Dragonfly assemblages in four Mediterranean wetlands of Samos Island, Greece (Odonata)

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-385
Author(s):  
Mathias Kalfayan ◽  
Jan R. E. Taylor

Dragonflies (Odonata) are considered to be valuable indicators of hydroecosystems. This study reports the composition of the dragonfly assemblages in four wetlands of Samos Island, Greece, in a geographic area especially vulnerable to climate change where a trend towards a drier climate has been observed in the last decades. Dragonfly assemblages have not yet been studied on Samos. The analysis based on the number of different species and their autochthony revealed clear differences among the wetlands. The eutrophic Glyfada Lake, despite its variable hydrology resulting from drought – the seasonal decrease in water availability – harboured the largest diversity of dragonflies, larger than the oligotrophic Mesokampos Lake. The assemblage of the spring and rivulet at Mytilini, although also influenced by drought, had its own set of species of high autochthony. The seasonal brackish lake and marsh of Psili Ammos had the lowest number of species and was dominated by one very abundant breeding species. Drought was the main factor affecting the number and composition of species. The collected data create a reference for the future monitoring of trends in the composition of odonatofauna under the changing climate of Samos Island.

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 3358
Author(s):  
Patrik Sleziak ◽  
Roman Výleta ◽  
Kamila Hlavčová ◽  
Michaela Danáčová ◽  
Milica Aleksić ◽  
...  

The changing climate is a concern with regard to sustainable water resources. Projections of the runoff in future climate conditions are needed for long-term planning of water resources and flood protection. In this study, we evaluate the possible climate change impacts on the runoff regime in eight selected basins located in the whole territory of Slovakia. The projected runoff in the basins studied for the reference period (1981–2010) and three future time horizons (2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2100) was simulated using the HBV (Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning) bucket-type model (the TUW (Technische Universität Wien) model). A calibration strategy based on the selection of the most suitable decade in the observation period for the parameterization of the model was applied. The model was first calibrated using observations, and then was driven by the precipitation and air temperatures projected by the KNMI (Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut) and MPI (Max Planck Institute) regional climate models (RCM) under the A1B emission scenario. The model’s performance metrics and a visual inspection showed that the simulated runoff using downscaled inputs from both RCM models for the reference period represents the simulated hydrological regimes well. An evaluation of the future, which was performed by considering the representative climate change scenarios, indicated that changes in the long-term runoff’s seasonality and extremality could be expected in the future. In the winter months, the runoff should increase, and decrease in the summer months compared to the reference period. The maximum annual daily runoff could be more extreme for the later time horizons (according to the KNMI scenario for 2071–2100). The results from this study could be useful for policymakers and river basin authorities for the optimum planning and management of water resources under a changing climate.


