scholarly journals Flood Mitigation, Climate Change Adaptation and Technological Lock-In in Assam

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wasson ◽  
Arupjyoti Saikia ◽  
Priya Bansal ◽  
Chuah Chong Joon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Structural Measures ◽  
Flood Magnitude ◽  
Increase Risk ◽  
The Face ◽  
Lock In ◽  
Technological Frame

Climate change adaptation requires communities and policymakers to be flexible in order to cope with high levels of uncertainty in climate projections, particularly of precipitation, flood magnitude and frequency, and changing human exposure and vulnerability to floods—which are even less predictable than the climate. Most of the world’s major rivers are embanked to “protect” communities from floods. Embankments—which represent a significant investment largely of public funds—are a manifestation of the professionalism of engineers and hydrologists. They are also the result of professional and political entrapment and a technological frame that grows in strength (probably non-linearly) by positive feedback to produce technological lock-in. This results in inertia in large socio-technological systems, with little incentive to adopt more adaptive and flexible solutions, including non-structural measures—such as land-use zoning—even in the face of evidence that structural measures do not always reduce damage and, in some cases, actually make it worse. Where embankment breaches are common, damage is likely to increase as climate change induces larger floods, and lock-in and path dependence increase risk. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the mitigation of floods through non-structural measures that complement embankments. The phenomena described in this paper are common in many countries.

Planning for climate change without climate projections?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua J. Lawler ◽  
Julia Michalak
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Modeling ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Relative Uncertainty ◽  
Climate Change Projections ◽  
Climate Forecasts ◽  
The Face ◽  
Climate Change Concern ◽  
Conservation Plans

This chapter explores the relative uncertainty associated with popular approaches to conservation planning in the face of climate change. Concern about uncertainties inherent in climate-change projections and associated ecological impacts have led many in the conservation community to avoid climate modeling, and instead favor forecast-free approaches that involve increasing connectivity and protecting “nature’s stage” (geophysical settings) to produce climate-smart conservation plans. A comparison of each of these approaches reveals that the uncertainties associated with connectivity modeling and mapping geophysical settings can be as large, if not larger than, the uncertainties associated with climate-change projections. Whereas the uncertainties of climate forecasts are widely appreciated, the same cannot be said for the approaches that avoid climate forecasts. It is not the case that there is one best approach. The answer to uncertainty is to seek robust conservation plans that work regardless of which approach is taken.

Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation in Indian Country

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon M. McNeeley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Wind River Reservation

Abstract Much of the academic literature and policy discussions about sustainable development and climate change adaptation focus on poor and developing nations, yet many tribal communities inside the United States include marginalized peoples and developing nations who face structural barriers to effectively adapt to climate change. There is a need to critically examine diverse climate change risks for indigenous peoples in the United States and the many structural barriers that limit their ability to adapt to climate change. This paper uses a sustainable climate adaptation framework to outline the context and the relationships of power and authority, along with different ways of knowing and meaning, to illustrate the underpinnings of some tribes’ barriers to sustainable climate adaptation. The background of those structural barriers for tribes is traced, and then the case of water rights and management at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming is used to illustrate the interplay of policy, culture, climate, justice, and limits to adaptation. Included is a discussion about how the rulings of the Big Horn general stream adjudication have hindered tribal climate change adaptation by limiting the quantity of tribal reserved water rights, tying those rights to the sole purposes of agriculture, which undermines social and cultural connections to the land and water, and failing to recognizing tribal rights to groundwater. Future climate projections suggest increasing temperatures, and changes in the amount and timing of snowpack, along with receding glaciers, all of which impact water availability downstream. Therefore, building capacity to take control of land and water resources and preparing for climate change and drought at Wind River Reservation is of critical importance.

scholarly journals Just Societal Transformation: Perspectives of Pastoralists in the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Sabine Troeger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Development Project ◽  
The Face ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Sugar Development

AbstractPastoralists’ livelihoods in Africa are highly endangered by adverse forces – the climate change being one among those. Against this background, climate change adaptation is conceptualized as strategic agency in the field of risk-laden livelihood environments, that is, agency in the face of risky options and non-calculable uncertainties.The chapter conceptualizes pastoralists’ livelihoods exposed to a four-fold hierarchy of environmental risks and forces defining the actors’ arena of strategic decision making: From the global scale of ever extending impacts by the climate change imperative, to the national scale of government policies in terms of decentralization, challenging people to govern and define their communal efforts in terms of climate change adaptation, and down to the regional scale, which in the presented case is dominated by a large-scale investment, the Kuraz Sugar Development Project, which again confronts local actors with adverse forces toward villagization and eviction from pasture grounds. Right at the end of this hierarchy and in accordance with discourses on “climate services,” the end-users and local actors, the pastoralists, are confronted with and offered a product that they can input into their decision making: cattle feed from the residues of the irrigated sugar cane. The question remains whether substantive aspects of processes turning into true environmental and social justice in terms of recognition, procedures, and distribution will be paid attention to.

scholarly journals Just Societal Transformation: Perspectives of Pastoralists in the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Sabine Troeger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Development Project ◽  
The Face ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Sugar Development

