scholarly journals The Precautionary Principles of the Potential Risks of Compound Events in Danish Municipalities

2022 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luise-Ch. Modrakowski ◽  
Jian Su ◽  
Anne B. Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Flood Hazards ◽  
Security Risk ◽  
Clear Trend ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Compound Events

The risk of compound events describes potential weather and climate events in which the combination of multiple drivers and hazards consolidate, resulting in extreme socio-economic impacts. Compound events affecting exposed societies can therefore be deemed a crucial security risk. Designing appropriate preparation proves difficult, as compound events are rarely documented. This paper explores the understanding and practices of climate risk management related to compound events in specific Danish municipalities vulnerable to flood hazards (i.e., Odense, Hvidovre, and Vejle). These practices illuminate that different understandings of compound events steer risk attitudes and consequently decisions regarding the use of different policy instruments. Through expert interviews supported by policy documents, we found that the municipalities understand compound events as either a condition or situation and develop precautionary strategies to some extent. Depending on their respective geographical surroundings, they observe compound events either as no clear trend (Odense), a trend to be critically watched (Hvidovre), or already as a partial reality (Vejle). They perceive flood drivers and their combinations as major physical risks to which they adopt different tailor-made solutions. By choosing a bottom-up approach focusing on local governance structures, it demonstrated that the mismatch between responsibility and capacity and the ongoing separation of services related to climatic risks in the Danish municipality context need to be critically considered. The findings highlight that the complex challenge of compound events cannot be solved by one (scientific) discipline alone. Thus, the study advocates a broader inclusion of scientific practices and increased emphasis on local focus within compound event research to foster creative thinking, better preparation, and subsequently more effective management of their risks.

A typology of compound weather and climate events

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Zscheischler ◽  
Olivia Martius ◽  
Seth Westra ◽  
Emanuele Bevacqua ◽  
Colin Raymond ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Event Analysis ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
Compound Events ◽  
Climate Events ◽  
Analytical Approaches

<p>Weather- and climate-related extreme events such as droughts, heatwaves and storms arise from interactions between complex sets of physical processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales, often overwhelming the capacity of natural and/or human systems to cope. In many cases, the greatest impacts arise through the ‘compounding’ effect of weather and climate-related drivers and/or hazards, where the scale of the impacts can be much greater than if any of the drivers or hazards occur in isolation; for instance, when a heavy precipitation falls on an already saturated soil causing a devastating flood. Compounding in this context refers to the amplification of an impact due to the occurrence of multiple drivers and/or hazards either because multiple hazards occur at the same time, previous climate conditions or weather events have increased a system’s vulnerability to a successive event, or spatially concurrent hazards lead to a regionally or globally integrated impact. More generally, compound weather and climate events refer to a combination of multiple climate drivers and/or hazards that contributes to societal or environmental risk.</p><p>Although many climate-related disasters are caused by compound events, our ability to understand, analyse and project these events and interactions between their drivers is still in its infancy. Here we review the current state of knowledge on compound events and propose a typology to synthesize the available literature and guide future research. We organize the highly diverse event types broadly along four main themes, namely preconditioned, multivariate, temporally compounding, and spatially compounding events. We highlight promising analytical approaches tailored to the different event types, which will aid future research and pave the way to a coherent framework for compound event analysis. We further illustrate how human-induced climate change affects different aspects of compound events, such as their frequency and intensity through variations in the mean, variability, and the dependence between their climatic drivers. Finally, we discuss the emergence of new types of events that may become highly relevant in a warmer climate.</p>

scholarly journals New Governance Mechanisms Contributing to the Integration of National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Policies in the Brazilian Amazon

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-151
Author(s):  
Carlos Germano Ferreira Costa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Municipal Level

