scholarly journals A climate change adaptation measure through education and citizen science. The project FLOODUP

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montserrat Llasat-Botija ◽  
Maria Carmen Llasat

<p>In this communication, FLOODUP, a strategy that combines a participatory methodology (citizen science) with educational activities, will be presented as a measure of adaptation to floods and their possible increase due to climate change. The adaptation strategies to climate change range from structural measures (building a dam, for example) to non-structural measures (legislation and improvement of risk assessment, for example). In recent years it has become clear that it is necessary to increase the risk awareness of the population in the face of extreme events such as floods, not only when they occur but also before and after (Hyogo Framework). The population's lack of awareness in front of natural hazards makes it difficult to take responsible decisions at the individual and community level. This is especially relevant considering the context of climate change, which also contributes with a perception of uncertainty. In this context, the development of innovative adaptation strategies based on the knowledge are needed. These strategies are also an opportunity to face the challenges associated with SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).</p><p>The objective of FLOODUP project is double: (a) to improve the knowledge, capacitation and empowerment of the population in front of natural hazards and climatic change and (b) to collect information about their impact and management through citizen science. The tools developed in the project as a mobile application, questionnaires or educational materials will be presented. The main campaigns carried out will also be shown. Their aim is to generate spaces for reflection, especially after flood events. On the other hand, the itinerary of citizen science that is developed in secondary schools and its strengths and weaknesses will be presented. Finally, it will analyze how to respond to current challenges, such as those associated with the SDGs, from projects such as FLOODUP.</p><p>This work has been done in the framework of the M-CostAdapt (CTM2017-83655-C2-1&2-R) research project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN-AEI/FEDER, UE) and the PIRAGUA project EFA210/16 Interreg V Spain-France-Andorre Programme (POCTEFA 2014-2020, EU).</p>

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Ostoja ◽  
Tapan Pathak ◽  
Katherine Jarvis-Shean ◽  
Mark Battany ◽  
George Zhuang

The agricultural economy is more vulnerable to projected changes in climate in some California counties than in others. This flyer highlights on-farm adaptation strategies to mitigate some of the effects of increased winter temperatures and more frequent summer heatwaves. Projected conditions will put the most strain on heat intolerant crops and crops with high chill requirements. When crops with these characteristics also have a high market value or are grown in large acreage, counties can be at risk for economic declines. Information on this flyer identifies the most vulnerable counties in California Area 3 for some key, climate-sensitive crops.


2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay F. Wiley

In coming decades, enhanced global health governance will be crucial to achieving international health and development objectives in the face of a number of challenges; this article focuses on one of them. Climate change, which is now widely recognized as the defining challenge of the 21st century, will make the work of ensuring the conditions in which people can be healthy more difficult in a myriad of ways. Scientists from both the health and climate communities have been highlighting the significant interaction between climate and health for decades and have made significant strides in integrating health and environmental research. Those of us in the law and policy community have been a bit slow to catch up, and have only just begun to call for better integration of our responses to health and environmental concerns. Environmental health specialists at the World Health Organization have recently pointed to a mandate for better integration of health and environmental concerns within the United Nations system. The Millennium Development Goals interweave health, environmental, and development concerns.


