Assessing market and non-market costs of freshwater flooding due to climate change in the community of Fredericton, Eastern Canada

There is a general consensus that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of freshwater flooding in many parts of the world. Communities prone to such flooding have struggled to understand the manner in which this will affect them (in both economic and social terms) and the appropriate way to adapt. In this study, we conduct a case-study investigation into the costs of freshwater flooding due to climate change along the Saint John River in Fredericton, NB, Canada. We develop a four-step framework that combines extreme event analysis, downscaled general circulation models, hydrologic analysis, and the contingent valuation method. Using this framework, together with primary data on a 2005 flooding event, we estimate market and non-market annual average flood damage under a number of climate and population scenarios. We find that non-market costs can represent up to 50% of total household costs of flooding events, and 23–42% of the total costs of flooding due to climate change, depending on the different climate and population scenarios considered. Incorporating such costs into flood adaptation planning may substantially increase support for active adaptation activities, especially in ‘worst case’ climate scenarios.     

Financing loss and damage: reviewing options under the Warsaw International Mechanism

After decades of pressure from vulnerable developing countries, the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (the WIM) was established at the nineteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 19) in 2013 to address costly damages from climate change. However, little progress has been made towards establishing a mechanism to fund loss and damage. The WIM's Executive Committee issued its first two-year workplan the following year at COP 20 which offered, among other things, a range of approaches to financing loss and damage programmes, which we review here. We provide brief overviews of each mechanism proposed by the WIM ExCom, describe their current applications, their statuses under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), some of their advantages and disadvantages, and their current or potential application to loss and damage. We find that several of these mechanisms may be useful in supporting loss and damage programmes, but identify some key gaps. First, most of the mechanisms identified by the WIM ExCom are insurance schemes subsidized with voluntary contributions, which may not be adequate or reliable over time. Second, none were devised to apply to slow-onset events, or to non-economic losses and damages. That is, if harms are inflicted on parts of a society or its ecosystems that have no price, or if they occur gradually, they would probably not be covered by these mechanisms. Finally, the lack of a dedicated and adequate flow of finance to address the real loss and damage being experienced by vulnerable nations will require the use of innovative financial tools beyond those mentioned in the WIM ExCom workplan.

Key policy insights

• Despite a full article of the 2015 Paris Agreement devoted to loss and damage, there is little international agreement on the scope of loss and damage programmes, and especially how they would be funded and by whom.

• Most of the loss and damage funding mechanisms identified by the WIM ExCom are insurance schemes subsidized with voluntary contributions, which may burden the most vulnerable countries and may not be reliable over time.

• None of the mechanisms were devised to apply to slow-onset events, or to non-economic losses and damages.

     

Climate-Years in the True Prairie: Temporal Fluctuations of Ecologically Critical Climate Conditions

The True Prairie (TP) is a large area in the central U.S. which was a tall grass prairie for thousands of years prior to its conversion to crop land. An analysis of climatically controlling factors indicated that the tall grass prairie is favored by the ratio of warm season precipitation to potential evapotranspiration exceeding 0.75 (west boundary), cold season precipitation less than 38 cm (south boundary), high cold-season frequency of thunderstorms (north boundary), and high drought frequencies (entire region). A `climate-year' approach was used to assess the temporal and spatial variability of these conditions during the 20thcentury. This analysis did not reveal any long-term trends in most climate-year types, although there were significant decadal-scale fluctuations, most notably a high frequency of drought-type years in the 1930s and 1950s. However, the well-documented upward trend in precipitation is manifested in an increasing frequency of one climate-year type characterized by above normal cold season precipitation in the southern border area of the TP.     

Determination of the Tropospheric Hydroxyl Radical by Liquidphase Scrubbing and HPLC: Preliminary Results

A preliminary study was carried out toexamine the feasibility of measuring tropospherichydroxyl radicals (OH) by liquidphase scrubbing andhigh performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Thepotential advantages of this approach are itssimplicity, portability, and low expense. Thesampling system employs glass bubblers to trapatmospheric OH into a buffered solution of salicylicacid (o-hydroxybenzoic acid, OHBA). Rapidreaction of OH with OHBA produces a stable fluorescentproduct, 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5-DHBA), whichis determined by reverse-phase HPLC and fluorescencedetection. Our preliminary field results indicatethat this method is most suitable for OH measurementsin clean tropospheric air, where interferences fromother atmospheric species appear to be negligible orminor relative to polluted air. In clean air, thesampling period is about 45–90 minutes, which yieldsa detection limit of approximately 3–6 ×10⁵ radicalscm^-3. During an OHintercomparison experiment at the Caribou samplingsite in Colorado, our liquidphase scrubber method wascompared with the ion-assisted mass spectrometry (MS)method. Our results were within the same range asthose of the ion-assisted MS method (1–5 ×10⁶ radicals cm^-3) within our precision atthat time (about ±30–50%). Preliminary testsin Pullman, WA indicated that the method might alsofunction in moderately polluted air by acidifying thescrubbing solution or by adding a scavenger tosuppress interferences. In Pullman, mid-day OHconcentrations were usually in the range of 2–20 ×10⁶ radicals cm^-3. Nighttime OHconcentrations were always low, either at or slightlyabove the detection limit.     

