakistan. Therefore, this study uses a systematic review of 25 peer-reviewed journal articles published during 1990-2016. The study has following four key objectives; 1) to examine the methods and approaches that have been used for impact assessments in Pakistan, 2) to explore the strengths and shortcoming of applied methodologies and approaches for impact assessments, 3) to assess the compatibility of applied approaches in Pakistan with those applied in other developing and developed countries and 4) to compare the results of different studies and its implication for local food security and rural livelihoods. The findings of the review study show that peer-reviewed literature on climate change impacts on agriculture in Pakistan is insufficient. Most of the studies used econometric modeling and a few have used crop growth models to assess climate change impact on agriculture. While only few studies used of integrated assessment modeling tools to see impact of climate change on food and water systems. Most of the reviewed studies focused either on crop production or water sector and rarely on livestock production. Similarly, in crop production focus in given on food and cash crops. The level of research and use of different kind of methodologies is low compared to other developing and developed countries. The results of the reviewed studies show mostly negative impacts of climate change on crop production and water resources in different regions of Pakistan. The study suggests using integrated modeling tools interacting various sub-sectors, impact assessments and adaptation measures simultaneously to provide a base for adaptation policy actions.
Global-scale hydrological models are increasingly used for studying water availability and the impacts of extreme events. Recent efforts to incorporate anthropogenic activities in these models has enabled more realistic comparisons with field observations that are affected by human impacts such as water withdrawal and reservoir operation. In this paper we evaluate simulations from six global-scale hydrological models that incorporate simulations of human impacts. All models are participants in the second phase of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Inter-comparison Project (ISIMIP2a). We simulate observed monthly runoff in 40 catchments which are spatially distributed across 8 global hydrobelts. The performance of each individual model, and the ensemble mean (EM) is examined with respect to their ability to replicate observed mean and extreme runoff under human-influenced conditions, with model performance assessed via a novel integrated performance measure. Our findings show a general trend towards the overestimation of mean and extreme runoff in the majority of models; with high flows better predicted than their low flow counterparts. There are particular challenges associated with reproducing the magnitude and timing of seasonal cycles - especially in northern hydrobelts. When model outputs are temporally aggregated to assess mean annual runoff (MAR) performance improves. Importantly, the ensemble mean of the models fails to perform better than individual models – a finding that challenges the perceived wisdom that model ensembles should deliver performance benefits. The study highlights the need for continued model development and improvement, especially in the representation of human impacts in global-scale hydrology models. It also suggests that caution should be taken when summarising the performance of a model ensemble based on its mean output.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
To analyze and quantify the influence of climate change on companies’ stock values a joint venture between the Potsdam Institute on Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Swiss climate startup Carbon Delta has been initiated. It is the goal of the project to apply and improve existing climate data sets, damage, growth and cost functions, and CO2 pricing models and translate these into financial risk assessments.
Here we present first results of our approach to model physical climate risk factors around the globe. With a focus on the triad of temperature extremes, heavy precipitation, and windstorms, we provide a first glance at stock price risks which international enterprises may have to face under climate change over the next 15 years.
More often than not, future climate risk and vulnerability assessments are based on future climatic conditions superimposed on current socioeconomic conditions only. The new IPCC-guided set of alternative global development, namely the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), has the potential to enhance the inclusion of future socioeconomic conditions – in form of socioeconomic scenarios – within assessments of climate risk and vulnerability. As global development pathways, SSPs lack regional and sectoral details. To enhance their relevance for sectoral and/or regional impact, adaptation, and vulnerability studies, SSPs have to be extended. We propose here a new regional and sectoral extension method that makes use of existing scenarios studies, of which the usefulness has often been pointed out but their re-use largely underestimated. Our approach lies in a systematic matching of multiple sets of scenarios that allow enriching global SSPs with regional and sectoral information, in terms of both narratives and quantitative projections. We apply the method to develop extended-SSPs of social vulnerability in Europe and to quantify them for several key elements at the sub-national level up to 2050 based on the co-use of the matched scenarios’ quantitative projections. Results provide a consistent set of extended-SSPs with a high degree of quantification for the 260 sub-national regions investigated. The use of these scenarios in future-oriented IAV studies can enhance our understanding of the joint impacts of climate change and socioeconomic development on human health.
Increased occurrence of extreme climate or weather events is one of the most damaging consequences of global climate change today and in the future. Estimating the impacts of such extreme events across different impact types is therefore crucial for quantifying overall risks from climate change. Are current modelling capacities fit to this task? Here we use the 2003 European heat wave and drought (EHW) as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, and evaluate how accurately its impacts in multiple sectors of the human environment and economy are reproduced by a state-of-the-art global impacts model ensemble. Our study combines, for the first time, impacts on agriculture, freshwater resources, terrestrial ecosystems, and other sectors in a consistent multi-model framework. The results will indicate whether there is a risk of under- or overestimating some of the most important impacts of extreme events when using state-of-the-art global models.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2°C or
1.5°C to avoid
the worst impacts of climate change. Pathways to achieve these aims at
minimum cost
are described by energy-economy-climate models. Such pathways provided
crucial input
to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change and
to the international climate negotiations. Current least-cost
approaches, however, do not
consider climate impacts and residual climate damages that occur already
below 2°C. Here
we show that this results in systematically and significantly
underestimating the optimal
stringency of near-term mitigation action for limiting warming to 2°C.
By integrating climate
impact estimates into an energy-economy-climate model, we show that it
is most economical
to reduce global emissions to 33 GtCO2-equivalent per year by 2030,
instead of the 46
GtCO2-equivalent per year without accounting for climate impacts.
Achieving such emission
reductions requires near-term carbon prices of US$130 in 2030. Our
results show that the gap
between current mitigation efforts and welfare-optimal mitigation
pathways towards achieving
the 2°C target is even larger than previously realized.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C5.
The Nigeria 2012 flood is considered the worst in the flood history of the country since 1936 in terms of the spatial extent, magnitude and impact. Globally, Nigeria ranked seventh among top ten countries in terms of disaster mortality and third in terms of number of victims in a review of disasters caused by natural hazards in 2012 undertaken by Guha-Sapir and colleagues. The primary cause of the 2012 floods was a combination of heavy rainfall during the wet season and the release of excess water from Lagdo dam in neighboring Cameroon. Other drivers of the floods included the increased carrying capacity of river channels, high runoff generated from impervious artificial surfaces, inefficient/inadequate drainage systems and deforestation. Over 14,500 sq km of the 923,700sq km land area of the country was inundated by flood waters which affected 3,870 communities. The paper examines the social and economic consequences of the 2012 floods at the national and local levels by considering the impacts on severely affected communities and key sectors of the economy. Sectors considered include agriculture, housing, transport and communication. Economic costs incurred on relief and emergency response by government and local organizations and international organizations stakeholders are also considered. Additional consequences for thousands of flood-affected persons through displacements and health impacts are also examined. Data for the assessment is sourced local and international sources including annual reports of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), local newspapers, EM-DAT- OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Geo Risks Research NatCatSERVICE, and others. The paper highlights the implications of rainfall extremes and floods within the development context of an African country with high vulnerability to climate change. The policy implications of the identified impacts for resilience building and adaptation planning are discussed.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
Since the completion of global SSPs, new methods have been developed to extend SSPs, and to integrate them with emission scenarios and climate projections, in CCIAV studies in different world regions. Methods so far focus on downscaling quantifications and nesting narratives from global SSPs. Though useful in understanding cross-sectoral interactions, these methods do not yield explicit information on how the scenarios unfold over time and what are enabling and disabling factors for climate adaptation strategies and solutions.
We present, therefore, a multiscale extension of the global SSPs in which a series of European SSPs are developed for geographically and socio-economically different case studies that range from municipal, river basin, national to European scales.
The European SSPs describe four extreme socio-economic futures for each case study including also non-linear developments as the context for building robust adaptation and mitigation strategies.
The methods used are highly participatory involving a broad range of stakeholders within a set of scenario development workshops. The European SSPs, as well as including narratives (and other quantitative products including population and GDP), indicate trends of social, human, and manufactured capitals in three time steps until 2100. Within the scenarios, capitals are used to analyse the socio-economic enabling/disabling conditions in the scenarios for achieving a sustainability vision. These enabling/disabling conditions describe the opportunities and barriers for action by indicating what capitals can be mobilised in a given scenario. This facilitates the development of scenario-dependent pathways of adaptation, mitigation and transformative actions.
We demonstrate the importance of extended SSPs and the role of non-linearity and capitals therein in influencing the building of robust strategies. Unlike previous exploratory scenario exercises, the European SSPs provide the feasibility and socioeconomic context for adaptation and mitigation strategies and solutions until 2100.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C4.
In Spring 2017, Climate-KIC, Europe’s major climate innovation agency, has launched a multi-year programme to address these challenges, named Climate Risk Information (CRI). The CRI programme aims to catalyse and scale the global market for adaptation goods and services by supporting key entities that help set standards, and provide a marketplace for risk data and models to be exchanged and consumed, and that demonstrate the use of climate risk data and models. In order to achieve not only scientific but also socio-economic impacts, CRI supports the innovation chain to ensure that research and innovation results are adopted into applied tools and mechanisms for decision-making with economic and resilience gains. CRI also supports key market enabling activity to maximise the value of the open market through cross-cutting efforts in education and capacity building to increase understanding, foster innovative risk transfer methods and lower the barriers to engagement.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C10.
Climate change impacts the hydrological cycle and precipitation extremes, therefore geographical patterns of river flood risk are also changing. Because so much is at stake, the public debate will benefit from relevant projections generated with a diversity of approaches. In this project, we look at a past instance of warmer climate, the Last Interglacial (LIG), which may resemble the future. The LIG (125,000 years ago) was warmer than today - especially in the high northern latitudes-, sea level was higher, high sheets were smaller and monsoons were stronger. We use multi-century runs of LIG global climate from the best available paleo climate models, and elaborate their daily output of temperature and precipitation with global (and potentially regional) hydrological and river flood models. In this way, we produce maps of floods for different return periods, which in turn we employ to calculate the impact and risk suffered by future communities (as per SSP scenarios) if the LIG climate were to materialize. This approach offers two main advantages: it focuses on a climatic state that actually existed already, and that is therefore less speculative than projecting changes into the future; and thanks to the existence of climate proxies, it is possible to some extent to validate the LIG model simulations in terms of patterns of precipitation, river discharge and potentially flooding.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C5.
Tropical cyclones (TC) are one of the most damaging natural hazards and severely affect many countries around the globe each year. Their nominal impact is projected to increase substantially as the exposed coastal population grows, per capita income increases, and anthropogenic climate change manifests. The magnitude of this increase, however, varies across regions and is obscured by the stochastic behaviour of TCs, so far impeding a rigorous quantification of trends in TC damage with global mean temperature (GMT) rise. Here, we build on the large sample of spatially explicit TCs simulations generated within ISIMIP(2b) for 1) pre-industrial conditions, 2) the historical period, and 3) future projections under RCP2.6 and RCP6.0 to estimate future TC damage assuming fixed present-day socio-economic conditions or SSP-based future projections of population patterns and income. Damage estimates will be based on region-specific empirical damage models derived from reported damages and accounting for regional characteristics of vulnerability. Different combinations of 1) socio-economic drivers with pre-industrial climate or 2) changing climate with fixed socio-economic conditions will be used to derive functional relationships between regionally aggregated changes in damages on one hand and global mean temperature and socio-economic predictors on the other hand. The obtained region-specific scaling of future TC damage with GMT provides valuable input for IPCC’s special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C by quantifying the incremental changes in impact with global warming. The approach allows for an update of damage functions used in integrated assessment models, and contributes to assessing the adequateness of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C8.
