Adaptive capacity contributing to improved agricultural productivity at the household level: Empirical findings highlighting the importance of crop insurance

Understanding the factors that give rise to greater or lesser adaptive capacity among households with in a community could allow government interventions to target the right groups of people. In this paper we study such factors, making use of a household survey administered in the Indian state of Odisha. In the survey, we queried respondents for the adaptations that they had engaged in to deal with the risk of drought, as well as a number of indicators for adaptive capacity taken from the literature. We found a large number of indicators of adaptive capacity to correlate with one or more adaptations taken. However, many of these indicators, while increasing the likelihood that one adaptation would be taken, also decreased the likelihood that another would be taken, and hence were not unambiguous determinants of greater adaptive capacity in general. One indicator, access to crop insurance, stood out as particularly effective: it correlated with an increased likelihood of engaging in two separate yield-raising adaptations, and correlated with a decreased likelihood of engaging in two additional adaptations that would have the effect of reducing yields. The results suggest that further attention to crop insurance may be warranted, as well as further research to determine if the other indicators may be effective in other contextual settings.     

Assessing vulnerability to drought based on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity: A case study in middle Inner Mongolia of China

In this paper,we proposed a framework for evaluating the performance of ecosystem strategies prepared for enhancing vulnerability reduction in the face of hazards due to climate change.The framework highlights the positive effects of human activities in the coupled human and natural system(CHANS) by introducing adaptive capacity as an evaluation criterion.A built-in regional vulnerability to a certain hazard was generated based upon interaction of three dimensions of vulnerability:exposure,sensitivity and adaptive capacity.We illustrated the application of this framework in the temperate farming-grazing transitional zone in the middle Inner Mongolia of the northern China,where drought hazard is the key threat to the CHANS.Specific indices were produced to translate such climate variance and social-economic differences into specific indicators.The results showed that the most exposed regions are the inner land areas,while counties located in the eastern part are potentially the most adaptive ones.Ordos City and Bayannur City are most frequently influenced by multiple climate variances,showing highest sensitivity.Analysis also indicated that differences in the ability to adapt to changes are the main causes of spatial differences.After depiction of the spatial differentiations and analysis of the reasons,climate zones were divided to depict the differences in facing to the drought threats.The climate zones were shown to be similar to vulnerability zones based on the quantitative structure of indexes drafted by a triangular map.Further analysis of the composition of the vulnerability index showed that the evaluation criteria were effective in validating the spatial differentiation but potentially ineffective because of their limited time scope.This research will be a demonstration of how to combine the three dimensions by quantitative methods and will thus provide a guide for government to vulnerability reduction management.     

我国玉米对气候变化的敏感性和脆弱性研究

文章利用英国Hadley中心PRECIS模型输出的B2气候情景格点数据,输入CERES_Maize作物模型,对我国未来(2 070 s)不同格点玉米产量进行预测,并依据产量的变化率和GIS技术对我国未来玉米气候变化的敏感性和脆弱性进行研究,找出了未来我国玉米的气候变化敏感区和脆弱区,对指导我国不同玉米生产区有效适应未来气候变化具有重要的科学意义。     

Imaging vulnerability: the iconography of climate change

This paper explores the iconography of climate change in contemporary climate action campaigns in the UK. I aim to show how sample images are simultaneously scientific denotations of global warming and cultural connotations of danger and vulnerability. I further demonstrate that while similar images are associated with different agendas and geographical visions, they attach to a shared discourse of vulnerability that has Western (colonial) roots. The paper concludes with an overview of possible ways for climate action campaigns to effectively convey their political messages without recycling colonial visions of the world.     

陕西省宝鸡市渭滨区地质灾害风险评价

在渭滨区地质灾害详细调查的基础上,通过统计分析确定了各类地质灾害危险性和易损性的主要影响因素,采用模型方法和定性评价方法分别进行了地质灾害的危险性评价和易损性评价,在此基础上进行了地质灾害风险评价。渭滨区地质灾害类型主要为滑坡、崩塌、泥石流3种,共发育地质灾害隐患点123个,其中有16个点直接威胁人民的生命和财产。分别统计了渭滨区各乡镇地质灾害的多少和危害程度,总结了区域内地质灾害的分布特征,分析了地质灾害的形成条件,建立了地质灾害风险评价的指标体系,确定了地质灾害危险性、易损性和风险的判别标准,进行了地质灾害风险性评价与区划。共划分为极高风险区、高风险区、中风险区、低风险区和极低风险区5个等级。     

Linking Access and Vulnerability: Perceptions of Irrigation and Flood Management in Pakistan

This article reports the results of a survey conducted in four villages in central Pakistan regarding people's perceptions about irrigation‐ and flood‐related issues. The article uses the perception studies methodology from the human ecology school to address the political ecology agenda in resource and hazards geography. The log‐linear analysis of the survey data shows that people are knowledgeable about social power differentials and interactions between various social factors in influencing their access to resources and vulnerability to floods. The article further demonstrates that water users and vulnerable populations are much more likely to suggest social explanations than naturalistic or fatalistic explanations for their differential access to irrigation water and vulnerability to flood hazard.     