Author(s):  
Apurba Krishna Deb ◽  
C. Emdad Haque

Purpose Coastal and floodplain areas are on the frontline of climate change in Bangladesh. Small-scale coastal and floodplain fishing communities of the country face a host of cross-scale stressors continually, some induced by climate change, and they have developed coping and adaption strategies based on customary social and experiential learnings. This paper aims to examine the coping and adaptation strategies that small-scale fishing communities undertake in the face of stresses including climate change and variability. Design/methodology/approach This research takes a nuanced ethnographic-oriented approach based on around two-year-long field study in two coastal and floodplain fishing villages, represented by two distinct ethnic groups. The study adopts direct observational methods to denote the ways small-scale fishing communities address the arrays of stressors to construct and reconstruct their survival and livelihood needs. Findings It was observed that fishers’ coping and adaptation strategies comprise a fluid combination of complex overlapping sets of actions that the households undertake based on their capitals and capabilities, perceptions, socio-cultural embeddedness and experiential learnings from earlier adverse situations. Broadly, these are survival, economic, physiological, social, institutional and religiosity-psychological in nature. Adaptation mechanisms involve some implicit principles or self-provisioning actions that households are compelled to do or choose under given sets of abnormal stresses to reach certain levels of livelihood functions. Originality/value Based on empirical field research, this paper recognizes small-scale fishers’ capability and adaptability in addressing climate change-induced stresses. Policymakers, international development planners, climate scientists and social workers can learn from these grassroots-level coping and adaptation strategies of fishing communities to minimize the adverse effects of climate change and variations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 08003
Author(s):  
Jalal ud Din Akbar ◽  
Muhammad Ridhuan Tony Lim Abdullah

Global challenges of climate change and environmental deterioration helped in formulating seventeen sustainable development goals through United Nation. Achieving these sustainable goals, Malaysia initiated and track progress towards affordable and clean energy. The natural environment and climate are mostly influenced by human behavior. Due to the role of human behavior in climate change, a strong tendency towards the pursuit of energy sustainability exists. Attention is paid to strengthen the human behavior from general acts of doing things to carrying specific actions by adopting a responsible behavior into daily routine. A number of factors were identified through literature such as social structure, institution, and education for understanding the individual behavior for sustainability with regard to energy consumption. Many experts related to the field of energy were engaged to sort and prioritize these factors with respect to their importance by using multi-criteria decision making tool of analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The experts were selected from different sectors such as academia, NGOs and industry. With the help of experts, a framework of individual energy consumption behaviour is developed to allow the government and other stakeholders to make policies accordingly to achieve energy sustainable.


2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (4) ◽  
pp. 679-692
Author(s):  
Simon Hollnaicher

Abstract According to a well-known problem in climate ethics, individual actions cannot be wrong due to their impact on climate change since the individual act does not make a difference. By referring to the practical interpretation of the categorical imperative, the author argues that certain actions lead to a contradiction in conception in light of the climate crisis. Universalizing these actions would cause foreseeable climate impacts, making it impossible to pursue the original maxim effectively. According to the practical interpretation, such actions are morally wrong. The wrongness of these actions does not depend on making a difference, rather these actions are wrong because they make it impossible for others to act accordingly. Thus, apart from imperfect duties, for which has been argued convincingly elsewhere (Henning 2016; Alberzart 2019), we also have perfect duties to refrain from certain actions in the face of the climate crisis.


Author(s):  
Raissa Sorgho ◽  
Isabel Mank ◽  
Moubassira Kagoné ◽  
Aurélia Souares ◽  
Ina Danquah ◽  
...  

In West Africa, climate change aggravates subsistence farmers’ vulnerability to weather variability to sustain their agricultural and nutritional requirements. For successful adaptation policies, in-depth understanding of farmers’ perceptions about climate change, agriculture, and adaptation strategies is essential. This qualitative study in rural Burkina Faso characterized farmers’ perceptions and knowledge through in-depth interviews. The study enumerated the barriers, possibilities, strategies/practices, and support sources of farmers. There was awareness but limited understanding of climate change amongst farmers. Those unable to adapt, faced increased health difficulties, specifically regarding nutrition and mental health. Farmers could implement some dietary and agricultural adaptation strategies (reduce meal size, frequency and variety, preemptive purchase of cereals, multi-cropping, crop rotation, modified seeds) but were unable to implement others (soil rehabilitation, water management). Barriers to implementation comprised financial and time constraints, material and labor shortages, and inaccessible information. Farmers did not understand, trust or utilize meteorological services, but appreciated and relied on agricultural extension services. They reported that social and governmental support was sporadic and inconsistent. This study uncovers the following targets for climate change adaptation policies in rural Burkina Faso: promoting meteorological services, expanding agricultural extension services, increasing access to financial resources, and framing sustainable adaptation within national development goals.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sopharo Oum

