scholarly journals Climate Change in Oceania – A synthesis of biodiversity impacts and adaptations.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard T Kingsford ◽  
James E M Watson

Climate change is already affecting many of the world’s ecosystems with far-reaching impacts. In this special issue, contributors focus on the current and projected impacts of climate change across different geographical regions of Oceania (Australia, Pacific Islands and New Zealand). In this synthesis, we examine how climate change is affecting the three main realms: terrestrial, freshwater (broadly including estuarine and inland saline systems) and marine. Within this context, we also examine general strategies for climate adaptation including reducing other threats (e.g., habitat loss and degradation), expanding protected areas, increasing connectivity, restoring habitat and translocations. We show that many of these general strategies will not overcome all the threats caused by climate change and specific solutions are likely to be necessary. Beyond the implementation of these strategies, there are significant future challenges which will hamper effective adaptation that need to be overcome by the scientific community. Our current understanding of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity remains poor; this is particularly true for poor nations in the region. There is also considerable uncertainty in forecasts of climate change, particularly at the local scale, and this uncertainty impacts pro-active planning. This makes effective implementation particularly challenging. Considerable focus is needed into ecosystem-based adaptation where local communities are integrally involved, allied with more active and accountable management of conservation, through adaptive management processes. The world is experiencing far reaching and long-term changes to ecosystems with major impacts on human communities, particularly in relation to ecosystem services. Our ability to develop effective adaptation strategies from the broad scale policy (e.g., emissions control) to local scale management (e.g., building resilience in ecosystems) will be significantly tested but the world is in an important period and scientists and practitioners need to keep trying different approaches and reporting their successes and failures to the wider community.

Author(s):  
Mali‘o Kodis ◽  
Marci Bortman ◽  
Sarah Newkirk

AbstractAs climate change accelerates the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, damage to public and private property is also increasing, putting exorbitant strain on governments and communities. Societies across the world are working to adapt to climate change, but climate adaptation is currently inadequate to meet the needs of the people left increasingly vulnerable and the places that risk being irreversibly changed or destroyed. One tactic of climate adaptation is strategic retreat, sometimes referred to as managed retreat. Strategic retreat is the process by which the government or another entity purchases (buys out) developed properties that are at risk of destruction or have been destroyed by natural disasters. The structure is most often demolished, and the land is placed under a permanent easement to prevent future development. What happens next is dependent on the entities involved in the buyouts, and can range from derelict, vacant lots to full restoration of ecosystems and their abilities to mitigate flood damage. Sometimes recreational amenities, such as trails or park infrastructure, are prioritized and funded as well. Conservation organizations can leverage their expertise in conservation planning, land acquisition and restoration, policy advocacy, and partnership development to improve the implementation of strategic retreat so that nature and people can thrive in the long term. In this policy paper, we review ways that conservation organizations have and can continue to engage in buyout processes to ensure positive outcomes for communities and nature. Conservation organizations must also evolve their approaches to climate adaptation to integrate equity and redress historical injustices in land use, and contribute towards improving strategic retreat for a more just and resilient future across disaster-prone communities. This work focuses on the context of disasters and climate adaptation in the USA, though many of the principles presented are applicable around the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P Van Den Hazel

Abstract The impacts of climate change are not distributed equally. Some people will experience natural disasters first hand, some will be affected more gradually over time, and some will experience only indirect impacts. There are data from the United nations that show the interest of youth on climate change. Close to half a million youth around the world have taken action on climate change through SGP [small grants programmes] projects in their homes, schools and communities. (UNDP, 2015). 84% of the surveyed young people agree that they need more information to prevent climate change. (UNEP, 2011). Furthermore, about 73% of surveyed youth say they currently feel the effects climate change. (UNEP, GlobeScan Survey, 2008). Some 89% of youth respondents say young people can make a difference on climate change. [UNEP, 2008]. But only 9% of youth are very confident the world will act quickly enough to address climate change. [UNEP, 2008]. Young people are key actors in raising awareness, running educational programmes, promoting sustainable lifestyles, conserving nature, supporting renewable energy, adopting environmentally-friendly practices and implementing adaptation and mitigation projects[UNFCCC]. Action by youth, as protest school strikes or speeches to the UN by Greta Thunberg, urge immediate action from governments, business leaders and school leaders. There are different reasons for this action by youth. The psycho-social impacts of a changing climate are generally under lighted in these reasons. Are the responses by society enough to minimize suffering and promote resilience of youth in the face of the challenging impacts of climate change? Or do governments and businesses enough while they increasingly seem to be moving toward action on climate change, as they proclaim to cut their own emissions or be active in their energy transition? It is not clear whether those actions are enough to satisfy the next generation of customers, employees and decision makers.


2021 ◽  

Abstract This book is a collection of 77 expert opinions arranged in three sections. Section 1 on "Climate" sets the scene, including predictions of future climate change, how climate change affects ecosystems, and how to model projections of the spatial distribution of ticks and tick-borne infections under different climate change scenarios. Section 2 on "Ticks" focuses on ticks (although tick-borne pathogens creep in) and whether or not changes in climate affect the tick biosphere, from physiology to ecology. Section 3 on "Disease" focuses on the tick-host-pathogen biosphere, ranging from the triangle of tick-host-pathogen molecular interactions to disease ecology in various regions and ecosystems of the world. Each of these three sections ends with a synopsis that aims to give a brief overview of all the expert opinions within the section. The book concludes with Section 4 (Final Synopsis and Future Predictions). This synopsis attempts to summarize evidence provided by the experts of tangible impacts of climate change on ticks and tick-borne infections. In constructing their expert opinions, contributors give their views on what the future might hold. The final synopsis provides a snapshot of their expert thoughts on the future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tendayi C. Garutsa ◽  
Chipo P. Mubaya ◽  
Leocadia Zhou