The Kenya rangelands are characterized by low income, poverty, lowunreliable rainfall and conflicts.Evidence from the IPCC assessment reports suggest that African arid and semi-arid lands are likely to emerge as the most vulnerable by 2100 with likely agricultural losses of between 2 and 7% of GDP. However, little is known about the challenges and opportunities climate change present to the arid communities in present to thelivelihoods of pastoral communities in arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya. Africa. This study used household survey data to assess the challenges and opportunities climate change Climate change impacts may be devastating to societies and especially on their economies and livelihood activities given that they depend on rain-fed agriculture for subsistence. The productivity of rain-fed agriculture is the most vulnerable to climate change related extrema eventsand put 20-30% of human population living in semi-arid areas at risk. This study found that some of the challenges are: - poverty, conflicts, pandemics, loss of cultural values, high dependence on fluctuating rain-fed systems,and high population. Some of the opportunities presented are:- Livelihood diversification, adaptation measures, improving infrastructure and public services, and insurances for livestock. It is important for the governments to have effective policies to help development and management of rangelands. The international community should help facilitate climate mitigation and adaptation measures among these communities.
In the present industrialized world, the relationship between energy use of a country and its level of development is given special attention. What is needed to examine in the relationship is the use of energy indicators commonly used (such as energy consumption). It is usually argued that countries when in developing stage consume resources that pollute the environment to the maximum level till the point they arrive at certain standard of living for its people, after that countries start investing in cleaning the environment. This development trend, which is regarded as Environmental Kuznet’s Curve (EKC) in literature, exists since industrial revolution and today’s industrialized nations have developed their economies following this trend. In the current globalized world, the emerging countries are using the development pattern on the lines of past industrialized economies in which carbon emissions are inevitable. Newly fast-developing economies are usually stressed to cut-down its emissions at the early stages of its development since the earth’s atmosphere has already filled with emissions from industrial activities in the past from developed economies and little space is left to absorb more emissions. This argument is true since current energy consumption pattern in emerging economies is much higher than industrialized economies. However, there is a need to investigate the development model currently being used by developed economies as the high living standard in these economies have high-ecological value attached which require high energy footprint. In this study, we will link top globalized countries -from the Globalization Convergence Index (GCI) developed by Mohsin Raza and Ather Elahi- with total primary energy demand and total primary energy footprint. The expected results would show that top globalized countries have high living standard with clean environment due to the reason that a significant share of energy-intensive goods is coming through international trade with developing countries.
Agriculture contributes around 16% of total GDP and around 58 % of the total employment in India. More than 60% cropped area depends on monsoon rainfall, and 75% of annual rainfall occurs in monsoon season. Extreme dry weather conditions during droughts and heat waves create water scarcity which is a primary constraint to food production and reduces overall country growth. Irrigation plays an important role to reduce water scarcity problem. Projection of irrigation water demand using ISIMIP provided GCM’s forcing for different RCPs would be effective in reducing water scarcity in the Gangetic plain. Irrigation framework in Variable Infiltration Capacity model was used to study the impact on water budget components and irrigation water demand during different seasons over the Ganges basin. The results indicate that due to irrigation, the surface temperature cooled down by 0.04 0C in the Ganges basin. The evapotranspiration and total runoff are projected to increase in the Gangetic plain. Moreover, due to the availability of irrigation water, root zone soil moisture is projected to decrease up to 4%. Irrigation water demand is projected to increase in the Gangetic plain as precipitation (temperature) is projected to decrease (increase).
Coastal regions are increasingly vulnerable to flooding due to changes in hydrology, precipitation, and sea-level rise from climate change. Economic losses are realized through displacement of people, reduced or damaged infrastructure, and disruption in work and productivity, and may be mitigated through collaborative adaptation across communities. However regional adaptation mechanisms are often stymied by the desire of communities to follow their individual strategic incentives.
Here we highlight sea-level rise impacts on community groups, regional traffic, and local community protection measures within an overall region, and demonstrate types of interdependence that may require, or benefit from, a collective response. Our study region is the San Francisco Bay in California, USA, which comprises over 60 community jurisdictions, is a hub of California’s water supply, home to the remaining wetlands in the State, and a major US and global economic engine. We present approaches to characterize 3 main types of community interdependence from sea-level-rise, namely “shared experience”, “vulnerability interdependence”, and “adaptation interdependence”:
- statistical cluster analysis to identify similarities in community exposure to joint sea-level rise and coastal storm induced flooding;
- a demand-based traffic model which quantifies disruptions to the regional transportation network due to a localized flooding event; and
- projections of the impacts of shoreline protective actions by individual jurisdictions on flooding vulnerability in other communities.
This work is part of the NSF-funded RISER SF Bay Initiative, which focuses on the interaction of sea-level rise, coastal storms, and shoreline infrastructure with the transportation network, and how these networks influence the governance that makes infrastructure planning decisions.
You can access the world map of the ECC Factbook here: factbook.ecc-platform.org
Over the 21st century, in order to feed the world, the global agricultural system will need to evolve with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, changing climate, increasing human populations, and changing socioeconomic dynamics. Global modeling is a crucial tool to help us explore what the future of agriculture might look like in such an evolving context, and what the impacts of those changes will be on the Earth system.
With the goal of answering these questions, a model system has been developed that couples a biologically-representative global vegetation model, LPJ-GUESS, with the PLUMv2 land use model. LPJ-GUESS first simulates—at 0.5º resolution across the world—the potential yield of various crops and pasture under a range of management intensities for a time step given its atmospheric CO2 level and climatic forcings. These potential yield simulations are fed into PLUMv2, which uses them in conjunction with endogenous agricultural commodity demand and prices to produce land use and management inputs (fertilizer and irrigation water) at a sub-national level for the next time step. This process is performed through 2100 for a range of future climate and societal scenarios—the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), respectively—providing a thorough exploration of possible trajectories of land use and land cover change.
Because PLUM is relatively simple, it can be run over many iterations with varying parameter values. This, combined with the RCP and SSP scenarios, allows a thorough exploration of the uncertainty inherent in any such modeling exercise. This poster will walk through the basic structure of the LPJ-GUESS-PLUM coupling, then discuss results related to the future scenario and parameter uncertainty evaluation. Preliminary results relating to the impacts of future land cover and management changes on biogeochemical cycling will also be presented.
Beech – silver fir mixed forests thus represent a possible adaptation strategy to challenges of climate change. To determine possible cultivation areas of these forests, the current and future distribution of beech, silver fir and their mixed forests were modelled on the scale of Germany, taking into account climatic, topographical and soil parameters. As means to foster model robustness, a variety of species distribution modelling algorithms and climate change scenarios were applied. The results were put into an economic context by calculating the land expectation value of the modelled distributions and analysing their managerial implications for future forestry.
First results imply that particularly under strong radiative forcing scenarios (RCP 85), beech distributions may shrink, whereas areas suitable for beech – silver fir mixed forests may increase in size under most scenarios. Consequently, while being a financial investment, a timely introduction of silver fir into beech forests may extensively reduce the risk of economic losses which would likely occur in pure beech forests.
Climate change, epitomised by rising temperatures and variability in rainfall patterns, is already having considerable effect on crop yields and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Ghana. The situation is even worse in the semi-arid Northern Region of Ghana, where livelihoods are mainly anchored on climate-sensitive resources. This is manifested in the Region’s persistent food insecurity and chronic poverty. This has led to a plethora of projects, programmes, and research activities promoting several scientific and indigenous adaptation measures in the Region. What is however puzzling is that these efforts give little primacy to local context empirical economic evaluation of these measures. This is evident in the fact that much of the literature is focused on evaluation of adaptation at the national level, with little attention on the micro-level profitability of the (non)adoption of climate change adaptation measures. Using primary data from 120 selected smallholder farmers and the financial function in MS Excel, we examined the profitability of agronomic, vegetative, and structural adaptation measures. Based on the Net Present Value (NPV), the results showed that structural measures were relatively the most profitable. However when we compared the adaptation measures using the “annualised” payment technique, the agronomic measures were relatively more profitable with higher annuity. Consequently, we advocate that to ensure sustainable adaptation in smallholder systems, farmers should endeavour to use farm-level adaptation measures complementarily.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop C10.
Floods are one of the most feared natural disasters with a great impact on humans and environment. Due to climate change, these hydrological events will be more frequent and more intense. The knowledge of the floods features has major practical importance for hydrological forecasting and water resources management in order to reduce their impact. Between 2000 and 2009, Romania was on the top rank of the European list regarding the flood occurrence, affected people, flood frequency and affected area. The purpose of this study is to analyze the floods occurred in Jiu River Catchment (Romania), during spring 2013, and to present some economic consequences. The research is based on the processing of hydro-meteorological daily data, taken from National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management and National Meteorological Administration. The used methods are statistical and spatial analysis. The main geographical factors which facilitated floods production were climatic conditions and morphometric factors. The Jiu River is a 339 km long river from the South-Western Romania, tributary of the Danube River. Its catchment has an area of 10131 km² and an average altitude of 445 m. The slopes lower than 3° cover 31% of the catchment area, and the slopes greater than 3° cover 69%. The network density is 0.41km/km². The climatic conditions were represented by the high amounts of precipitation accumulated in 24 hours (4 – 103 mm), the high air temperatures (1.4ºC – 9.4ºC) and the snow melting (snow cover 1 – 50 cm, in the upper catchment). The heavy rains occurred due to the stationary Mediterranean cyclone in the South – Western Romania and to the Carpathian orographic barrier. Consequently, the alert thresholds were exceeded at 20 hydrometric stations (HS). The maximum discharge ranged between 16.6 m³/s (Bălăneşti HS) and 1367 m³/s (Zăval HS). The recorded values correspond to the values of the discharge with the exceedance probabilities between 3% (Rovinari HS) and 50% (Filiaşi HS). The danger stage, causing the people evacuation, was exceeded at the Filiaşi HS and Răcari HS. Overall, these floods affected 3634 ha infield, 46 household annexes, 208 ha with forest, 332 ha with grassland. Therefore, this retrospective study is necessary for assessing the costs of climate change in the area.
The RAMSES project delivers much needed quantified evidence of the impacts of climate change and the costs and benefits of a wide range of adaptation measures, focusing on cities. In an integrated top-down and bottom-up approach risks, vulnerabilities, and damages from climate change have been quantified. In addition, associated costs and benefits of adaptation have been estimated to support the design of sustainable transition strategies in urban areas. RAMSES engaged with stakeholders to ensure this information is policy relevant and ultimately enabling the design and implementation of adaptation strategies in the EU and beyond. The project focused on climate impacts and adaptation strategies pertinent to urban areas due to their high social and economic importance.
