How harmful are restrictions on adapting to climate change?     

Kelly C. de Bruin  Rob B. Dellink 《Global Environmental Change》2011,21(1):34-45

The dominant assumption in economic models of climate policy remains that adaptation will be implemented in an optimal manner. There are, however, several reasons why optimal levels of adaptation may not be attainable. This paper investigates the effects of suboptimal levels of adaptation caused by different types of adaptation restrictions, on the composition and level of climate change costs and on welfare. We find that especially restrictions to the effectiveness of adaptation at more extreme levels of climate change can be very harmful. Furthermore we show that the potential of mitigation to offset suboptimal adaptation varies from being essential in case adaptation becomes ineffective at higher temperature increases, to being largely ineffective in case of short-term inaction. However, in all cases the short-term recommendation is to increase mitigation levels slightly above what is normally recommended, and to keep mitigation policies flexible enough to be able to respond when adaptation restrictions become more prominent. It is clear that by reducing adaptation restrictions, in combination with adjusting the optimal level of mitigation may keep the costs of adaptation restrictions limited, and thus generally it is very harmful to ignore existing restrictions on adaptation when devising (efficient) climate policies.  相似文献   

Embedding complex hydrology in the regional climate system – Dynamic coupling across different modelling domains     

《Advances in water resources》2014

To improve our understanding of the impacts of feedback between the atmosphere and the terrestrial water cycle including groundwater and to improve the integration of water resource management modelling for climate adaption we have developed a dynamically coupled climate–hydrological modelling system. The OpenMI modelling interface is used to couple a comprehensive hydrological modelling system, MIKE SHE running on personal computers, and a regional climate modelling system, HIRHAM running on a high performance computing platform. The coupled model enables two-way interaction between the atmosphere and the groundwater via the land surface and can represent the lateral movement of water in both the surface and subsurface and their interactions, not normally accounted for in climate models. Meso-scale processes are important for climate in general and rainfall in particular. Hydrological impacts are assessed at the catchment scale, the most important scale for water management. Feedback between groundwater, the land surface and the atmosphere occurs across a range of scales. Recognising this, the coupling was developed to allow dynamic exchange of water and energy at the catchment scale embedded within a larger meso-scale modelling domain. We present the coupling methodology used and describe the challenges in representing the exchanges between models and across scales. The coupled model is applied to one-way and two-way coupled simulations for a managed groundwater-dominated catchment, the Skjern River, Denmark. These coupled model simulations are evaluated against field observations and then compared with uncoupled climate and hydrological model simulations. Exploratory simulations show significant differences, particularly in the summer for precipitation and evapotranspiration the coupled model including groundwater and the RCM where groundwater is neglected. However, the resulting differences in the net precipitation and the catchment runoff in this groundwater dominated catchment were small. The need for further decadal scale simulations to understand the differences and insensitivity is highlighted.  相似文献   

Sharing the burden of financing adaptation to climate change     

Rob Dellink  Michel den Elzen  Harry Aiking  Emmy Bergsma  Frans Berkhout  Thijs Dekker  Joyeeta Gupta 《Global Environmental Change》2009,19(4):411-421

Climate change may cause most harm to countries that have historically contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change. This paper identifies consequentialist and non-consequentialist ethical principles to guide a fair international burden-sharing scheme of climate change adaptation costs. We use these ethical principles to derive political principles – historical responsibility and capacity to pay – that can be applied in assigning a share of the financial burden to individual countries. We then propose a hybrid ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ approach as a promising starting point for international negotiations on the design of burden-sharing schemes. A numerical assessment of seven scenarios shows that the countries of Annex I of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would bear the bulk of the costs of adaptation, but contributions differ substantially subject to the choice of a capacity to pay indicator. The contributions are less sensitive to choices related to responsibility calculations, apart from those associated with land-use-related emissions. Assuming costs of climate adaptation of USD 100 billion per year, the total financial contribution by the Annex I countries would be in the range of USD 65–70 billion per year. Expressed as a per capita basis, this gives a range of USD 43–82 per capita per year.  相似文献   

Structure, agency and environment: Toward an integrated perspective on vulnerability   总被引：6，自引：1，他引：5  

Paul McLaughlin  Thomas Dietz   《Global Environmental Change》2008,18(1):99-111

We review five perspectives on human vulnerability to environmental change—biophysical, human ecological, political economy, constructivist and political ecology—and assess their respective strengths and weaknesses. While each of these perspectives offers important insights, and some theoretical convergence is evident, the field remains divided along a number theoretical fracture lines. Two deeply rooted metatheoretical assumptions—essentialism and nominalism—are hindering the construction of a more integrated perspective on vulnerability, one capable of addressing the interrelated dynamics of social structure, human agency and the environment. We conclude by suggesting that an evolutionary perspective on social change, grounded in a critical realist epistemology, provides the best prospect for avoiding the above pitfalls and advancing our understanding of vulnerability.  相似文献   

Fragmentation of rangelands: Implications for humans, animals, and landscapes   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

