scholarly journals Linking rural community livelihoods to resilience building in flood risk reduction in Zimbabwe

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Gwimbi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Property Values ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Flood Hazards ◽  
Flooding Events

The increasing occurrence of disastrous flooding events and the mounting losses in both life and property values in Zimbabwe have drawn attention to the flooding situation in the country, especially the rural areas. This article explores the resilience of vulnerable rural communities to flood risks associated within increasingly frequent and severe events linked to climate change. Starting by reviewing the current literature on rural livelihoods, resilience and vulnerability research, the paper argues for a coordinated teamwork approach in flood risk mitigation in rural areas. The paper concludes with several recommendations for enhanced resilience to flood hazards.

scholarly journals The Future of Rurality: Place Attachment among Young Inhabitants of Two Rural Communities of Mediterranean Central Chile

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 546
Author(s):  
Paulina Rodríguez-Díaz ◽  
Rocío Almuna ◽  
Carla Marchant ◽  
Sally Heinz ◽  
Roxana Lebuy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Young People ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Place Attachment ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Rural Youth ◽  
Central Chile ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
Connectedness To Nature

Rural livelihoods are under threat, not only from climate change and soil erosion but also because young people in rural areas are increasingly moving to urbanized areas, seeking employment and education opportunities. In the Valparaiso region of Chile, megadrought, soil degradation, and industrialization are driving young people to leave agricultural and livestock activities. In this study, our main objective was to identify the factors influencing young people living in two rural agricultural communities (Valle Hermoso and La Vega). We conducted 90 online surveys of young people aged 13–24 to evaluate their interest in living in the countryside (ILC). We assessed the effect of community satisfaction, connectedness to nature, and social valuation of rural livelihoods on the ILC. The results show that young people were more likely to stay living in the countryside when they felt satisfied and safe in their community, felt a connection with nature, and were surrounded by people who enjoyed the countryside. These results highlight the relevance of promoting place attachment and the feeling of belonging within the rural community. Chilean rural management and local policies need to focus on rural youth and highlight the opportunities that the countryside provides for them.

scholarly journals Climate Change and Rural Livelihoods in the Lawra District of Ghana. A Qualitative Based Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 160
Author(s):  
Abdul-Rahim Abdulai ◽  
Marshal K. Ziemah ◽  
Paul Boniface Akaabre
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
The People ◽  
Development Programming ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Climate change is a growing threat to the world's poorest and most vulnerable living in rural areas. The impacts of climate change challenge efforts to reducing poverty and hence, will require new approaches to focus development programming on the changing realities of the world. Understanding how the impacts of climate change affect the people, and their knowledge and experience in coping with it will assist in identifying appropriate strategies for adaptation to it. This paper thus examined the impacts of climate change on livelihoods of rural communities in the Upper West region of Ghana and the challenges posed to efforts at reducing poverty in the area. Discussions on vulnerability to climate variability and adaptation issues in this paper focused on evidence observed by 10 communities in the Lawra District. Adopting a qualitative approach, ten focused group discussions were organized to gather data. Specific issues discussed surrounded evidence of climate change in the communities, its impacts, underlying causes of vulnerability to climate and coping strategies employed by community members. Based on the discussions, the paper recommends the need to develop and intensify effective institutional mechanisms to facilitate community adaptation measures, awareness raising (creation) on anti-environments practices in communities, institution of bye and customary laws to regulate human anti-environmental activities, and the implementation of adaptation projects to aid communities cope with the major impacts of climate change in the district and world at large.

Novel use of climate model data for deriving future flood risk underwriting and risk selection data – A Hong Kong Case Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Alexandre ◽  
Iain Willis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Commercial Building ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Change Factors

<p>The re/insurance, banking and mortgage sectors play an essential role in facilitating economic stability. As climate change-related financial risks increase, there has long been a need for tools that contribute to the global industry’s current and future flood risk resiliency. Recognising this gap, JBA Risk Management has pioneered use of climate model data for rapidly deriving future flood risk metrics to support risk-reflective pricing strategies and mortgage analysis for Hong Kong.</p><p>JBA’s established method uses daily temporal resolution precipitation and surface air temperature Regional Climate Model (RCM) data from the Earth System Grid Federation’s CORDEX experiment. Historical and future period RCM data were processed for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.6, and time horizons 2046-2050 and 2070-2080 and used to develop fluvial and pluvial hydrological model change factors for Hong Kong. These change factors were applied to baseline fluvial and pluvial flood depths and extents, extracted from JBA’s high resolution 30m Hong Kong Flood Map. From these, potential changes in flood event frequency and severity for each RCP and time horizon combination were estimated.</p><p>The unique flood frequency and severity profiles for each flood type were then analysed with customised vulnerability functions, linking water depth to expected damage over time for residential and commercial building risks. This resulted in quantitative fluvial and pluvial flood risk metrics for Hong Kong.</p><p>Newly released, Hong Kong Climate Change Pricing Data is already in use by financial institutions. When combined with property total sum insured data, this dataset provides the annualised cost of flood damage for a range of future climate scenarios. For the first time, our industry has a tool to quantify baseline and future flood risk and set risk-reflective pricing for Hong Kong portfolios.</p><p>JBA’s method is adaptable for global use and underwriting tools are already available for the UK and Australia with the aim of improving future financial flood risk mitigation and management. This presentation will outline the method, provide a comparison of baseline and climate change flood impacts for Hong Kong and discuss the wider implications for our scientific and financial industries.</p>

