Identifying and evaluating robust adaptive policy responses to climate change for water management agencies in the American west

Addressing climate change requires coordinated policy responses that incorporate the needs of the most impacted populations. Yet even communities that are greatly concerned about climate change may remain on the sidelines. We examine what stymies some citizens’ mobilization in Kenya, a country with a long history of environmental activism and high vulnerability to climate change. We foreground efficacy—a belief that one’s actions can create change—as a critical link transforming concern into action. However, that link is often missing for marginalized ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious groups. Analyzing interviews, focus groups, and survey data, we find that Muslims express much lower efficacy to address climate change than other religious groups; the gap cannot be explained by differences in science beliefs, issue concern, ethnicity, or demographics. Instead, we attribute it to understandings of marginalization vis-à-vis the Kenyan state—understandings socialized within the local institutions of Muslim communities affected by state repression.

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Assessment of Energy Transition Policy in Taiwan—A View of Sustainable Development Perspectives

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14154402 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (15) ◽

pp. 4402

Author(s):

Chun-Kai Wang ◽

Chien-Ming Lee ◽

Yue-Rong Hong ◽

Kan Cheng

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Power Generation ◽

Sustainable Development ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Adaptive Policy ◽

Electricity Saving ◽

Transition Policy ◽

Development Perspective

Energy transition has become a priority for adaptive policy and measures taken in response to climate change around the world. This is an opportunity and a challenge for the Taiwan government to establish a climate-resilient power generation mixed to ensure electricity security as well as climate change mitigation. This study adopted a sustainable development perspective and applied optimal control theory to establish a cost-effective model to evaluate a long-term (2050), climate-resilient power generation mix for Taiwan. Furthermore, this study applies the STIRPAT approach to predict the demand of electricity by 2050 for the demand side management. The results not only showed the share of various power generation mixed, but also recommended the trajectory of electricity saving by 2050.

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Insurance, prevention or just wait and see? Public preferences for water management strategies in the context of climate change

Ecological Economics ◽

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.06.022 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 69 (11) ◽

pp. 2279-2291 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Klaus Glenk ◽

Anke Fischer

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Public Preferences ◽

Wait And See

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Impact of climate change on water availability in Tropical Andean catchments: a case study in the Vilcanota catchment, Peru

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10292 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Selina Meier ◽

Randy Munoz ◽

Christian Huggel

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Water Demand ◽

Climate Models ◽

Local Population ◽

Time Step ◽

Glacier Surface ◽

Hydrological Simulation ◽

Sustainable Water Management ◽

Monthly Runoff

Water scarcity is increasingly becoming a problem in many regions of the world. On the one hand, this can be attributed to changes in precipitation conditions due to climate change. On the other hand, this is also due to population growth and changes in consumer behaviour. In this study, an analysis is carried out for the highly glaciated Vilcanota River catchment (9808 km2 &#8211; 1.2% glacier area) in the Cusco region (Peru). Possible climatic and socioeconomic scenarios up to 2050 were developed including the interests from different water sectors, i.e. agriculture, domestic and energy.The analysis consists of the hydrological simulation at a monthly time step from September 2043 to August 2050 using a simple glacio-hydrological model. For historic conditions (1990 to 2006) a combination of gridded data (PISCO precipitation) and weather stations was used. Future scenario simulations were based on three different climate models for both RCP 2.6 and 8.5. Different glacier outlines were used to simulate changes in glacier surface through the time for both historic (from satellite data) and future (from existing literature) scenarios. Furthermore, future water demand simulations were based on the SSP1 and SSP3 scenarios.Results from all scenarios suggest an average monthly runoff of about 130 m3/s for the Vilcanota catchment between 2043 and 2050. This represents a change of about +5% compared to the historical monthly runoff of about 123 m3/s. The reason for the increase in runoff is related to the precipitation data from the selected climate models. However, an average monthly deficit of up to 50 m3/s was estimated between April and November with a peak in September. The seasonal deficit is related to the seasonal change in precipitation, while the water demand seems to have a less important influence.Due to the great uncertainty of the modelling and changes in the socioeconomic situation, the data should be continuously updated. In order to construct a locally sustainable water management system, the modelling needs to be further downscaled to the different subcatchments in the Vilcanota catchment. To address the projected water deficit, a new dam could partially compensate for the decreasing storage capacity of the melting glaciers. However, the construction of the dam could meet resistance from the local population if they cannot be promised and communicated multiple uses of the new dam. Sustainable water management requires the cooperation of all stakeholders and all stakeholders should be able to benefit from it so that they will support future projects.