Dar-Ji River Basin is one of the most important hydroelectric area for providing national’s electric used in Taiwan. Typhoon Toraji in 2001 caused amount of landslides and buried many power plants. And the following typhoon events of Mindulle and Aere in 2004 even directly destroyed others power plant, which caused huge economic loss in. For understanding the possible influence of global warming in Daiji river basin. This study used the climate dynamic downscaling data of the end of 21 century which produced by the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) under the Japan Meteorological Agency (Mizuta et al. 2012). Then select top 10 % extreme typhoon events of climate dynamic downscaling data of the end of 20 and 21 century for comparing the differences. In the upstream, TRIGRS was adapted for simulating the landslide impacts. The Logistic Regression Model was applied to analysis the impact risk of debris flow。In the midstream, CCHE1D was used to calculate the delivery situation of sediment. Furthermore, the fresh flood simulation model, SOBEK, and the flood loss assessment model, Taiwan Typhoon Loss Assessment System (TLAS) were applied to evaluate the flood impact and direct economic loss. Finally, the average loss of top 10 % typhoon events at the end of this century will even increase 93% than present period. The results show the impacts of climate change in the Dar-Ji River basin could be significant in the end of this century.
A large number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) is located in coastal areas, being increasingly at risk from coastal flooding due to accelerated sea-level rise and storm events. A particularly high concentration of cultural WHS can be found in the Mediterranean as several ancient civilizations have developed in the region. We have assessed Mediterranean cultural WHS at risk from coastal flooding under three sea-level rise scenarios until 2100. Besides assessing exposure to a 100-year storm surge, we analyze vulnerability to coastal erosion. Finally, we calculate a risk index that allows for ranking WHS relative to each other. We find 49 cultural WHS to be located in low-lying coastal areas, of which 84 % are at risk under at least one of the three scenarios.
The question arises how to prioritize adaptation around WHS to ensure that their status as UNESCO World Heritage is preserved, especially in countries where a large number of WHS is at risk from coastal flooding (e.g. Italy, Croatia, Greece) and where financial resources are limited. Due to the high intangible value of WHS, it is not possible to ascribe a certain value to each site. However, a method to estimate the tangible costs of coastal flooding (e.g. by accounting for loss of revenue from tourism or cost of repairs) may be helpful in prioritizing adaptation planning in the short to medium term.
Climate change and human health
In a warming world an increasing number of people are being exposed to heat, making a comfortable thermal indoor environment an important need. Thermal (dis)comfort perceptions are conventionally assessed through surveys in either climate chambers or field studies. In our exploratory study we took a different approach by investigating the potential of using Regional Internet Search Frequencies (RISF) as an indicator for thermal discomfort (i.e. when do people start feeling hot) of individuals living across different climate zones in India. We used freely available RISF to show when and how often the internet was used for searching for an air conditioning device and related these RISF to daily daytime outdoor temperature with the goal to assess if people exposed to higher temperature show a gradually declining response to heat (= adaptation) and, if so, to quantify this adaptation. State-level heat thresholds (daytime temperature) were found as low as 25.9 °C in Madhya Pradesh and as high as 31.0 °C in Orissa. Multifaceted local adaptation at state level was found to occur: the higher the monthly minimum average temperature in a state, the higher the heat threshold, and the higher the inter-annual temperature differences (i.e. = mean temperature of warmest – coldest month) the lower the heat threshold. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of local heat thresholds and people’s adaptive capacity, which can support the design of local thermal comfort standards. The results also shed light on people’s potential to cope with increasing heat, relevant in light of climate change.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop H2.
Organisations are challenged by the need to plan for the impacts and opportunities that climate change will bring and having the appropriate tools and data to make evidence-based decisions is essential. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) will provide free climate information to help society and business sectors improve their planning and decision-making for climate adaptation and mitigation. To ensure the climate information provided by C3S matches the needs of users, we have engaged with key stakeholders from six economic sectors, including health, and identified some of the key user requirements for climate information as well as some of the data and information gaps. We will share the key outcomes of our work for each of the sectors studied, which are: Agriculture & Forestry, Coast, Health, Insurance, Infrastructure and Tourism.
We address the following key questions:
What types of users can be distinguished?
Are users familiar with climate information?
What are the key climate information required by these different sectors?
How does each sector use the available information to make decisions?
What information gaps exists?
Climate information not only needs to be accessible, but also easy to use and of the quality needed to support informed decisions. We will summarise results on ways of presenting climate information and consider the implications of our findings for tailoring the provision of climate services. We will also share lessons learnt from our engagement process, which took place through a multi layered approach involving an extensive survey, interviews, focus groups and workshops. In this respect, the poster reflects on the success and limitations of these engagement methods and will identify best practice to guide future engagement. To conclude, we consider how to sustain engagement with users for the continued coproduction of climate services and, in particular, for the future development of the C3S.
Extensive research around the globe have been done to estimate the risks associated with the effects of PM2.5 on all-cause mortality. However, only a few studies have quantified the cost effectiveness of decreasing the PM2.5 concentration to prescribed or hypothetical levels. The aim of this study is two-fold; a) to locally estimate the concentration-response (CR) coefficient (at baseline), and b) assess the impact of different concentration scenarios in the future. Temporal risk estimation of the CR coefficient was carried out with a two-stage analyses, namely; 1) city-level CR risk determination via a robust penalized distributed lag non-linear modeling, followed by 2) meta-analytic, pooled analysis. The CR coefficient yielded from the estimation process was then used for the future valuation with 3 scenarios: i) Scenario 1: current annual concentration (18µg/m3), ii) Scenario 2: Japanese air quality standards (15µg/m3), and iii) Scenario 3: WHO-Air Quality Standard (10µg/m3). Empirical estimates of excess total premature mortality, using the middle population estimate, was highest in Scenario 1, which is consequently complemented with the most number of potential life years lost. On the other hand, discounted at 3%, Scenario 3 cost estimates to prevent 1 year life loss were generally lower than that of Scenarios 2 and Scenario 1, using various values of statistical life (VSL) estimates; OECD and Japanese VSLs. The reduction from current annual concentration towards the other two concentration targets (Scenarios 2 and 3), are favorable options from a societal perspective; with greater averted excess mortality, more years of life saved, and lower cost to save one life year.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop H5.
Daytime labor capacity is expected to decline as a result of climate change due to increased heat stresses. In order to keep current-level total workable hours and labor productivity, adaptation measures are necessary. Shifting the time of day for working is one of possible adaptation measures. In this study, we quantified required quantity of shift to keep current-level total workable hours under the projected climate conditions. We considered the representative concentration pathway (RCP) of RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and used the results of 5 different general circulation models (GCMs). Workable hours were calculated based on a recommendation of work/rest ratio for heat-related illness prevention. Under the highest emission scenario (RCP8.5), in 2090s, expected average required shift was approximately 6 hours, which means that workers need to start working at around 3:00 AM. On the other hand, expected average required shift was less than 2 hours if the 2℃ goal was achieved (RCP2.6). We also conducted an economic analysis using a computable general equilibrium model. GDP loss rates due to the worktime reduction by following the recommended work/rest ratio were calculated with and without the adaptation measure. Maximum shift of the time of day for working was assumed to be 3 hours considering the required illuminance for working and the human circadian rhythm. Without the adaptation measure, estimated global total GDP loss rates in 2100 were 0.48%, 1.2%, 1.4%, and 3.0% for RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 respectively (median of 5 GCMs). By implementing the adaptation measure, they were reduced to 0.15%, 0.59%, 0.74%, and 1.9% respectively. Particularly, under RCP2.6, a large fraction (69%) of GDP loss could be offset by the adaptation measure, while more than about half of them were not offset under other RCPs. These results suggest that achieving the 2℃ goal will not only reduce the impacts, but also alleviate the difficulties in adaptation in terms of labor capacity.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop H5.
The health care systems will be more and more faced with new challenges due to climate change-related health risks. There are several health effects to be mentioned which are already present and will increase to be problematic in the near future: heat-related health problems, allergies and respiratory diseases as well as a new onset of infectious diseases, increased risk of skin cancer due to strong ultraviolet radiation and accidents due to extreme weather events and as a result - mental stress. Air pollutants and air temperature in combination favour respiratory diseases like asthma. Furthermore air pollutants can attach to pollen and intensify their allergenicity as consequence.
Children are, due to their vulnerability, a special risk group for numerous of those health hazards, related to climate change. Paediatricians have a very important role in order to prevent and treat climate change related diseases. The knowledge about climate-change related diseases, respectively about climate change-related health effects is so far limited to a few experts. It is therefore important to improve knowledge about those health effects in the health care sector.
The training modules provides scientific knowledge on climate change-related health risks for children and adolescents as well as necessary skills for new challenges in diagnosis, therapy and prevention, helping to enable adequate preventive and curative action.
With the support of a cooperation network of professional associations and stakeholders of the target group, a blended learning module is being developed for paediatricians. The modules are divided into a self-study phase (online) and an attendance phase which will be attached to paediatric annual meetings with national impact.The Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (grant number 03DAS073) promotes the development of training modules for paediatricians under direction of Dr. phil. Julia Schoierer and PD Dr. med. Stephan Bose-O’Reilly from the Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, LMU Munich as part of the DAS (German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change). The project funding was launched in April 2016 and will continue until March 2019.
Environmental conditions will change more dynamically because of climate change. This will influence the general public health. Heat waves play a critical role in this connection. Especially elderly and people in need of care who are not really able to acclimatise to heat events are at health risk. Additional hazard factors are chronical disease, mental and psychological restriction, drug ingestion, immobility, social isolation as well as low income.
Summer 2003 pointed out the correlation between extreme heat and the increased risk of morbidity and mortality in the population in Europe. Outpatient nursing services and general practitioner’s surgery are an important access road to ensure adequate medical attendance during heat waves. In connection with climate change the increasing urbanisation and the demographic shift could exaggerate the incidence of heat-related health effects in those risk groups.
As part of the DAS (German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change) the Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine and the Institute for Medical Education develop and implement an interprofessional training module. Medical assistants and care staff take part in further training about heat-related health problems which is based on the inverted-classroom-method. The project aims to provide scientific knowledge about heat-related health problems and prevention and transfer into practice.The implementation is supported from the Academy for Medical Further Education of the Medical Association Westfalen-Lippe, the Walner-Schools and the Academy Schönbrunn. The project was launched in November 2016 and will continue until October of 2018. It is promoted by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (grant number 03DAS093).
Though once endemic only to small islands in tropical and subtropical areas, ciguatera has increasingly become a global human health issue. Climate change as well as its related events have been commonly hypothesized to lead to a wider presence of harmful algal blooms, hence higher risk of the disease.
Existing studies assessing the relationship between climate change and CFP are very limited. Most of them have failed to control for external factors affecting CFP incidences, such as tourism and international trade. French Polynesia is the most ideal for being selected as a case study because, (1) ciguatera is highly endemic to French Polynesia, with an average incidence rate of 16.5/10,000 people in the last decade, and despite being underreported universally, CFP cases in French Polynesia are more likely to be reported and diagnosed; (2) People consume fish caught locally. This can exclude most external factors mentioned above.
