scholarly journals Groundwater Impacts and Management under a Drying Climate in Southern Australia

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 3588
Author(s):  
Glen R. Walker ◽  
Russell S. Crosbie ◽  
Francis H. S. Chiew ◽  
Luk Peeters ◽  
Rick Evans
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Saline Groundwater ◽  
Groundwater Supply ◽  
Level Of Use ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Risk Areas ◽  
Streamflow Depletion ◽  
Proportional Reduction

The trend to a hotter and drier climate, with more extended droughts, has been observed in recent decades in southern Australia and is projected to continue under climate change. This paper reviews studies on the projected impacts of climate change on groundwater and associated environmental assets in southern Australia, and describes groundwater planning frameworks and management responses. High-risk areas are spatially patchy due to highly saline groundwater or low-transmissivity aquifers. The proportional reduction in rainfall is amplified in the groundwater recharge and some groundwater discharge fluxes. This leads to issues of deteriorating groundwater-dependent ecosystems, streamflow depletion, reduced submarine discharge, groundwater inundation and intrusion in coastal regions and reduced groundwater supply for extraction. Recent water reforms in Australia support the mitigation of these impacts, but groundwater adaptation is still at its infancy. Risk management is being incorporated in regional water and groundwater management plans to support a shift to a more sustainable level of use and more climate-resilient water resources in affected areas. The emerging strategies of groundwater trade and managed aquifer recharge are described, as is the need for a national water-focused climate change planning process.

scholarly journals Understanding institutional barriers in the climate change adaptation planning process of the city of Beirut: vicious cycles and opportunities

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Zea-Reyes ◽  
Veronica Olivotto ◽  
Sylvia I. Bergh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Institutional Barriers ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Poor Individual ◽  
Competing Priorities

AbstractCities around the world are confronted with the need to put in place climate adaptation policies to protect citizens and properties from climate change impacts. This article applies components of the framework developed by Moser and Ekström (2010) onto empirical qualitative data to diagnose institutional barriers to climate change adaptation in the Municipality of Beirut, Lebanon. Our approach reveals the presence of two vicious cycles influencing each other. In the first cycle, the root cause barrier is major political interference generating competing priorities and poor individual interest in climate change. A second vicious cycle is derived from feedbacks caused by the first and leading to the absence of a dedicated department where sector specific climate risk information is gathered and shared with other departments, limited knowledge and scientific understanding, as well as a distorted framing or vision, where climate change is considered unrelated to other issues and is to be dealt with at higher levels of government. The article also highlights the need to analyze interlinkages between barriers in order to suggest how to overcome them. The most common way to overcome barriers according to interviewees is through national and international support followed by the creation of a data bank. These opportunities could be explored by national and international policy-makers to break the deadlock in Beirut.

scholarly journals Simulating the Effects of Intensifying Silviculture on Desired Species Yields across a Broad Environmental Gradient

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 755
Author(s):  
Eric B. Searle ◽  
F. Wayne Bell ◽  
Guy R. Larocque ◽  
Mathieu Fortin ◽  
Jennifer Dacosta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Mechanistic Model ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Mechanistic Models ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Forest Modelling

In the past two decades, forest management has undergone major paradigm shifts that are challenging the current forest modelling architecture. New silvicultural systems, guidelines for natural disturbance emulation, a desire to enhance structural complexity, major advances in successional theory, and climate change have all highlighted the limitations of current empirical models in covering this range of conditions. Mechanistic models, which focus on modelling underlying ecological processes rather than specific forest conditions, have the potential to meet these new paradigm shifts in a consistent framework, thereby streamlining the planning process. Here we use the NEBIE (a silvicultural intervention scale that classifies management intensities as natural, extensive, basic, intensive, and elite) plot network, from across Ontario, Canada, to examine the applicability of a mechanistic model, ZELIG-CFS (a version of the ZELIG tree growth model developed by the Canadian Forest Service), to simulate yields and species compositions. As silvicultural intensity increased, overall yield generally increased. Species compositions met the desired outcomes when specific silvicultural treatments were implemented and otherwise generally moved from more shade-intolerant to more shade-tolerant species through time. Our results indicated that a mechanistic model can simulate complex stands across a range of forest types and silvicultural systems while accounting for climate change. Finally, we highlight the need to improve the modelling of regeneration processes in ZELIG-CFS to better represent regeneration dynamics in plantations. While fine-tuning is needed, mechanistic models present an option to incorporate adaptive complexity into modelling forest management outcomes.

