Effectiveness of adaptation options for multi-purpose reservoir operation to climate change

To balance the water demands of different departments and produce a win–win result for reservoir operation, a series of conflict-resolution methods have been developed to define the socio-optimal operation strategy for specific conflict problems. However, given the inherent uncertainty of reservoir operation brought by climate change, the compromised strategies selected by conflict-resolution methods can vary. Therefore, quantifying the impacts of climate change on the decision characteristics of conflict-resolution methods can help to address questions about whether conflict-resolution decisions are sustainable given unforeseen changes. In this study, the Yangtze River is regarded as study area. As a world-class hydropower project located on the midstream of Yangtze River, Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Station can transfer plenty of water energy into electricity. To alleviate the ecological water shortage caused by hydropower operation, sustainable and balanced operation strategies considering the water demands of two departments needs to be studied. In the context of hydropower-environmental conflict-resolution management, the decision behaviors of two fuzzy social choice methods and four game-theoretical bargaining methods under 25 kinds of future climate scenarios are analyzed. Comparing the strategy selection results of different methods for a future period (2021–2082) shows that in all proposed climate scenarios, the decisions of the Nash bargaining method, alternating offer method, and unanimity fallback bargaining method in game-theoretical bargaining methods are more stable than other studied methods, which means that climate change affects the decision behaviors of these three methods slightly. In addition, balanced strategies selected by these three methods could formulate adaptable reservoir operation policies that would satisfy the interests of hydropower and environmental stakeholders equally, and avoid a very low satisfaction level of individual stakeholder and whole stakeholders in the water-conflict year. Therefore, against the background of an increasing demand for environmental protection, these three methods can provide socio-optimal strategies considering social and economic benefits for water resource management.

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Revisiting the Functional Zoning Concept under Climate Change to Expand the Portfolio of Adaptation Options

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12030273 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 273

Author(s):

Samuel Royer-Tardif ◽

Jürgen Bauhus ◽

Frédérik Doyon ◽

Philippe Nolet ◽

Nelson Thiffault ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Multiple Use ◽

Management Options ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

Good Communication ◽

Management Objectives ◽

Functional Zoning ◽

Wide Range ◽

Adaptation Options

Climate change is threatening our ability to manage forest ecosystems sustainably. Despite strong consensus on the need for a broad portfolio of options to face this challenge, diversified management options have yet to be widely implemented. Inspired by functional zoning, a concept aimed at optimizing biodiversity conservation and wood production in multiple-use forest landscapes, we present a portfolio of management options that intersects management objectives with forest vulnerability to better address the wide range of goals inherent to forest management under climate change. Using this approach, we illustrate how different adaptation options could be implemented when faced with impacts related to climate change and its uncertainty. These options range from establishing ecological reserves in climatic refuges, where self-organizing ecological processes can result in resilient forests, to intensive plantation silviculture that could ensure a stable wood supply in an uncertain future. While adaptation measures in forests that are less vulnerable correspond to the traditional functional zoning management objectives, forests with higher vulnerability might be candidates for transformative measures as they may be more susceptible to abrupt changes in structure and composition. To illustrate how this portfolio of management options could be applied, we present a theoretical case study for the eastern boreal forest of Canada. Even if these options are supported by solid evidence, their implementation across the landscape may present some challenges and will require good communication among stakeholders and with the public.

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Subjective realities of climate change: how mental maps of impacts deliver socially sensible adaptation options

Sustainability Science ◽

10.1007/s11625-012-0179-z ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 159-172 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Diana Reckien ◽

Martin Wildenberg ◽

Michael Bachhofer

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Mental Maps ◽

Adaptation Options

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Optimized planning and operation of interconnected multi-purpose reservoir systems using integrated modeling for climate change adaptation

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8884 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Patrick Nistahl ◽

Tim Müller ◽

Gerhard Riedel ◽

Hannes Müller-Thomy ◽

Günter Meon

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Reservoir Operation ◽

Climate Models ◽

Hydrological Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Models ◽

Flood Protection ◽

Performance Criteria ◽

Low Flow ◽

Operation Model

Climate change impact studies performed for Northern Germany indicate a growing demand for water storage capacity to account for flood protection, low flow augmentation, drinking and agricultural water supply. At the same time, larger storage volumes for hydropower plants can be used to cope with the demands of changing energy supply from fossil to renewable energies. To tackle these challenges for the next decades, a novel reservoir system planning instrument is developed, which consists of combined numerical models and evaluation components. It allows to model simultaneously the current interconnected infrastructure of reservoirs as well as additional planning variants (structural and operational) as preparation for climate change. This planning instrument consists of a hydrological model and a detailed reservoir operation model.As hydrological model, the conceptual, semi-distributed version of PANTA RHEI is applied. &#160;Bias-corrected regional climate models (based on the RCP 8.5 scenario) are used as meteorological input. The hydrological model is coupled with a detailed reservoir operation model that replicates the complex rules of various interconnected reservoirs based on an hourly time step including pumped storage plants, which may have a subsurface reservoir as a lower basin. Downstream of the reservoirs, the hydrological model is used for routing the reservoir outflows and simulating natural side inflows. In areas of particular interest for flood protection, the hydrological routing is substituted with 2D hydraulic models to calculate the flood risk in terms of expected annual flood damage based on resulting inundation areas.For the performance analysis, the simulation runs for all integrated modeling variants are evaluated for a reference period (1971-2000) and for future periods (2041-2070). Performance criteria involve flood protection, drinking water supply, low flow augmentation and energy production. These performance criteria will be used as stake holder information as well as a base for further optimization and ranking of the planning variants.The combination of the hydrological model and the reservoir operation model shows a good performance of the existing complex hydraulic infrastructure using observed meteorological forcing as input. The usage of regional climate models as input shows a wide dispersion of several performance criteria, confirming the expected need for an innovative optimization scheme and the communication of the underlying uncertainties.

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Determinants of Adaptation to Climate Change: A Gendered Analysis from Bahi and Kondoa Districts, Dodoma Region, Tanzania

Journal of Sustainable Development ◽

10.5539/jsd.v10n2p155 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 155

Author(s):

Okuli William Swai

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Multinomial Logit Model ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Men And Women ◽

Land Size ◽

Adaptation Options ◽

Main Factor

Although various long term adaptation measures are currently implemented by farmers to adapt to the effects of climate change in Tanzania, information regarding factors determining choice of adaptation options between men and women is scarce. A gendered analysis was done to analyze determinants of adaptation to climate change in Bahi and Kondoa Districts, Dodoma Region, Tanzania. A cross-sectional research design was adopted whereby the data was collected from a sample of 360 respondents, 12 focus groups and 18 key informants. Analysis of quantitative data involved descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model using Nlogit 3.0 and qualitative data were summarized by using content analysis. Results revealed that the main occupation and land size were the main factors that determined adaptation options for men during food shortage while for women, the main factor was marital status. The village/location of respondents was the main factor that determined climate change adaptation option for women to adapt crops to climate change whereas, for men, access to agricultural knowledge was the main factor that encouraged men to use improved seeds, manure and deep cultivation, instead of selecting and keeping enough seeds for the next season. It is concluded that factors determining choice of climate change adaptation between men and women are not the same, emphasizing the need for gender differentiated interventions to promote climate change adaptation. Thus, planners and policy makers from Agriculture, Livestock and Environment sectors; Tanzania NAPA and other development practitioners dealing with climate change should use gender sensitive interventions to manage climate change.

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