From impacts to embodied experiences: tracing political ecology in climate change research

Political ecology has long moved on from its initial skepticism of big science engagements and cursory critiques of simplistic vulnerability approaches. Its core strengths lie in understanding the contestation of inequalities, marginalization, and injustices in access to and control over resources, neoliberal politics of environmental change, and dominant environmental narratives, while incorporating new insights from development ethics, feminist social theory, and resilience thinking. Today’s theoretical lenses allow for an understanding of causal relations in climate debates that exceed narrowly defined impact studies. I focus on four areas that exemplify shifts in engagement with adaptation, stretch themes of inquiry, and delineate zones for analysis and action: (1) reconnecting scale: multiscalar interactions, scalar dimensions of practice, and traversing scales from embodied experiences to the global intimate; (2) destabilizing gender: from gendered vulnerability and adaptive capacity to fragmented identities and intersectionality; (3) repositioning persistent inequalities: from rights to responsibilities, mutual fragility, and human security; and (4) reframing certainty: from climate proofing to limits, traps, and transformative change. Methodologically, I advocate for opening space for collective and anticipatory learning, creative envisioning, rehearsing for reality, and dynamic planning in the context of multiple and synergistic stressors, all powerful countervoices to hegemonic integrated modeling and numeric vulnerability indices.     

气候变化对中国滨海湿地的影响及对策

我国滨海湿地面临着持续退化和损失的风险,其中气候变化通过海平面上升、海水表层温度上升、风暴潮、海水入侵和海岸带侵袭,以及海洋酸碱度变化等一系列影响,导致了沿海湿地的退化与消失,制约了沿海地区的可持续发展。在总结中国湿地退化现状的基础上,分析了气候变化对中国湿地的影响,并从自发性适应和计划性适应两个方面探讨了潜在的滨海湿地气候变化适应性对策。认为将来可进一步加强对滨海湿地气候变化影响与响应机制的监测和研究,为制定相关政策和培养相关管理人员提供依据。     

Foreword to the special issue: climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in the Arctic

The Arctic climate is changing, carrying wide-ranging implications for indigenous and non-indigenous inhabitants, businesses, industry and government across the circumpolar region. The latest scientific assessments indicate that change is happening faster than previously thought, and that the Arctic will continue to experience dramatic climate change in the future. This special edition of Polar Research brings together nine papers on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in the Arctic, providing important insights on the nature of the risks and opportunities posed by climate change in the circumpolar region, highlighting opportunities for policy response and providing insights on how to conduct effective climate change research with Arctic communities.     

Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist Geography*

This article focuses on the concept of intersectionality, which is being used within the wider social sciences by feminists to theorize the relationship between different social categories: gender, race, sexuality, and so forth. Although research within the field of feminist geography has explored particular interconnections such as those between gender and race, the theoretical concept of intersectionality as debated in the wider social sciences has not been addressed. This article attempts to respond to that omission. It begins by tracing the emergence of debates about the interconnections between gender and other identities. It goes on to reflect on attempts to map geometries of oppressions. The emphasis then moves from theorizing intersectionality to questioning how it can be researched in practice by presenting a case study to illustrate intersectionality as lived experience. The conclusion demonstrates the contribution that feminist geography can make to advance the theorization of intersectionality through its appreciation of the significance of space in processes of subject formation. It calls for feminist geography to pay more attention to questions of power and social inequalities.     