Opportunities for harnessing the increased contribution of glacier and snowmelt flows in the Ganges basin

Water Policy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (S1) ◽  
pp. 9-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bharat R. Sharma ◽  
Devaraj de Condappa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Eastern India ◽  
Ganges Basin ◽  
Additional Water ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Tehri Dam ◽  
The Ganges ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Himalaya

The topography of the Ganges basin is highly variable, with the steep mountainous region of the Himalaya upstream and the large fertile plains in eastern India and Bangladesh downstream. The contribution from the glaciers to streamflows is supposed to be significant but there is uncertainty surrounding the impact of climate change on glaciers. An application of the Water Evaluation and Planning model was set up which contained an experimental glaciers module. The model also examined the possible impacts of an increase in temperature. The contribution from glaciated areas is significant (60–75%) in the Upper Ganges but reduces downstream, falling to about 19% at Farakka. Climate change-induced rise in temperature logically increases the quantity of snow and ice that melts in glaciated areas. However, this impact decreases from upstream (+8% to +26% at Tehri dam) to downstream (+1% to +4% at Farakka). Such increases in streamflows may create flood events more frequently, or of higher magnitude, in the upper reaches. Potential strategies to exploit this additional water may include the construction of new dams/reservoir storage and the development of groundwater in the basin through managed aquifer recharge. The riparian states of India, Nepal and Bangladesh could harness this opportunity to alleviate physical water scarcity and improve productivity.

scholarly journals Fostering sustainable tribal economies in a time of climate change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ema Maria Bargh ◽  
SL Douglas ◽  
Annie Te One
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Management ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Geographical Society ◽  
Local Resources ◽  
Energy Needs ◽  
Management Plans

In this article, we explore how Maori tribal organisations are responding to calls by other Indigenous peoples to become more sustainable in a time of climate change. From a close examination of tribal Environmental Management Plans, we move to a specific case study in the Bay of Plenty area, Ngati Kea/Ngati Tuara. Ultimately, we suggest that many tribal organisations are seeking to respond to climate change and transition to becoming producers of their own food and energy needs, and are often articulating these responses in relation to specific local resources and contexts. © 2014 New Zealand Geographical Society.

scholarly journals Challenges and Opportunities for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into WaSH Development Planning in Ghana

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salley Alhassan ◽  
Wade Hadwen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Early Warning Systems ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Northern Regions

Climate change threatens water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) facilities and services, as these are intimately linked to the water cycle and are vulnerable to changes in the quantity and quality of available water resources. Floods and droughts, which pollute and reduce water delivery respectively, have now become a perennial issue to deal with in the northern regions of the country, including the Bolgatanga Municipality. This study aimed to assess the degree to which climate change adaptation measures are mainstreamed into the WaSH development planning process in Ghana. Stakeholders from government and non-government agencies were interviewed to gain perspectives on the threat of climate change, the inclusion of climate change in WaSH planning and the barriers preventing mainstreaming. In general, despite awareness and concern about climate change, adaptation measures have been regarded to be far away from the immediate concerns of WaSH development planning. Most of the current measures are reactive and respond to environmental issues rather than to climate change stressors. In essence, stakeholders expressed the view that the adaptive capacity of the Municipality was low and that mainstreaming has not yet occurred. Despite the lack of progress, there are great opportunities for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into planning through increasing awareness and capacity, legislative and institutional changes and the development of participatory systems to provide early warning systems and disaster risk analyses that will inform future planning.

Challenges for Diadromous Fishes in a Dynamic Global Environment

2009 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Generalized Additive Models ◽  
Habitat Characteristics ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
The Face ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
Diadromous Species

<em>Abstract</em>.-Climate change can have an effect on species distributions. The 1900 distribution and potential future distribution of diadromous fish in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East were explored using generalized additive models (GAMs) and selected habitat characteristics of 196 basins. Robust presence-absence models were built for 20 of the 28 diadromous species in the study area using longitude, annual temperature, drainage surface area, annual precipitation, and source elevation as explanatory variables. Inspection of the relationship between each variable and species presence-absence revealed that the GAMs were generally interpretable and plausible. Given the predicted rise in annual temperature in climate models ranging between 1°C and 7°C by 2100, the fish species were classified according to those losing suitable basins, those gaining suitable basins, and those showing little or no change. It was found that the climate envelopes based on temperature and precipitation for diadromous species would, in general, be shifted farther northeastwards by 2100, and these shifting ranges were comparable with those assessed in other studies. The uncertain future of some species was highlighted, and it was concluded that conservation policy and management plans will need to be revised in the face of climate change.

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