黄土高原地区农业生产对气候变化的脆弱性分析

根据IPCC定义和实地考察、文献、问卷调查等结果确定了评价黄土高原地区农业生产对气候变化的脆弱性判别指标体系及其权重分配结果，并对几个代表站点做了脆弱性现状评估，为进一步完成黄土高原地区农业生产对气候变化的脆弱性地区分布和对策研究提供了一定的基础和方法。     

适应问题研究的概念模型及其发展阶段

适应气候变化问题的研究大致可分为四个发展阶段,即气候变化的影响评价、第一代脆弱性评价、第二代脆弱性评价和适应政策评价。从适应气候变化的基本概念和涉及的主要变量出发,分析并综合比较了四个发展阶段的概念模型及其不同特点,反映了人们对适应问题的认识不断深化和发展的规律,试图给未来适应气候变化的研究提供一些启示。     

水资源脆弱性的研究进展

水资源是影响可持续发展最主要的环境因素,研究水资源的脆弱性以及气候变化对水资源脆弱性的影响关系到我国国民经济可持续发展的重大问题。文章系统地阐述了水资源脆弱性的概念、评价指标体系、研究方法、研究进展以及降低水资源脆弱性应采取的适应对策措施等。并提出今后应进一步明确水资源脆弱性的概念和研究范围,完善现有的指标体系,提高脆弱性图表的统一性和可比性以及应用高新技术开展水资源脆弱性的研究等。     

农业生产对气候变化的脆弱性研究方法初探

在总结脆弱性的定义与介绍相关研究方法的基础上，提出了农业生产对气候变化的脆弱性的初步定义、研究思路、指标体系及计算方法，并讨论了区域农业生产对气候变化影响的适应对策应遵循的有关原则。     

农业生产的气候脆弱性指标及权重的确定

农业生产的气候脆弱性研究可为地方政府在区域经济发展，尤其在西部大开发中进行有关气候变化适应对策研究提供科学参考。在实地考察、专家问卷调查基础上，利用专家打分和层次分析法确立和完善了黄土高原地区农业生产的气候脆弱性定量评价指标方案，建立判断距阵并通过一致性检验，确定和各指标权重和分级方案，提出了定量计算方法，弥补了以往定性研究的不足。应用于“西部生态气候环境监测”公益项目研究取得了很好结果，是比较可行的农业生产的气候脆弱性定量评价方法。     

气候变化背景下水资源脆弱性研究与展望

论述了气候变化背景下水资源脆弱性概念、内涵及其与适应性管理的联系;综述了水资源脆弱性定量评估方法,包括指标权重法、函数及综合指标法等;介绍了减少水资源脆弱性的适应对策研究。分析表明,联系水资源供需矛盾的水资源脆弱性既有自然变化脆弱性的一面,又有气候变化影响导致水资源供需关系发生变化以及旱涝灾害影响加剧水资源脆弱性的问题。关键是要识别影响水资源脆弱性变化的主要调控变量,通过应对气候变化的适应性对策研究,最大限度地减少水资源脆弱性。未来气候变化背景下水资源脆弱性研究,将在进一步发展脆弱性影响与评估基础上,逐步转到适应性水资源管理与对策的研究。     

农户生计对气候变化的敏感性研究综述

开展农户生计对气候变化的敏感性研究有利于深入认识气候变化与生计的关系,对增强农户的气候变化适应能力和降低生计脆弱性具有重要意义。在梳理不同领域敏感性概念的基础上,阐述了农户生计对气候变化敏感性的科学内涵和研究框架,重点分析了敏感性表征和综合评价指标体系。农户生计对气候变化的敏感性是指气候变化和极端事件对农户生计的影响程度,敏感性表征主要表现在气候变化对自然资源、人类健康、牲畜、资产和收入等方面的影响,不同地区和人群敏感性表征具有差异性。农户生计对气候变化的敏感性随着发展程度提高而下降,生计多样化、基础设施建设等有助于降低气候变化的影响。生计敏感性多为脆弱性研究的一部分,常以可持续生计分析为框架,运用指标评估法进行综合评价。未来研究需要完善敏感性理论框架和研究方法,加强适应的有效性评估,以及开展跨区域或跨时段的生计敏感性对比研究,重点关注生态脆弱和贫困地区。     