国内外农户对气候变化/变异感知与适应研究

基于国内外农户气候变化感知和适应研究进展,在辨析气候变化和气候变异概念的基础上,阐释农户气候变化/变异感知结果及影响因素。研究发现农户气候变化感知与适应行为之间存在不确定关系,农户气候变化感知直接转化为适应策略需克服一系列障碍因素。针对农户气候变化适应策略,在系统梳理国内外农户适应策略的基础上,对这些策略是否属于气候变化和变异适应行为提出质疑,认为不能忽略其他复杂的社会经济和政治因素对这些措施的驱动作用。最后,对中国未来研究提出慎重大规模开展农户气候变化感知及适应研究、厘清气候变化/变异感知与适应策略之间关系和重视时空异质性以及农户异质性研究三点展望。     

中国综合气候变化风险区划

气候变化作用于自然环境与社会经济系统,产生一系列影响。随着未来社会经济发展,气候变化危险性与自然环境和社会经济承险体耦合形成有规律的风险时空格局。将此时空格局系统化表达即是综合气候变化风险区划,是适应气候变化的科学基础之一。本文基于RCP 8.5下的近中期（2021-2050年）气候情景,分析了中国未来气温和降水变化趋势与速率,评价了干旱、高温热浪以及洪涝等极端事件危险性,选取人口、经济、粮食生产和生态系统等承险体风险作为综合风险定量评估的指标。在系统性、主导因素以及空间连续性原则的指导下,提出中国综合气候变化风险区划三级区域系统方案,划分出8个气候变化敏感区、19个极端事件危险区和46个承险体综合风险区。结果发现：2021-2050年RCP 8.5情景下中国的气候变化高风险区主要包括：华北弱暖增雨敏感区,华北平原热浪危险区,人口经济粮食高风险区;华南—西南弱暖增雨敏感区,黔滇山地热浪危险区,生态经济粮食人口高风险区;华南沿海涝热危险区,生态粮食经济人口高风险区。中国综合气候变化风险区划涵盖了气候变化情景、极端事件发生、社会经济与生态系统的可能损失信息,可以为国家或地方应对气候变化及气候变化风险管理提供科技支撑。     

《巴黎协定》排放情景下中亚地区降水变化响应

为了应对全球气候变化,《巴黎协定》提出各国将以“国家自主贡献”（INDC）的方式参与全球温室气体减排行动,而在“国家自主贡献”排放目标情景下区域降水变化的格局和特征尚不清楚。中亚地区位于欧亚大陆腹地,是中国“一带一路”倡议发展的关键地区。本文研究了中亚地区的降水变化对全球INDC排放的响应,基于参与国际耦合模式比较计划第五阶段（CMIP5）的33个全球气候模式的模拟。结果表明：在INDC目标情景下,到21世纪末中亚地区的平均年降水量相对现代水平（1985—2005年平均）增加10.6%（4.6%~13.3%）,其中高纬度地区的响应大于低纬度地区。进一步看,中亚地区极端强降水事件随着气候变暖而持续增加,但极端持续干期事件在不同区域呈现不同的变化趋势。考虑极端降水事件相关风险,极端强降水和持续干期事件的人口暴露度在中亚大部分区域都增加,将全球温升控制在较低水平（如2.0 ℃或1.5 ℃）可显著降低暴露度。以上结果有助于增进对未来极端气候事件风险的认识,为中亚这一生态脆弱地区的气候变化的减缓与适应政策提供参考。     

城市空间形态应对气候变化研究进展及展望

气候变化与城市化的叠加使城市成为温室气体减排和气候变化许多关键风险集中的区域,如何应对气候变化已成为城市面临的重大挑战。以空间形态作为切入点,开展城市应对气候变化研究日益成为城市环境与气候变化领域的发展前沿和热点问题。本文通过文献分析和归纳,综述了城市空间形态应对气候变化研究的主要影响及评估方法、城市空间形态与温室气体排放和气候变化主要风险之间的关系、空间形态应对策略以及规划应用研究。在此基础上,展望了未来的研究重点和方向。     

Climate variability and rural livelihoods: assessing the impact of seasonal climate forecasts in Lesotho

Climate variability acutely affects rural livelihoods and agricultural productivity, yet it is just one of many stresses that vulnerable rural households have to cope with. A livelihood approach is used to assess the potential role that seasonal climate forecasts might play in increasing adaptive capacity in response to climate variability, using Lesotho as a case study. An examination of the assets and strategies that rural households employ enables a holistic assessment of the impact seasonal forecasts could have on rural livelihoods. This research thereby bridges macro-level variability with local-level impacts and adaptation to provide insight into the dynamics of forecast use and impact among vulnerable groups.     

