Climate Resilience and Sustainability最新文献

This study analyses the socioeconomic resilience of local communities in Fiji in the face of climate change-induced hazards. Drawing upon two comprehensive datasets, we computed the households’ socioeconomic resilience capacity index (SERCI), following the FAO's Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis II (RIMA-II) methodology. Our findings revealed that the socioeconomic resilience of Fijian households exhibited an improvement from 1996 to 2007, followed by a stagnation period between 2007 and 2014. iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) households demonstrated lower asset-based socioeconomic resilience compared to other ethnic groups across the two decades we analysed. Nonetheless, accounting for the role of social capital in the socioeconomic resilience capacity of households substantially reduced the gap between the resilience capacity of the different ethnic groups, as iTaukei households demonstrated higher level of social capital than other ethnic groups. Our results underline that in societies such as those in Fiji where social networks play an important role in times of emergencies and disaster, omitting social capital from the analysis of socioeconomic resilience capacity could lead to flawed policies. Our findings call for holistic approaches that account for social as well as economic aspects of resilience to gain a clearer understanding of the socioeconomic resilience capacity of communities prone to the impacts of climate change.

The Congo Basin in Central Africa is home to the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon. These forests sequester more carbon than any other tropical forest both in the above-ground biomass and in the world's largest peat deposits, located in the Cuvette Centrale. These ecosystems are important for biodiversity and the livelihoods and wellbeing of local people, and they play a crucial role in local, regional and global water cycles.

This interdisciplinary analysis of climate change and biodiversity sciences was used to bring together multiple sources of information to assesses the hazard, exposure and vulnerability dimensions of climate risks to Central Africa's forests and the people who live there. Tailored climate information was developed by integrating multiple sources of climate data and literature reviews. This information was analysed alongside a review of biological diversity in the Congo Basin forests so that climate risks to the functioning of forest ecosystems could be assessed. It is clear that the possible impacts of climate change need to be understood alongside and in terms of interactions with a wide range of anthropic pressures in Central Africa.

The ecosystem services of Central Africa's forests are globally essential but face competing pressures and are undervalued in conventional economic terms. Oil and gas exploration is a challenge to global climate change mitigation agreements and to biodiversity. Hunting has led to defaunation in some areas, disturbing ecosystems and threatening iconic species. Unregulated logging and forest clearance for agriculture and oil palm plantations are also major threats to forest ecology and biodiversity.

The joint approach of this study demonstrates that integration of expertise is necessary to support climate mainstreaming and to meet the growing demand for evidence to inform protection strategies for biodiverse regions worldwide, particularly in observation sparse areas such as Central African forests.

Climate change is threatening the resilience of smallholder agroecosystems in semi-arid areas. Wetland agroecosystems provide critical life support and positive outcomes for people, nature and climate in semi-arid areas. Wetland shrinkage, degradation, species extinction and habitat loss have threatened livelihoods and ecosystems across the globe. The study aimed to determine climate change impacts on farmer-managed wetland agroecosystems and evaluate resilience-building strategies in semi-arid rainfall marginal areas, focusing on Nyororo wetland in Mberengwa district. A mixed method approach informed data collection and analysis, influenced by interpretivism and objectivism research philosophical underpinnings. The mixed methods approach enabled the study to benefit from multiple knowledge domains, including professional ecological knowledge (PEK), scientific ecological knowledge (SEK), bureaucratic ecological knowledge (BEK), technological ecological knowledge (TEK) and local ecological knowledge (LEK). Information gathered through semi-structured questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, secondary data, remote sensing and scientific measurements was synthesised to bring the resilience picture around wetland-based agroecosystems. The study findings on wetland degradation and climate change impacts on wetland agrobiodiversity included wetland shrinkage, an increase in invasive floral species by 25%, declining groundwater, reduced dryland cereal (Zea mays) production by 77.16% over a 41-year period, and the occurrence of crop pests and animal diseases, which had negative outcomes on wetland provisioning, regulatory services and ecosystem health. Resilience-building strategies, including adopting seasonal livelihood programmes, ecosystems-based adaptation (EbA) strategies such as wetland farming, protection of wetland water sources, harvesting wetland goods for selling and anticipatory action planning (AAP), including planting drought-tolerant, short-seasoned food crops, proved effective in the sustainable management of wetlands agroecosystems. The study recommended that financial mechanisms be tailored to suit the needs of local communities’ conservation and resilient livelihoods. The study recommends that stakeholders swiftly implement the promising wetland agroecosystem resilience-building strategies that bring positive outcomes for people, nature and climate.

