scholarly journals Nature-based tourism operators’ perceptions and adaptation to climate change in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (42) ◽  
pp. 115-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Mushawemhuka ◽  
Jayne M. Rogerson ◽  
Jarkko Saarinen

Abstract Climate and weather are important resources for tourism. In particular, nature-based tourism activities and operations are largely dependent on and affected by environmental conditions and changes. Due to the significant socio-economic role of the nature-based tourism and the tourism industry, in general, in the region of southern Africa it is important to understand the dynamics between the industry and climate change. A key aspect of this understanding are perceptions and adaptation preparedness of tourism operators towards the estimated impact of climate change. There is a dearth of empirical studies on climate change perceptions and adaptation in nature-based tourism operations across southern Africa and specifically from Zimbabwe. This research gap is addressed in this article which provides an exploratory analysis of the nature of climate change adaptation practices occurring in southern Africa using evidence from Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenping Xu ◽  
Lingli Xiang ◽  
David Proverbs

While various measures of mitigation and adaptation to climate change have been taken in recent years, many have gradually reached a consensus that building community resilience is of great significance when responding to climate change, especially urban flooding. There has been a dearth of research on community resilience to urban floods, especially among transient communities, and therefore there is a need to conduct further empirical studies to improve our understanding, and to identify appropriate interventions. Thus, this work combines two existing resilience assessment frameworks to address these issues in three different types of transient community, namely an urban village, commercial housing, and apartments, all located in Wuhan, China. An analytic hierarchy process–back propagation neural network (AHP-BP) model was developed to estimate the community resilience within these three transient communities. The effects of changes in the prioritization of key resilience indicators under different environmental, economic, and social factors was analyzed across the three communities. The results demonstrate that the ranking of the indicators reflects the connection between disaster resilience and the evaluation units of diverse transient communities. These aspects show the differences in the disaster resilience of different types of transient communities. The proposed method can help decision makers in identifying the areas that are lagging behind, and those that need to be prioritized when allocating limited and/or stretched resources.


2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1727) ◽  
pp. 349-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan W. Kelly ◽  
Eric Sanford ◽  
Richard K. Grosberg

The extent to which acclimation and genetic adaptation might buffer natural populations against climate change is largely unknown. Most models predicting biological responses to environmental change assume that species' climatic envelopes are homogeneous both in space and time. Although recent discussions have questioned this assumption, few empirical studies have characterized intraspecific patterns of genetic variation in traits directly related to environmental tolerance limits. We test the extent of such variation in the broadly distributed tidepool copepod Tigriopus californicus using laboratory rearing and selection experiments to quantify thermal tolerance and scope for adaptation in eight populations spanning more than 17° of latitude. Tigriopus californicus exhibit striking local adaptation to temperature, with less than 1 per cent of the total quantitative variance for thermal tolerance partitioned within populations. Moreover, heat-tolerant phenotypes observed in low-latitude populations cannot be achieved in high-latitude populations, either through acclimation or 10 generations of strong selection. Finally, in four populations there was no increase in thermal tolerance between generations 5 and 10 of selection, suggesting that standing variation had already been depleted. Thus, plasticity and adaptation appear to have limited capacity to buffer these isolated populations against further increases in temperature. Our results suggest that models assuming a uniform climatic envelope may greatly underestimate extinction risk in species with strong local adaptation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 143-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Paquin ◽  
Ramon de Elía ◽  
Stéphanie Bleau ◽  
Isabelle Charron ◽  
Travis Logan ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
William Gribb ◽  
Henry Harlow

Beavers are a keystone species in Grand Teton National Park and are critical to the aquatic and terrestrial landscape. Modifications to their habitat by climate change impact multiple species. This study is designed to examine the current distribution and habitat of beavers in Grand Teton National Park and analyze the alterations to this distribution and habitat based on climate change. Field and aerial surveys were completed to determine the distribution of beaver colonies in Grand Teton National Park. Beaver habitat was constructed by integrating field surveys of vegetation, soils and hydrologic characteristics with satellite imagery classification. A model of climate change was utilized in an effort to distinguish potentially different rates of temperature and precipitation change into the 21st century. The results of the climate model were then integrated into a watershed assessment model to determine stream flow in the Snake River basin. The decreasing flow rates are critical to beaver habitat for cottonwoods and willow species and beaver settlement and movement and will limit their movement. In addition, the Snake River below Jackson Lake Dam is regulated for irrigation into Idaho and the decreasing flows on the Snake River below the Jackson Lake Dam will also impact water availability for beaver habitats. Decreases in precipitation availability will increase irrigation demand causing changes in the Snake River flow patterns. Management conflicts exist between preserving and maintaining beaver habitat in the national park and meeting the irrigation


2011 ◽  
Vol 149 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. N. SEO

SUMMARYThe present paper provides a geographically scaled analysis of adaptation to climate change using adoption of agricultural systems observed across Africa. Usingc. 9000 farm surveys, spatial logit models were applied to explain observed agricultural system choices by climate variables after accounting for soils, geography and other household characteristics. The results reveal that strong neighbourhood effects exist and a spatial re-sampling and bootstrapping approach can remove them. The crops-only system is adopted most frequently in the lowland humid forest, lowland sub-humid, mid-elevation sub-humid Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) and in the highlands in the east and in southern Africa. Integrated farming is favoured in the lowland dry savannah, moist savannah and semi-arid zones in West Africa and eastern coastal zones. A livestock-only system is favoured most in the mid/high-elevation moist savannahs located in southern Africa. Under a hot and dry Canadian Climate Centre (CCC) scenario, the crops-only system should move out from the currently favoured regions of humid zones in the lowlands towards the mid-/high elevations. It declines by more than 5% in the lowland savannahs. Integrated farming should increase across all the AEZs by as much as 5%, but less so in the deserts or in the humid forest zones in the mid-/high elevations. A livestock-only system should increase by 2–5% in the lowland semi-arid, dry savannah and moist savannah zones in the lowlands. Adaptation measures should be carefully scaled, up or down, considering geographic and ecological differentials as well as household characteristics, as proposed in the present study.


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