Author(s):  
T. S. Kemp

The world’s reptile fauna is facing the threat of a considerable reduction in the number of species. One estimate is that by 2050 over 500 species, around 5 per cent, will have been lost. By 2080, the figure will have grown to 20 per cent, which is approximately 2,000 species. ‘The future of the world’s reptiles’ explains that the threats to reptiles are: commercial exploitation for food, medicines, and ornament; habitat destruction; global climate change; and pollution. Any comprehensive effort to conserve needs to address all of these. By far the most important way to conserve reptiles is setting up and regulating various kinds of protected area. Another important approach is legislation to control trade in reptiles.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
René R. Wijngaard ◽  
Hester Biemans ◽  
Arthur F. Lutz ◽  
Arun B. Shrestha ◽  
Philippus Wester ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra (IGB) river basins provide about 900 million people with water resources used for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes. These river basins are marked as climate change hotspot, where climate change is expected to affect monsoon dynamics and the amount of meltwater from snow and ice, and thus the amount of water available. Simultaneously, rapid and continuous population growth, and strong economic development will likely result in a rapid increase in water demand. Since quantification of these future trends is missing, it is rather uncertain how the future South Asian water gap will develop. To this end, we assess the combined impacts of climate change and socio-economic development on future blue water scarcity for the IGB until the end of the 21st century. We apply a coupled modelling approach consisting of the distributed cryospheric-hydrological model SPHY, which simulates current and future upstream water supply, and the hydrology and crop production model LPJmL, which simulates current and future downstream water supply and demand. We force the models with an ensemble of eight representative downscaled General Circulation Models (GCMs) that are selected from the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, and a set of land use and socio-economic scenarios that are consistent with the Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) marker scenarios 1 and 3. The simulation outputs are used to analyse changes in water availability, supply, demand, and scarcity. The outcomes show an increase in surface water availability towards the end of the 21st century, which can mainly be attributed to increases in monsoon precipitation. However, despite the increase surface water availability, the strong socio-economic development and associated increase in water demand will likely lead to an increase in the water gap during the 21st century. This indicates that socio-economic development is the key driver in the evolution of the future South Asian water gap.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 6297-6321 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Reijer Wijngaard ◽  
Hester Biemans ◽  
Arthur Friedrich Lutz ◽  
Arun Bhakta Shrestha ◽  
Philippus Wester ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra (IGB) river basins provide about 900 million people with water resources used for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes. These river basins are marked as “climate change hotspots”, where climate change is expected to affect monsoon dynamics and the amount of meltwater from snow and ice, and thus the amount of water available. Simultaneously, rapid and continuous population growth as well as strong economic development will likely result in a rapid increase in water demand. Since quantification of these future trends is missing, it is rather uncertain how the future South Asian water gap will develop. To this end, we assess the combined impacts of climate change and socio-economic development on the future “blue” water gap in the IGB until the end of the 21st century. We apply a coupled modelling approach consisting of the distributed cryospheric–hydrological model SPHY, which simulates current and future upstream water supply, and the hydrology and crop production model LPJmL, which simulates current and future downstream water supply and demand. We force the coupled models with an ensemble of eight representative downscaled general circulation models (GCMs) that are selected from the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, and a set of land use and socio-economic scenarios that are consistent with the shared socio-economic pathway (SSP) marker scenarios 1 and 3. The simulation outputs are used to analyse changes in the water availability, supply, demand, and gap. The outcomes show an increase in surface water availability towards the end of the 21st century, which can mainly be attributed to increases in monsoon precipitation. However, despite the increase in surface water availability, the strong socio-economic development and associated increase in water demand will likely lead to an increase in the water gap during the 21st century. This indicates that socio-economic development is the key driver in the evolution of the future South Asian water gap. The transgression of future environmental flows will likely be limited, with sustained environmental flow requirements during the monsoon season and unmet environmental flow requirements during the low-flow season in the Indus and Ganges river basins.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwame Emmanuel

Purpose – Population growth, climate change, shortages of oil and other resources will have dramatic implication on where, when and how tourists travel in the future. This will also reshape the tourism industry for the future. Knowing what will happen in the future has always fascinated mankind from time immemorial. However, forecasting and predictions require not only a systematic approach to development but also an imagination and the ability to think and see beyond the ordinary. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to underscore the projected northward shift in tourism demand due to the global impacts of climate change and the lack of policy attention. Design/methodology/approach – A rapid assessment of the literature was conducted to explore tourism flows to the Caribbean in a changing climate and recommendations for adaptation. Findings – Tourism demand from major markets such as Europe and North America may be reduced significantly as tourists travel to other destinations, which are closer to home and have a more favourable climate. Regulation of carbon emissions from long haul flights will also influence demand substitution. Despite this projection, current policies in the Caribbean promote further development of the climate sensitive 3S model without anticipating a possible decrease in demand in the future. Research limitations/implications – Research implications include a recalibration of tourism policy and diversification of Caribbean tourism and economies. Originality/value – Recommendations are outlined for a critical issue that is not on the policy agenda.


Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pilar Barría ◽  
Ignacio Barría Sandoval ◽  
Carlos Guzman ◽  
Cristián Chadwick ◽  
Camila Alvarez-Garreton ◽  
...  

Chile is positioned in the 20th rank of water availability per capita. Nonetheless, water security levels vary across the territory. Around 70% of the national population lives in arid and semiarid regions, where a persistent drought has been experienced over the last decade. This has led to water security problems including water shortages. The water allocation and trading system in Chile is based on a water use rights (WURs) market, with limited regulatory and supervisory mechanisms, where the volume to be granted as permanent and eventual WURs is calculated from statistical analyses of historical streamflow records if available, or from empirical estimations if they are not. This computation of WURs does not consider the nonstationarity of hydrological processes nor climatic projections. This study presents the first large sample diagnosis of water allocation system in Chile under climate change scenarios. This is based on novel anthropic intervention indices (IAI), which were computed as the ratio between the total granted water volume to the water availability within 87 basins in north-central and southern Chile (30°S–42°S). The IAI were evaluated for the historical period (1979–2019) and under modeled-based climatic projections (2055–2080). According to these IAI levels, to date, there are 20 out of 87 overallocated basins, which under the assumption that no further WURs will be granted in the future, increases up to 25 basins for the 2055–2080 period. The results show that, to date most of north-central Chilean catchments already have a large anthropic intervention degree, and the increases for the future period occurs mostly in the southern region of the country (approximately 38°S), which has been considered as possible source of water for large water transfer projects (i.e., water roads). These indices and diagnosis are proposed as a tool to help policy makers to address water scarcity under climate change.