Research in the field of Global Environmental Governance (GEG) pays considerable attention to the emergence of New Governance Mechanisms (NGM). NGM poses profound challenges to governments and institutions in the Developed and Developing world alike, corresponding to new ways of participation. This article seeks to contribute to the debates on NGM by analyzing a municipal-level environmental governance scheme based on deforestation-free commitments emerged in 2011, in Brazil, that has successfully helped to reduce deforestation in the participant municipalities; the Programa Municípios Verdes (PMV). We also shed some lights on the risks represented by promises of changes in federal environmental legislation by the newly elected government of Brazil. It is secondary research based on official data analysis that provided a cost-effective way of gaining a broad understanding of the integration of multi-level climate change mitigation and adaptation policies as well as a report of the governance of policy instruments in local governance schemes. Methodologically we rely on the method of content analysis, based on the study of the PMV Statistical Database, that gives visibility to a broad range of environmental, social, and territorial data and information for the 144 municipalities of the Pará State, through six different types of official reports.

scholarly journals Denying homeless persons access to municipal support

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-191
Author(s):  
Nienke Fredrika Boesveldt
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Homeless Persons ◽  
The Body ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Good Policy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Governance Arrangements

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the denial of social support to homeless persons and related societal effects of new local governance arrangements. Design/methodology/approach Analysis of new data and secondary evaluative and comparative data on the policies, administrative structures and management styles of Copenhagen, Glasgow and Amsterdam have brought better understanding of the elements of local governance arrangements that influence the number of homeless persons who are denied access to services and the number of persons sleeping rough who are not eligible for social support. Theoretical explanations for the impact of governance arrangements on these processes and societal effects are considered. Findings It appears that while the body of research, reports and policy documents on non-eligibility for homelessness services is growing, legal responses at best remain vague, and policies are still in the process of being developed. Modest progress on policy goals, and even more so on policy instruments, leading to less detrimental outcomes, can be explained by centralising and decentralising trends and the relationships between state and society. The latter may also be indicative of how the increased focus on the legal problems of some EU migrants can be explained. Research limitations/implications The two points in time documented for the case studies are relevant in understanding processes underlying the current circumstances of homeless persons and homeless migrants and offer an interdisciplinary insight into governance and politics, law, and public and health service perspectives. Social implications Good policy practice, as this paper shows, can lead to a difference in individual lives. Originality/value Much is unknown about considerations inside government. This paper contributes by combining theoretical and insider perspectives.

scholarly journals Compound high-temperature and low-chlorophyll extremes in the ocean over the satellite period

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 2119-2137
Author(s):  
Natacha Le Grix ◽  
Jakob Zscheischler ◽  
Charlotte Laufkötter ◽  
Cecile S. Rousseaux ◽  
Thomas L. Frölicher
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Chlorophyll Concentration ◽  
Equatorial Pacific ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Eastern Equatorial Pacific ◽  
Compound Events

Abstract. Extreme events in the ocean severely impact marine organisms and ecosystems. Of particular concern are compound events, i.e., when conditions are extreme for multiple potential ocean ecosystem stressors such as temperature and chlorophyll. Yet, little is known about the occurrence, intensity, and duration of such compound high-temperature (a.k.a. marine heatwaves – MHWs) and low-chlorophyll (LChl) extreme events, whether their distributions have changed in the past decades, and what the potential drivers are. Here we use satellite-based sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentration estimates to provide a first assessment of such compound extreme events. We reveal hotspots of compound MHW and LChl events in the equatorial Pacific, along the boundaries of the subtropical gyres, in the northern Indian Ocean, and around Antarctica. In these regions, compound events that typically last 1 week occur 3 to 7 times more often than expected under the assumption of independence between MHWs and LChl events. The occurrence of compound MHW and LChl events varies on seasonal to interannual timescales. At the seasonal timescale, most compound events occur in summer in both hemispheres. At the interannual timescale, the frequency of compound MHW and LChl events is strongly modulated by large-scale modes of natural climate variability such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, whose positive phase is associated with increased compound event occurrence in the eastern equatorial Pacific and in the Indian Ocean by a factor of up to 4. Our results provide a first understanding of where, when, and why compound MHW and LChl events occur. Further studies are needed to identify the exact physical and biological drivers of these potentially harmful events in the ocean and their evolution under global warming.

