Climate Services最新文献

Seasonal climate variability is a major source of crop production risk. The expected increase in climate variability and frequency of extreme events in the coming years and decades due to climate change will bring additional challenges for most commodities and geographies. In recent years, climatic anomalies and extreme weather events have impacted the major global breadbaskets. In many instances, the impact of these events could be unanticipated until a later time during the growing season or even until harvest, challenging existing crop yield forecasting programs and posing a significant threat to global food security. The Climate Information for Agriculture (CIFA) system was developed to identify, measure, and monitor the occurrence of climate anomalies and extreme weather events with the potential to affect crop production during the growing season in the continental USA. CIFA provides near real-time information during the growing season and facilitates the detection of compounded events, thus resulting in more informed decisions by stakeholders. Its capability to alert for the occurrence of extreme weather events was demonstrated in 2019, when a historical delay in planting activities impeded over 7 million hectares intended to be planted across the major U.S. cropping areas and again in 2020, when several abnormal events occurred in areas affected by unusual dryness and above-average temperatures in the U.S. Corn-Belt. CIFA not only contributes to enhancing crop forecasting systems but also serves as a valuable resource for academics and experts providing more reliable and accurate data for developing effective adaptation strategies.

Climate change induced precipitation changes can impact wastewater influent volumes and, in turn, the design and operation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). As influent volumes approach or exceeds the design capacity of the WWTP, the likelihood of poor treatment or untreated discharges that result in environmental damage, increases. To date, there has been a lack of research analysing the impact changes in precipitation may have on influent volumes of WWTPs with combined sewerage systems. This study leverages data driven models of observed precipitation and influent volumes for 14 Irish WWTPs with combined sewerage systems, to project monthly wastewater influent volumes in 2041 – 2060 using Ireland’s most up-to-date high resolution multi-model RCM projections under RCPs 4.5 and 8.5. With changing monthly average daily precipitation, influent volumes for all the WWTPs demonstrated maximum decreases during summer months for both RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. Winter months showed increasing trends in influent volumes, particularly under RCP 8.5. The results indicate that with projected increase in high and very high precipitation days in Ireland (under CMIP5), the return periods for influent volumes that exceed the hydraulic capacity of 5 of the WWTPs will reduce. This work also presents a framework by which newer high-resolution downscaled climate models can be used to developed updated impact analysis of changing rainfall patterns on wastewater. It likely that wastewater treatment infrastructure will need to adapt to more intense precipitation to minimise the occurrence of combined sewer overflows.

Increasing fire danger due to climate-driven fire weather changes has expanded demand for projections of future wildfire information for Canada. Addressing this need, we developed “CanLEAD-FWI,” consisting of novel, high-resolution projections of fire weather and an associated user-facing climate services delivery mechanism. Based on the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System (Van Wagner, 1987) with multivariate bias-adjusted output from the CanLEAD-CanRCM4-EWEMBI large ensemble (Cannon et al., 2021), CanLEAD-FWI provides various wildfire-relevant indicators. Comparison against two gridded observation-based datasets provides an estimate of observational uncertainty in historical FWI System component extremes, with historical CanLEAD-FWI generally situated between these two datasets. Over the 21st century, CanLEAD-FWI projects substantial, robust increases in the severity and frequency of high fire weather and a lengthening fire season across much of Canada, although the magnitude and spatial extent of increases depend on the metric and FWI System component.

To enhance data utility for decision-making and consider diverse user needs, we integrated two rounds of user engagement into product development. A web-based application was designed to address user feedback, support best practices, and reduce decision overload. CanLEAD-FWI addresses a growing need in the Canadian climate services space for both projected climate impact data and associated training and support. By combining user feedback, best practices for climate services, and expert knowledge, we aim to enhance the appropriate integration of fire weather information into long-term decision-making.

Climate change poses significant challenges for smallholder farmers worldwide, particularly in regions like sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, requiring effective coping strategies for resilience. This study examines farmers’ exposure to climatic shocks and their adoption of coping strategies. Findings from a survey of 646 farm households and qualitative discussions revealed farmers’ high vulnerability to climate-related hazards. Smallholder farmers rely on ex-ante coping strategies, including early planting (48.5%), income diversification (41.3%), increasing savings (42 %), water management (39.2%), and sowing drought-resistant varieties (37%). Similarly, they resort to ex-post coping techniques, such as reducing expenses (46.1%), utilizing savings (41.6%), changes in consumption patterns (39.5%), seeking assistance from relatives (23.5%), borrowing (17.6%), selling assets (11.9%), and migration for employment (8.7%). Farmers also encounter constraints such as limited access to weather information, inadequate extension services, weak institutional support, insufficient skills, high poverty levels, and limited access to innovations. Factors like land size, climate training, self-efficacy, cost-effectiveness perception, and hazard consequence perception positively influence farmers’ adoption of proactive strategies against climate change, while being male, older, less educated, owning a farm, limited access to extension services, and market constraints hinder anticipatory measures. Additionally, household head being male, education level, farm experience, land ownership, and access to climate information positively impact the implementation of ex-post strategies, whereas age, agroecology, infrequent extension worker visits, and limited road access have negative effects. Enhancing access to climate information, institutional support, and design policy with an understanding of these multifaceted contexts could substantially improve smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate change.