Ecological Governance and the Sustainability of Rural Household Water Conservation Systems in the Savannah Region of Ghana

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Prosper Bazaanah
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Domestic Water ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Gender Inclusion ◽  
Ecological Governance ◽  
And Gender

This chapter examined the link between ecological governance and water conservation as sustainable pathways for enhancing rural livelihoods in the Savannah Region. Designs adopted were post-positivist and cross-sectional. Probability sampling techniques were used to sample 450 household and official respondents. Questionnaires were administered, while descriptive statistics and chi-square test were utilised to analyse the data. Findings showed significant relationship between conservation initiatives, finance, rehabilitation/maintenance, and gender inclusion and domestic water conservation. Therefore, with commitment to maintenance, funding, and gender inclusion in water decisions, there is the likely for water to be locally sustainable in rural communities of the region. Democratic, decentralised, and participatory approaches to ecological governance and empowerment of the local communities are recommended as essential preconditions for achieving ecologically self-governing communities and sustaining domestic water systems in the rural areas of the region.

scholarly journals Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) Method for the Management of Woodland Plantations in Floodplain Areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 725
Author(s):  
Christos Tzioutzios ◽  
Aristeidis Kastridis
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
River System ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Multi Criteria Evaluation ◽  
Total Study Area

The potential of woodland and floodplain woodland plantations in a wide area, of high flood risk, along the Spey River (Scotland) is investigated, to mitigate the floods’ catastrophic impact. The spatial analysis required various datasets to be overlaid, to define the suitable sites for woodland and floodplain woodland establishment. These datasets that concern the topography, the physical and technical characteristics (existing woodland, road system, urban and rural areas, river system and open water areas, railway) and the protected sites of the study area were obtained and merged using Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques. The most suitable and unsuitable areas within the region were identified, using multi-criteria evaluation methods (Boolean approach). In total, 13 constraints were created by expressing true/false statements for each factor, and were combined together using spatial analysis tools. The results revealed the high potential of woodland and floodplain woodland plantations to prevent floods, with 59.2% of the total study area (177.5 km2) determined to be appropriate for such practices’ application. The River Dulnain tributary demonstrated the highest potential for floodplain woodland planting, followed by Rivers Avon and Fiddich, and the southwestern and northeastern Spey River parts. The methodology proposed is simple and provides rapid and accurate results at low cost, while the datasets can be easily accessed and are available in convenient type/format. This useful methodology for researchers and authorities could be applied successfully to similar watersheds, contributing significantly to flood risk mitigation and the enhancement of the flood-preventative measures’ planning efficiency.

Stochastic modelling of flow sequences for improved prediction of fluvial flood hazards

2018 ◽  
Vol 488 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandhya Patidar ◽  
Deonie Allen ◽  
Rick Haynes ◽  
Heather Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Flood Risk ◽  
Stochastic Modelling ◽  
Statistical Characteristics ◽  
Probability Density Distribution ◽  
Flood Hazards ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Daily Streamflow ◽  
Flooding Events ◽  
Gp Model ◽  
Modelling Approach

AbstractThe availability of historical streamflow data of the desired length is often limited and, in these situations, the ability to synthetically generate statistically significant datasets becomes important. We previously developed a highly efficient stochastic modelling approach for the synthetic generation of daily streamflow sequences using the systematic combination of a hidden Markov model with the generalized Pareto distribution (the HMM-GP model). Daily streamflow sequences provide limited information on various significant small duration flooding events exceeding the peak over threshold values, but these are averaged out in the daily datasets. These small duration intense flooding events are often capable of causing significant damage and are important in conducting thorough flood risk management and flood risk assessment studies. This paper presents upgrades to our HMM-GP stochastic modelling approach and examines its efficiency in simulating streamflow at a temporal resolution of 15 minutes. The potential of the HMM-GP model in simulating a synthetic 15-minute streamflow series is investigated by comparing various statistical characteristics (e.g. percentiles, the probability density distribution and the autocorrelation function) of the observed streamflow records with 100 synthetically simulated streamflow time series. The proposed modelling schematics are robustly validated across case studies in four UK rivers (the Don, Nith, Dee and Tweed).