scholarly journals Space–time dependence of compound hot–dry events in the United States: assessment using a multi-site multi-variable weather generator

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 621-634
Author(s):  
Manuela I. Brunner ◽  
Eric Gilleland ◽  
Andrew W. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weather Generator ◽  
Spatial Extent ◽  
Event Analysis ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Compound Events ◽  
Variable Weather

Abstract. Compound hot and dry events can lead to severe impacts whose severity may depend on their timescale and spatial extent. Despite their potential importance, the climatological characteristics of these joint events have received little attention regardless of growing interest in climate change impacts on compound events. Here, we ask how event timescale relates to (1) spatial patterns of compound hot–dry events in the United States, (2) the spatial extent of compound hot–dry events, and (3) the importance of temperature and precipitation as drivers of compound events. To study such rare spatial and multivariate events, we introduce a multi-site multi-variable weather generator (PRSim.weather), which enables generation of a large number of spatial multivariate hot–dry events. We show that the stochastic model realistically simulates distributional and temporal autocorrelation characteristics of temperature and precipitation at single sites, dependencies between the two variables, spatial correlation patterns, and spatial heat and meteorological drought indicators and their co-occurrence probabilities. The results of our compound event analysis demonstrate that (1) the northwestern and southeastern United States are most susceptible to compound hot–dry events independent of timescale, and susceptibility decreases with increasing timescale; (2) the spatial extent and timescale of compound events are strongly related to sub-seasonal events (1–3 months) showing the largest spatial extents; and (3) the importance of temperature and precipitation as drivers of compound events varies with timescale, with temperature being most important at short and precipitation at seasonal timescales. We conclude that timescale is an important factor to be considered in compound event assessments and suggest that climate change impact assessments should consider several timescales instead of a single timescale when looking at future changes in compound event characteristics. The largest future changes may be expected for short compound events because of their strong relation to temperature.

scholarly journals Space-time dependence of compound hot-dry events in the United States: assessment using a multi-site multi-variable weather generator

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela I. Brunner ◽  
Eric Gilleland ◽  
Andrew W. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weather Generator ◽  
Spatial Extent ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Compound Events ◽  
Variable Weather

Abstract. Compound hot and dry events can lead to severe impacts whose severity may depend on their time scale and spatial extent. Despite their potential importance, the climatological characteristics of these joint events have received little attention regardless of growing interest in climate change impacts on compound events. Here, we ask how event time scale relates to (1) spatial patterns of compound hot-dry events in the United States, (2) the spatial extent of compound hot-dry events, and (3) the importance of temperature and precipitation as drivers of compound event occurrence. To study such rare spatial and multivariate events, we introduce a multi-site multi-variable weather generator (PRSim.weather), which enables generation of a large number of spatial compound hot-dry events. We show that the stochastic model realistically simulates distributional and temporal autocorrelation characteristics of temperature and precipitation at single sites, dependencies between the two variables, spatial correlation patterns, and spatial heat and drought indicators and their co-occurrence probabilities. The results of our compound event analysis demonstrate that (1) the Northwestern and Southeastern United States are most susceptible to compound hot-dry events independent of time scale and susceptibility decreases with increasing time scale, (2) the spatial extent and time scale of compound events are strongly related with sub-seasonal events (1–3 months) showing the largest spatial extents, and (3) the importance of temperature and precipitation as drivers of compound events varies with time scale where temperature is most important at short and precipitation at seasonal time scales. We conclude that time scale is an important factor to be considered in compound event assessments and suggest that climate change impact assessments should consider several instead of a single time scale when looking at future changes in compound event characteristics. The largest future changes may be expected for short compound events because of their strong relation to temperature.

