scholarly journals Climate Change in Hungarian Rural Society: Assessment of Adaptive Capacity

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Judit Pappné Vancsó ◽  
Mónika Hoschek ◽  
Ferenc Jankó

Abstract Beside sustainable development, vulnerability might be the most frequently used expression in environmental studies. Vulnerability depends on the intensity of the impacts on a natural or social system as well as on its adaptive capacity. Appropriate adaptation warrants successful survival of the system even under high impact, when its vulnerability is significantly reduced; therefore, measuring adaptive capacity should have an established place in the methodology of impact – adaptation – vulnerability research. The main problem is to find relevant data that are required to establish indicators. In our study, the focus was laid on measuring adaptive capacity within vulnerability research, and on identifying possibilities for accurate calculation of adaptation. An attempt was made to determine the adaptive capacity to droughts in the micro-regions of Zala County. It could be established that the adaptive capacity of the population in the rural areas of Zala County to the expected increase in drought frequency is very low, which can be primarily explained by the lack of knowledge about adaptive agriculture.

Author(s):  
Stephen Woroniecki ◽  
Femke Anna Spiegelenberg ◽  
Alexandre Chausson ◽  
Beth Turner ◽  
Isabel Key ◽  
...  

Nature-based solutions (NbS) —i.e. working with and enhancing nature to address societal challenges— feature with increasing prominence in responses to climate change, including in the adaptation plans of the most vulnerable nations. Although evidence for the effectiveness of NbS for adaptation is growing, there is less evidence on whether and how NbS reduce vulnerability to climate change in the Global South, despite this region being home to most of the world’s most climate-vulnerable people. To address this, we analysed the vulnerability-reduction outcomes of 85 nature-based interventions in rural areas across the Global South, and factors mediating their effectiveness, based on a systematic map of peer-reviewed studies encompassing a wide diversity of ecosystems, climate impacts, intervention types and institutions. We applied an analytical framework based on social-ecological systems and climate change vulnerability, coding studies with respect to six pathways of vulnerability reduction: social and ecological exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. We find widespread effectiveness of NbS in the dataset with 95% providing positive outcomes for climate change adaptation. Overall, nature-based interventions reduced vulnerability primarily by lowering ecosystem sensitivity to climate impacts (73% of interventions), followed by reducing social sensitivity (43%), reducing ecological exposure (37%), and/or increasing social adaptive capacity (34%), ecological adaptive capacity (18%) and reducing social exposure (12%). With an analysis of mediating factors, we show that vulnerability-reduction effectiveness was affected as much by social and political factors as by technical considerations. Indeed configurations of existing and introduced formal and informal institutions appear central to the efficacy and distributive effects of the studied interventions. We conclude that attention to the distinct pathways through which vulnerability is reduced can help maximise the benefits of NbS and that to be successful, careful consideration is required on their applicability to particular circumstances as well as their social dimensions.


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 165-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.E. de Graaf ◽  
N.C. van de Giesen ◽  
F.H.M. van de Ven

Urbanization, land subsidence and sea level rise will increase vulnerability to droughts in the urbanized low-lying areas in the western part of the Netherlands. In this paper a possibility is explored to decrease vulnerability of urban areas by implementing an alternative water supply option. A four component vulnerability framework is presented that includes threshold capacity, coping capacity, recovery capacity and adaptive capacity. By using the vulnerability framework it is elaborated that current water supply strategies in the Netherlands mainly focus on increasing threshold capacity by constructing improved water storage and delivery infrastructure. A complete vulnerability decreasing strategy requires measures that include all four components. Adaptive capacity can be developed by starting experiments with new modes of water supply. A concept which is symbolically called ‘the closed city’ uses local urban rainfall as the only source of water supply. The ‘closed city’ can decrease the water dependence of urban areas on (1) the surrounding rural areas that are diminishing in size and that are increasingly under strain and (2) river water resources that will probably be less constant and reliable as a result of climate change.


