Evaluation of climate change risks faced by the mining industry in Chile: spatiotemporal analysis of extreme precipitation for 2035-2065

Author(s):  
Gabriel Perez ◽  
Liliana Pagliero ◽  
Neil McIntyre ◽  
Douglas Aitken ◽  
Diego Rivera

<p>Climate change poses significant challenges for many industrial activities around the world, including mining. Changes in precipitation patterns and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events can trigger severe droughts or flash floods that can easily disrupt the minerals value-chain and increase environmental pollution risks. This research focuses on evaluating climate change risks faced by the mining industry in Chile during the period 2035-2065 under the assumptions of the RCP 8.5 scenario (business as usual).  This research presents risk maps, at the national scale, based on different databases that describe the location and characteristics of the mining infrastructure and spatiotemporal analysis of daily precipitation changes between present climate conditions and future predictions. The present climate conditions are depicted by historical observations for the period 1980-2010 while the future predictions are represented by an ensemble of 34 downscaled Global Circulation Models (GCMs) from the CMIP5.  On one hand, the results show that mining operations located in northern and central Chile (Atacama, Coquimbo and Valparaiso regions), will face significant flash flood risks due to the predicted increase of extreme precipitation events for 2035-2065. On the other hand, the results suggest that mining operations located in the regions of Coquimbo, Valparaiso, Biobio, Libertador G.B.O, and Metropolitan area of Santiago are those under the most significant risks due to droughts. The results obtained in this research are part of a more comprehensive project titled “Climate Risk Atlas of Chile”, developed by the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2) and the Center for Global Change of Universidad Católica de Chile (https://arclim.mma.gob.cl/), which analyses the risks of climate change for different industries of the Chilean economy.</p>

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mavrommatis ◽  
Damigos ◽  
Mirasgedis

Changing climate conditions affect mining operations all over the world, but so far, the mining sector has focused primarily on mitigation actions. Nowadays, there exists increasing recognition of the need for planned adaptation actions. To this end, the development of a practical tool for the assessment of climate change-related risks to support the mining community is deemed necessary. In this study, a comprehensive framework is proposed for climate change multi-risk assessment at the local level customized for the needs of the mining industry. The framework estimates the climate change risks in economic terms by modeling the main activities that a mining company performs, in a probabilistic model, using Bayes’ theorem. The model permits incorporating inherent uncertainty via fuzzy logic and is implemented in two versatile ways: as a discrete Bayesian network or as a conditional linear Gaussian network. This innovative quantitative methodology produces probabilistic outcomes in monetary values estimated either as percentage of annual loss revenue or net loss/gains value. Finally, the proposed framework is the first multi-risk methodology in the mining context that considers all the relevant hazards caused by climate change extreme weather events, which offers a tool for selecting the most cost-effective action among various adaptation strategies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 6719
Author(s):  
Yuanzhe Liu ◽  
Wei Song

Global climate change is increasingly influencing the economic system. With the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, the influences of climate change on the economic system are no longer limited to the agricultural sector, but extend to the industrial system. However, there is little research on the influences of climate change on industrial economic systems. Among the different sectors of the industrial economic system, the mining industry is more sensitive to the influences of climate change. Here, taking the mining industry as an example, we analyzed the influences of extreme precipitation on the mining industry using the trans-logarithm production function. In addition, the marginal output elasticity analysis method was employed to analyze the main factors influencing the mining industry. It was found that the mining investment in fixed assets, labor input, and technical progress could promote the development of the mining economy, while the extreme precipitation suppressed the growth of the mining industry. The increase in fixed asset investment and the technical progress could enhance the resistance of the mining industry to extreme precipitation, while there was no indication that labor input can reduce the influences of extreme precipitation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 3983-4005 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. O. Krichak ◽  
S. B. Feldstein ◽  
P. Alpert ◽  
S. Gualdi ◽  
E. Scoccimarro ◽  
...  

Abstract. Extreme precipitation events in the Mediterranean region during the cool season are strongly affected by the export of moist air from tropical and subtropical areas into the extratropics. The aim of this paper is to present a discussion of the major research efforts on this subject and to formulate a summary of our understanding of this phenomenon, along with its recent past trends from a climate change perspective. The issues addressed are: a discussion of several case studies; the origin of the air moisture and the important role of atmospheric rivers for fueling the events; the mechanism responsible for the intensity of precipitation during the events, and the possible role of global warming in recent past trends in extreme weather events over the Mediterranean region.


