Differentiating capacities as a means to sustainable climate change adaptation

There are two forms of capacity to adapt to global change: those associated with fundamental human development goals (generic capacity), and those necessary for managing and reducing specific climatic threats (specific). We argue that these two domains of capacity must be addressed explicitly, simultaneously and iteratively if climate change adaptation and sustainable development goals are to be attained. We propose a simple heuristic to understand the four main ways these two capacities interact, leading to more or less desirable outcomes. Drawing from three case studies of agricultural adaptation to climatic risk (Phoenix, AZ; Northeast Brazil; Chiapas, Mexico) we argue that the institutional context of adaptation can implicitly or explicitly undermine one form of capacity with repercussions for the development of the other. A better and more strategic balance of generic and specific capacities is needed if the promised synergies between sustainable development and adaptation are to be achieved.     

云南大关寿山水电站地质灾害危险性评估

在工程建设中,地质灾害的发生往往与工程周边复杂的地质环境条件密切相关,山地区域由于地质地形条件复杂,使得工程地质灾害发生的可能性和危险性大大增加.以云南大关寿山水电站为例,介绍了地质灾害评估工作的基本过程和特点,对一般水电站的地质灾害危险性评估工作具有一定的参考价值.     

Improvement of groundwater resources potential by artificial recharge technique: A case study of Charf El Akab aquifer in the Tangier region,Morocco

In arid and semi-arid zones, water is the most vulnerable resource to climate change. In fact, various techniques such as artificial recharge are adopted to restore aquifers and to ensure aquifer sustainability in relation to the accelerated pace of exploitation. Morocco is a Mediterranean country highly vulnerable to climate change, many of its main aquifers are subjected to excessive drawdowns. This technique is practiced to increase potentiality of these aquifers. In the Northwestern area of Morocco, the significant development experienced by Tangier City in the industrial, tourism, and commercial sectors will lead to increased water requirements-up to 5 067 L/s (159.8 mm3) by 2030. However, the Charf El Akab aquifer system, subject to artificial recharge, is the only groundwater resource of Tangier region; hence, a rational management context is needed to ensure aquifer sustainability, and optimized exploitation under the background of differing constraints, such as increased water requirements, and climate change impacts. This work aims to respond, for the first time, to the Charf El Akab aquifer overexploitation problem, and to evaluate the future scenarios of its exploitation in the event of failure of one of the superficial resources. This work also presents a synthesized hydrodynamic modeling based on the results of the numerical simulations carried out using Feflow software for 2004 (date of cessation of injections) and 2011 (date of resumption of these facilities), making it possible to evaluate the impact of the artificial recharge on the piezometric level of the aquifer on a spatiotemporal scale. Finally, the exploitation scenarios have shown that the aquifer of Charf El Akab will not adequatly provide for the region's water requirements on the future horizon, entailing an optimal management of water resources in the region and an intentionally increased recharge rate.     

论气候变暖背景下干旱和干旱灾害风险特征与管理策略简

The drought is a most severe natural disaster worldwide, which leads to great risk in human being. The drought disaster and risk have more prominent because of obvious climatic warming in the last hundred years. At present, the understanding of the internal laws of the occurrence of drought and drought risk is not comprehensive, and the recognition of the characteristics of the drought and drought risk under climatic warming is obscure. In this paper, we summarized systematically the domestic and overseas research progress of the drought and drought disaster risk, introduced the principle of the drought disaster transfer process and the essential features of drought disaster, analyzed synthetically the main characteristics and interactions among the key factors of the drought disaster risk, discussed the effect of climatic warming on drought and drought disaster risk, and probed into the basic requirement of drought disaster risk management. Above all, we provide the main protective measurements of the drought disaster and the main strategy of drought disaster risk management.     