气候变化对中国农业生产的影响研究进展

气候变化已成为当今科学界、各国政府和社会公众普遍关注的环境问题之一,气候变化可能对生态系统和社会经济产生灾难性影响,农业是受气候变化影响最直接的脆弱行业。因此,气候变化对农业生产的影响研究一直是气候变化研究领域中的热点问题之一。该文系统介绍了有关全球气候变化对中国农业生产影响研究的现状与进展,包括气候变化对农业影响的研究方法、大气中温室气体浓度增加对农作物的影响试验、气候变化对农业气候资源的影响、气候变化对农作物生长发育和产量的影响、气候变化对农业种植制度和品种布局的影响、气候变化对农作物气候生产潜力和气候资源利用率的影响等,指出当前在研究气候变化对农业影响评估中存在的问题,提出了今后应加强对气候变化情景和预测模式不确定性的研究、气候变化对农业影响的方法研究。此外,气候变化背景下极端天气气候事件对农业生产的影响以及气候变化对农业病虫害的影响研究等仍较薄弱,有待进一步加强和深入。     

中国生态与农业气象研究进展

目前中国生态与农业气象研究主要关注气候变化的影响,而脆弱性与风险预估研究仍存在很大不确定性,甚至无法进行预估研究。以生态/农业气象的脆弱性和风险为切入点,从生态/农业的地理/种植分布、物候/生育期和生产力/产量等方面,综述了中国生态/农业气象的研究进展,指出现有研究成果难以满足高质量生态保护与粮食安全的需求,为此提出了未来拟重点开展的研究任务,即生态/农业气象承载力及其优化布局、生态/农业气象的灾变过程与调控机制、生态/农业变化的气象条件贡献率评估及其适应技术、高质量生态保护与粮食提质增效的气候资源高效利用和定向调控研究,以推进中国生态与农业气象脆弱性与风险研究,为中国生态/农业气象科学应对气候变化提供依据。     

气候变化影响与风险评估方法的研究进展

气候变化影响是指气候变化背景下社会经济或资源环境的响应。气候变化风险是指由于气候变化所引起的社会经济或资源环境的可能损失。气候变化风险评估是对气候变化影响的定性和对风险的量化。针对气候变化风险评估方法的原理和技术体系,本文从风险指数、风险概率和脆弱性评估三个方面,对研究现状、热点问题和通常方法进行了评述,并对当前研究中存在的问题和未来需求进行了归纳和展望。     

Regional modeling of climate change impacts on smallholder agriculture and ecosystems in Central America

Climate change will have serious repercussions for agriculture, ecosystems, and farmer livelihoods in Central America. Smallholder farmers are particularly vulnerable due to their reliance on agriculture and ecosystem services for their livelihoods. There is an urgent need to develop national and local adaptation responses to reduce these impacts, yet evidence from historical climate change is fragmentary. Modeling efforts help bridge this gap. Here, we review the past decade of research on agricultural and ecological climate change impact models for Central America. The results of this review provide insights into the expected impacts of climate change and suggest policy actions that can help minimize these impacts. Modeling indicates future climate-driven changes, often declines, in suitability for Central American crops. Declines in suitability for coffee, a central crop in the regional economy, are noteworthy. Ecosystem models suggest that climate-driven changes are likely at low- and high-elevation montane forest transitions. Modeling of vulnerability suggests that smallholders in many parts of the region have one or more vulnerability factors that put them at risk. Initial adaptation policies can be guided by these existing modeling results. At the same time, improved modeling is being developed that will allow policy action specifically targeted to vulnerable groups, crops, and locations. We suggest that more robust modeling of ecological responses to climate change, improved representation of the region in climate models, and simulation of climate influences on crop yields and diseases (especially coffee leaf rust) are key priorities for future research.     