Utilizing the epidemiological data from 2007 to 2016 and climate data from 2004 to 2017, we performed a time-series analysis to assess the relationships between the monthly CFP incidence and climate-related indicators including sea surface temperature (SST), precipitation, cyclones, water salinity and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events in French Polynesia. Results reveal the significant time-lagged associations between climate variables and the monthly CFP incidence. If this data is confirmed, this delay will allow health authorities and the general public to take appropriate actions, to avoid/limit an epidemic risk, especially on high-risk climate scenarios.
However, the public health impact of CFP is underestimated due to under-reporting, under-diagnosis, and lack of public awareness of the disease. Additional long-term prospective studies, relying on complementary disciplines, are needed in order to confirm and complete our findings.
Objectives: To investigate the impact of 11 years of heat exposure on premature death from NCD in Nouna, Burkina Faso, a rural region of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: Time-series analysis was conducted using distributed lag non-linear models to investigate the association of daily temperature and NCD in rural Burkina Faso between 2000-2010, using years of life lost (YLL) as the outcome. Excess mean daily NCD-YLL were generated from the relative risk of maximum daily temperature on NCD-YLL, including effects delayed up to 14 days.
Results: Daily average NCD-YLL were 4.6, 2.4 and 2.1 person-years for all-ages, males and females, respectively. Moderate 4-day cumulative rise in maximum temperature from 36.4°C (50th percentile) to 41.4°C (90th percentile) resulted in 4.44 (95% CI 0.24 to 12.28) excess daily NCD-YLL for all-ages, rising to 7.39 (0.32 to 24.62) at extreme temperature (42.8°C; 99th percentile). The strongest health effects manifested on the day of heat exposure (lag 0), where 0.81 (0.13 to 1.59) excess mean NCD-YLL occurred daily at 41.7°C compared to 36.4°C, diminishing in statistical significance after 4 days. At lag 0, daily excess mean NCD-YLL were higher for males 0.58 (0.11 to 1.15) compared to females 0.15 (-0.25 to 9.63) at 41.7°C versus 36.4°C.
Conclusion: Premature death from NCD was elevated significantly with moderate and extreme heat exposure. These findings have important implications for developing adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce ambient heat exposure and preventive measures for limiting NCD in Africa.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop H5.
Assessing the impacts of climate change at different levels of warming is key requirement to inform debates on climate policy in a post-Paris world. Assessments of such differences are hampered by uncertainties of model projections in particular related to impact relevant quantities such as extreme weather events that may mask existing differences in projections. Evidence from the observational record can provide useful information to inform the debate about differentiable climate impacts in the light of uncertainty. Here we assess the difference between extreme weather indicators from observational datasets for 0.5°C warming between the second half of the 20th century and the recent past. We report discernible differences for the global occurrence of heat extremes and extreme precipitation. Limitations of this approach related to non-greenhouse gas forcings are also discussed. Changes in frequency of extreme events projected by climate models for 0.5°C global warming differences compare well with past changes observed for 0.5°C global warming. This insight could be a motivation for further studies using the observational record to estimate future impacts. For health related questions this approach might be especially promising as it allows for the inclusion of socio-economic data over the observational record, although it probably represents a lower bound to future impacts given the potential non-linear increase of future health impacts with warming.
Background: The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Integration and Intercomparison Project proposed a new protocol, called ISI-MIP IIb. Following this protocol, we estimated the impact of climate change on heat-related mortality using Japanese general circulation model and our own method of evaluating heat-related mortality.
Method: As described in WHO report (2014), we did projection of heat-related mortality attributable to climate change. Using the same method except for age group and the general circulation model (all ages and MIROC5 in this projection), we conducted projection following ISI-MIP IIb protocol. The scenarios were "picontrol" for preindustrial baseline, RCP2.6, and RCP6.0 with SSP2. Future mortality estimation was obtained from Wittgenstein Centre at http://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/subsites/Institute/VID/dataexplorer/index.
Results: When we fixed the socio-economic status to be 2005 throughout the projection period, the total heat-related deaths in 2099 were 500,000 for RCP6.0, 350,000 for RCP2.6 and 150,000 for picontrol. When we assume SSP2, the numbers were 900,000 for RCP6.0, 500,00 for RCP2.6, and 200,000 for picontrol.
Discussion: The RCP2.6 results can be regarded as the impact of 1.5 degC increase from preinductrial level. Thus, the difference between RCP2.6 and picontrol, i.e., 150,000 in case of fixed socio-economic status and 300,000 in case of SSP2. This shows that the climate change impact is substantial even under 1.5 degC increase scenario. Still, the 1.5 degC impact was much smaller than RCP6.0, and it appears that it is worth pursuing 1.5 degC target. At the presentation, we will also provide the results that consider adaptation.
Reference: Hales S et al. eds. (2014) Quantitative risk assessment of the effects of climate change on selected causes of death, 2030s and 2050s. WHO.
Acknowledgement: This study was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-10&S-14) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.
We do a cross-country OLS regression analysis with data from 140 different countries to estimate the coefficients for a range of variables. We use data from FAO as well as from the UN and other sources, for two different years, 2005 and 2011, and specify either meat in general or only red meat as the dependent variable.
We find negative impacts caused by the price of meat, meaning that a higher price is correlated with lower consumption. The price of vegetables has a positive correlation on meat consumption, which means that meat consumption decreases when the general price level of vegetables decreases. This indicates that meat and vegetables are substitutes, and that policies to drive vegetable prices down might help curb meat consumption levels.
Important drivers for increasing meat consumption are income with a decreasing effect with higher income levels, urbanisation but also cultural factors: consumption levels are higher for Western countries and lower for Muslim countries. Positive effects are also found for natural conditions like the amount of land for pasture and per capita agricultural area. This indicates an interrelation of production and demand which have to be disentangled further.
The results indicate that beside income many other factors are influential so that it is not impossible to intervene against a development towards increasing meat consumption.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop H3.
Around 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using solid fuels on open fires or traditional stoves. Such inefficient cooking and heating practices produce high levels of indoor air pollution which includes a range of health damaging Climate Active Pollutants such as black carbon, methane and carbon dioxide. Thus it is needed to prevent indoor air pollution to obtain enormous benefits.
Objectives: 1) To compare the PM2.5 and elementary carbon exposure of women using different cook stove design used in the local kitchen; 2) To compare lung function through spirometer as an indicator for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in women and relate it to the exposure; 3) To estimate the effect of introducing clean combustion stoves (e.g. LPG) on both women’s health and climate mitigation in the study district.
Methodology: This study will be conducted among the women living in rural village using a household health questionnaire and a Portable Spirometer (measure lung function). Measurement of kitchen air concentrations of black carbon and particulate matter2.5 will be done using quartz filter papers and analyzed further chemically in the laboratory.
Results: As the study is on data collection phase, results are not generated yet.
Policy relevance: Health damaging pollutants such as carbon and particulate matter emitted from the cook stove designs contribute to poor air quality. Use of clean cook-stoves will be proposed as a emission mitigation measure and provide a significant evidence for local and national policy makers to promote such clean fuels to achieve significant health benefits. Limiting emissions of Short-lived climate pollutants will have substantial health and climate co-benefits.
In resource-low environments often the only accessible source for determining cause of death is verbal autopsy (VA) that gathers information about a deceased through a questionnaire. The VA data available through the health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) in Nouna, located in rural Burkina Faso, was reassessed to match the temperature and rainfall data collected with the local weather station in Nouna and Dédougou. We used the VA data as a base and recalculated from the available VA data with the InterVA tool the probability of childhood death by malnutrition. We matched the aggregated weather data accordingly to the InterVA probabilities of childhood death by malnutrition to model the impact of weather to malnutrition events with a distributed non-linear lag model.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop H2.
Climate change and human migration
According to a recent UN report, target countries such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and Nauru could cease to exist completely in the coming centuries (Raleigh, Jordan, & Salehyan, 2008; Campbell& Warrick, 2014). The discourse regarding defining an environmental refugee and what should be done to assist these populations has slowly developed over the years. Yet, the saliency and urgency of the environmental migrant/refugee debate has produced mixed empirical research for a variety of political and cultural reasons. In order to better direct the discourse in a more productive direction, this paper hopes to explore the current data and trends surrounding migration rates and domestic push factors in small developing Pacific
Islands. As climate change intensifies, these Pacific Islands will face untold damages in food and water supplies and unprecedented territory loss, which place the quality of life for people in the region in serious limbo (Locke, 2009). First, this paper briefly discusses the current debate surrounding the terms “environmental refugee” and “environmental migrant.” Next, this paper investigates the unique characteristics of small developing islands in the Pacific that put them at high risk for environmental problems. Finally, small-N panel data regression analysis shows that while economic variables better predict migration, environmental variables produce equally significant but minuscule influence. This paper concludes with suggestions for further research and policy makers regarding the terminology debate.
Asian Russia is known to be sparsely populated. As can be viewed from night lights imagery, the Asian Russian population is concentrated along the forest-steppe zone in the south, with its comfortable climate and rich agriculture on fertile soils. In a warming climate, vast Asian Russian lands may be attractive for population migrations.
Our goal was to evaluate Asian Russia’s climate severity and comfort for humans from a view point of winter conditions (degree-days below 0°C) and presence/absence of permafrost in the contemporary climate and to predict the potential in climate comfort in a warming climate by the 2080s. Additionally, our goal was to evaluate future crop potential that may evolve as the climate changes.
Our study area is Asian Russia within the window 60-180°E and 40-75°N. Climate data from 800 weather stations over the study area were used to map the negative degree-days for the 1961-1990. The outcomes from 20 global climate models (CMIP5) and their ensemble were used to characterize a range of warming by the 2080s. The permafrost distribution in the contemporary climate was calculated as a function of the July and January temperatures and annual precipitation (R2 = 0.70). Stefan’s theoretical equation was used to calculate the future permafrost distribution and map its border.
The baseline 1961-1990 negative degree-days maps demonstrated that the contemporary climate should be characterized as severe and uncomfortable for humans especially over the permafrost zone. Only some lands in the forest-steppe zone over Asian Russia free of permafrost are characterized as mild and comfortable for humans.
As predicted from the CMIP5 models, by the 2080s, Asian Russia would be characterized by milder and more moderate climates with less permafrost coverage. Superimposing the climate severity, permafrost and crop potential maps onto population density maps demonstrated good correlations between them. Predicted mild climates and doubled crop production might attract the humans to migrate to Asian Russia during this century.
Darfur region in western Sudan has been in the global media for over a decade now due to the humanitarian conflict engulfed the region in 2003. Without going into details of the conflict politics, there were so many environmental changes the region underwent in the past four decades that have contributed to the causes of the current conflict. The region underwent mass migration from north to south as persistence drought and desertification hit the northern part causing so many environmental changes in the region in the past four decades. These environmental changes have created significant pressure on the limited water resource in the region as they are mainly fed by rainfall and consequently led hunger as 80 % of the population food ingredients come from crops grow in rain-fed farms and thus prompted the demographic movement. This mass migration has led to competition on farmlands, water resources and pastures where the migrated people settled, creating with it along the way so many frictions between farmers and pastoralists and sparked the conflict. With predicted increase in population and long hours of high-temperature sunshine (which would enhance rate of evaporation) and annual fluctuations in rainfall in the region, more environmental changes are realistic outcomes in the years to come, which would make the current situation even worse, if adequate infrastructure are not put in place and security measures are not taken. Therefore, developing a simple climate aware drought forecasting tool can help in this respect by enabling policy makers to make future plans, based on scientific evidence, to meet the consequences as food gap, drinking water stress and possible more human migration or displacement. It is under this context the present research has come. In this study rainfall and temperature records from sites representing three sub-regions in Darfur region were used to analyse previous drought events and to establish relationships between these variables and droughts in the region. The selected sites were El Fasher to represent Northern Darfur sub region, Nyala to represent Southern Darfur sub region, and El Geneina to represent Western Darfur sub region. Two types of drought index were used, these were meteorological and agricultural drought indices. Future rainfall and temperature were obtained using the weather generator LAR-WG for the short (2011-2030), medium (2046-2065) and far (2080-2099) futures. The built drought models in each sub-region was then used to project future droughts in the whole region. Results have shown that Darfur is projected to experience even more droughts in the future. Findings from this study should alert policy makers in Darfur, and perhaps the Sudan at large, to explore alternative measures for sustainable developments in the region to avoid future conflicts.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop M5.