鄱阳湖区洪灾风险与农户脆弱性分析

运用1:5 万DEM 地形数据对鄱阳湖区洪涝灾害风险区区域范围及空间分布进行了分析。在此基础上, 以乡镇为基本研究单元, 选取乡村人口比重、耕地面积比重为洪灾风险暴露分析指标, 选取单位面积生产总值、农民人均纯收入、第一产业从业人员比重、农业收入占农村经济总收入比重等为农户洪灾应对能力分析指标, 并引入了不同洪水水位特征值的影响系数, 对鄱阳湖区农户洪灾脆弱性程度进行了定量研究。结果表明, 鄱阳湖洪灾风险区面积广、影响深, 农户对洪涝灾害总体上存在着较高的脆弱性; 在所涉及的180 个乡镇中, 农户脆弱度高于平均值的有100 个, 占到乡镇数55.56%。脆弱度最高的乡镇主要集中在滨湖地带及五河干流沿岸地区, 而脆弱度较低的乡镇则主要分布在湖区各县城关镇所在区域。     

The landslide hazard and human vulnerability in La Paz City, Bolivia

Landslides in the city of La Paz, Bolivia are complex in space and time. Their distribution within the city is differentiated by geographical variations in slope gradient, the nature of overlying surface deposits, and drainage density patterns. When mapped, the distribution of the most landslide-prone locations in the city coincides with the most mobile surface deposits on the higher and steeper slopes of the city. The timing of landslides is triggered when slope materials become saturated with moisture by rainfall, stream water, water seepage from high surrounding water tables, and from domestic sources. Landslide frequencies over the last 40 years show the role of inter-annual variations in summer rainfalls, especially the late summer period (Jan–Mar), and rising water tables connected to Lake Titicaca. Associations with ENSO events, both warm (El Nino) and cold (La Nina), prove negative, pointing to the importance of moisture sources from the north, south and east (Amazon) but not from the west (Pacific). The most vulnerable group exposed to the landslide hazard comprise the inhabitants of the self-built informal housing areas who occupy the more elevated steeper slopes of the northern part of the city. But societal vulnerability to earth movement in the city is widespread and interconnected. Higher income groups in the southern part of the city are affected by slower, if less dramatic, forms of land failure, and rich housing in downstream areas of the city are impacted by flash flooding encouraged by deforestation on the northern hill slopes where the poor live. Two case studies highlight the vulnerability and plight of the inhabitants of the self-built settlements in the aftermath of a major landslide, and a brief discussion of hazard mitigation and the importance of building hazard resilient communities concludes the paper.     

Assessment indices for the seismic vulnerability of existing R.C. buildings

The seismic vulnerability of old multi‐storey reinforced concrete (R.C.) buildings reinforced with substandard details is assessed as a function of interstorey drift demand imposed by the design earthquake while considering brittle termination of elastic response of the critical members of the structure due to a premature shear failure. Interstorey drift demand is related to column and wall translational stiffnesses which are expressed through analytical derivations in terms of the floor area ratios of gravity and lateral load bearing members in the critical floor. Interstorey drift capacity is related to the available transverse reinforcement and the axial load ratio of the vertical members. The significance of the area ratio of vertical members in the typical floor as an index of vulnerability is explored with reference to the limitations in the value of axial load ratio used in R.C. design in order to secure ductile flexural behavior, and also with reference to the stability index of gravity load bearing members. Interstorey Drift Spectra are derived for the existing R.C. buildings suitable for rapid seismic vulnerability screening but also as a guide for rehabilitation of the existing structures. Lightly reinforced or substandard reinforced concrete buildings that reportedly collapsed during previous earthquakes are used as example case studies in order to calibrate the proposed methodology. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

气候变化情景下中国自然生态系统脆弱性研究——一个基于生态地理区域的研究(英文)

Assessment of vulnerability for natural ecosystem to climate change is a hot topic in climate change and ecology, and will support adapting and mitigating climate change. In this study, LPJ model modified according to features of China's natural ecosystems was employed to simulate ecosystem dynamics under A2, B2 and A1B scenarios. Vulnerability of natural ecosystem to climate change was assessed according to the vulnerability assessment model. Based on eco-geographical regions, vulnerability of natural ecosystem to climate change was analyzed. Results suggest that vulnerability for China's natural ecosystems would strengthen in the east and weaken in the west, but the pattern of ecosystem vulnerability would not be altered by climate change, which rises from southeast to northeast gradually. Increase in ecosystem vulnerable degree would mainly concentrate in temperate humid/sub-humid region and warm temperate humid/sub-humid region. Decrease in ecosystem vulnerable degree may emerge in northwestern arid region and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region. In the near-term scale, natural ecosystem in China would be slightly affected by climate change. However, in mid-term and long-term scales, there would be severely adverse effect, particularly in the east with better water and thermal condition.