scholarly journals Quantifying the Uncertainty Related to Climate Change in the Assessment of Urban Flooding—A Case Study

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2072
Author(s):  
Liuzzo ◽  
Freni
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Urban Catchment ◽  
Flood Susceptibility ◽  
Rainfall Variations ◽  
Flooding Events

Recent studies have pointed out that climate change is likely to have important implications on the extent and frequency of flooding events. Indeed, the intensification of the water cycle occurring in different areas of the world can dramatically affect the incidence of extreme events and, consequently, the flow in rivers or artificial channels, increasing the probability of disastrous floods. In this context, the criteria for the assessment of flood risk need to be improved to take into account the variability of rainfall due to climate change. In this study, a Bayesian procedure was used to update the parameters of the depth–duration–frequency (DDF) curves and quantify the uncertainty related to their assessment in some climate change scenarios. The critical storm obtained from these updated DDF curves was used as input for the FLO-2D hydraulic model, in order to investigate the effects of climate change on flood risk. The area of study was an urban catchment in Piazza Armerina, a small town located in Southern Italy. Results showed that rainfall variations remarkably affect not only the magnitude of flood events, but also the flood susceptibility of the study area.

Essential multiple functions of farms in rural communities and landscapes

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecka Milestad ◽  
Johan Ahnström ◽  
Johanna Björklund
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Human Services ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Local Processing ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
Action Groups

AbstractAs farms are consolidated into larger operations and small farms close down for economic reasons, rural areas lose ecological, social and economic functions related to farming. Biodiversity and scenic, open-vista landscapes are lost as fields are left unmanaged. Social and economic benefits such as local job opportunities and meeting places disappear. Four Swedish rural communities were examined to increase our understanding of the functions that a diverse agriculture provides and which of these are lost as farms cease operation and overall rural social capital is depleted. Workshops and interviews with village action groups and with farmers were carried out. Both groups identified key functions from farming that are important to the rural community, such as production of food and fiber, businesses and jobs, human services, local security, ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling and biodiversity, and functions pertaining to quality of life. Several ways in which village action groups can support agriculture were identified that current industrial agriculture and even agri-environmental schemes fail to achieve. These include organizing local meeting places, encouraging local processing and consumption and supporting farmers in their work. We conclude that agriculture and village action groups match well in community development and that policies supporting this match would be useful.

scholarly journals ECOLOGICAL SETTLEMENT AS A SELF-GOVERNMENT MODEL IN RURAL AREAS

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kemble Walker ◽  
Mariia Plotnikova
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Community Management ◽  
Future Society ◽  
Improved Methods

There is a clear need in rural areas for improved methods of self-government. This study examines the most effective approaches to administration in rural communities. What are the most promising types of rural community management? We aim to assess trends in rural selfrehabilitation and development, including an international analysis of ecological and family homestead settlements as models of future society. These models represent an evolution of the traditional village capable of improving the population's quality of life. Family homestead settlements are the most common form of ecological settlement in Ukraine and foster family values, patriotism to the Homeland and effectively demonstrate successful self-government practices. Governance is achieved by way of the Veche, a collective authority, as well as through public organizations, public-private partnerships, regional and international cooperation.

scholarly journals Digital Transformations in Agri-Food Systems: Innovation Drivers and New Threats to Sustainable Rural Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 03002
Author(s):  
Olena Borodina ◽  
Oksana Rykovska ◽  
Oksana Mykhailenko ◽  
Oleksii Fraier
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Sustainable Rural Development ◽  
Development Goals

The paper proves that sweeping digital transformations are a global trend in agri-food development. Significantly improved economic efficiency, rational use of natural resources, operational exchange of relevant information, new markets, and economic opportunities under modern climate change are possible owing to digital transformations. It is grounded that the elimination of world hunger based on the provided internal food security and secured rural communities should be the primary goal of the digital innovations in agri-food systems within Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper states that along with the significant benefits of digital technologies, the great destructive impact on the overall societal development is possible due to the corporate monopolization of digital processes. Thus, there is the risk of the development of food systems, which are characterized by decreasing in the food supply, loss of biodiversity and rural livelihoods. Proposals to mitigate the threats of digitalization, strengthen internal food security and enhance the development of rural communities through information and communication technologies (ICT) are substantiated. The specific of the agri-food digitalization in Ukraine is outlined, which is determined by the duality of the organizational structure of agriculture (corporate and individual sector) with a tendency to the concentration of land, power, and financial resources in favor of corporations expanding opportunities for digitalization. Appropriate safety measures to mitigate the negative impact on the development of small producers, rural areas, and Ukrainian society are identified.

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