Learning to estimate losses of compound inland flooding with Bayesian multilevel models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Samprogna Mohor ◽  
Oliver Korup ◽  
Annegret Thieken
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Urban Floods ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Compound Events ◽  
Loss Modelling ◽  
Process Complexity ◽  
Inland Flooding

<p>Research on natural hazards has increasingly become concerned with compound events, i.e. multiple hazards that may coincide in space and time or happen sequentially. Such events may lead to unexpected or unwanted amplifications of the impacts compared to those of individual hazards. To what extent the co-occurrence of hazards exacerbates impacts and losses is largely undocumented.</p><p>Fluvial, pluvial, and coastal floods are commonly understood as distinct hazards. However, floods can be further differentiated, for example, into river floods, urban floods or flash floods. Most flood-loss models follow such a distinction of flood pathways, assuming that the damaging processes are also different and disconnected from each other. Recent studies have shown that vulnerability varies between distinct flood pathways. But loss modelling under the co-occurrence of distinct flood pathways has not yet been further examined.</p><p>Germany has faced severe floods since 2002, including preconditioned events (e.g. the rain-on-snow floods of 2006 and 2011; the excessive rainfall on already saturated soil of 2013), co-​occurrence of multiple/consecutive hazards in the same geographical region, and spatially compound floods (such as in 2002, 2010 and 2016). Survey data collected after floods in Germany between 2002 and 2016 show that around 60% of 1150 surveyed households reported having been affected by more than one flood pathway indicating the process complexity at flooded properties.</p><p>With these survey data, we learned a model for estimating residential flood losses. We used Bayesian multilevel models that probabilistically incorporate uncertainty and allow for partial pooling of the data. Such models are capable of differentiating parameters for different flood pathways, but learn the parameters from all data simultaneously. One missing piece of information, however, is the contribution of each individual flood pathway to the overall financial impact. Although we cannot separate the magnitude of each flood pathway in our data, they are understood as distinct processes.</p><p>Bayesian inference is data driven and explicitly includes prior knowledge or beliefs. Our model thus assigns a prior belief of the extent to which co-occurrent pathways contribute to an increased loss. Therefore, five weight sets spanning a reasonable range, from averaged weighed to a total sum of effects, are implemented here in order to find eventual differences in the vulnerability of residential buildings to the different pathways and determine how they combine together into a single (potentially synergetic) impact.</p><p>This contribution introduces five model variants, their components, and shows the first differences across the model parameters. With this we also highlight the need to engage with the procedure of defining the weights sets, which still remains a challenge for the study of compound event' impacts.</p>

scholarly journals Climate change effects on hydrometeorological compound events over southern Norway

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Poschlod ◽  
Jakob Zscheischler ◽  
Jana Sillmann ◽  
Raul R. Wood ◽  
Ralf Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Saturated Soil ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Occurrence Probability ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Compound Events ◽  
Southern Norway ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Joint Occurrence

<p>Compound events are characterized as a combination of multiple drivers and/or hazards which contributes to societal, economical or environmental risk. In southern Norway, hydrometeorological compound events can trigger severe floods, for instance the joint occurrence of rainfall and snowmelt in south-eastern Norway in 1995 and 2013.  </p><p>Due to this high impact, the investigation of compound events is important, but is hampered by some limiting factors. The multivariate character and the associated very rare occurrence of these events require a large database in order to conduct statistically robust investigations, whereas the available meteorological observations are too scarce in space and time.<br>With this current study, we present a quantile-based framework to define and examine compound events within a single model initial condition large ensemble (SMILE). To overcome the limitation of data scarcity, we use 50 high-resolution climate simulations from the SMILE CRCM5-LE to investigate two hydrometeorological compound event types in southern Norway:</p><p>(1) Heavy rainfall on saturated soil during the summer months (June, July, August, September),</p><p>(2) Concurrent heavy rainfall and snowmelt (also often referred to as rain-on-snow).</p><p>Furthermore, the application of climate model data enables us to quantify the impact of climate change on the frequency and spatial distribution of both types of compound events. Thereby, we compare current climate conditions (1980-2009) with future conditions (2070-2099) under the high-emission scenario RCP 8.5. We find that the frequency of heavy rainfall on saturated soil increases by 38% until 2070-2099 on average. In contrast, the occurrence probability of rain-on-snow is projected to decrease by 48% over the whole study area, largely driven by decreases in snowfall. The spatial patterns of both events are found to shift. Additionally, we assess the range of the natural variability of the drivers and of the compound event probability within the 50 members of the CRCM5-LE. The univariate spread of the meteorological drivers is found to be relatively small, whereas the occurrence probability of both compound events shows a high inter-member variability. Hence, we conclude that the frequency of the joint occurrence of the contributing drivers is highly variable, which is why a SMILE is needed to assess this probability.</p><p>Our current work shows the limitations of regional climate models, stressing the need for even higher-resolution setups to resolve the complex topography of Norway. However, it also highlights the benefits of SMILE simulations for the analysis of compound events.</p>

