scholarly journals Sustainability of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies: Experiences from Eastern Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Kwaku Agyei

<p class="emsd"><span lang="EN-GB">Climate change risks are wide spread, and they are transforming the socio-environmental infrastructure of economic development. Whether they are included or not in the development of national adaptation strategies, rural populations continue to employ diverse climate adaptation strategies to withstand climate induced vulnerabilities inimical to their livelihoods. Using the case of farming communities in Eastern Ghana and through semi-structured interviews, this article addresses the questions: which climate risks confront farmers, what are farmers’ adaptation choices, and which adaptation strategies are sustainable and why? The paper argues that farmers use range of adaptation strategies to minimize climate risks. Nevertheless, some strategies do not sustain the anticipated positive outcomes. Local choices of adaptation strategies were skewed towards advancing general income, and poorly promoted healthy ecological systems. Farmers’ choices of climate strategies were based on, among others, personal intuition or historical experience, knowledge of strategies, and availability of resources to implement a particular strategy: sustainability measures weakly influenced selections. Short rotation and mixed species cropping, farming at several locations, and drought tolerant crop varieties were sustainable initiatives to farmers. The main qualities of successful initiatives were low cost strategy, economic equity, and flexibility to precipitation and temperature. Climate adaptation strategy can be sustainable if it is less costly to establish, and flexible to places and seasons. </span></p>

2014 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 1450005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Miller ◽  
Griffin Kidd ◽  
Franco Montalto ◽  
Patrick Gurian ◽  
Cortney Worrall ◽  
...  

The purpose of this study was to examine stakeholder perceptions of climate change and local adaptation strategies in the New York City area. A side-by-side comparison of expert and resident opinions provided a clear picture of the region's climate change attitude in the year following Superstorm Sandy. Semi-structured interviews with regional environmental experts provided material for a structured survey, which was then distributed to 100 experts and 250 residents in coastal NY and northern NJ counties. In the survey both stakeholder groups were asked to choose the top three climate threats to the NYC region and rate adaptation and mitigation strategies on a 1–5 Likert scale regarding their ability to protect the region and their cost-effectiveness. Results show that experts and residents agree that sea level rise, coastal flooding and storm surge, and an increased frequency and intensity of extreme events pose the greatest threats to NYC over the next 25 years. While both groups showed a preference for long-term planning over immediate action, experts and residents could not agree on which specific strategies would best serve the region. The aftermath of Superstorm Sandy had a strong impact on both the expert and resident opinions and efforts to monitor stakeholder opinions continue.


2011 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Aldous ◽  
James Fitzsimons ◽  
Brian Richter ◽  
Leslie Bach

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on hydrologic regimes and freshwater ecosystems, and yet few basins have adequate numerical models to guide the development of freshwater climate adaptation strategies. Such strategies can build on existing freshwater conservation activities, and incorporate predicted climate change impacts. We illustrate this concept with three case studies. In the Upper Klamath Basin of the western USA, a shift in land management practices would buffer this landscape from a declining snowpack. In the Murray–Darling Basin of south-eastern Australia, identifying the requirements of flood-dependent natural values would better inform the delivery of environmental water in response to reduced runoff and less water. In the Savannah Basin of the south-eastern USA, dam managers are considering technological and engineering upgrades in response to more severe floods and droughts, which would also improve the implementation of recommended environmental flows. Even though the three case studies are in different landscapes, they all contain significant freshwater biodiversity values. These values are threatened by water allocation problems that will be exacerbated by climate change, and yet all provide opportunities for the development of effective climate adaptation strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 166 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Y. Liu ◽  
Juli M. Trtanj ◽  
Erin K. Lipp ◽  
John M. Balbus

AbstractEnvironmental health indicators are helpful for tracking and communicating complex health trends, informing science and policy decisions, and evaluating public health actions. When provided on a national scale, they can help inform the general public, policymakers, and public health professionals about important trends in exposures and how well public health systems are preventing those exposures from causing adverse health outcomes. There is a growing need to understand national trends in exposures and health outcomes associated with climate change and the effectiveness of climate adaptation strategies for health. To date, most indicators for health implications of climate change have been designed as independent, individual metrics. This approach fails to take into account how exposure-outcome pathways for climate-attributable health outcomes involve multiple, interconnected components. We propose reframing climate change and health indicators as a linked system of indicators, which can be described as follows: upstream climate drivers affect environmental states, which then determine human exposures, which ultimately lead to health outcomes; these climate-related risks are modified by population vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies. We apply this new conceptual framework to three illustrative climate-sensitive health outcomes and associated exposure-outcome pathways: pollen allergies and asthma, West Nile virus infection, and vibriosis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tendayi C. Garutsa ◽  
Chipo P. Mubaya ◽  
Leocadia Zhou

Background: Various studies on climate change treat men and women as unitary categories with contrasting needs. There is a dearth of studies which use a social inclusions lens to understand the impacts of climate change on gender. Other social markers that give an in-depth insight of the social differences within and between genders to the impacts of climate change are consequently ignored. Methods: Utilizing a mixed methods approach, this study aimed to explore and investigate the gendered crops grown as a climate adaptation strategy to respond to perennial droughts, increased temperatures and unreliable rainfall patterns amongst the Shona in Marondera rural district. Results: The findings indicated that social differences between gender lines like age, household types, income, education and employment status amongst other social variables produce differentiated vulnerabilities and potential opportunities towards climate adaptation. Conclusions: The main position advanced in this article is that treating gender as the primary cause of vulnerability produces a narrow analysis making other social markers (age, types of households, income and ethnicity) analytically invisible. This paper recommends a holistic and comprehensive analysis to inform climate change programming and policy frameworks. This would in turn address and improve climate adaptation strategies within and between genders which are often obscured to address the needs of all vulnerable members of a given economy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bishawjit Mallick ◽  
Jochen Schanze