Firstly, we checked flows of human migration within the country by using a census data in 2000. Then we demonstrated generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) to examine the effect of economic and climatic factors on human migration. We used net migration data, climate data (e.g., precipitation, temperature, snow depth) and livestock number for all of prefectures during 1995-2015.
People moved from rural areas to the capital and prefectures in the central region during 1996-2000. Especially prefectures in the western region have a high rate of out-migration. As a result of GLMM, summer precipitation and livestock number have positive effect on net migration; few summer precipitation and loss of livestock may cause out-migration. Especially people who lived in the western region moved to the central region where has much precipitation and to the capital. We showed empirical evidences that climatic factors may enhance human out-migration in rural Mongolia. These results suggested that future climate change would affect human migration in Mongolia.
Sri Lankan history is deeply connected with its hydraulic civilization and its erroneously named as a community based cascade ecosystem irrigation system. In Sri Lanka water is collected using man-made interconnected cascade tanks ecosystems in dry areas mainly for paddy cultivation. These tanks comprise of various components of ecological importance. The ancient cascade ecosystems, throughout the Sri Lanka in particular, are under unprecedented pressure, threatening prospects for sustainable development. Cascade ecosystems were originated within the community and practiced over many generations. The all the cascade ecosystem based irrigation systems were operated and managed by the community and responsibility rested with the chief of the village community based organization. The study was conducted in Horivila cascade system in Anuradhapura district in north central province, Sri Lanka to identify present community based management of the cascade water management system. The results of the study reveled that the several important ecological component of natural ecosystem types are still maintain by the community for sustainability of the system. Community organization are adapting to the precarious situation through the use of indigenous knowledge, varying cropping systems, the use of drought tolerant paddy varieties, changing of food habits, and the use of local agrochemicals. Many indigenous and traditional farming practices have immense potential for wider use to increase adaptation to climate change. With the increasing unpredictability of rainfall seasonality and variability in the study area, community organizations promote the use of drought tolerant varieties of crops to provide the food security during the drought years. A significant attribute of Sri Lankan community based Ecosystem Adaptation to climate change, besides environmental and adaptation benefits, is the pursuit of social benefits for local communities. including women, youth and other vulnerable populations in terms of enhanced income/economy, diversification of jobs, educational opportunities and gender equality.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop M5.
Human armed conflict triggers region-specific mechanisms that in turn affect land use change. Deforestation is presented as one of the most common negative environmental impacts resulting from armed conflicts, not only during the development of the conflict itself but also after peace agreements are reached. However, the effects of conflict on forests are complex, usually not unidirectional and differ even within countries, i.e. conflicts can simultaneously exert positive and negative effects in different regions. Resulting from a reduced access of the state and many private sectors to large areas of the country during the last decades, the Colombian armed conflict could have contributed in some regions to the conservation of its forests. Could a sadly ironical consequence of the recent historical peace agreement be that some of the highest biodiversity hotspots on the planet are now susceptible to increasing rates of deforestation? Moreover, during post-conflict processes in other countries, the state’s priorities have typically focused on socioeconomic recovery, peacekeeping, and poverty reduction, while natural resource management and environmental sustainability objectives were pushed to the background. Motivated by this possibility, and in order to improve the understanding of the effects the Colombian conflict had on land use change, particularly on its forests, in this work we (1) identify the diverse conflict-land use change pathways existing in Colombia, (2) spatially explore these pathways for over 1000 Colombian municipalities, and (3) determine whether the actual fighting locations tended to induce an acceleration or deceleration of existing land use change drivers. Moreover, based partly these results, (4) we identify Colombian regions that could especially be at risk during the post-conflict process. To answer these questions we combine spatially explicit historical land use datasets covering the last 24 years with municipality level data on internally displaced persons and spatially explicit data on conflict event locations.
Climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals
We use 14 indicators, describing human needs for an adequate life, for 138 countries from 1990 to 2010 to identify existing development typologies and pathways. Initially, indicators reflecting human development are collected by conducting literature research. Based on correlation analyses, linkages to SDGs and data availability, we identify 14 unique indicators among the collected ones. These indicators combine four livelihood characteristics: subsistence, infrastructure, socioeconomics and environment.
We identify six unique development typologies using cluster analysis accounting for a consistency measure. These typologies differ in terms of qualities of the livelihood characteristics, showing disparities in the development among countries. For instance most Sub-Saharan African and South Asian countries are members of the development typology with lower living condition and lower environmental implications. However, industrialized countries mostly belong to the typology with high living condition and high environmental implications. Further, some countries show seldom or even no transition to another development typology in the last two decades whereas countries like South Africa or China depict transitions from one typology to another.
Key message: Six development typologies reflect countries’ progress on human wellbeing. High living conditions are mostly attained with high ecological impacts. This needs to be altered to achieve SDGs that aim high living conditions but low ecological impacts.
The Centre for International Postgraduate Studies of Environmental Management (CIPSEM) at TU Dresden aims at supporting the environmentally sound and sustainable development of emerging and developing countries by assisting professionals from ministries, agencies or local government units and NGOs in improving their knowledge base and skills and through the opportunity to reflect attitudes. For this, CIPSEM offers a range of integrated environmental management courses and study tours since 1977.
In cooperation with UNEP and UNESCO and with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), our courses follow a participatory and practical teaching approach and are designed to prepare the participants for their leadership roles in environment-related planning, coordination and management within ministries, agencies and local governments as well as NGOs of their home countries.
In our courses, we focus on interdisciplinary strategies and appropriate measures for a preventive and controlling protection of the environment, while taking ecological, socio-economic and cultural aspects into account.
By the specific training of future decision-makers the CIPSEM course program contributes to capacity building in sustainable development in developing and emerging countries. The integrative and interdisciplinary teaching approach conveys not only knowledge on global environmental processes and methods for the sustainable management of resources, but also promotes abilities in a holistic way of thinking with respect to environmental thematic problems and in finding corresponding solutions.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S7.
The world is undergoing multiple complex transitions at the same time: towards a lower-carbon future; towards technological change of unprecedented depth and speed; towards new global economic and geopolitical balances. Managing these transitions and the deeply interconnected risks they entail requires long-term thinking, investments that embrace these transitions and more collaboration from us. To achieve broad social impact we need transformative and systemic solutions. These solutions will provide interesting and holistic investing opportunities. Here is where the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) come in. But what does it take to reach the SDGs in just 14 short years? The trick will be to match the rhetorical commitments of the SDGs to action and impactful investment opportunities. Unlocking private capital plays a critical and pivotal role here. The SDGs will give vast and almost endless opportunities for businesses and the primary sector to go beyond symptom-cure and transform their strategies and procedures to integrate holistic development into the core of their business models. Consequently, new innovative and promising investment opportunities will arise. A recent report on leveraging the SDGs coins the term ‘SDG investing’ (SDGI) and describes SDGI as all investment strategies whereby sustainability and/or the SDGs form a material factor in the investment decisions. This would mean SDGI serves as an umbrella for the full spectrum of sustainable, responsible and impact investing and recognizes the connections between each investment approach. No doubt, all of these investment approaches serve to reach the SDGs. An investor should however be clear which state of activeness is important to him and which level of impact he wants to achieve. In contrast to simple negative screening for facts that have already happened in the past, impact investing is an approach with the ex-ante intention to create a positive social- and or environmental return. Impact investors intentionally go beyond the passive “do-no-harm” agenda to an active approach of “creating good” for society, planet and prosperity aligning with the 2030 Agenda.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S10.
Bangladesh is one of two nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The whole coastal belt along the Bay of Bengal is experiencing salinity problem due to sea level rising. The coastal areas cover more than 30% of cultivable lands and 53% of these areas are affected by salinity. The study sought to analyze how Rural Communication Services (RCS) work in response to the impact of climate change. The study tackles the problem from the cybernetic tradition of communication. Data were gathered using survey among 83 Salt Tolerant Rice Varieties (STRV) farmers and key informant interview for 11 RCS providers. A social network among 30 STRV farmers was mapped using UCINET 6 software. Relationships among selected variables were determined using Fisher’s exact test of correlation. The government extension was the most accessed RCS provider, closely followed by NGOs. STRV farmers trusted the information received from both. They used the face-to-face communication channel to receive information from these service providers. The STRV farmers found the information from the RCS providers as useful. However, they encountered problem in accessing information on STRV because of their low contact with the RCS providers. The government extension was the most influential information source and the farmers shared information mostly with other farmers. Majority of the farmers adopted only some and not all of the recommended STRV practices. They used only a small portion of their land for STRV cultivation. NGO as a service provider was associated with the mode of adoption. Group meeting was associated with the modalities for delivery and the mode of adoption. The RCS providers lacked coordination among them and had inadequate resources. A communication model to enhance the delivery and adoption was proposed in the study that would be used to enhance the climate change adaptation among the farmers.
Climate changes alter regional hydrologic conditions and results in a variety of impacts on water resource systems. Such hydrologic changes will affect almost every aspect of human well-being. The economy of Ethiopia mainly depends on agriculture, and this in turn largely depends on available water resources. The aim of this study is to assess the impacts of climate change on surface water availability of upper Awash River basin by using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model and Regional Climate Model (RCM). This study presents, the results on downscaling of large scale atmospheric variables simulated with regional climate model to meteorological variables at local scale in order to investigate the hydrological impact of a possible future climate change scenario for three Bench mark year 2020s, 2050s and 2080s under A1B emission scenario from ECHAM5 model. Bias-correction methods have been developed to adjust RCM climate variables. The results show that, average annual maximum temperature changes for the upper Awash sub-basin were 2020s: 0.53 °C, 2050s:1.18 °C, and 2080s: 1.87 °C relative to the historical climate (1990s). Average annual minimum temperature change for were 0.58°C, 0.82 °C and 2.14 °C in 2020, 2050s and2080s respectively. Basin-average annual rainfall based on the CCLM downscaling were 2.4, -2.14 and -10.109% for future periods of 2020s, 2050s and 2080s respectively. The annual reduction of stream flow for Upper Awash sub-basin for A1B scenario is 2.46% and 18.14% in 2050s and 2080s respectively. But, for the time period of 2020s the stream flow increased by 4.9% for A1B scenario. The simulated flow at: 2050s and 2080s with scenario from RCM shows reduction of runoff by 1.52% and 3.52% in the sub-basin and it is directly related to the reduction and increment in precipitation, but the annual runoff increase in 2020s by 8.0%. Model result shows that about 44.36% of annual rainfall contributes to stream flow as surface runoff. The paper also includes potential strategy recommendations to communities, policy and decision makers for measuring and enhancing effective adaptation option for future climate change. Further, development initiatives at community level in study areas should put more emphasis on water harvesting to ensure water storage for future agricultural production.