<p>The Lower Mekong Basin covers four countries, Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. These countries are often affected by floods and sometimes by droughts. These natural hazards silently and adversely affect people’s livelihoods in the region. In the face of future environmental changes, especially climate change and dam construction along the Mekong River, patterns of floods and droughts are more likely to exacerbate the situation. For this case study of a vulnerable commune in this setting, I developed a hybrid model of the development and complexity paradigms to both organise my research data and extend my analysis. This holistic hybrid paradigm enabled me to explore the interrelationships between natural hazards, disasters, and vulnerability, and adopt a multidisciplinary approach in which I attempt to integrate disaster risk management and climate change adaptation models to highlight problems and to propose interventions. The results obtained indicate that in the future floods and droughts are likely to be more frequent and severe and just what impact additional dams currently being planned or built will have over the control of water levels remains an outstanding question. Plans need to be made to enable people to cope with floods and droughts because these can have a hugely detrimental impact on their livelihoods including crops and personal property, people, community infrastructure and environment. Although current coping strategies are in place, disasters still occur. Based on the vulnerability context of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the Pressure and Release (PAR) model, I was able to show how vulnerability is exacerbated by dissonant social, economic, and political structures. This research also proposes an integrated framework, including adaptive management and participatory action research, as a way of monitoring interventions that could possibly resolve some of the challenges.</p>


Author(s):  
Eugene Loh Chia ◽  
Anne Marie Tiani ◽  
Denis Jean Sonwa ◽  
Alba Saray Perez-Teran ◽  
Berenger Tchatchou

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the contribution of forests resource systems to the different aspects of community well-being, the implications of climate variability on the different sources of well-being and further identifies direct and indirect social and policy opportunities relevant for communities to enhance their capabilities in the face of climate variability and change in the Tri-National de la Sangha landscape of Cameroon. Design/methodology/approach – It illustrates on data collected from focus group discussions and from 151 households randomly selected in three villages to operationalize the conceptual links between community well-being and vulnerability. Findings – The study shows that vulnerability to climate change interferes with community strategies to achieve well-being, in addition to non-climatic processes which are both internal and external to communities. The study further indicates that healthy forest ecosystems provide opportunities for the local folks to build assets, improve food security, improve health and reduce risks. However, this requires capacity building and the channeling of resources to the local level, in addition to win–win sectoral policy amendments. Research limitations/implications – Biophysical methods required to complement community perceptions on the suitability of forest resource systems to climate variability. Practical implications – This paper argues that appropriate strategies which aim at improving well-being needs to capture the role of forest ecosystems, climate change risks and uncertainty and macroeconomic and social processes. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between climate risk and the well-being of forest communities. This is relevant for practitioners and policy makers to reflect on the risk of climate change and the rationale for conserving forest resources for community well-being in the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals conclusions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 2966 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Withycombe Keeler ◽  
Fletcher Beaudoin ◽  
Amy Lerner ◽  
Beatrice John ◽  
Richard Beecroft ◽  
...  

The urgency of climate change and other sustainability challenges makes transferring and scaling solutions between cities a necessity. However, solutions are deeply contextual. To accelerate solution efforts, there is a need to understand how context shapes the development of solutions. Universities are well positioned to work with cities on transferring solutions from and to other cities. This paper analyses five case studies of city–university partnerships in three countries on transferring solutions. Our analysis suggests that understanding the interest, the action on sustainability, and the individual and collective sustainability competences on the part of the city administration and the university can help facilitate the transfer of sustainability solutions across contexts. We conclude that the nature of the city–university partnership is essential to solution transfer and that new and existing networks can be used to accelerate progress on the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.


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