Ecosystem Services-Climate-Health Associations

Water is the main ecosystem service that supports the oasis system. Middle Draa Valley is an oasis zone located in the south of Morocco. The water availability in this area is the key element of vegetation cover change. This change added to other factors can cause some parasitic diseases. The zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis is one of these diseases. In this chapter, an analysis of the interaction between some key risk factors and the disease transmission was carried out. The outputs of this work rivaled that there is a very strong correlation between this disease and ecosystem services such as water stored and the dam outflow (directed to the oasis for the irrigation), and the groundwater availability. Regarding the correlation between this vector-borne disease and the cropping area, a strong correlation was recorded. However, for the relationship between leishmaniasis and the precipitation and the dam inflow, average correlations were found. Basically, in MDV, the water availability is the first element that affects an ensemble of processes that cause the disease infection.

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Inland Fisheries of Arid and Semi-Arid Regions of Africa

Inland fisheries of arid and semi-arid regions of Africa are seriously threatened by negative impacts of climate change. Literature and several models show increase in temperature of 1.1oC in some areas. Sea level rise is projected to increase to 0.8 m by the year 2100. Fish yields have increased almost linearly by around half a million metric tons per decade over the past 60 years, while clear cyclical variations in the residuals of about 20 years' periodicity above and below the trend line have been observed. Although fisher folks, their communities, and local institutions are already constantly adapting to various forms of change, flimsiness in the wider governance and macro-economic environment has weakened the overall adaptive capacity of these regions and fishers are vulnerable to projected climate change. For significant benefits of inland fisheries to be accomplished, planned adaptation at scales from the local to the regional is very necessary.

Potential Role of Endophytes for Sustainable Environment

Endophytes are symptomless fungal and bacterial microorganisms found in almost all living plants. They are vital components of plant microbiomes. Endophytes affect plant growth and plant responses to pathogens, herbivores, and environmental change by producing a range of natural products having antifungal, antibacterial, and insecticidal properties. Endophytes have shown particular promise in agriculture particularly as beneficial crop inoculants and are known to enhance abiotic and biotic plant stress tolerance by increasing tolerance to drought and water stress, as well as tolerance to high temperature and high salinity. A better understanding of their plant growth-promoting mechanisms could simplify higher production of energy crops in a more sustainable manner even on marginal land and feed stocks for industrial processes, thus contribute to avoiding conflicts between food and energy production Many endophytes can be exploited to improve the efficiency of phytoremediation as they are found to be resistant to heavy metals and capable of detoxifying organic contaminants.

Ecosystem Services Demand Management Under Climate Change Scenarios

Water ecosystem service is the most important element that supports Tafilalet agro-ecosystems. In this region, drought frequency is increasing, which complicate the management groundwater reserves. The ephemeral flows of the rivers force people to use groundwater to meet the population demand. Consequently, water resource management is of significant importance the sustainability of this area. Water evaluation and planning (WEAP) is useful management software used to evaluate and trace the trend of water demand. This model was applied in case of Ziz basin in order to simulate and analyze the situation of water under different scenarios. The results show an increasing of demand for water irrigation and with introducing modern irrigation scenario. However, a decreasing trend in reservoir storage volume and groundwater storage was projected in Tafilalet.

Adaptive Strategies of Small Family Farms in the Face of Climate Change

Climate change is now an accepted reality. It is felt globally through increased temperature and precipitation regime disruption and increased frequency of extreme events such as floods and droughts. In the absence of effective mitigation and adaptation actions, these changes could have significant negative impact on the sustainability of agriculture and the resilience of populations especially in areas with fragile ecology. However, these changes remain an issue that is difficult to grasp and still not well integrated into management strategies at the farm, sector, and territory levels. The objectives of this research are to describe the production systems, and to study the resilience strategies, perception, and adaptive practices of farms in the Tleta watershed in Northwest Morocco in the face of climate change and landscape dynamics. It describes farming systems and activities, attempts to analyze how farmers perceive global changes in their landscape, and adopts innovative strategies and practices to adapt to them. It also shows that the actions of institutional actors in the area that can contribute to the resilience of the populations are numerous but remain fragmentary and lack integration.

Effectiveness of Local Community Policy Responses to Climate Change Impact on Ecosystem Services for Biodiversity Conservation in the Semi-Arid Zones

The Ugandan government has decentralized climate change policy strategies at the local government district development planning levels to build local community adaptive capacity for accelerated action for disaster resilience. This chapter focuses on the local community response by Isingiro local government district authority. The purpose is to provide a context of the significance of eco-services and natural biodiversity resources in the semi-arid district, located in the South-Western Uganda, elaborate on the district climate change action plan for community-based adaptation strategies, and the biodiversity conservation district development plan. For decades, most households and local communities have perpetually suffered from the severe climatic stress of galloping heatwaves, shocking floods, ferocious frequent whirlwinds and wind storms, catastrophic droughts, perennial food insecurity, malnutrition, migrations, and famines. The district has adopted strategies to enhance biodiversity conservation for eco-services for food security and sustainable community livelihoods.

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Land Degradation and Desertification

Land degradation and desertification have been graded as a major environmental and social dispute in most of the emerging countries. Changes in temperature, wind speed, and precipitation patterns will influence plant biomass production, land use, land cover, soil moisture, infiltration rate, runoff and crop management, and ultimately, land degradation. Close relations between climate change and land degradation processes have been perceived in the past decades. Climate change models and land use models should be combined with hydrologic/erosion models to accurately compute or predict climate change impacts on land degradation. This chapter introduces the advancements in modeling of impact of climate changes in land degradation and need for the critical investigation to better understand and forecast the responses of land degradation processes to a changing climate in the future.

Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

The chapter illuminates the effect of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services. It also explains the present scenario of biological resources with biological diversity. The author describes the known biological resources and their uses with the help of flow chart and also shows the linkage among them. The author clearly explicates the inter-relationship between human activity, climate change, and biological diversity with charts. In the last section, the author talk about the effect on the paleo climate and impact of climate change on different parts of ecosystem services.

Impact of Climatic Changes on Earth's Survival

Every species' survival on earth is dependent on each other for their demand and dependent on the environment and various other sources. These resources include fresh food, clean drinking water, timber for construction, natural gas and coal for industries, fibers for clothing. All the human activity affects the environment severely in different ways. The biggest threats to the environment are climatic changes. Climate is an important factor that affects all survival on earth. The different pollutants, transport, dispersion, chemical transformation, as well as the deposition can be affected by meteorological variable such as humidity, wind, temperature. Climatic changes are expected to worsen the quality of air and water by changing the atmospheric processes and chemistry. Not only human beings but every aspect of the ecosystem is affected due to the changing climate. This chapter will explore the impacts of climatic changes on biodiversity by various activities of humans. Additionally, it will sketch how the impacts can be reduced by plants.

Health Effects of Air Pollution in Urban Environment

In the last few decades, urban development and growing industrialization has caused air pollution to become a major issue in urban areas of developing and developed countries. Urban area is more susceptible compare to other because of higher exposure time of urban residents, due to unbound interference of air pollutants in indoor environment. Exposure to air pollutants has been associated with increased mortality and hospital admissions due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. This chapter focused on sources and health effects of air pollution in urban areas in India. Most of the urban areas of India are suffering from higher concentrations of air pollutants including gaseous and particulates.