Two Histories of Bioinformatics: Data Science vs Life Science

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Keyword(s):  
Data Science ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Living Things ◽  
History Of ◽  
Normative Criterion ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Descriptive Criterion ◽  
Computational Methods And Technologies

This paper focuses on two attempts to reconstruct the history of bioinformatics as a scientific discipline. Paulien Hogeweg who coined the term “bioinformatics,” presents one of them, while Hallam Stevens, who is both a historian and sociologist of science, offers the other. Although both of them can speak authoritatively about bioinformatics inasmuch as Hogeweg was personally involved in creating the field while Stevens has amassed a substantial amount of microsociological, scientometric and other evidence, they tell two fundamentally different stories. According to Hogeweg, bioinformatics came about as a response to new epistemic demands on the life sciences that arose from several key discoveries in molecular biology in the middle of 20th century. For Stevens, the new discipline was the result of transplanting computational methods and technologies into biology. This difference stems from divergent interpretations of what bioinformatics is, and these in turn depend upon different ontological claims about the nature of living things. The link between the concepts of life and information is explained by Hogeweg through a systems approach. Stevens discounts that link and concentrates instead on the transposition of scientific practices from other disciplines and on the new ways of understanding the living which are generated by this transposition. The attempt to define bioinformatics as a scientific discipline ends for both of these theorists a tautology: the discipline is defined by something defined by this same discipline, that is, by a certain idea about information and/or data. The effect of this tautology is that a normative criterion for delimitation of disciplines (a set of requirements which are necessary and sufficient for considering a field of research as a scientific discipline) does not allow us to explain how each of them occurs individually. Instead, a descriptive criterion is proposed, which is to be understood as the study of the conditions which make possible the differentiations in scientific practices which have already taken place. A distinct understanding of information or data and the ontology associated with it should be the outcome of a study of this kind and not presupposed by it.

scholarly journals Energy security: between markets and sovereign politics

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 544-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radu Dudau ◽  
Alexandra Catalina Nedelcu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Portfolio Management ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Security Risk ◽  
Security Risks ◽  
Competitive Prices ◽  
Market Shocks ◽  
The One

Abstract Energy security is a constant presence in the energy-related political discourse all over the world. States strive to secure steady inflows of needed energy supplies, as well as the price affordability of those supplies. However, what are deemed to be the best means to meet such goals depends on one’s theoretical vantage point. On the one hand, economically-minded theorists maintain that energy security is only a matter of market rules and interactions. Thus, they call upon energy markets to deliver both steady supplies and competitive prices. On the other hand, politically-minded scholars emphasize the political and hard-power nature of international energy trades, especially in a global context market by the emergence of state-centered, authoritarian regimes that use large national energy companies as foreign policy instruments. These two positions delineate competing approaches to how energy security risks ought to be managed. The former approaches energy security risks by means similar to portfolio management, requiring diversification of investments in order to insulate them from market shocks. The latter approaches energy security as a matter of foreign policy, by which states envisage interest coordination and favorable alignments within countervailing alliances against the agent of energy security risk. The present paper goes beyond the uncontentious point that these two dimensions are complementary. It argues that, depending on the international context, a more market-driven or a more-politically driven behavior may be adequate.

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