Adaptation in Canadian Agriculture to Climatic Variability and Change

The effects of climatic variability and change on Canadian agriculture have become an important research field since the early 1980s. In this paper, we seek to synthesize this research, focusing on agricultural adaptation, a purposeful proactive or reactive response to changes associated with climate, and influenced by many factors. A distinctive feature of methods used in research on adaptation in Canadian agriculture is the focus on the important role of human agency. Many individual farmers perceive they are well adapted to climate, because of their extensive 'technological' tool-kit, giving them confidence in dealing with climatic change. In many regions, little concern is expressed over climatic change, except where there are particular types of climatic vulnerability. Farmers respond to biophysical factors, including climate, as they interact with a complex of human factors. Several of these, notably institutional and political ones, have tended to diminish the farm-level risks stemming from climatic variability and change, but may well increase the long term vulnerability of Canadian agriculture. Notwithstanding the technological and management adaptation measures available to producers, Canadian agriculture remains vulnerable to climatic variability and to climate change.     

Vulnerability and adaptation in a dryland community of the Elqui Valley, Chile

Livelihoods in drylands are already challenged by the demands of climate variability, and climate change is expected to have further implications for water resource availability in these regions. This paper characterizes the vulnerability of an irrigation-dependent agricultural community located in the Elqui River Basin of Northern Chile to water and climate-related conditions in light of climate change. The paper documents the exposures and sensitivities faced by the community in light of current water shortages, and identifies their ability to manage these exposures under a changing climate. The IPCC identifies potentially increased aridity in this region with climate change; furthermore, the Elqui River is fed by snowmelt and glaciers, and its flows will be affected by a warming climate. Community vulnerability occurs within a broader physical, economic, political and social context, and vulnerability in the community varies amongst occupations, resource uses and accessibility to water resources, making some more susceptible to changing conditions in the future. This case study highlights the need for adaptation to current land and water management practices to maintain livelihoods in the face of changes many people are not expecting.     

Adaptation, Spatial Heterogeneity, and the Vulnerability of Agricultural Systems to Climate Change and CO2 Fertilization: An Integrated Assessment Approach

In this paper we develop economic measures of vulnerability to climate change with and without adaptation in agricultural production systems. We implement these measures using coupled, site-specific ecosystem and economic simulation models. This modeling approach has two key features needed to study the response of agricultural production systems to climate change: it represents adaptation as an endogenous, non-marginal economic response to climate change; and it provides the capability to represent the spatial variability in bio-physical and economic conditions that interact with adaptive responses. We apply this approach to the dryland grain production systems of the Northern Plains region of the United States. The results support the hypothesis that the most adverse impacts on net returns distributions tend to occur in the areas with the poorest resource endowments and when mitigating effects of CO₂ fertilization and adaptation are absent. We find that relative and absolute measures of vulnerability depend on complex interactions between climate change, CO₂ level, adaptation, and economic conditions such as relativeoutput prices. The relationship between relative vulnerability and resource endowments varies with assumptions about climate change, adaptation, and economic conditions. Vulnerability measured with respect to an absolute threshold is inversely related to resource endowments in all cases investigated.     

Gender,ethnicity and vulnerability to climate change: The case of matrilineal and patrilineal societies in Bamenda Highlands Region,Cameroon

Intersectionality is gaining credence in explaining the complexities in rural women’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. This study is framed on the assumption that rural women are likely to be affected differently by climate change due to cultural differences. The life history approach was utilised to conduct empirical research in the Bamenda Highlands Region, Cameroon on ethnicity and differential effects of climate change among female farmers in the communities of Kom and Oku representing a matrilineal and patrilineal communities respectively. The research found that single and married women in both matrilineal and patrilineal societies experienced similar patterns of vulnerability relating to socio-economic and cultural discrimination stemming from patriarchal dominance. However, the study also highlighted that contrary to other communities women are not more economically empowered under matrilineal systems than their counterparts in patrilineal societies. In contrast, widows in patrilineal societies were found to have more autonomy in the control of land and other resources than those in matrilineal societies. The study contributes to growing interest in the cultural dimensions of vulnerability to climate change and recommends the inclusion of cultural perspectives in the design and implementation of adaption policies, programs and actions.     