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Oregon and Climate Change: The Age of Megafires in the American West

Oregon Historical Quarterly ◽

10.1353/ohq.2021.0042 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 122 (3) ◽

pp. 250-277

Author(s):

William G. Robbins

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

American West

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European cities facing climate change: water management issue

BUILDER ◽

10.5604/01.3001.0014.9350 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 288 (7) ◽

pp. 78-85

Author(s):

Sebastian Dziedzic ◽

Agata Twardoch

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Case Studies ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Spaces ◽

Management Issue ◽

European Cities ◽

Integrated Approaches

The article provides an overview of spatial and legal solutions related to the issue of water management in cities in the context of climate change. The aim of the research is to identify the main differences between the traditional and integrated approaches to water-related infrastructure based on case studies of European Cities at different scales. Gathering, ordering and comparing adequate solutions will allow to establish guidelines for the development of Polish cities and point out directions for architects and urban planners designing urban spaces. The comparison of good examples with theory would make it possible to verify whether practise corresponds with theory, and whether it can actually - through the synergy of measures – bring new quality to urban areas.

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Communicating water-related climate change hazards to local stakeholders

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8368 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Müller ◽

Petra Döll

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Climate Change Impact ◽

Biosphere Reserve ◽

Hydrological Models ◽

Model Ensemble ◽

Hydrological Hazards ◽

Local Stakeholders ◽

Change Impact ◽

The Impact

Due to climate change, the water cycle is changing which requires to adapt water management in many regions. The transdisciplinary project KlimaRh&#246;n aims at assessing water-related risks and developing adaptation measures in water management in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Rh&#246;n in Central Germany. One of the challenges is to inform local stakeholders about hydrological hazards in in the biosphere reserve, which has an area of only 2433 km&#178; and for which no regional hydrological simulations are available. To overcome the lack of local simulations of the impact of climate change on water resources, existing simulations by a number of global hydrological models (GHMs) were evaluated for the study area. While the coarse model resolution of 0.5&#176;x0.5&#176; (55 km x 55 km at the equator) is certainly problematic for the small study area, the advantage is that both the uncertainty of climate simulations and hydrological models can be taken into account to provide a best estimate of future hazards and their (large) uncertainties. This is different from most local hydrological climate change impact assessments, where only one hydrological model is used, which leads to an underestimation of future uncertainty as different hydrological models translate climatic changes differently into hydrological changes and, for example, mostly do not take into account the effect of changing atmospheric CO2 on evapotranspiration and thus runoff. &#160;&#160;The global climate change impact simulations were performed in a consistent manner by various international modeling groups following a protocol developed by ISIMIP (ISIMIP 2b, www.isimip.org); the simulation results are freely available for download. We processed, analyzed and visualized the results of the multi-model ensemble, which consists of eight GHMs driven by the bias-adjusted output of four general circulation models. The ensemble of potential changes of total runoff and groundwater recharge were calculated for two 30-year future periods relative to a reference period, analyzing annual and seasonal means as well as interannual variability. Moreover, the two representative concentration pathways RCP 2.6 and 8.5 were chosen to inform stakeholders about two possible courses of anthropogenic emissions.To communicate the results to local stakeholders effectively, the way to present modeling results and their uncertainty is crucial. The visualization and textual/oral presentation should not be overwhelming but comprehensive, comprehensible and engaging. It should help the stakeholder to understand the likelihood of particular hazards that can be derived from multi-model ensemble projections. In this contribution, we present the communication approach we applied during a stakeholder workshop as well as its evaluation by the stakeholders.

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