女性主义地理学观及其思想史意义

论文从本体论、认识论和方法论3个层面讨论了女性主义地理学观的建构,并说明了女性主义地理学对更新地理学观的意义,以及对当代主流人文地理学思潮的潜在影响。在本体论层面上,女性主义地理学一直直面西方传统社会文化思想中的等级制性别化二元论,建构了主张女性和男性在建构社会及社会空间中具有交互性关系的本体论。在认识论和方法论层面上,女性主义地理学证明了女性及其空间在西方社会中处于弱势的认识论和方法论根源,动摇了实证主义地理学认识论和方法论中永恒性、普遍性、客观性的预设,阐释了地理学认知过程中情感等主观因素的可靠性,并建构了“去中心化”的认识论和方法论框架。无论在本体论还是在认识论和方法论层面上,当前的女性主义地理学主流思潮都有一定的中和性色彩,这一倾向使女性主义地理学在地理学观演进,以及以人文地理学思想为代表的地理学思想演进中,都具有重要的位置。西方女性主义地理学的兴盛,与其直面西方的社会文化思想根源问题不无关联。在中国女性主义地理学开始发展的当下,注重分析中国女性及其空间问题产生的社会文化思想根源,将有助于中国女性主义地理学的发展,并提升其潜在的价值。     

Climate and environmental change in arid Central Asia: Impacts,vulnerability, and adaptations

Vulnerability to climate change and other hazards constitutes a critical set of interactions between society and environment. As transitional economies emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the republics of Central Asia are particularly vulnerable due to (1) physical geography (which dominated by temperate deserts and semi-deserts), (2) relative underdevelopment resulting from an economic focus on monoculture agricultural exports before 1991, and (3) traumatic social, economic, institutional upheavals following independence. Aridity is expected to increase across the entire Central Asian region, but especially in the western parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. Temperature increases are projected to be particularly high in summer and fall, accompanied by decreases in precipitation. We examine the concepts of vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation in the context of climate change in Central Asia. We explore three major aspects of human vulnerability—food security, water stress, and human health—and propose a set of indicators suitable for their assessment. Non-climatic stresses are likely to increase regional vulnerability to climate change and reduce adaptive capacity due to resource deployment to competing needs.     

Social capital and community preparation for urban flooding in China

Social capital can enhance community resilience to environmental change. Productive and trusted relations among social actors and effectual social norms can help local residents share resources, information and risks. The main objective of our study is to understand the ways in which social attributes and risk considerations influence adoption of resilient economic measures by individuals for reducing potential losses due to catastrophic rainstorm and flooding. This article provides evidence from China on how social capital contributes to anticipatory adaptation to environmental change. The inquiry is based on structured interviews with local residents of Tianjin, a flood-prone port city in China, and a standard regression analysis. Findings show that the intention to make preparation increases with the levels of social expectation, social relationship, and institutional trust. Perceived risk and damage experience, however, have no significant impacts. This suggests that building social capacity and trust will be more effective in enhancing community resilience than merely increasing awareness of hazard risks. We call for greater efforts on strengthening the capacity of formal and informal communal institutions. The structural changes required, however, are challenging.     

DECONSTRUCTING VIRTUAL CITIES: FROM UNREALITY TO HYPERREALITY

Taking feminist research as a starting point into the ways in which gentrification shapes gender relations in the city, this article addresses the phenomenon of new-build gentrification in terms of the re-contouring of gendered boundaries of public and private urban life. I examine how a widespread process of condominium development in Toronto is informed by neoliberal policy imperatives such as growth and competition. I also explore the ways in which the neoliberal, political-economic rationality underlying condominium development translates into changes in the ways that a particular group of city dwellers, women condominium owners, conceptualize their relationships to their homes, neighborhoods, and the city at large. This study suggests that condominium living produces a shift in the way that public and private spaces are understood and experienced, and that this shift has contradictory implications for the reshaping of urban gender relations.     