Agricultural Impact Assessment, Vulnerability, and the Scope for Adaptation

Climate change assessments which have considered climate impacts of a 2xCO₂ climate, using models of the global agricultural system, have found small impacts on overall production, but larger regional changes. Production shifts among regions can be considered one mechanism for adaptation. Adaptation at the farm level, through changes in crops, cultivars, and production practices, is another adaptation mechanism. Existing studies differ in how important these mechanisms will be. Studies that have considered yield effects at specific sites have found very wide ranges of impacts. A useful way to evaluate the impacts of climate change, given the uncertainty about future impacts, is to consider vulnerability. Studies have defined vulnerability in terms of yield, farm profitability, regional economy, and hunger. Vulnerability and climate impacts, particularly in terms of higher order effects on profitability and sustainability, will depend on how society and the economy develop. Lower income populations and marginal agricultural regions, particularly arid or flood prone areas, are most vulnerable to climate change.     

Vulnerability: A generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research

The term ‘vulnerability’ is used in many different ways by various scholarly communities. The resulting disagreement about the appropriate definition of vulnerability is a frequent cause for misunderstanding in interdisciplinary research on climate change and a challenge for attempts to develop formal models of vulnerability. Earlier attempts at reconciling the various conceptualizations of vulnerability were, at best, partly successful. This paper presents a generally applicable conceptual framework of vulnerability that combines a nomenclature of vulnerable situations and a terminology of vulnerability concepts based on the distinction of four fundamental groups of vulnerability factors. This conceptual framework is applied to characterize the vulnerability concepts employed by the main schools of vulnerability research and to review earlier attempts at classifying vulnerability concepts. None of these one-dimensional classification schemes reflects the diversity of vulnerability concepts identified in this review. The wide range of policy responses available to address the risks from global climate change suggests that climate impact, vulnerability, and adaptation assessments will continue to apply a variety of vulnerability concepts. The framework presented here provides the much-needed conceptual clarity and facilitates bridging the various approaches to researching vulnerability to climate change.     

Farm-scale adaptation and vulnerability to environmental stresses: Insights from winegrowing in Northern California

The wine industry is increasingly recognized as especially vulnerable to climate change due to the climate sensitivity of both winegrape yields and quality, making it an important model system for the agricultural impacts of global changes. However, agricultural production is strongly influenced by the management decisions of growers, including their practices to modify the microclimate experienced by the growing crop; these adaptations have not been studied at the vineyard level, where managers on the ground are on the front lines of responding to global change.We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with winegrowers to examine farm-scale adaptive responses to environmental stresses, to understand the views and motivations of agricultural managers, and to explore adaptive capacity in practice. We found that growers tend to respond to stresses individually rather than collectively, except when facing severe, unfamiliar pests and diseases. Responses may be reactive or anticipatory; most anticipatory strategies have been short-term, in response to imminent threats. Growers tend to rely on their own experience to guide their management decisions, which may offer poor guidance under novel climate regimes. From using a Vulnerability Scoping Diagram, we find that changing exposure (vineyard location) and sensitivity (planting choices such as vine variety) have the biggest impact on reducing vulnerability, but that adaptations in growing or processing the crop in the vineyard and winery are easier to implement, much more commonly undertaken, and may also offer substantial adaptive capacity. Understanding the context of adaptations, as well as the decision-making processes motivating them, is important for understanding responses to global change.These findings highlight some innovations in adapting to global change, as well as some of the barriers, and point to the need for strategic investments to enhance agricultural resilience to climate change. In particular, strategies to enhance both effective and easy to implement farming adaptations, as well as broader-scale anticipatory, collective responses, could reduce vulnerability in the context of climate change.