An increasing number of cities in Germany and Europe are formulating adaptation strategies to address the consequences of climate change. Nevertheless, quantifying whether these strategies contribute to alterations in urban infrastructure and promote climate-sensitive urban development is challenging. This article aims to explore possible urban climate adaptation indicators (UCAIs) from literature suitable for assessing the implementation of heat- and water-sensitive urban development measures in local municipalities, with a focus on Germany. In addition to a literature review, workshops and discussions with experts from Germany complemented and deepened the indicator selection process. As a result, we identified 27 indicators, which were grouped into 5 key areas: (1) surface and urban overheating indicators; (2) building type and structure indicators; (3) green infrastructure indicators; (4) soil-sealing indicators; and (5) water-sensitive urban development indicators. Only a few manage to map several adaptation measures, avoiding conflicts with other urban planning objectives, can be derived for cities at the national level and show promise for capturing small-scale adaptation measures in the city. We concluded that, in particular, the green infrastructure and soil-sealing indicators, such as green cover, access to greenery and green supply have a high potential to meet heat- and water-sensitive urban development goals, while avoiding conflicts of objectives and trade-offs. Overall, this review underscores the necessity for additional research and testing to formulate practical and effective indicators for capturing heat- and water-sensitive aspects of urban development.

Comprehensive resilience planning and resilience-centered decision making at large, multinational companies is complex and not currently well-served by publicly available tools. Over the course of a year, researchers collaborated with US-based professionals from 14 global companies representing many different industries through a mixture of focus groups and individual meetings to co-construct a resilience tool that would serve their common resilience planning needs. This interactive geospatial map of the United States visualized and made interoperable publicly accessible data sets relevant to the physical and transition risks of climate change. At the end of the development process, semistructured interviews were conducted with industry professionals about the state of US-based industrial resilience planning in their respective companies and specific ways in which the tool could be used and further developed to assist such work. In this paper, we present a prototype of the tool and an overview of its development process. Through analysis of the tool's development and the post-development interviews, we additionally outline some considerations shaping resilience planning at large, multinational organizations, as well as explore the benefits of coproduction between research and industry for addressing complex, interdisciplinary problems such as climate change.

Most national assessments of climate change-related risks to agriculture focus on the productivity of existing crops. However, one adaptation option is to switch to alternative crops better suited to changing local climates. Spatially explicit projections of relative climatic suitability across a wide range of crops can identify which ones might be viable alternatives. Parametrising process-based models for multiple crops is complex, so there is value in using simpler approaches to ‘horizon scan’ to identify high-level issues and target further research. We present a horizon scan approach based on EcoCrop data, producing mapped changes in suitability under +2°C and +4°C warming scenarios (above pre-industrial), for over 160 crops across the United Kingdom. For the United Kingdom, climate change is likely to bring opportunities to diversify cropping systems. Many current and potential new crops show widespread increases in suitability under a +2°C warming scenario. However, under a +4°C scenario, several current crops (e.g. onions, strawberries, oats, wheat) begin to show declines in suitability in the region of the United Kingdom where most arable crops are currently grown. Whilst some new crops with increasing suitability may offer viable alternatives (e.g. soy, chickpea, grapes), the greatest average increases in suitability across crops occur outside the UK's current areas of greatest agricultural production. Realising these opportunities would thus be likely to require substantial changes to current farming systems and supply chains. By highlighting these opportunities and challenges, our approach provides potentially valuable information to farmers and national assessments.

