scholarly journals Method for Quantitative Evaluation of Sustainability Measures: A Systems Approach for Policy Prioritization

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 734 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Lavers Westin ◽  
Yuliya Kalmykova ◽  
Leonardo Rosado

Decision makers are tasked with defining and implementing measures that can meet established environmental targets. However, it is not always clear how effective the measure(s) will be in meeting the specified goals and which measures should be prioritized for implementation. To fill this gap, we have developed a method for testing planned actions to estimate potential impact on targets. The method can be performed at any scale, e.g., at the national, regional, or city level. The approach considers several factors, including the total consumption of an area, region-specific consumption-based environmental hotspots, the decision makers, the reduction targets and related measures, as well as multiple impact types. We present the method using the example of the municipality Gothenburg, Sweden. In collaboration with local authorities in Gothenburg, we co-created scenarios that bundle proposed measures intended to make progress towards their climate target of 3.5 tons carbon dioxide equivalents per capita. We then quantified how measures related to two known environmental hotspots, fuel and electronics, may affect climate change impact levels by the target year of 2035. The scenarios indicate that despite targeting known high-impact product types in Gothenburg, the efforts lead to only 14% of the reduction needed to meet the specified goal.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Sillmann ◽  
Melanie Burford ◽  
Miriam Stackpole Dahl

<p>Extreme floods with severe impacts have hit municipalities in Western Norway in recent decades and they will become more intense and frequent with global warming. We present a project that focused on providing an approach for visualizing climate change information for decision-makers challenged with planning resilient infrastructure and preparedness measures for future flood impacts. We have chosen visual storytelling through a short film as the most suitable and effective tool for building a communication strategy to reach out to local and regional decision-makers on the one hand and the research community on the other.</p><p>The objective was to present and communicate results from a research project in a film by focusing on low-probability high-impact events using a storyline approach. The scope of the research project was to provide Norwegian stakeholders with a realistic representation of how an observed high-impact event of the past will look like under projected future climate conditions (Schaller et al. 2020, Hegdahl et al. 2020). Recent high-impact flood events in Norway have emphasized the need for more proactive climate change adaptation. This requires local, actionable and reliable climate information to support the decision making as well as awareness and consideration of barriers to adaptation. Thus, a seamless chain from global climate system modelling over high-resolution hydrological modelling to impact assessments is needed. We have therefore taken a novel "Tales of future weather" approach (Hazeleger et al. 2015), which suggests that scenarios tailored to a specific region and stakeholder context in combination with numerical weather prediction models will offer a more realistic picture of what future weather might look like, hence facilitating adaptation planning and implementation.</p><p>The film we produced particularly focuses on the extreme flood event in October 2005 that affected people (including fatalities) in Bergen municipality, how the event can be seen in context of historic floods and its atmospheric drivers. It tells the story of people having experienced this event and how Bergen municipality was responding to that event.  One key objective of the film is to drive interest and attention to the event-based storyline approach (Sillmann et al. 2020) to facilitate uptake of climate information and to empower decision makers with new knowledge and tools to assist them in their decision making.</p><p> </p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Hazeleger, W., B. Van den Hurk, E. Min, G-J. Van Oldenborgh, A. Petersen, D. Stainforth, D., E. Vasileiadou, and L. Smith, 2015: Tales of future weather. Nature Climate Change, 5, 107-113, doi: 10.1038/nclimate2450.</p><p>Hegdahl, T.J., K. Engeland, M. Müller and J. Sillmann, 2020: Atmospheric River induced floods in western Norway – under present and future climate, J. Hydrometeorology, doi: 10.1175/JHM-D-19-0071.1.</p><p>Schaller, N., J. Sillmann, M. Mueller, R. Haarsma, W. Hazeleger, T. Jahr Hegdahl, T. Kelder, G. van den Oord, A. Weerts, and K. Whan, 2020: The role of spatial and temporal model resolution in a flood event storyline approach in Western Norway, Weather and Climate Extremes, 29, doi: 10.1016/j.wace.2020.100259.</p><p>Sillmann, J., T. G. Shepherd, B. van den Hurk, W. Hazeleger, O. Martius, J. Zscheischler, 2020: Event-based storylines to address climate risk, Earth’s Future, doi: 10.1029/2020EF001783.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
L Green