Author(s):  
Sunil Londhe

Climate is the primary determinant of agricultural productivity and evidence shows possibility of shifts in earth's climate. Concern over the potential effects of long-term climatic change on agriculture has been raised over the past decade. Change in the climatic conditions on the globe created threat to the availability water for agriculture production. The present chapter is an attempt to distil what is known about the likely effects of climate change on water availability to agriculture for food security and nutrition in coming decades. Apart from few exceptions, the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture water resources in the future are not understood in any great depth. There are many uncertainties as to how changes in various environmental parameters will interact with the availability of water and further agriculture production. The future consequences of water resources on agriculture are discussed and summarized. Possible mitigation and adaptations to changing water availability for agriculture are also discusses.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3661-3677 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. F. Lutz ◽  
W. W. Immerzeel ◽  
A. Gobiet ◽  
F. Pellicciotti ◽  
M. F. P. Bierkens

Abstract. Central Asian water resources largely depend on melt water generated in the Pamir and Tien Shan mountain ranges. To estimate future water availability in this region, it is necessary to use climate projections to estimate the future glacier extent and volume. In this study, we evaluate the impact of uncertainty in climate change projections on the future glacier extent in the Amu and Syr Darya river basins. To this end we use the latest climate change projections generated for the upcoming IPCC report (CMIP5) and, for comparison, projections used in the fourth IPCC assessment (CMIP3). With these projections we force a regionalized glacier mass balance model, and estimate changes in the basins' glacier extent as a function of the glacier size distribution in the basins and projected temperature and precipitation. This glacier mass balance model is specifically developed for implementation in large scale hydrological models, where the spatial resolution does not allow for simulating individual glaciers and data scarcity is an issue. Although the CMIP5 ensemble results in greater regional warming than the CMIP3 ensemble and the range in projections for temperature as well as precipitation is wider for the CMIP5 than for the CMIP3, the spread in projections of future glacier extent in Central Asia is similar for both ensembles. This is because differences in temperature rise are small during periods of maximum melt (July–September) while differences in precipitation change are small during the period of maximum accumulation (October–February). However, the model uncertainty due to parameter uncertainty is high, and has roughly the same importance as uncertainty in the climate projections. Uncertainty about the size of the decline in glacier extent remains large, making estimates of future Central Asian glacier evolution and downstream water availability uncertain.


2020 ◽  
Vol 185 ◽  
pp. 109430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piyush Dahal ◽  
Madan Lall Shrestha ◽  
Jeeban Panthi ◽  
Dhiraj Pradhananga

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Giertz ◽  
B. Diekkrüger ◽  
A. Jaeger ◽  
M. Schopp

Abstract. This paper presents an interdisciplinary scenario analysis to assess the influence of global and regional change on future water availability and water consumption in the Upper Ouémé catchment in central Benin. For the region three development scenarios were evolved. These scenarios are combined with climate change scenarios based on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). In the modelling approach the quantification of the land use/land cover change is performed by the cellular automata model CLUE-S. The future climate scenarios are computed with the regional climate model REMO driven by the global ECHAM model. Using this data different land use and climate change scenarios can be calculated with the conceptual hydrological model UHP-HRU to assess the effects of global changes on the future water availability in Benin. To analyse the future water availability also the water consumption has to be taken into account. Due to high population growth an increase in water need in the future is expected for the region. To calculate the future household water consumption data from a regional survey and demographic projections are used. Development of the water need for animal husbandry is also considered. The first test run of the modelling approach was performed for the development scenario 'business as usual' combined with the IPCC scenario B2 for the year 2025. This test demonstrates the applicability of the approach for an interdisciplinary scenario analysis. A continuous run from 2000–2025 will be simulated for different scenarios as soon as the input data concerning land use/land cover and climate are available.


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