This paper illustrates the different land use systems, human activities and importance of the Savannah Belt to the Sudanese economy and natural resources, in an area that since the 1970 has been most affected by environmental conflicts and climate change risk. This paper sheds light on the effect and impact of climate change and conflict on women in the Savannah Belt, which not unlike other areas of Sudan, have suffered from social exclusion and have often been neglected in attempts to address the drivers of climate change and its resulting conflicts.
The paper argues that the climate justice approach applies a multi-disciplinary understanding of the ecological element of climate change whilst also creating strong linkages with the social, economic and political – together as combined and linked aspects of the ecosystem. In terms of the link between climate justice and gender equality, is the inherent need to acknowledge the need for universality of equality, fairness and justice for all human beings, regardless of their sex, race, nationality or religion.
In Sudan, lessons-learned from the best practices of Sudan’s Social forestry have led to modifications at the policy level and the creation of mutual collaboration between Government officials and non-governmental bodies, to address issues of gender equality in climate change adaptation and mitigation. The women roles and effects by the climate change and conflict are underestimated during the application of the climate change projects in Sudan. The Reducing Emission for Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) is a turn point and the best example of positioning the women and local community at the central of the activities and leading to new institutional arrangements by integrating gender and climate justice tools as common approach at the beginning.
The aim of the paper is to explain how human kind has been adopting mobility and migration as a tool to adapt to the climatic and environmental changes since human beings have existed on Earth. The paper provides examples from pastoral groups who are forced to move in order to escape the worst effects of both natural and human made disasters. In this respect, this paper examines how local and indigenous adaptive knowledge and capacities have provided the main source for developing their own resilience, adaptation and survival over the decades.
The paper discusses in-depth local customary laws and land use systems and mechanisms that pastoral and farmer groups use to manage natural resources effectively. By focusing on several best practices from some pastoral tribes from the Savannah Belt of Sudan, this paper portrays pastoral groups’ seasonal movements to and from North and South Sudan during the summer season (called Massif), including when they begin their migration from South to the North during the rainy seasons (called Makharif).
The paper vividly highlights various pastoralist and peasant land use mechanisms that have been adopted and agreed to in order to manage natural resources, under specific conditions and time frame rules, including water, land, migratory routes and open range areas.
The paper provides examples and best practices as clear evidence that mobility and migration can be suitable and effective tools to adapt and cope over the climate change and conflict risks in Africa and world-wide environments.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S2.
This study will show the applicable emission mitigation strategies for agricultural soils in Turkey, such as a decrease in consumption of mineral fertilizer and an increase in the consumption of compost and digestate, which can also be evaluated as strategies for climate change adaptation in the agriculture sector.
Australia holds 31% of the global uranium resources and currently supplies 12% of worldwide demand. Based on the expected increase in global energy demand, the demand for uranium is projected to increase in the near future, this despite the factors after Fukushima Daiichi incident (increased the costs of construction of power plants due to increased safety requirements, higher discount rates for investments in nuclear energy, and others) that have damped this demand and Australia is well positioned to ensure it remains a significant supplier in the market. However, due to climate change, the local uranium industry may be impacted as more intense and more frequent extreme weather events are expected in the future, leading to potential disruption to operations and damage to the infrastructure. Therefore, Australia’s reputation as a reliable industry supplier may be at risk in the future. This paper conducts a review of the vulnerability of the Australian uranium industry to climate-related impacts, based on surveys conducted around currently operating uranium mines. Operational disruptions, loss of revenue and increased costs have all been reported as impacts by major climatic events. Survey respondents identified tailings/waste storage facilities, ore extraction, processing, transport within the mine site and maintenance activities as the most affected. Through this research, critical aspects to improve the adaptive capacity of the industry have been revealed.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S6.
Global gridded crop models are increasingly used to analyse the impact of climate change on global agriculture. The improvement of the performance of these models is an ongoing process supported by model intercomparison projects such as AgMIP. Next to the improvement of simulating projections for global crop yields, efforts also focus on widening the informative value of climate change impacts by simulating additional environmental processes influencing yields. This PhD project is focusing on using a global gridded crop model to analyse the impacts of climate change and land degradation on global food production. For this purpose, the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model will be used to simulate the impact of topsoil losses due to water erosion and the subsequent decline of soil organic matter on global yields using climate change projections for the next 100 years as well as different soil management scenarios. One of the main challenge of this project will be the simulation of water erosion on global grids using empirical equations based on the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), which are derived from field experiments in the Midwest of the US and thus application might be limited in other locations around the globe. First results demonstrate the sensitivity of the different water erosion equations to important parameters characterizing different environmental conditions around the globe and give a first insight into the possibility of simulating soil degradation processes on a global scale. Furthermore, first simulation results give an estimate on the cumulative effects of climate change and soil degradation under different soil management scenarios on global maize production. This PhD project is carried out in collaboration with the crop model team of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), who provide their global gridded crop model EPIC-IIASA and assistance with their extensive experience in the application of global models.
Colombia’s agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector accounts for 58% of its total GHG emissions. To achieve its recent commitments resulting from the Paris agreement, Colombia needs to simultaneously curb deforestation rates while improving the efficiency of its agriculture sector. Silvopastoral systems are presented as a solution that synergistically enhances livestock productivity, reduces deforestation and improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. In this work we wish to establish the GHG mitigation potential of silvopastoral systems for smallholder farms in the department of Caquetá – Colombia’s most important deforestation hotspot (1) and to establish whether carbon sequestration resulting from the implementation of silvopastoral systems is sufficient to offset the per hectare increase in GHG emissions resulting from a higher stocking rate (2). To address these questions we use data on livestock population characteristics and historic land cover changes reported from a survey covering over 300 farms and model three land use scenarios of increasing complexity. Livestock GHG emissions are calculated through the IPCC methodology, whereas soil, aboveground and belowground carbon sequestration are computed with the CO2fix model.
An Attempt has been made in this paper to assess the implementation of Energy efficiency schemes in India with reference to National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency and case study of state of Punjab has been done. The strategies and quantitative energy efficiency targets by different energy consumers are described under to improve energy efficiency in the state:
Achieve energy efficiency in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by 15-20% and 15-35% in buildings in accordance to ECBC/GRIHA norms and 3-7% in large energy consumers which are not designated by BEE under PAT scheme;
Promote energy efficiency in all consumer appliances and by installing energy efficient street light;
Provide education and training to public and private sector to enhance demand for energy efficient appliances, technologies and programs.(PEDA,2015)
Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) has been designated as the State Designated Agency (SDA) in Punjab for spreading energy efficiency efforts and implementing energy conservation programs including those policies and programs mandated by BEE. This Paper is written by using secondary sources. The finding clearly reflects that there is moderate success in these initiatives and the challenges do exist in form of lack of dissemination of information regarding government schemes to the people ,less financial allocations and lack of coordination among various agencies. PEDA must adopt a multi- pronged approach to improvise its performance in Energy efficiency sector to accelerate the implementation of programs in a sustained way.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S10.
The newly generated HAPPI ensemble of bias-adjusted climate projections was applied for estimating freshwater conditions in worlds that are approximately 1.5°C and 2°C warmer than preindustrial. These long-term simulations at near-constant forcing conditions were compared to the present situation (2006-2015). For each of the three climate conditions, 10 years of daily data serve as climate input for two global hydrological models (GHMs), WaterGAP and LPJmL. Such time series were provided by several global climate models (GCMs), and for each GCM, multiple ensemble members that only differ by their initial conditions were available. This ensemble approach allowed evaluating the differential impacts of 1.5°C warming vs. 2.0°C warming on a number of freshwater indicators that show the risks of climate change to humans, terrestrial vegetation and freshwater biota. Indicators include water availability, renewable groundwater resources, soil moisture in the driest month of the growing period and a number of characteristics of the streamflow regime that are of relevance for human water supply and for habitat conditions of freshwater biota: 1 in 10-dry year streamflow, 7-day low flow and 7-day high flow. The ensemble of indicator changes between present-day conditions and future worlds, i.e. freshwater-related hazards due to climate change, was analyzed with respect to statistically significant differences between the 1.5°C and the 2°C worlds taking into account the uncertainty due to both GCMs and GHMs. Exposure to these hazards was quantified using scenarios of future urban and rural population. Risks with respect to specific indicators are shown by global maps and tables, with spatial aggregation to, for example, country groups of different income classes.
An ensemble of general circulation models (GCMs) was forced to a global hydrological model, H08, to determine if the change in hydrological indicators due to climate change at 1.5 °C mean global warming above pre-industrial level is distinguishable from natural variability. The use of different lengths of running-average global temperatures had appreciable effects on when specific temperature thresholds (+1.5, +2.0 °C) were reached. The signal to noise ratio computed for the transient state and for different periods (5, 31, 51 years) varied strongly in Africa and Western Australia for total discharge, and Greenland, USA, Southern America, and Western Europe for snow water equivalent. The signal to noise ratios computed for the transient state were similar to those of the stabilize state for long (>30 years) period.
The spatial distribution of several important agricultural systems is unknown in many parts of the world and thus they are largely neglected or their importance is underestimated in regional and global assessment of current and future food systems. This knowledge can be of crucial importance for modelling and benchmarking agricultural production and land use, for identifying target areas for large investment in agricultural development with the aim of enhancing food security and livelihoods, or for highlighting areas at risk of environmental degradation and climate change impacts.
Livestock data, for example, are essential for informing policy analyses, managing ecosystems, promoting economic growth, and sustaining the livelihoods of the poor. Another example is multiple cropping which is a common and widespread management strategy in tropical and subtropical agriculture which allows for crop intensification and can lower the risk of crop failure. The occurrence of multiple cropping systems influences ground coverage, soil erosion, albedo, soil chemical properties, pest infestation and the carbon sequestration potential.We employ a mixed scales approach using global gridded land use and agriculture data sets and agricultural surveys on the farm scale. In a first step global data sets are used as input for a hierarchical classification of the dominant land use. Cropland in each grid cell is then sub-divided into physical areas of individual cropping systems using a global cropping calendars. In a second step we further refine the level of crop-livestock interaction in grid cells that are classified as crop-pasture mosaics using agricultural surveys.
Climate change is causing an increasing risk of water scarcity in cities. At a global scale, water demand is estimated to exceed supply by 40% by 2030, and 4 billion people are expected to live in water-stressed areas, many of them in urban areas. Climate change induced droughts and rising temperatures exacerbate these localized water scarcities. However, the problem is not an overall lack of renewable water resources, but rather significant cases of local scarcity due to a mismatch of available freshwater and population concentrations. Competition for water resources among urban and rural water users is the result. The hydrological consequences are increased risk of less reliable reservoirs and reduced groundwater recharge.