Author(s):  
Donghui Lu ◽  
Susan L. Tighe ◽  
Wei-Chau Xie

Pavement infrastructure is experiencing unanticipated climate conditions caused by global warming. Extreme weather events, such as extreme precipitations, are increasing in intensity and frequency, creating rising concern in pavement vulnerability and resilience analysis. Previous design approaches based on historical climate data may no longer be adequate for addressing future conditions. To promote pavement resilience under climate change, assessing pavement risk for extreme events is essential for prioritizing vulnerable infrastructure and developing adaptation strategies. The objective of this study is to develop a quantitative evaluation methodology for assessing pavement risk from extreme precipitations under climate change. Hazard analysis, fragility modeling, and cost estimation are the three major components for risk evaluation. An ensemble of 24 global climate models is used for predicting future extreme precipitations under various climate-forcing scenarios. The Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide is employed to simulate performance change for performing fragility modeling. Risk assessment models considering a full range of hazards were used to quantify risk of asset value loss over specified analysis periods. Results indicate that future extreme precipitation events are expected to cause an increased medium risk of asset value loss. However, high uncertainties are involved in the estimation owing to variations in predicted climates. Major pavement damages do not necessarily equate with highest risk because the probability of occurrence of major damage is relatively lower. The proposed approach provides a practical tool for analyzing the interaction among extreme precipitation levels, pavement designs, damage states, occurrence probability, and asset value at risk.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bimal K. Chhetri ◽  
Eleni Galanis ◽  
Stephen Sobie ◽  
Jordan Brubacher ◽  
Robert Balshaw ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Climate change is increasing the number and intensity of extreme weather events in many parts of the world. Precipitation extremes have been linked to both outbreaks and sporadic cases of waterborne illness. We have previously shown a link between heavy rain and turbidity to population-level risk of sporadic cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis in a major Canadian urban population. The risk increased with 30 or more dry days in the 60 days preceding the week of extreme rain. The goal of this study was to investigate the change in cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis risk due to climate change, primarily change in extreme precipitation. Methods Cases of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis were extracted from a reportable disease system (1997–2009). We used distributed lag non-linear Poisson regression models and projections of the exposure-outcome relationship to estimate future illness (2020–2099). The climate projections are derived from twelve statistically downscaled regional climate models. Relative Concentration Pathway 8.5 was used to project precipitation derived from daily gridded weather observation data (~ 6 × 10 km resolution) covering the central of three adjacent watersheds serving metropolitan Vancouver for the 2020s, 2040s, 2060s and 2080s. Results Precipitation is predicted to steadily increase in these watersheds during the wet season (Oct. -Mar.) and decrease in other parts of the year up through the 2080s. More weeks with extreme rain (>90th percentile) are expected. These weeks are predicted to increase the annual rates of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis by approximately 16% by the 2080s corresponding to an increase of 55–136 additional cases per year depending upon the climate model used. The predicted increase in the number of waterborne illness cases are during the wet months. The range in future projections compared to historical monthly case counts typically differed by 10–20% across climate models but the direction of change was consistent for all models. Discussion If new water filtration measures had not been implemented in our study area in 2010–2015, the risk of cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis would have been expected to increase with climate change, particularly precipitation changes. In addition to the predicted increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events, the frequency and length of wet and dry spells could also affect the risk of waterborne diseases as we observed in the historical period. These findings add to the growing evidence regarding the need to prepare water systems to manage and become resilient to climate change-related health risks.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 673-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Colmet-Daage ◽  
Emilia Sanchez-Gomez ◽  
Sophie Ricci ◽  
Cécile Llovel ◽  
Valérie Borrell Estupina ◽  
...  

Abstract. The climate change impact on mean and extreme precipitation events in the northern Mediterranean region is assessed using high-resolution EuroCORDEX and MedCORDEX simulations. The focus is made on three regions, Lez and Aude located in France, and Muga located in northeastern Spain, and eight pairs of global and regional climate models are analyzed with respect to the SAFRAN product. First the model skills are evaluated in terms of bias for the precipitation annual cycle over historical period. Then future changes in extreme precipitation, under two emission scenarios, are estimated through the computation of past/future change coefficients of quantile-ranked model precipitation outputs. Over the 1981–2010 period, the cumulative precipitation is overestimated for most models over the mountainous regions and underestimated over the coastal regions in autumn and higher-order quantile. The ensemble mean and the spread for future period remain unchanged under RCP4.5 scenario and decrease under RCP8.5 scenario. Extreme precipitation events are intensified over the three catchments with a smaller ensemble spread under RCP8.5 revealing more evident changes, especially in the later part of the 21st century.


2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 9-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Grum ◽  
A.T. Jørgensen ◽  
R.M. Johansen ◽  
J.J. Linde

That we are in a period of extraordinary rates of climate change is today evident. These climate changes are likely to impact local weather conditions with direct impacts on precipitation patterns and urban drainage. In recent years several studies have focused on revealing the nature, extent and consequences of climate change on urban drainage and urban runoff pollution issues. This study uses predictions from a regional climate model to look at the effects of climate change on extreme precipitation events. Results are presented in terms of point rainfall extremes. The analysis involves three steps: Firstly, hourly rainfall intensities from 16 point rain gauges are averaged to create a rain gauge equivalent intensity for a 25 × 25 km square corresponding to one grid cell in the climate model. Secondly, the differences between present and future in the climate model is used to project the hourly extreme statistics of the rain gauge surface into the future. Thirdly, the future extremes of the square surface area are downscaled to give point rainfall extremes of the future. The results and conclusions rely heavily on the regional model's suitability in describing extremes at time-scales relevant to urban drainage. However, in spite of these uncertainties, and others raised in the discussion, the tendency is clear: extreme precipitation events effecting urban drainage and causing flooding will become more frequent as a result of climate change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 1113-1122
Author(s):  
Bo Chen ◽  
Shi-jun Xu ◽  
Xin-ping Zhang ◽  
Yi Xie

Using the methods of literature review, regression analysis and moving average, this paper selects the daily precipitation of Changsha and Chengde from 1951 to 1986 as samples, and analyzes the average precipitation, precipitation frequency, precipitation intensity, extreme precipitation time and other indicators of Changsha and Chengde from the perspective of interannual and seasonal changes Trends. The researches show that: the average precipitation of Changsha in the 36 years is 1151.2mm, spring is the wet season, autumn and winter are the dry seasons, and the maximum average precipitation is in spring; the average annual precipitation, precipitation frequency in spring, summer and winter, annual precipitation frequency, annual precipitation intensity and extreme precipitation events show a decreasing trend. The average annual precipitation of Chengde city is 454.1 mm, wet season in summer and dry season in spring, autumn and winter; the average annual precipitation, precipitation in four seasons, annual precipitation frequency, precipitation frequency in spring, autumn and winter, annual precipitation intensity and extreme precipitation events show a decreasing trend, while the precipitation frequency in summer shows an increasing trend. The study of regional climate change based on the time series data of this stage is of great significance to comprehensively understand the law of regional climate change and predict the future trend of climate change.


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