Author(s):  
Soumyananda Dinda

Climate change is an important global issue. For sustainable development human society must adopt the climate change and reduce vulnerability. This chapter provides an overview on the climate change and its effects, in response how human societies adopt it across the globe. Chapter reviews major papers on adaptation to climate change. Based on major important articles this chapter provides clarity of the concept of adaptation, types of adaptation, measurement of adaptation and determinants of adaptive capacity. It also highlights on sustainable development and shows possible future directions of adaptation and limitations.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 839-847
Author(s):  
Archana Nath ◽  
Ritesh Kumar ◽  
Ajit Behura

Sustainable development is now the much talked about term in the modern society owing to the increasing concern for the degrading environment. Water is the basic unit of life and without it one cannot think of the development in any form. In the present paper an attempt has been made to explain the concept of watershed management and show how effective such watershed project can be in enhancing the availability of water in the rural areas that suffers immensely owing to the situation of huge scarcity of water both in quantity and quality. Such approach can be highly effective in addressing the water scarcity issue and achieving the sustainable development and broadly the overall socio-economic benefit in the rural society. The present paper shows that such attempts under watershed activities like treatment in upper catchment, terracing of a piece of land on slopes, etc. helps in recharging of the wells that acts as a catalyst and further triggers the developmental activities in and around the catchment areas.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Eko Wahyudi

Climate change is a global issue that all governments have to encounter nowadays. In recent years, many governments are aware of the environmental issues necessary to agenda setting in their development objectives. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) conducted by the United Nations gives guidelines for the governments to integrate both economic and environmental issues in a sustainable development framework. Meanwhile, the rural development has also become a global agenda in reducing the disparity between urban and rural areas. Many governments have conducted development strategies for ensuring economic prosperity along with ecological sustainability, yet for generating rural-urban equality as well. Low Carbon Green Growth Program is one of the strategies aimed to meet those objectives. The main purpose of the program is to reduce carbon dioxide emission to minimize the effects of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) as the main cause of climate change and global warming. An immediate action useful to implement the program is managing and utilizing biochar in agricultural process. Previous studies have proved that the biochar reduces CO2 emission and also restores soil fertility. One of the best applicable Low Carbon Green Growth Programs might be the pilot project conducted in Kameoka City of Japan called The Carbon Minus Project. The project’s main purpose is to reduce carbon emission by promoting a low-carbon lifestyle, yet economically profitable. Nganjuk Regency generates abundant biomass from agriculture products, livestock, plantation, and forestry. The solid biomass can be converted into biochar through a pyrolysis process. The result of this study is expected to be taken into consideration by the local governments to promote low carbon lifestyle, to combat climate change, and yet to reduce the rural-urban disparity.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Esther W. Dungumaro ◽  
Goran Hyden

In more recent years climate change impacts have been obvious around the globe. This non-contentious reality has resulted in various global initiatives to reduce climate change impacts. However, differences exist in opportunities and capacity to adaptation. This paper, descriptive in nature, draws heavily from literature and also uses 2002 Tanzanian population and housing census to identify and discuss major challenges and opportunities to climate change adaptation and sustainable development in rural areas of Tanzania. Two groups are of focus; pastoralist herders and smallholder farmers. Analysis indicates that opportunities to climate change adaptation among rural community include their knowledge and experience. Challenges are centered on the pervasive poverty, rapid population increase and high illiteracy rates. Forces beyond their control including funds and governance also present definite limits to climate change adaptation. The paper suggests among others, the effective implementation of two top policies: education and social security funding.