Policies for water demand management (WDM) have evolved in recent decades as an essential adaptation strategy for more sustainable water management. They help to increase both quantity and quality of available water in cities. This case study identifies what WDM policies have been most effective in conserving water in four cities with a low per capita residential water usage: Berlin, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; Tallinn, Estonia; and Zaragoza, Spain. A mixed-methods approach is used to identify successful WDM policies, including a questionnaire for water utility officials, semi-structured interviews, and review of secondary data and sources of information. Results indicate that a variety of different WDM policies contributed to decreasing household water use in each city. Renovation and maintenance of networks, and campaigns for water-saving technologies are considered to have been most effective, followed by universal installation of water meters, rapid leak detection, public awareness campaigns, and municipal regulations. Tariff reforms are rarely mentioned as having a significant impact. However, too low a level of urban water use, relative to the size of water network infrastructure, can lead to new technological, health, and financial risks.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S6.
Approximately 29 million people reside in Caribbean and Pacific SIDS, 4.2 million of whom reside in low-elevation coastal zones (LECZs) located less than 10 meters above the sea level. The estimated cost of damage to critical infrastructure, settlements, livelihoods, and cultural traditions resulting from impacts such as sea level rise will have massive economic and social implications for many SIDs. Adapting and improving the resilience of human settlements in coastal zones, especially those experiencing rapid urbanisation, remains critical to the delivery of many of the SDGs. Current conflicting dialogue between the need for economic expansion through blue growth and the push for sustainability through measured development is intensified by the inherent landscape of SIDs.
Island states are often at the forefront of innovative solutions and collective action to global environmental change because of their profound understanding of the connectivity between cause and effect. Both the landscape and the populations are uniquely tuned to agents of change. This means, in addition to being leaders on the global stage, SIDs offer increasingly important social learning platforms both locally as well as for other geographical locations.
This presentation focusses on drawing testable hypotheses on collective behavior change toward sustainable futures from observations of community efforts to engage more effectively with sustainable and resilient pathways of human development on SIDs. One of the lenses through which to examine specific cases of community change efforts is that of emotionally resonant narratives that have played a significant role in the acceptance or rejection of knowledge relevant to the SDGs in different contexts. This presentation will look at what knowledge do we need from and for stakeholders in communities affected by or at risk of climate change impacts. How best can case studies be used to support and enhance the interface between local, traditional, and often tacit knowledge at the community level and scientific data?
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S3.
Major biological changes in marine ecosystems have been associated with anthropogenic climate change in the past and into the future. The impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems include global and regional changes in primary production, species distribution and abundance, with significant consequences for marine ecosystem structure and functioning (SDG 14: Life below water). Additionally, anthropogenic climate change is expected to affect resource availability, fishing operations, fisheries profits as well as fisheries management (SDG 2: Zero hunger, SDG 3: Good health and well-being). How these changes may play out on an ocean-basin scale is largely unknown. Here, we use ensemble projections within the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FISH-MIP) to examine variability of fish production in response to past and projected climate scenarios. On an ocean basin scale, we then compare spatial and temporal patterns in fish production to understand the effects of projected changes on marine fisheries as well as to inform adaptation and mitigation strategies in the context of effective future marine resource management (SDG 13: Climate action).
Especially the ambitious goal of reducing the global average temperature increase to a level of 1.5 degrees Celsius may generate complex interacting impacts of land-use and climate change: One of the measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels is the massive expansion of renewable energies, among which bioenergy crops are an important component. Hence, even though meeting the 1.5°C target would probably reduce the direct impacts of climate change on species and biodiversity, it will lead to a widespread increase in the area needed for the growing biofuel demand, which can be anticipated to contribute significantly to global land-use change and thus to increased impacts for biodiversity.
Here, we will evaluate the potential future impacts of climate and land-use change for the global biodiversity of terrestrial vertebrates under an average temperature increase of 1.5°C, especially in comparison with other warming scenarios. We will set a particular focus on the interaction between potential effects from changes in climatic conditions (using species distribution models for amphibians, birds and mammals) and from varying increases of the cultivation area for bioenergy crops under different climate change scenarios.
Climate change and variability has the potential to significantly affect livelihoods and economies across the globe. Changes in regional climate regimes, including the shifting pattern of extreme climate events, will have implications for ecosystems, human health, physical assets, industrial operations, supply chains and infrastructure. The continuing integration of the global economy means that an increasing number of stakeholders are exposed to the disruptive effects of climate-related events. The disruption of supply chains can prompt cascade effects through space and time, with implications for business and society.
Governments, businesses and communities face major challenges in managing and mitigating the risks posed by climate change. Understanding the physical exposure to climate change is just one component. It is also important to assess societal resilience and institutional capacity to adapt to climate change. Verisk Maplecroft responds to these challenges by providing organisations with decision support tools. Here, we present our Climate Change Vulnerability Index which assesses the susceptibility of human populations to the impacts of climate variability and change across 191 countries at the sub-national level. Along with identifying the most vulnerable societies in the world, we analyse the key climate impacts facing these cities and countries. Many of these locations are found in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia and are expected to undergo significant economic growth in the coming years. Investment in these markets is therefore accompanied by an increase in risk exposure to climate change, including to operations, supply chains and consumer bases.
Quantifying heat stress impacts on economic productivity from projected climate change is a challenging issue. To tackle this problem we implemented the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature within the Community Land Model framework to measure the magnitude of agricultural heat stress. Our approach aims to directly connect physical climate system and economic outcomes. We sum the time exposed to outdoor heat stress, and use the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to calculate worker productivity. With agricultural worker productivity in hand, we input the results directly into the Simplified International Model of Agricultural Prices, Land Use and the Environment (SIMPLE). SIMPLE exchanges crops on an international trade market that factor in land productivity, land prices, and land use, to generate a world crop price. Global shocks to labor have a non-linear impact on crop prices. Even a small shock of 5% can raise prices by 8%. The demand for land increases in attempt to cope with this loss of productivity. Heat stress has a primary effect of preventing famers from working, but the secondary effects of heat stress lead to income losses and crop price increases. Our results show that heat stress has potentially crippling impacts on worker productivity, crop prices, and food security. This work impacts 12 of 17 United Nations Sustainability Development Goals, ranging from no poverty and hunger to sustainable cities. Heat stress highlights the need for comprehensive research and communication between researchers and stakeholders.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S7.
Global climate change is affecting the weather patterns and increased episodes of high intensity rainfall which many a times result in flash floods, landslides etc. Developing nations are less equipped to tackle this situation. Cities are not planned and managed with sensitivity towards environmentally fragile areas. Generically, in most of the cities, the low lying areas are prone to natural disasters and are usually habitat by economically weaker sections. Due to disparity in urban planning, push them away from the city core. Chennai, a coastal mega-city in Tamil Nadu State of India, about 609 km², frequently faces flooding due to heavy intensity rains. The devastating floods that hit Chennai city and other parts of Tamil Nadu during November - December 2015 have claimed more than 400 lives and caused enormous economic damages. Increase in urbanization, illegal and legalized occupation on wet lands, unregulated construction along river banks, encroachment on water bodies were some of the key factors responsible for the Chennai flood disaster. In short, a lot of factor that neglected sensitivity of planning and failure to understand the natural system resulted in the disaster. Poor urban planning and lack of environmental planning has resulted in heavy loss of human life and property in Chennai. Though urbanization is inevitable, we have to methodically understand the challenges of climate change and plan the city as resilient settlements to the threatening phenomenon. Environmental planning as a tool will help to understand the reasons for natural disasters and also achieve inclusive planning. Sustainable Development can not only be achieved through safeguarding human settlements, but also by deriving strategies for conservation of natural systems through systematic planning of natural resources. Both the networks, natural system and human settlements, should run parallel and complement each other.
Here we investigate crop yield projections for four major staple crops at 1.5°C and 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels from a set of global gridded crop models (GGCMs) using climate forcing data from the Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts (HAPPI) project. The unique multi-ensemble layout allows us to assess different sources of uncertainty including internal variability on future crop yields and to assess changes in extreme yield losses with multi-year return periods. We will assess changes in crop productions on the global and regional level and identify hot spots of change.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S8.
Vulnerability of a city’s residents to climate change is differentiated across various axes. This is particularly significant in the context of Indian cities where the population is stratified across various social, economic and cultural factors. However, challenges remain in terms of enumeration. The UN Habitat agenda as well as the Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the critical need for data at the city level, disaggregated along key social and economic dimensions.
We present a Vulnerability Assessment that is based in Bangalore, India’s third largest city, with a population of 10 million. Our research is focused on informal settlements in Bangalore, that house the most vulnerable residents to the city, especially migrants. Our results are based on a household survey, rolled out across 1100 households across 31 informal settlements in Bangalore city. These 31 settlements were sampled across 4 distinctive clusters that were chosen on the basis of a geo-spatial analysis overlapping geographic, infrastructural and demographic features. The survey captures socio-economic and demographic information in addition to infrastructural and environmental data.
Using an indicator based approach, we have established an understanding of vulnerability to Climate Change deconstructing it into Exposure, Sensitivity and Adaptive Capacity, based on the IPCC framework. We then proceed to compare the vulnerability across various identified axes of differentiation such as caste grouping, migration status, linguistic grouping, occupation and residence status. The objective is to examine the intersectionality of various social, economic and environmental factors that interact to reinforce vulnerability to climate change. Our analysis reveals that first generation migrants, particularly those originally from different states of the country are rendered most vulnerable. Additionally, antecedent inequalities such as caste emerge as a significant factor and the Scheduled Castes, a historically disenfranchised community, are identified as the highly vulnerable to the impacts of Climate Change.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S4.
Urban water planning is a complex issue involving socioecological problems that transcend spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, institutional and management scales. On one hand, due to climate change, human populations are affected by sea-level rise and are facing the increased occurrence of natural disasters, including typhoons, floods, droughts, saltwater intrusion and landslides. One the other hand, due rapid urbanization, the demand of water through the agricultural, industrial and domestic sectors is not being met equally across the globe. According to the World Economic Forum, water is one of the most challenging global crises. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze water security in cities around the world. 'In deep water' will produce a vivid reflection of the vulnerability of human settlements in the face of climate change and rapid urbanization. The project will produce dynamic maps which rely on a multilayered analysis of data with the objective of visualizing the demographic, economic, technological and ecological challenges of safe water access. The information will draw from databases from the World Bank, the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and World Resources Institute, among others, to analyze trends of availability of freshwater sources, improved water coverage, water quality, water scarcity, water demand, and areas prone to water-borne infectious diseases, according to the economic development of countries, their human development index, gross domestic product, income, and received water aid from multilateral donor agencies. The analysis of these indicators will not only underline the fact that there is a limited amount of freshwater sources, but also point to the possible mismanagement of resources, led by modern unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Finally, this research will highlight the need of a cross-scale approach to sustainable urban water management with the ultimate goal of assisting selected Sustainable Development Goals and building resilience in cities in the Global South.
To tackle climate change and to safeguard the environment for generations to come while securing the world’s future economic growth are cornerstones of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We consider Ecosystem Services and Climate Services as key players play in securing these goals.
Well-managed ecosystems can help societies to adapt to future climate change. To sustain benefits - known as Ecosystem Services – from ecosystems under climate change and to apply relevant adaptation actions, ecosystem managers and policy makers need to know about the impacts affecting their provision. Given the increasing importance of Ecosystem Services and management in adapting and responding to climate change impacts, Climate Services play a key role in supporting the decision process.