Abstract In April 2019, Wales declared a climate emergency. Public Health Wales commissioned a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) to assess the potential impact of Climate Change on the population of Wales to be carried out to inform key strategic decision makers to understand/plan for the potential differential health impacts that may occur in Wales from climate change. A comprehensive mixed-method HIA was conducted over a 6-month period in 2019/20. A review of peer-reviewed evidence on the potential impact of climate change/climate change events on health and population groups and a review of grey literature on direct impacts such as the environment, mental wellbeing and health care settings was conducted. The search was undertaken using MEDLINE, Embase, Proquest. 2 stakeholder workshops, qualitative interviews, a community health profile utilising recognised data sources (i.e. The National Survey for Wales) and a survey to identify the publics' views on climate change were also carried out. All findings were analysed, synthesized and collated into a report. The HIA initial findings indicate significant potential impacts across the wider determinants of health and mental well-being i.e. Air quality, excess heat/cold; flooding; economic productivity; working conditions; access to services; infrastructure; and community resilience. A range of impacts were identified across population groups, settings, geographical areas including urban and rural contexts; outdoor workers; children and young people; older people; schools; hospitals/care homes and workplaces. The impacts identified are both confirmed and potential. Undertaken in a short timeframe, the findings have been beneficial to inform decision-makers to prepare for Climate Change plans/policies using an evidence-informed approach. The work has demonstrated the value of a HIA approach for significant, complex policies by mobilising a range of evidence through a transparent process, resulting in transferrable learning for others.


2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indika Perera ◽  
Pramuk A. Perera

Purpose – Since crowdsourcing can be taken as a new field, the purpose of this paper is to suggest an idea/movement to motivate pro or anti-ideas/movements from scholars and experts to develop a synthesis in future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a quantitative analysis of world leading outsource provider markets: China – manufacturing sector: and India – service sector. The paper uniquely presents the much needed analysis details along with a model that fits crowdsourcing into outsourcing setup. Findings – There is a strong need of policy implications and business process re-engineering strategies to harness the benefits of crowdsourcing into the present industry norms taking into account the macroeconomic norms as well as the potential impact on individual workers or participants of the crowd. Originality/value – The paper indicates a possible shift in the scope of management from managing a firm to managing beyond boundaries. Implications drawn in this paper can provide high impact support for decision makers and future research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 215-220
Author(s):  
Ionela Gabriela Bucşe ◽  
Olimpia Ghermec ◽  
Mariana Ciobanu

The increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases results in climate changes which cause the rise of sea level and an increased frequency of extreme climatic events including intense storms, heavy rainfall and droughts. There is a lower consensus on the magnitude of changes in climate variables, but several studies show that climate change has an impact on the availability and demand for water resources. Major rivers worldwide have experienced dramatic changes in flow, reducing their natural ability to adjust to and absorb disturbances. Given expected changes in global climate and water needs, this may create serious problems, including loss of native biodiversity and risks to ecosystems and humans from increased flooding or water shortages. This document analyzes the potential impact of climate change on water resources in Romania, Mehedinți County. The work ends with quantitative assessments of the effects of climate change on hydrology for a part of the Mehedinți County basins.


Author(s):  
Hill and

As climate change advances and its impacts become clearer, more and more communities around the world will need deeper insight into the future, both immediate and distant. Decision-makers will require information to make high-impact, hard-to-reverse decisions about water, agriculture, and where and how to build infrastructure in a world experiencing climate change. They must model the projected evolution of droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires so that they can help people get out of harm’s way, and they will need data to make disaster-relief operations more effective. The world’s capacity to collect and analyze climate and weather data has exploded. Yet many of the people who need these data lack both access to them and the means to make them useful for decision-making. This chapter describes this data paradox and offer a few ideas on how to escape it.


Author(s):  
Е.П. Гордов ◽  
И.Г. Окладников ◽  
А.Г. Титов ◽  
А.З. Фазлиев

Представлены описание и первые результаты разработки виртуальной вычислительно-информационной среды для анализа, оценки и прогноза последствий глобальных климатических изменений окружающей среды и климата в выбранном регионе. Созданная среда основана на информационных ресурсах трехслойной архитектуры. Intermediate results of the project aimed at improving methods of the detailed analysis, assessment and prediction of global climate change impact on the regional environment and climate are presented. New reliable interactive tools for in-depth statistical analysis and studying climate change impact obtained in this project will provide specialists, professionals, decision-makers and stakeholders with detailed climatic information. The project addresses the development of a topical virtual research environment (VRE) for the comprehensive study of ongoing and possible future climate change. It analyses the relevant subsequent effects. Such VRE will provide full topical informational required for studying regional economic, political and social consequences of the global climate change. The ultimate goal of this work is a design of hardware and software prototype supporting the topical virtual research environment for climate and environmental monitoring and analysis of the impact of climate change on socioeconomic processes on both local and regional scales. This VRE will integrate both already known and new archives of climate data sets with software realizations of traditional and advanced methods for statistical analysis of big spatial data sets. VRE prototype will provide scientists, decision-makers and stakeholders the access to processing resources and services for interactive analysis of geographically distributed spatial data through a web browser. It will present the results of the analysis using geoinformation technologies and ensure the systematization of spatial data and associated climate information. Also, the work describes an ontological approach to this systematization, which makes it possible to compare the semantics of meteorological and climatic parameters used in different collections and applied problems.


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