2017 ◽  
pp. 334-364
Author(s):  
Soumyananda Dinda

Climate change is an important global issue. For sustainable development human society must adopt the climate change and reduce vulnerability. This chapter provides an overview on the climate change and its effects, in response how human societies adopt it across the globe. Chapter reviews major papers on adaptation to climate change. Based on major important articles this chapter provides clarity of the concept of adaptation, types of adaptation, measurement of adaptation and determinants of adaptive capacity. It also highlights on sustainable development and shows possible future directions of adaptation and limitations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Abstract The strategic priority of promoting healthier populations with 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being as expressed in the General Programme of Work (GPW) 13 by the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasizes the need of multisectoral action to address the social and environmental determinants of health including climate change. WHO data from 2016 show that approximately one quarter of the global burden of disease are caused by known avoidable environmental risks to health, with at least 12.6 million premature deaths every year. Out of this total, 7 million deaths a year are attributable to both ambient and household air pollution, placing it among the top global preventable health risks. As human influence on the environment continues to grow, global environmental challenges will escalate, including climate change and rapid urbanization. Many of the resulting risks exacerbate disease and injuries, while impacting our quality of life, reducing our productivity, and weighing on our health systems. The global endorsement of the sustainable development agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides a clear signal that the world expects greater cohesion between people and the planet, with benefits for health and health equity. More sustainable ways of functioning go hand in hand with creating healthier and more sustainable environments, with enhanced focus on prevention through action on the root causes of disease. The SDGs set a broad agenda to advance health and equity by 2030. Health is centrally positioned within the SDGs, with SDG 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages. However, achieving this goal means more than just improving health care. It involves action in key economic development sectors, like housing and transport, as well as in the settings where people live and work in cities and rural areas. These areas are covered by SDGs such as: Achieving Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), and Climate action (SDG 13). Progress on these SDGs will not only significantly reduce but also support primary prevention of some of the world's most serious disease threats - including heart and lung diseases, cancers, stroke, injuries, and more. At the workshop different topics and tools that support the achievement of WHOs one billion goal of achieving healthier populations and through this the SDGs will be discussed. Key messages By addressing environmental health risks through progress on SDGs supports also the 1 billion goal to achieve healthier populations. Multisectoral action and turning this action into everyday practice is needed to support achieving the SDGs and the 1 billion goal of WHO.


Author(s):  
Waldemar BOJAR ◽  
Marek SIKORA ◽  
Grzegorz DZIEŻA

The paper investigates circumstances determined modern agriculture and agribusiness challenges and shows methods ensuring sustainability of value-added agriculture and rural areas taking into account, inter alia, climate change, healthy food, organizational and technological progress. The aim of the article is to show that combining the agribusiness circumstances and methods allows to ensure sustainable development, value-added agriculture and rural areas. To verify adjustment farming processes according set up goals the questionnaire survey on farm equipment and information systems was carried out in 2017 in Kujawy & Pomorze region. The questionnaire was sent to all participants in the supply chain of that particular company. The challenge facing modern agriculture is the ability to efficiently implement farm innovations, acquire new knowledge and effective use of the farming progress achievements. Negative effects of intensive farming for environment cause to seek for solutions let face economic and environmental challenges for contemporary agriculture and rural areas development. Serious threatens in a climate change can cause imbalance in food supply and demand. Observed higher frequency and severity of adverse weather events require genotypic adaptation. Hence, some studies on genetic progress in those crops adaptation were presented. Also some approaches how to assess and collect data for yield gap analysis, and to summarize the yield gap explaining factors were identified. The presented results showed that although management and edaphic factors are more often considered to explain the yield gap, both farm characteristics and socio-economic factors often explain the yield gap.


Author(s):  
Tom R. Burns ◽  
Nora Machado

This article considers the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development in relation to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. We conceptualize sustainability from a social systemic perspective, that is, from a perspective that encompasses the multiple functionalities of a social system and their interrelationships in particular environmental contexts. The systems perspective is applied in our consideration and analysis of disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development (SD). Section 1 introduces briefly sustainability and sustainable development, followed by a brief presentation of the theory of complex social systems (Section 2). The theory conceptualizes interdependent subsystems, their multiple functionalities, and the agential and systemic responses to internal and external stressors on a social system. Section 3 considers disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA), emerging in response to one or more systemic stressors. It illustrates these with disaster risk reduction in the cases of food and chemical security regulation in the EU. CCA is illustrated by initiatives and developments on the island of Gotland, Sweden and in the Gothenburg Metropolitan area, which go beyond a limited CCA perspective, taking into account long-term sustainability issues. Section 4 discusses the limitations of DRR and CCA, not only their technical limitations but economic, socio-cultural, and political limitations, as informed from a sustainability perspective. It is argued that DRRs are only partial subsystems and must be considered and assessed in the context of a more encompassing systemic perspective. Part of the discussion is focused on the distinction between sustainable and non-sustainable DRRs and CCAs. Section 5 presents a few concluding remarks about the importance of a systemic perspective in analyzing DRR and CCA as well as other similar subsystems in terms of sustainable development.


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