Background: Various studies on climate change treat men and women as unitary categories with contrasting needs. There is a dearth of studies which use a social inclusions lens to understand the impacts of climate change on gender. Other social markers that give an in-depth insight of the social differences within and between genders to the impacts of climate change are consequently ignored. Methods: Utilizing a mixed methods approach, this study aimed to explore and investigate the gendered crops grown as a climate adaptation strategy to respond to perennial droughts, increased temperatures and unreliable rainfall patterns amongst the Shona in Marondera rural district. Results: The findings indicated that social differences between gender lines like age, household types, income, education and employment status amongst other social variables produce differentiated vulnerabilities and potential opportunities towards climate adaptation. Conclusions: The main position advanced in this article is that treating gender as the primary cause of vulnerability produces a narrow analysis making other social markers (age, types of households, income and ethnicity) analytically invisible. This paper recommends a holistic and comprehensive analysis to inform climate change programming and policy frameworks. This would in turn address and improve climate adaptation strategies within and between genders which are often obscured to address the needs of all vulnerable members of a given economy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Attaher ◽  
M. A. Medany ◽  
A. F. Abou-Hadid

Abstract. The overall agricultural system in the Nile Delta region is considered as one of the highest intensive and complicated agriculture systems in the world. According to the recent studies, the Nile Delta region is one of the highly vulnerable regions in the world to climate change. Sea level rise, soil and water degradation, undiversified crop-pattern, yield reduction, pests and disease severity, and irrigation and drainage management were the main key factors that increased vulnerability of the agriculture sector in that region. The main objective of this study is to conduct a community-based multi-criteria adaptation assessment in the Nile Delta using a preset questionnaire. A list of possible adaptation measures for agriculture sector was evaluated. The results indicated that the Nile Delta growers have strong perceptions to act positively to reduce the impacts of climate change. They reflected the need to improve the their adaptive capacity based on clear scientific message with adequate governmental support to coop with the negative impacts of climate change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asako Iwami ◽  
Takanori Matsui ◽  
Michinori Kimura ◽  
Kenshi Baba ◽  
Mitsuru Tanaka

As the effects of climate change increase in severity, organizations across the world are attempting to measures to mitigate these effects. In accordance with the Paris Agreement of November 2015, wherein participating nations agreed to restrict the increase in global temperature below 2 °C, Japan has formulated guidelines on creating adaptation plans that can be implemented by local governments. A Climate Change Adaptive Information Platform was also launched to promote understanding and cooperation by sharing information on climate risks. However, the literature on this topic lacks information related to the organization of requirements and challenges faced by municipal administrative officials that formulate adaptation plans. To address these issues, we examined the four municipal forums hosted at Hosei University to encourage administrative needs for new technological ideas in areas such as climate modeling and impact assessment. We used text mining on the transcripts of the various workshops conducted in these forums and attempted to understand the changes in discussions and to extract issues related to the formulation process. The results showed that various topics, such as creating adaptation promotion systems, assessing the impacts of climate change, formulating adaptation plans, communicating with related organizations and stakeholders, developing human resources, and capacity building, were discussed, and a need for information, procedures, and assistance was identified for the formulation of feasible adaptation plans. This study is expected to provide a useful reference to stakeholders involved in framing adaptation plans to mitigate the effects of climate changes, particularly at the municipal level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 899-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nithya Natarajan ◽  
Katherine Brickell ◽  
Laurie Parsons

An emerging body of work has critiqued the concept of climate adaptation, highlighting the structural constraints impeding marginalised communities across the Global South from being able to adapt. This article builds on such work through analysis of debt-bonded brick workers in Cambodia, formerly small farmers. It argues that the detrimental impacts of climate change experienced by farmers-turned-workers across the rural – urban divide is due to their precarity. In doing so, this article draws on a conceptualisation of precarity which recognises it as emerging from the specific political economy of Cambodia, and as something that is neither new, nor confined to conditions of labour alone. As such, in looking to precarity as a means of conceptualising the relations of power which shape impacts of climate change, we advance a ‘climate precarity’ lens as a means of understanding how adaptation to climate change is an issue of power, rooted in a specific geographical context, and mobile over the rural–urban divide.


IAWA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-201
Author(s):  
Rayees Malik ◽  
Sergio Rossi ◽  
Raman Sukumar

Abstract Climate change is expected to be heterogeneous across the world, with high impacts on the Himalayan ecosystems. There is a need to precisely document cambial phenology and wood formation in these regions to better understand climate-growth relationships and how trees face a warming climate. This study describes the dynamics of cambial phenology in pindrow fir (Abies pindrow) along its altitudinal gradient in the Himalaya. The stages of xylem phenology, and the duration and rate of wood formation were assessed from anatomical observations during the growing season from samples collected weekly from three sites at various altitudes (2392–2965 m a.s.l.) over two years. There were significant differences in the duration and rate of cell formation along the altitudinal gradient, which decreased at increasing altitudes. The growing season duration decreased by 5.2 and 3.7 days every 100 m of increase in altitude in 2014 and 2015, respectively, while the rate of cell formation decreased from 0.38 and 0.44 cells /day to 0.29 and 0.34 cells/day in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Cell production decreased from 63.3 and 67.0 cells to 38.3 and 45.2 cells with a decrease of 4.3 and 3.8 cells per 100 m increase in altitude in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The higher precipitation in 2015 increased the growth rate and resulted in a higher xylem production. Our findings give new insights into the dynamics of cambial phenology and help in better understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on tree growth and forest productivity of Himalayan forests.


2016 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 440-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hla Htun ◽  
Steven A. Gray ◽  
Christopher A. Lepczyk ◽  
Andrew Titmus ◽  
Keenan Adams

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