Transnational Migration and the Gender Politics of Scale: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia

Recent research has begun to explore the dynamics of transnational migration from a feminist perspective, and studies of migrant domestic workers have played a prominent role in pushing forward this work. Emerging simultaneously, but largely separately, are explicit debates within geography about the politics of scale, the social construction of scale, and the gender dimensions of scale. This article develops an analysis of the gender politics of the production of scale, specifically, the ‘transnationalisation’ of Indonesian activist approaches to overseas migrant domestic workers' issues. Based on fieldwork in an Indonesian community in West Java that has recently become a sending area for migrants to Saudi Arabia and interviews with activists representing Indonesian migrant women, the article examines the various gender‐specific ways in which migrant women's rights activists construct and deploy the scales of the body, the nation and the transnational. It argues that activist approaches to migrant domestic workers' rights and the ways in which activists mobilise migrant women's narratives represent sophisticated feminist theoretical approaches to scale. By identifying and exploring the scale theory embedded in activist strategies, the analysis highlights the imbrication of feminist theory with practice, and underscores activists' agency in producing the meanings of specific scales. In so doing, the article is aimed more broadly at elaborating the ambivalent relationship between feminist activism/theory and transnationalism.     

全球气候变化与能源安全的地缘政治

当前,气候变化问题已经远远超出科学研究的范畴,它影响到经济运行模式,乃至于利益格局和地缘关系,并成为国际关系中的焦点。中国正处于工业化的中期,在国际经济社会发展转型、世界地缘格局重组关键期,应对气候变化也是中国发展阶段的内在需求。随着气候变化对各国国内竞争力,以及重要地缘战略地区影响加大,气候变化和地缘政治呈现出复杂多元的关系,气候变化时代的地缘政治逐渐影响到各国战略和外交。本文围绕利益和博弈来阐述气候变化带来的地缘政治新特征,并在此基础上提出相关政策建议：国际气候谈判中,权衡利益,处理好复杂的大国关系;加强风险研判,积极与美国和欧盟开展能源、气候变化方面的合作;依托“一带一路”,确保我国能源安全,并积极参与全球能源治理;在“南南合作”方面,创新机制,大幅增加投入力度。最后,提出地理学界在气候变化与能源安全方面应加强的研究方向。     

石羊河流域农户对气候变化的感知及其影响因素

农户对气候变化的感知是影响其选择有效适应策略的关键因素。基于农户调查数据,构建了农户对气候变化的感知度指数,分析了石羊河流域农户对气候变化的感知特征,并采用多元线性回归法分析了影响农户气候变化感知的关键因素。结果表明：（1）石羊河流域农户对气温的感知比较准确,但对降水的感知出现偏差,农户对干旱、沙尘暴的感知强度明显高于其他气象灾害;（2）农户对气候变化的严重性感知较强,大部分农户认为气候变化对其生计产生了严重影响;（3）农户感知到的气候变化适应功效及适应成本均较高,但感知到的自我效能较弱;（4）影响气候变化敏感性感知的关键因素为户主受教育水平、务农年限、气候变化信息获取渠道;影响气候变化严重性感知与适应成本感知的关键因素均为户主性别、受教育水平及与村民的交流频率;影响适应功效感知的关键因素为与村民的交流频率;影响自我效能感知的关键因素为户主受教育水平。     