Climate Services play a major role as being part of the solution by providing climate information and products in a way that assists decision-making by individuals and organizations. Climate Services are based on appropriate engagement with
users along with effective access mechanisms and respond to their needs.We will present a compilation of requirements from Ecosystem Services on Climate Services. This compilation encompasses a large-scale projects’ review but also survey results and GERICS’s experiences with users. This is the starting point for mutual actions and to successfully co-develop adaptation strategies and to ensure a continuous provisioning of Ecosystem Services. The follow-up step will be to transform the gathered list of requirements into a service product that enables the managers of Ecosystem Services to effectively adapt to climate change.
Green economy is one of the main topics in the sustainable development agenda of the United Nations. In 2008, the South Korean government started to promote ‘green growth’ as their new policy paradigm which was claimed to help Korea reduce carbon emissions and adapt to the changing climate. However, the 'Four Rivers Project', the major adaptation project undertaken within the green growth policy was criticized by many environmentalists and scholars in South Korea. The project consisted of building dams and dredging the riverbed and the opponents argued that it would not result in sustainable adaptation. Although the project was controversial, it was received positively by a number of international organizations such as UNEP and OECD. The gap between the domestic and international responses implies the significant role of framing in adaptation policy process. This poses a challenge to the Sustainable Development Goals implementation at national and sub-national levels. Since some indicators of the SDGs (particularly Goal 13) largely depend on qualitative assessments undertaken by national governments, there is a risk that the powerful actors’ frame can significantly influence the assessment results, while weak voices in the national politics are not reflected. This leads us to ponder on how SDG indicators in relevant to climate change can take climate justice into account while they remains robust and efficient. This study compares the discourses on the Four Rivers Project which were used in South Korea by political actors so that the framing strategies and the dynamics in adaptation policy process could be understood. The implication of the Korean case to the SDG indicator system is also analysed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed with discourse and institutional analysis frameworks. This is a part of an ongoing doctoral research project.
For a sample of 4000 urban agglomerations we investigated the possibility of regional food production to reduce dependency on global trade, increase local food security (SDG 2) and reducing poverty (SDG 1). Additionally we examined the main influencing factors which lead to a sustainable food supply, such as population growth, urban sprawl, diets - both in terms of quantity and composition as well as climate change.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S10.
The paradigm of climate change as a transformation challenge positions climate change both as an amplifier and symptom of contemporary social, economic and environmental crises and problems. It highlights that responses to climate change cannot be effective without understanding larger contexts of sustainability and resilience, thus reframing climate mitigation and adaptation from singular and technical issues towards contributing to sustainability and resilience transformations.
Finding integrated climate solutions challenges existing governance approaches. Despite the formulation of integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), existing approaches on global to local levels implement responses in fragmented ways based on siloed decision-making paradigms. This results in disconnected solutions that reinforce unsustainability lock-ins, exacerbate systemic risks and discount underlying social inequalities. Similarly, while climate governance has become increasingly polycentric and experimental, it remains unclear how the variety of actions by national to local and state and non-state actors can be coordinated and monitored towards shared goals such as the SDGs.
We present a capacities framework for climate governance that creates disruptive innovations (transformative capacity), destabilises existing unsustainable regimes (regenerating capacity), safeguards people and infrastructures from potential threats (stewarding capacity) and coordinates multiple efforts across scales and sectors in line with an overarching sustainability and resilience vision (orchestrating capacity). We deconstruct how these capacities develop and play out in climate governance in New York City and Rotterdam – two frontrunners in addressing climate change, sustainability and resilience.
The way these capacities are built and interact signifies new approaches to organising climate governance that moves beyond single innovative programmes and solutions, building on on-going experimentation and learning; hybrid networks across scales, sectors and societal spheres; and spaces and channels for collaboration and coordination. Our insights can provide important directions for further exploring new types of governance on global to local levels for developing and implementing transformative climate solutions.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S6.
Pastoralists of the region live in fragile ecosystems that are continually affected by drought and desertification. Indeed, mobility becomes key to the pastoral risk management strategy and resilience. However, such traditional pastoralism is under ecological and political stress which is forcing it to adapt a semi-sedentary mode of livelihoods. For instance, the evidence from the Kassala State, Eastern Sudan shows that pastoralist communities have opted for a semi-sedentary mode of livelihood where part of the family (wife, children and old folk) are permanently settled rearing small stock (sheep/goats) whereas men and older boys seasonally migrate with large stock (cattle/camels) to distant pastures. During the rainy season the men and boys return to the homesteads where they can feed their animals and cultivate their land.
There are a number of major factors that are playing key role challenging traditional pastoralist productions systems and pressurising them to take alternative adaptive strategies. Among others land-grabbing of pastoral areas; expansion of agriculture, the invasion of grazing land by Prosopis, prolonged droughts, conflicts and famine have been negatively impacting pastoralist livelihoods and their production systems. Indeed, these forced pastoralists to modify their way of living by moving to settle in arable areas or mixing crop-livestock productions. However, the underlying challenges have created emerging livelihood opportunities resulted in from adopting multiple survival strategies.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S2.
Much of the take-away lessons from this course and the research done by students and staff at the IGDS indicate that indicate that gender and climate change mainstreaming is still an uphill task for many Caribbean islands. While climate mainstreaming is a priority for many of the small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean gender is not seen as important. Gender is linked to much of the overseas climate and development funding earmarked for the region but is the region doing more than just token measures to mainstream gender and is there sufficient capacity to get this effectively done? This presentation will explore some of these questions and highlight best practices and strategic partnerships.
Rangelands in North Africa provide vital ecosystem services and play an important role in absorbing CO2 as a global carbon sink. In Tunisia rangelands cover 4.5 million hectares, about 25% of the country’s total landmass, the majority of which encompasses arid areas the majority of which encompasses arid areas. Managing rangelands sustainably presents a complex challenge for communities that depend on rangelands for their livelihoods and for local authorities and policymakers who regulate land use. For centuries, herders have relied on mobility and common use of rangelands as an effective adaptation strategy for coping with drought affected areas. However, the traditional common rangelands governance system (comparable to the hima system of the Middle East), which has defined rangeland resting periods and access for entitled user groups in order to preserve resources has now been replaced by a de facto “free for all situation”, where access to rangelands cannot be managed or controlled in the traditional manner, and thus resulting in uncontrolled cultivation with barley, overstocking and overgrazing. Rain-fed farming is not sustainable on common rangelands as it increases erosion and soil degradation. An additional concern is that olive trees are planted in rangeland areas not suitable for orchards, as a way of de facto appropriating land. The current civil legislation in North African countries does not effectively support the needs of the dryland communities. Institutional overlap in ministries and agencies that manage land makes it difficult for local administration to attain comprehensive and integrated land management activities. As a result, rangeland degradation is exacerbated by the absence of rangeland governance schemes which empower the local pastoral communities to responsibly manage their rangelands and exclude non-permitted users. New initiatives providing institutional support at Ministry level aim to make common dryland rangelands more resilient through policy change related to common rangeland. In Tunisia a process of policy change through a new pastoral code is currently ongoing. It is intended that the entire Tunisian nation will benefit by reducing the embedded costs caused by rangeland degradation and through an enhanced negotiation culture related to common natural resources. However, it is a fragile and extremely complex process and can only be successful if it is set up in a participatory manner involving all stakeholders.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S2.
Changes in agricultural yield due to future climate change will affect land use, production volume, and prices in the agriculture sector, as well as macroeconomic indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP). There have been many studies of food prices and food security using economic models. It is important to understand the economic impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector to determine cross-sectoral total climate damage and the potential for comparable adaption. However, the macroeconomic effects of changes in agricultural yield are not well understood in terms of: 1) uncertainties regarding land-use adaptation (yield calculation method), 2) the amplitude of the CO2 fertilization effect, 3) the use of multiple climate models, and 4) the level of mitigation policy. This study considered these four key factors and clarified macroeconomic impacts due to crop yield changes using a novel integrated assessment framework consisting of a global gridded crop model, an economic model, and a land-use allocation model. It was found that the CO2 fertilization effect and land-use adaptation did not lead to distinct differences in the macro economy, and were smaller (0.02 - 0.06% of GDP) in amplitude than the economic impacts of climate change in other sectors, such as human health. However, the impacts on the agricultural sector varied greatly depending on socioeconomic assumptions, and these factors had a greater influence (0.6%) under a pessimistic world scenario, characterized by a large population increase and low income. The differences between a temperature rise of 1.5 and 2.0°C were not clearly identified and, therefore, further studies with more climate information are required.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S8.
The Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel region are projected to experience substantial changes in mean annual temperature and hydrological behavior due to global climate change. These changes could challenge livelihoods especially of rural populations dependent on agriculture and ecosystem services. Here we use an ensemble of global climate and impacts models to quantify climate change impacts on the hydrology and agricultural potential and the hydrology of the MENA and Sahel regions. Besides changes in average quantities, we particularly focus on extreme events such as droughts or bad harvests, and quantify changes in their occurrence at different levels of global warming. The results may inform the study of potential individual and societal responses to regional climate change, including migration and conflict risk.
Safeguarding river ecosystems is a precondition for attaining the UN Sustainable Develop- ment Goals (SDGs) related to water and the environment, while rigid implementation of such policies may hamper achievement of food security. River ecosystems provide life-supporting functions that depend on maintaining environmental flow requirements (EFRs). Here we establish gridded process-based estimates of EFRs and their violation through human water withdrawals. Results indicate that 41% of current global irrigation water use (997 km3yr−1) occurs at the expense of EFRs. If these volumes were to be reallocated to the ecosystems, half of globally irrigated cropland would face production losses of ≥10%, with ∼20-30% of total country production especially in Central and South Asia. However, we explicitly show that improvement of irrigation practices can widely compensate for such losses on a sustainable basis. Integration with rainwater management can even achieve a 10% global net gain. Such management interventions are highlighted to act as a pivotal target in supporting the implementation of the ambitious and seemingly conflicting SDG agenda.
This poster is related to the topics covered in workshop S6.
The Paris Climate Agreement entered into force in November 2016. Over 110 countries, accounting for over 75 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, ratified the agreement in record time, establishing a new regime for efforts to protect the climate. Iran may introduce emissions trading to curb consumption of fossil fuels and cut its carbon emissions. The country is among the world’s top 15 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases because of its huge oil, gas and petrochemical industries, while cars and trucks also help swell its carbon footprint. The Islamic Republic’s experience of carbon trading so far has been limited to the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, which enables carbon reduction projects in developing countries to earn money by selling offsets to rich countries with binding targets. The challenge is daunting, especially for developing countries, because governments need to shift their development pathways to net zero emissions before the end of the century. At the same time, they need to ensure that this shift does not hamper economic prosperity. The right policies and regulations need to be in place to mark the path to achieve these two goals. With clear policies and regulations, stakeholders will have a common ground and clear direction to develop and implement on-the-ground projects that contribute to the achievement of net zero carbon economies and economic prosperity. However, an enabling environment is not enough. This paper reviewed barriers and opportunities in implementing Iran commitments in Paris agreement as a country with oil dependent economy.