N. Thompson Hobbs  Kathleen A. Galvin  Chris J. Stokes  Jill M. Lackett  Andrew J. Ash  Randall B. Boone  Robin S. Reid  Philip K. Thornton   《Global Environmental Change》2008,18(4):776

Fragmentation of the ecosystems of the earth into spatially isolated units has emerged as a primary component of global change. Often, fragmentation results from actions that are intended to enhance human livelihoods and well-being; however, there are often costs to ecosystems and human economies that are not considered. We describe the three general categories of processes causing fragmentation of rangelands worldwide: dissection, decoupling, and compression. We show that access to heterogeneity of landscapes is an important attribute of grazing ecosystems worldwide, and that fragmentation of these systems, even when it proceeds in the absence of habitat loss, can limit options of people and animals, options that are particularly important in temporally heterogeneous environments. We discuss the consequences of fragmentation for people, livestock, wildlife, and landscapes and describe potential adaptations that can mitigate its harmful outcomes. We close by reviewing policy options that promote re-aggregation of landscapes and adaptation to fragmentation.  相似文献   

Stakeholders’ views in reducing rural vulnerability to natural disasters in Southern Mexico: Hazard exposure and coping and adaptive capacity   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Sergio O. Saldaa-Zorrilla 《Global Environmental Change》2008,18(4):583

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Farmers’ coping response to the low flows in the lower Yellow River: A case study of temporal dimensions of vulnerability     

Chunling Liu  Dominic Golding  Gang Gong   《Global Environmental Change》2008,18(4):543

Water scarcity in northern China has been a topic of concern in China for many years, but the increased frequency and duration of “no-flow” events in the Yellow River in the 1990s created a flurry of recent activity in the academic and policy arenas. These low-flow events severely disrupted the supply of irrigation water for agriculture in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and posed a substantial threat to farmers’ livelihoods. Within a broader effort to assess farmers’ vulnerability to water shortages, this qualitative research focuses on the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies adopted by farming households in three villages in Shandong Province (Ma, Ding, and Xing). With increasing water stress and other stresses from land degradation and lack of market access, farmers’ coping mechanisms have evolved, expanding from one-time adjustments to long-term adaptations, and switching focus from securing reliable water sources to improving irrigation efficiency and diversifying both on-farm and off-farm production. The three villages have different vulnerability profiles and adopted different patterns of adaptive processes that reveal the key roles played by community leaders and the early innovators. The research presented here contributes a temporal and dynamic dimension to the study of vulnerability which is largely missing from the current literature, and provides practical insights about how to improve farmers’ adaptive capacities in the face of water shortages in northern China.  相似文献   

从吉林省安图县案例看人类对全球变化适应的行为心理学研究   总被引：8，自引：0，他引：8  

田青  方修琦  乔佃锋 《地球科学进展》2005,20(8):916-919

应用行为心理学理论和方法,从气候变暖的环境“刺激”到农业种植行为改变的“反应（响应行为）”的全部适应行为过程,涉及刺激、认知、辨识、选择、反馈等环节,需要解决的关键科学问题包括：①人类如何感知和辨识全球变暖及其影响;②哪些因素怎样影响人类适应行为的发生;③人类适应行为的评价与反馈机制。对安图县实例的分析可以看出,一方面很好地验证了该研究思路;另一方面却也反映出,此类研究需要建立在一系列对典型区域进行个案取证调查的实证研究基础上。  相似文献   

Solutions to blue carbon emissions: Shrimp cultivation,mangrove deforestation and climate change in coastal Bangladesh     

《Marine Policy》2017

In Bangladesh, export-oriented shrimp farming is one of the most important sectors of the national economy. However, shrimp farming in coastal Bangladesh has devastating effects on mangrove forests. Mangroves are the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics, and blue carbon (i.e., carbon in coastal and marine ecosystems) emissions from mangrove deforestation due to shrimp cultivation are accumulating. These anthropogenic carbon emissions are the dominant cause of climate change, which in turn affect shrimp cultivation. Some adaptation strategies including Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA), mangrove restoration, and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) could help to reduce blue carbon emissions. Translocation of shrimp culture from mangroves to open-water IMTA and restoration of habitats could reduce blue carbon emissions, which in turn would increase blue carbon sequestration. Mangrove restoration by the REDD+ program also has the potential to conserve mangroves for resilience to climate change. However, institutional support is needed to implement the proposed adaptation strategies.  相似文献   

Analysis on the Feasibility and Pathway of Integrating Ecosystem Service into Climate Change Governance Solution     

He Xiaojia  Wang Min  Feng Xiangzhao 《地球科学进展》2017,32(5):560-567

Climate change mitigation and adaptation based on the ecosystem services, used as the fundamental part of climate change strategy, can help make more cost effective and more sustainable climate change solutions. The article analyzed the necessity and the feasibility of combination of ecosystem service and climate change strategy, and put forward the way of cooperation between mitigation and adaptation through the ecosystem approach. Based on the above analysis, we reached the conclusion of taking the knowledge involved with ecosystem services into the efforts of tackling climate change timely and of achieving synergies by maintaining and improving a healthy ecosystem, which would not only just help ease the problems of climate change, but also bring in new opportunities and development space.  相似文献