1993—2017年气候变化对西藏谷物单产的定量影响

气候变化对农业的影响是全球关注的热点问题之一,青藏高原对气候变化尤其敏感,但气候变化对青藏高原农业产量的定量影响缺乏系统研究。为定量评估气候变化对西藏谷物单产的影响,本文使用气象数据与年鉴统计数据,选取了固定效应模型、差分模型和线性去趋势模型3类统计模型,分析了1993—2017年间气候变化（最低气温、降水量、生长度日和太阳辐射）对西藏县（区）级、市级和自治区3个尺度的谷物单产的影响。结果表明：西藏整体对于温度（最低气温和生长度日）的敏感性大于降水量和太阳辐射。各项气候因子对西藏谷物单产的整体影响为正影响,但不同区域对气候因子的敏感程度和显著性不同。除了生长度日对于拉萨为负影响以外,最低气温、降水量和太阳辐射对于所有市均为正影响。气候趋势对于西藏整体谷物单产的影响为正影响,不同模型计算结果集中在1.5%~4.8%区间内。3类模型中固定效应模型稳定性最好,线性去趋势模型好于差分模型,差分模型在引入气候因子间的交互项后模型稳定性降低。本文有助于西藏实施更加有空间针对性的农业适应气候变化措施,以应对气候造成的青藏高原农业生态系统变化。     

Participatory 3-dimension mapping: A tool for encouraging multi-caste collaboration to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction

This article reflects upon the use of participatory 3-dimensional mapping (P3DM) for facilitating the collaboration of different castes in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA). Unequal power relationships amongst upper and lower castes has indeed been identified has a major driver of people's vulnerability to natural hazards, including the negative effects of climate change, in Nepal and elsewhere in South Asia. However, this does not prevent the members of all these castes, including the lowest untouchables, to display significant capacities in facing these natural hazards and changes in climate patterns. It is therefore similarly important to harness those capacities and address the unequal power relationships underpinning vulnerability. Achieving these goals requires fostering dialogue amongst upper and lower castes as well as with other stakeholders of DRR and CCA, e.g. scientists, NGOs, government agencies, which often tend to work with a single caste because it is easier. P3DM provides a platform for such a dialogue as it makes the knowledge of every caste tangible and credible to others. This proves essential in both assessing and planning for reducing the risk of disasters and adapting to climate change. This article particularly documents activities conducted in a small village of the Terai plain of Nepal frequently affected by flooding.     

基于生态系统的适应(EBA)——概念、工具和案例

生物多样性公约将基于生态系统的适应(Ecosystem-Based Adaptation)(简称EBA)定义为:在总体适应战略中,利用生物多样性和生态系统服务,帮助人类适应气候变化的不利影响。随着气候变化对当今社会可持续性的影响不断增加,EBA正在成为国际社会适应气候变化的政策和行动支柱之一。介绍国际上EBA概念的历史由来、相关定义与特点进行,阐述了EBA的应用原则和相关分析工具,简要分析总结了国际上实施EBA项目取得的经验教训。     

Estimating the spatial and temporal impacts of climate change on rainfall reliability: An example in a Mediterranean agricultural region

Rainfall is the major driver of crop growth in Mediterranean agricultural regions and its spatial and temporal distributions determine yield potential. This study uses a long term spatial archive of rainfall observations for the Eyre Peninsula (South Australia) to estimate the spatial and temporal impacts of climate change on wheat yield. The three step process involved: (1) cluster analysis and statistical comparison to spatially distinguish heterogeneous “hazardscapes” (places that represent the physical susceptibility to hazards (Khan, 2012)); (2) using historical rainfall reliabilities to estimate the probability of receiving rainfall within a range of predefined thresholds and season for each hazardscape; (3) applying 2030 and 2070 climate change projections to determine the potential future impacts on rainfall. Nine hazardscapes were spatially differentiated each having temporally different historical seasonal rainfall reliabilities. Variations over space and time mean that the impacts of climate change will be spatially explicit. Projected rainfall reductions for 2030 showed marginal impact on hazardscapes with low seasonal reliabilities, primarily in winter and spring. The 2070 projections showed that some hazardscapes were unlikely to receive past rates of rainfall thus limiting the ongoing prospects of current and perhaps the potential adoption of alternative rain-fed land uses. Reductions in rainfall for hazardscapes with higher historical rainfall reliabilities will cause negative impacts on crop development. The ability to quantify the potential spatial and temporal impacts of climate change on seasonal trends will inform land managers' climate change mitigation and adaptation pathways.