Assessment of chemical dispersant effectiveness in a wave tank under regular non-breaking and breaking wave conditions

Current chemical dispersant effectiveness tests for product selection are commonly performed with bench-scale testing apparatus. However, for the assessment of oil dispersant effectiveness under real sea state conditions, test protocols are required to have hydrodynamic conditions closer to the natural environment, including transport and dilution effects. To achieve this goal, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed and constructed a wave tank system to study chemical dispersant effectiveness under controlled mixing energy conditions (regular non-breaking, spilling breaking, and plunging breaking waves). Quantification of oil dispersant effectiveness was based on observed changes in dispersed oil concentrations and oil-droplet size distribution. The study results quantitatively demonstrated that total dispersed oil concentration and breakup kinetics of oil droplets in the water column were strongly dependent on the presence of chemical dispersants and the influence of breaking waves. These data on the effectiveness of dispersants as a function of sea state will have significant implications in the drafting of future operational guidelines for dispersant use at sea.     

Fluxes of uranium and thorium series isotopes in the Santa Barbara Basin

Samples from the MANOP Santa Barbara Basin sediment trap intercomparison were analyzed for the isotopes of uranium, thorium, radium, lead, and polonium. All of the traps showed approximately the same compositions and isotopic ratios, indicating that they trapped similar materials. The²³⁴Th flux via falling particles was very close to the flux predicted from the production and scavenging rates of²³⁴Th from the water column. The²¹⁰Pb content of the trapped particles and the surface sediments were the same, however, the measured flux of²¹⁰Pb was seven times greater than the predicted flux. Predicted and measured fluxes of²²⁸Th and²¹⁰Po were similarly out of balance. To explain this apparent inconsistency, we suggest (as others have done) that the Santa Barbara Basin is an area where scavenging from the water column is intensified and where sediments deposited initially on the margins may be physically remobilized on a short time scale. These two effects increase the apparent area from which the basin derives the longer-lived isotopes but does not increase significantly the supply of the short-lived²³⁴Th.     

Petroleum Hydrocarbon Bioventing Kinetics Determined in Soil Core, Microcosm, and Tubing Cluster Studies

Aerobic biodegradation of vapor-phase petroleum hydrocarbons was evaluated in an intact soil core from the site of an aviation gasoline release. An unsaturated zone soil core was subjected to a flow of nitrogen gas, oxygen, water vapor, and vapor-phase hydrocarbons in a configuration analogous to a biofilter or an in situ bioventing or sparging situation. The vertical profiles of vapor-phase hydrocarbon concentration in the soil core were determined by gas chromatography of vapor samples. Biodegradation reduced low influent hydrocarbon concentrations by 45 to 92 percent over a 0.6-m interval of an intact soil core. The estimated total hydrocarbon concentration was reduced by 75 percent from 26 to 7 parts per million. Steady-state concentrations were input to a simple analytical model balancing advection and first-order biodegradation of hydrocarbons. First-order rate constants for the major hydrocarbon compounds were used to calibrate the model to the concentration profiles. Rate constants for the seven individual hydrocarbon compounds varied by a factor of 4. Compounds with lower molecular weights, fewer methyl groups, and no quaternary carbons tended to have higher rate constants. The first-order rate constants were consistent with kinetic parameters determined from both microcosm and tubing cluster studies at the field site.     

Tafoni on coastal slopes,South Devon,U.K.

Cavernous weathering (tafoni development) occurs on coastal slopes in greenschist bedrock at elevations up to 40 m above sea level. The freshly weathered surfaces of the cavern interiors are irregular in morphology, discordant to major rock structure, formed by substantially weakened rock and associated with granular weathering debris. The weathering debris contains soluble elements in proportions similar to those present in seawater, and the penetration of elements associated with sea salts into the weathering surface to estimated depths of at least 0·1–0·2 m is indicated by the presence of chlorine. Scanning electron microscopy and microprobe analyses suggest that rock breakdown occurs principally through limited chemical weathering at grain boundaries. The mechanism for the emplacement of marine salts within sheltered rock surfaces in the tafoni is postulated to be a combination of dry deposition under turbulent atmospheric conditions and wetting by coastal fog.