The primary objective of this study is to systematically review the literature on the diversification of agriculture practice as one of the many ways farmers in low-income countries can respond and adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change. To ascertain the rigor in its methodology, this systematic literature review (SLR) adhered to guidelines outlined in RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES); the research question was formulated based on the mnemonics of Population, Interest, and Context (PICo), the inclusion and exclusion criteria were based on timeline publication, document type, language, low-income countries and focused on reviewing empirical evidence studies; the quality was appraised based on Mixed Method Appraisal Tools (MMAT), while data extraction and analyses were executed using thematic analysis. The analytical outcomes yielded three main themes. First is the theme related to crops and varieties-related strategies, which consist of four sub-themes: early maturing crops, use of the drought-tolerant variety, abandoning crops, and introduction of new crop/crop rotation/crop diversity/mixed crop. The second theme is soil and water conservation techniques, which later produced another six sub-themes, namely the use of organic/inorganic fertilizer, water harvesting, irrigation and drainage, tree planting and agroforestry, terracing/contour farming to prevent soil erosion, mulching/stone barriers and agriculture mechanisation related activities. The last theme is planting-related strategies, which consist of three sub-themes: rescheduling the planting calendar, increasing pesticide/herbicide/integrated pest management, and selecting and expanding new areas. Referring to this SLR, there is a pressing need to facilitate farmers facing inadequate resources to adapt effectively to environmental and other change forms. Upon comprehending the present adaptation practices used by farmers, interested parties may offer ideas to strategize effective adaptation plans tailored to farmers’ needs, abilities, and interests across low-income countries.

Little is known about the predictors of access to and willingness to pay (WTP) for climate information services (CIS) by smallholder farmers in Mali. This paper addresses this research gap by identifying the opportunities and barriers to the uptake of CIS and analysing the predictors of access to and WTP for CIS from a gendered perspective using primary data collected from 200 rice farmers distributed in four rice-growing environments. We used descriptive statistics and logit regression to do the analysis. We find that crop variety selection was the most taken CIS-informed farm decision by farmers with a larger share for female farmers (65%) relative to their male counterparts (48%). Not clear how CIS can be used to help with farming was the main barrier to the uptake of CIS. Household struggles for food during the farming season, availability of stored seeds, access to irrigation facilities, access to training and radio were the major factors affecting male farmers’ access to CIS while the key predictors of access to CIS by female farmers included availability of stored seeds, access to irrigation facilities, remittances and access to radio. Male farmers’ WTP for CIS was mainly influenced by access to training and radio, while experience in rice farming and social organisation membership were the key determinants for female farmers’ WTP for CIS. The results from this study can be used by research and development organizations to design gender inclusive CIS to enhance adoption of climate smart agriculture practices, and farmers resilience to climate change.

Climate Services (CS) are increasingly being employed to address challenges resulting from climatic hazards. Research has focused on identifying and categorising CS, CS uptake, barriers to use, and CS user needs. Findings on empirical responses to CS are scattered. The aim of this paper is to systematically review existing literature on behavioural, perception, and attitude responses to CS, in the context of drought. Our review considers CS responses explicitly and is not limited to specific user groups or regions. Using the Web of Science database, we identified 88 journal articles containing terms related to CS, behaviour and droughts, published between 1999 and 2022. We identified and classified the characteristics of the CS, responses to CS, and the impacts that these responses had. We find that behavioural responses are reported more frequently than attitude and perception responses to CS. Half of the CS users consisted of farmers, mostly provided with seasonal forecasts, who respond to the CS information predominantly by changing crops or crop planting/harvesting dates. Non-farmers responded to CS behaviourally by enacting or developing plans, policies, or programs. This overview provides an evidence base towards the assessment of impacts of CS, and suggests that further developing CS could require a shift from providing precise climate or weather data, towards providing how climate or weather information relates to the decision-spaces of users.

In China, the major water user is agriculture. Under the background of climate change and with the pressure of scarce water resources, the study of crop water footprints serves as a theoretical basis for regional optimization of water resource management, fine-tuning crop planting structures and actively addressing the negative impacts of climate change on agricultural production, among other critical issues. Leveraging meteorological and agricultural data, we employed Taiyuan which is situated in Fen River Basin as our focal research subject and calculated and analyzed the water footprint variations concerning six major food crops—wheat, corn, grain, sorghum, soybean, and potato—from 2000 to 2020. Through meticulous examination, we identified the predominant contribution of blue water (45 %) to the total water footprint, followed by green water (39 %), with grey water playing the smallest role (16 %), indicating that the use of water for crops in the Fen River Basin mainly consumes surface water and groundwater. Our investigation reveals a complementary association between blue water and green water, while both blue water and grey water exhibit an overall declining tendency from 2000 to 2020. Moreover, our predictive modeling of food crop water footprints, considering various SSPs-RCPs scenarios refered from IPCC, points towards a peak within the coming 10–20 years, with a growth rate of 16.2 % to 33.0 %, followed by a subsequent decline. Particularly, in SSP3-7.0 scenario, the water footprint of food crops presents the highest, with a growth rate of up to 33.0 % because of the continuous growth of population and the increase of crop sowing area, while in SSP1-2.6 scenario, the water footprint of food crops shows the lowest, with a growth rate of 16.2 % because of the decrease in population and crop sowing area, before the middle of the current century.