In July 2022 southeast England experienced a record breaking heatwave and unprecedented wildfires in urban areas. We investigate fire weather trends since 1960 in southeast England using a large ensemble of initialised climate models. Record smashing temperatures coincided with widespread fires in London, and we find that while wildfire risk was high, it was not record breaking. We show that between the 1960s and 2010s annual maximum daily fire weather has increased. The proportion of summertime days with high and very high fire risk has increased—while medium and low risk days have become less common. These findings show the need to mitigate against the increasing risk of wildfire caused by climate change.

Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment is built on the latest science as well as learnings from other countries’ national risk assessments. The goal of the risk assessment was to identify the priority risks of climate change to Australia as a nation. Due to timeline obligations, this process needed to be completed in 4 months, a considerably shorter timeframe than other national climate risk assessments. In this paper, the authors share learnings from the process of implementing the first pass of Australia's National Climate Risk Assessment, which brought together more than 240 stakeholders across eight systems to co-develop a set of national priority risks. These learnings are used to provide recommendations and advice for working at the national scale and within short timeframes. First, a rapid climate risk assessment can bring together a significant diversity and range of stakeholders to engage in a national process and provide a broad perspective of the priorities that should be pursued. Second, the design of the process can provide multiple opportunities to iterate through drafts of risks in rapid succession. Third, bringing stakeholders into discussion across systems can increase understanding of how risks are connected and how future work could be pursued across systems for more effective risk management and adaptation planning. Our learnings help inform how future climate risk assessments can embrace the complexity of systemic risks and highlight the importance of building stakeholder networks to support both the risk assessment process and the adaptation work that follows.

This article's team of interdisciplinary researchers and conservation educator-practitioners learned with, and from, a group of women farmland-owners regarding how to conceptualize coproduced climate research by putting “care” at the center—care for the soil, for relationships, for data. We outline the creation and evolution of a storytelling-based conservation program that allowed our diverse group to discover how the language of care could integrate climate analysis, conservation, and relationship-building to foster tangible solutions. As a result of the project, the women landowners took actions that supported social-environmental resilience—from planting cover crops to fostering watershed/neighborhood relationships. Our diverse group of women landowners and researchers had very different experiences with conservation and often very different views on climate change itself, but, through storytelling and the language of care, we not only coproduced knowledge but also created relationships and action. This article outlines specific practices for how to inflect a coproduced process for climate resilience with practices that promote care and yield action projects.

Climate change impacts are wreaking havoc in South Africa, particularly in the Eastern Cape Province. Hence, adaptation strategies are essential tools in the Eastern Cape, as the province is among the most vulnerable regions to climate change impacts in South Africa. In response and to minimise the adverse impacts of climate change on socioeconomic factors and livelihoods, the post-apartheid South African government developed a policy framework for climate governance, with a focus on policy planning and adaptation. Although the policy sounds good and solution-driven, the implementation of the programme at local levels to achieve the desired goals remained a significant challenge due to institutional and capacity challenges. Using research methods inspired by the tradition of qualitative and quantitative research approach and existing literature, this article explored the complexities of evaluating and monitoring the adaptive capacity to climate change governance at a local government level in South Africa, focusing on the Eastern Cape Province. The findings of this article uncovered that the institutional and capacity challenges create an unconducive environment for an evaluation of institutional adaptive capacity to climate change at local government level in South Africa. The absence of a reliable system to assess the institutional adaptive capacity to climate change at local government level makes it difficult to compare the adaptive capacity of different institutions and allocate available resources in an adequate manner. The article recommends a broader discourse of the sustainable development goals, particularly goal number 13, which encourages the strengthening of resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change impacts.