AbstractPastoralists’ livelihoods in Africa are highly endangered by adverse forces – the climate change being one among those. Against this background, climate change adaptation is conceptualized as strategic agency in the field of risk-laden livelihood environments, that is, agency in the face of risky options and non-calculable uncertainties.The chapter conceptualizes pastoralists’ livelihoods exposed to a four-fold hierarchy of environmental risks and forces defining the actors’ arena of strategic decision making: From the global scale of ever extending impacts by the climate change imperative, to the national scale of government policies in terms of decentralization, challenging people to govern and define their communal efforts in terms of climate change adaptation, and down to the regional scale, which in the presented case is dominated by a large-scale investment, the Kuraz Sugar Development Project, which again confronts local actors with adverse forces toward villagization and eviction from pasture grounds. Right at the end of this hierarchy and in accordance with discourses on “climate services,” the end-users and local actors, the pastoralists, are confronted with and offered a product that they can input into their decision making: cattle feed from the residues of the irrigated sugar cane. The question remains whether substantive aspects of processes turning into true environmental and social justice in terms of recognition, procedures, and distribution will be paid attention to.

scholarly journals Impacts of the Fomento Program on Family Farmers in the Brazilian Semi-Arid and its relevance to climate change: a case study in the region of Sub medio São Francisco

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-225
Author(s):  
Patrícia Mesquita ◽  
Ricardo Theophilo Folhes ◽  
Louise Cavalcante ◽  
Luciana Vieira de Novais Rodrigues ◽  
Beatriz Abreu Santos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Arid Region ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Family Farmers ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Semi Arid Region ◽  
Food And Nutritional Security ◽  
Semi Arid

For some years, Brazil established itself as a leader in strategies of strategies and programs aimed at reducing the social vulnerability of the most vulnerable populations. In this context, the Program for the Promotion of Rural Productive Activities (Fomento Program), created in 2011, had as one of the main objectives to stimulate the generation of work and income, and promote food and nutritional security for rural, indigenous, traditional and settled populations of agrarian reform. In the Northeast, and more specifically in the Semi-arid region, the relevance of this Program stands out even more concerning climate projections, which indicates that such areas will suffer from more extreme drought in the face of climate change, affecting populations dependent on climate-sensitive activities. Therefore, given the diversity of impacts of the Fomento Program reported in the literature, this article sought to present results on the perception of the Program's impacts from 24 family farmers, interviewed through qualitative research in four municipalities in the state of Bahia in 2017. In addition to the socio-productive aspects, the research sought to understand the Program's impacts in the context of climate change. The results point to a positive perception mainly related to changes in production and technical assistance based on the Paradigm of Co-existence with the Semi-arid Region.

The role of irrigation on potato yields in Northern Germany under climate change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Egerer ◽  
Andrea Fajardo ◽  
Michael Peichl ◽  
Oldrich Rakovec ◽  
Luis Samaniego ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Statistical Regression ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Adaptation Measure ◽  
Weather And Climate

<p>The agricultural sector is particularly vulnerable to changing weather and climate conditions. Climate projections for Germany until the end of this century demonstrate higher temperatures and a substantial net water deficit during the summer months when agriculture is in high demand for water. Additionally, the frequency and length of dry periods increase as a consequence of climate change. Irrigation was introduced in the 1960s in Northeast Lower Saxony (Germany) to become more resilient to changing weather and climate conditions and prevent yield losses. The region involves today the largest irrigated area in Germany. However, during the drought in 2018 water extractions for irrigation by far exceeded the institutional limit. Water using conflicts are likely to strengthen in the future as the irrigation demand will increase. In this study, we explore the importance of irrigation as a climate change adaptation measure in the region. First, we employ a statistical regression model to investigate whether regional climate, hydrological, and irrigation data on a monthly and county level scale are adequate to describe potato yield changes between 1978 and 2018. Soil moisture information originates from the mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM). Irrigation is estimated based on the climatic water balance and crop water demand. These estimations are scaled with irrigation data from local authorities to account for realistic monthly water withdrawals. Second, we use the process-based crop model EPIC to estimate potato crop yields and to validate the performance of the statistical approach. We analyze future yield changes based on climate model projections for the 21st century using the two approaches. We investigate different irrigation scenarios as a potential climate change adaptation measure. By comparing the statistical and process-based approaches we explore whether a rather simplistic statistical approach captures the main processes of the climate change impact on yields.</p>

Valuing out of Context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megs S. Gendreau
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
The Face ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change ◽  
Do So

While many aspects of human life are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, values related to selfhood and community are among the most challenging to preserve. In what follows, I focus on the importance of values and valuing in climate change adaptation. To do so, I will first discuss two alternate approaches to valuing, both of which fail to recognise the loss of valued objects and practices that both of which help to generate a sense of self and deserve to be respected and mourned. Ultimately, I argue that an approach to valuing that is responsive to change and open to loss will enable humans to be more resilient in the face of anthropogenic climate change, in order that we may move forward and construct selves that fit the context in which we live.

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