Exploring land use policy scenarios with the use of a cellular automata-based model: urban sprawl containment and sustainable development in Thessaloniki

This study addresses the issue of urban sprawl through the application of a cellular automata (CA)-based model in the area of Thessaloniki, Greece. The model integrates a multiple regression model at the regional level with a CA model at the local level. New urban land is allocated in a disaggregated field of land units (cells) taking into account a wide range of data. Particular emphasis is placed on the way zoning regulations and land availability data are inserted into the model, so that alternative land use policy scenarios could be examined. Thessaloniki, a typical Mediterranean city, is used as a case study. The model is used to compare two scenarios of urban growth up to year 2030; the first one assuming a continuation of existing trends, whereas the second one assuming the enactment of various land use zoning regulations in order to contain urban sprawl.     

Using simulated data to investigate the spatial patterns of obesity prevalence at the census tract level in metropolitan Detroit

Obesity is a serious public health problem in the United States. It is important to estimate obesity prevalence at the local level to target programmatic and policy interventions. It is challenging, however, to obtain local estimates of obesity prevalence because national health surveys such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) are not designed to produce direct estimates at the local levels (e.g. census tracts) due to small population samples and the need to preserve individual confidentiality. In this study we address the problem of estimating local obesity prevalence rates by implementing a spatial microsimulation modeling technique to proportionally replicate the demographic characteristics of BRFSS respondents to census tract populations in metropolitan Detroit. Obesity prevalence rates are examined for high and low spatial clusters and studied in relation to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) measures of low-income neighborhoods and local food deserts and CDC's measure of healthy and less healthy food environments currently used to target obesity reduction initiatives. This study found that obesity prevalence was largely clustered in the City of Detroit extending north into contiguous suburbs. The spatial patterns of highest obesity prevalence tracts were most similarly aligned with USDA-defined low-income tracts and CDC's less healthy food tracts. The locations of USDA's food desert tracts rarely overlapped with the highest obesity prevalence tracts. This study demonstrated a new methodology by which to assess local areas in need of future obesity interventions.     

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.     

Data,interface, security: Assembling technologies that govern the future

Over the last decade, fire governance practices in the British Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) have undergone fundamental transformation. Rather than just being responded to as and when they occur, the FRS have adopted a range of anticipatory governing strategies to govern fires in anticipation of their occurence. This turn towards anticipatory governance has been facilitated in no small part by the digital infrastructure now embedded in the FRS. Composed of data, hardware, software, fibre-optic cables along with human analysts and organisational processes, this infrastructure operates to make risk projections on fire which shape and condition strategic decision making. This paper explores the operation of this digital infrastructure through the notion of interface. Drawing on empirical material relating to processes of data sourcing and risk calculation, interfaces account for the sites, moments and experiences in which human and non-human agents relate to one another in making fire risk projections. Showing relations to exist spatially, temporally and sensually, I argue that interfaces are crucial to the operation of an anticipatory security apparatus which relies on digital devices.     

全球气候变化中的人类活动视角:社会经济情景的演变

社会经济情景的设定是全球气候变化研究的基础,也是气候变化影响评估的关键环节.本文回顾了社会经济情景的发展过程,阐述了共享社会经济路径的主要特点和最新发展趋势,介绍了区域社会经济情景的构建及在灾害风险领域中的应用,最后对共享社会经济路径的发展进行了展望.     

Statistical downscaling of summer temperature extremes in northern China

Two approaches of statistical downscaling were applied to indices of temperature extremes based on percentiles of daily maximum and minimum temperature observations at Beijing station in summer during 1960-2008. One was to downscale daily maximum and minimum temperatures by using EOF analysis and stepwise linear regression at first, then to calculate the indices of extremes; the other was to directly downscale the percentile-based indices by using seasonal large-scale temperature and geo-potential height records. The cross-validation results showed that the latter approach has a better performance than the former. Then, the latter approach was applied to 48 meteorological stations in northern China. The cross-validation results for all 48 stations showed close correlation between the percentile-based indices and the seasonal large-scale variables. Finally, future scenarios of indices of temperature extremes in northern China were projected by applying the statistical downscaling to Hadley Centre Coupled Model Version 3 (HadCM3) simulations under the Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5) scenario of the Fifth Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5). The results showed that the 90th percentile of daily maximum temperatures will increase by about 1.5℃, and the 10th of daily minimum temperatures will increase by about 2℃ during the period 2011-35 relative to 1980-99.