Millions of people impacted by climate change actually want to remain in place; these aspirations and respective capabilities need more attention in migration research and climate adaptation policies. Residents at risk may voluntarily stay put, as opposed to being involuntarily trapped, and understanding such subjectivity is empirically challenging. This comment elaborates on “voluntary non-migration” to call attention to a neglected population within the ongoing discourses on climate-induced migration, social equality and human rights. A roadmap for action outlines specific research and policy goals.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 48-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pragya Khanal ◽  
Bishnu H. Wagle ◽  
Suraj Upadhaya ◽  
Prayash Ghimire ◽  
Suman Acharya

Climate change is projected to increase in vulnerable areas of the world, and marginalized communities residing in rural areas are more vulnerable to the change. The perceptions of climate change and adaptation strategies made by such communities are important considerations in the design of adaptation strategies by policy-makers. We examined the most marginalized indigenous group "Chepang" communities' perceptions towards this change, variability, and their attitudes to adaptations and adapted coping measures in mid-hills of Nepal. We interviewed 155 individuals from two Chepang communities, namely, Shaktikhor and Siddhi in Chitwan district of Nepal. We also analyzed biophysical data to assess the variability. The findings showed that the Chepang community has experienced significant impacts of climate change and variability. They attributed crop disease, insect infestation, human health problem, and weather-related disaster as the impacts of climate change. Strategies they have adopted in response to the change are the use of intense fertilizers in farmland, hybrid seeds cultivation, crop diversification, etc. Local level and national level adaptation policies need to be designed and implemented as soon as possible to help climate vulnerable communities like Chepangs to cope against the impacts of climate change.


Author(s):  
Sanou Daouda ◽  
Toe Bernadette ◽  
Traore Almamy ◽  
Kabore Adama ◽  
Tamboura H. Hamidou ◽  
...  

The study was conducted to understand the perceptions and local adaptation strategies of rural sahelian communities in Burkina Faso to climate change on ruminant rearing practices. For this purpose, the study was carried out in the rural commune of Bani by collecting primary from semi-structured interviews with 143 producers and secondary data of temperature, rainfall and their spatial and temporal evolution from 2005 to 2016. Analysis of these data reveals that 67.13% of the producers are male and 32.86% female, with an average age of 55 ± 0.3 years. These respondents were agropastoralists with an average of 3.5 ha of cultivated land, using traditional seeds (100% of respondents) and improved seeds (58.7%) and rearing local breeds of ruminants. For climate change, respondents notified an increase in temperature and a decrease in rainfall that corroborates the analysis of the meteorological data collected. The consequences of climate change on livestock farmers' resources are food insecurity, lack of pasture, drought and low animal productivity. The local adaptation strategies applied by livestock farmers are the diversification of agro-sylvo-pastoral production (88.11%) and income-generating activities (70%).  In the study area, diversification is the strategy adopted by agro-pastoralists to ensure food security and provide income to meet the daily needs of families.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Doris Kokutungisa Ishenda ◽  
Shi Guoqing

This study discusses the adaptation of displacees due to the Ciliwung River normalization displacement program carried out by the Daerah Khusus Ibukota (DKI) which is a special region of the capital city of the Jakarta provincial government that intends to address the problem of flooding that occurred in the capital city of Jakarta. There is a change in displacees, namely: a reduction in income as well as an increase in expenses for the rental of a low-cost flat, water and electricity. The concept used in this study is Suharto's concept of an adaptation strategy in which there are three strategic points, including active strategy, passive strategy and social network strategy. The concept was chosen because it was adapted to the habits of the Indonesian people themselves. The method used is a case study with the technique of determining the informants by snowball sampling. The results showed that displacees carried out Suharto's overall adaptation strategy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-391
Author(s):  
Luciana Mendes Barbosa ◽  
Gordon Walker

Abstract. Environmental and climate justice scholarship has increasingly focused on how knowledge and expertise play into the production of injustice and into strategies of resistance and activist claim making. We consider the epistemic injustice at work within the practices of risk mapping and assessment applied in Rio de Janeiro to justify the clearance of favela communities. We trace how in the wake of landslides in 2010, the city authorities moved towards a removal policy justified in the name of protecting lives and becoming resilient to climate change. We examine how favela dwellers, activists and counter-experts joined efforts to develop a partially successful epistemic resistance that contested the knowledge on which this policy was based. We use this case to reflect on the situated character of both technologies of risk and the emergence of epistemic resistance, on the relationship between procedural and epistemic justice, and on the challenges for instilling more just climate adaptation strategies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
D. D. Sedegah S. A. Ajayi A. T. Salami

Agriculture provides food for the ever growing population, supplies raw material for industrial sector and generates foreign exchange for economies. However, the onset and threat of climate change imposes stresses on rural farming activities given that agricultural activities are largely rain-fed in Nigeria. The research design adopted was the survey method with a population sample of 600 questionnaires and interview guide administered to 10 rural farming communities in Oyo and Osun States located within the forest and southern guinea savanna ecologies of Nigeria. Lack of capital (61.1% in Oyo and 57.2% in Osun) among other constraints such as lack of information, shortage of labour, lack of access to water, and poor health were identified as constraints to climate change adaptation by farmers. More than 80% (88.7% and 82.6%) of farmers acknowledged the climate had changed over the past 5-10 years mainly in terms of decrease in rain and change in its timing. The main implications for climate change are deterioration in quality of life, increased migration, and threats to social cohesion among others. The paper concludes that, the burden of climate change cannot be borne alone by rural farmers and recommends a rural development policy in providing support to rural farmers facing climate risks.


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