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An increase in the global mean sea level is predicted during the twenty-first century, as a consequence of global average rising temperature projections. In addition, changes in the strength of atmospheric cyclonic storms may alter the development of storm surges, exacerbating the risks to coastal communities. Based on the fact that the interest and range of papers on this topic are growing, this study aims to present the status of the global scientific production on studies that have correlated climate change and the impact of storm surges on the coastal zone leading to erosion and flooding (inundation) via a bibliometric analysis. We analyzed 429 papers published in journals between January 1991 and February 2021 from the Scopus database. Through the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix R package, we describe the most relevant countries, affiliations, journals, authors, and keywords. Our results demonstrate that there has been an exponential growth in the research topic and that authors from the USA and the United Kingdom are the most prolific. Among the 1454 authors found, ten researchers published at least five papers on the topic and obtained at least 453 citations in the period. The most represented journals were the Journal of Coastal Research, Climatic Change, and Natural Hazards. We also found and discuss the lack of standardization in the choice of keywords, of which climate change, storm surge, and sea-level rise are the most frequent. Finally, we have written a guide to facilitate the authors' bibliographic review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weather extremes have been responsible for widespread economic damage at global scale in the last decades. Agriculture alone absorbed 26% of the overall impact caused by natural hazards in low- and middle-income countries and even in high-income countries yield losses due to extreme weather are relevant. Vulnerability curves are traditionally used to quickly estimate the damage due to extreme events. This study maps the articles published from January 2000 to May 2022 implementing crop vulnerability curves to weather-related extreme events and climate change. Fifty-two articles have been identified through the use of Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and the references of the selected papers. The selected papers have been analysed to determine for which extreme events vulnerability curves have been proposed, which crops have been studied, which explanatory variables have been used to create the curves, which functions are used to develop vulnerability curves and the number of parameters on which the proposed functions rely. Comparisons among the vulnerability curves for the various extremes are proposed, as well as indications of the main drawback of the developed vulnerability curves. Finally, areas where further research is needed are proposed together with recommendations on which elements should be included in vulnerability curve development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk of global catastrophe from natural sources may be significantly larger than previous analyses have found. In the study of global catastrophic risk (GCR), one line of thinking posits that deep human history renders natural GCRs insignificant. Essentially, the fact that natural hazards did not cause human extinction at any previous time makes it unlikely that they would do so now. This paper finds flaws in this argument, refines the theory of natural GCR, analyzes the space of natural GCRs, and presents implications for decision-making and research. The paper analyzes natural climate change, natural pandemics, near-Earth objects (asteroids, comets, and meteors), space weather (coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and solar particle events), stellar explosions (gamma-ray bursts and supernovae), and volcanic eruptions. Almost all natural GCR scenarios involve important interactions between the natural hazard and human civilization. Several natural GCR scenarios may have high ongoing probability. Deep human history provides little information about the resilience of modern global civilization to natural global catastrophes. The natural GCRs should not be dismissed on grounds of deep human history. Work on natural GCRs should account for their important human dimensions. A case can even be made for abandoning the distinction between natural and anthropogenic GCR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a statistical approach based on data mining to estimate the riverine environmental water demand (EWD). A river's environmental water demand defines the quantity, timing, and quality of streamflow that are required to sustain riverine ecosystems and human activities. Genetic programming (GP), artificial neural network (ANN), and support vector regression (SVR) are herein applied to model the environmental demand. Input and output data for the use of GP, ANN, and SVR are the average monthly temperature and precipitation in 1995–2005 plus climate projections by the Canadian Land System Model (CanESM2) under the recommended concentration pathways RCPs 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 in 2025–2035. A case study illustrates this paper's methodology using temperature and precipitation data and monthly discharge of the Karaj River, Iran. The applied data mining models were evaluated with R2, RMSE, and the NSE criteria. This work's results show that the largest values of R2 and the NSE equal respectively 0.94 and 0.95, and the smallest value of the RMSE equals 0.07, which correspond to the SVR predictions. These results establish that SVR is a suitable model for the purpose of estimating the environmental water demand in comparison to GP and ANN in the study area. The SVR projections indicate that by 2035 and under the RCPs 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 projected changes of the environmental water demand with respect to baseline conditions would be respectively 63, 118, and 126 m3/s. It is demonstrated in this work that under climate change conditions the correlation between the EWD index and temperature was 83%, while the said value for rainfall was estimated to be 76%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timely and accurate information about the extent of floodwater is critical for emergency planning and disaster management efforts. Despite the advances in computational resources and in the field of remote sensing, there is a clear gap that restricts the disaster community from leveraging the technological resources in real time, which impedes on-ground response efforts. To bridge this gap, this paper makes two contributions. First, the paper presents a new web application, the Global Flood Mapper (GFM) that allows the user to generate flood maps quickly and without getting into technical intricacies. To derive the flood extent from Sentinel-1 satellite data, the pre-flood collection is considered as base and anomaly cells in the during-flood image(s) are identified using Z-Score values. Second, it advances an existing flood mapping method to (a) Map the peak of the floods by combining ascending and descending scenes when necessary, and (b) Check for false positives in hilly terrains by adding slope and elevation mask parameters. By comparing our results with Sentinel-2 MSI derived flood maps and field photographs, we show that the GFM can generate flood maps with precision. The GFM can be used to map and download the extent of multiple flood events of an area as vector data (.kml format), which can be a critical input for flood modeling and risk and impact assessments. The GFM shall enable first responders and practitioners across the globe to overcome technical barriers and lack of computational resources to map the extent of inundation during and after floods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation is affected by weather and extreme weather events, and there is evidence that heatwaves, heavy precipitation, storms, wildfires, and floods increasingly affect transport infrastructures, operations, and travel behavior. Climate change is expected to reinforce this trend, as mean weather parameters change, and the frequency and intensity of extreme events increases. This paper summarizes interrelationships of weather and transport for different transport modes from both supply and demand side perspectives on the basis of a literature review. To further explore the complexity of these interrelationships, it also evaluates news items (n = 839) in a sample of global media news outlets covering the world and population-dense world regions. Results confirm that extreme events have become disruptive of transport systems at the micro and macro scale, also affecting transport behavior. There are implications for environment, economy, technology, health, and society. Interrelationships are illustrated and discussed: Climatic impact drivers can be expected to increase transport vulnerabilities and risks, and have relevance for transport planning and adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a consistent rise in urban disasters, particularly in developing countries located in tropical areas. Among various challenges of disaster risk management and climate change impacts, it is noted that most residents are poorly informed about their risk exposure or apposite response. The paper is based on the premise that one important cause for this gap is inadequate emphasis on risk communication at different levels of planning and agreements. Accordingly, it highlights some important gaps in the risk communication across international agreements including Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and evaluates their impacts at the local level. It brings three selected urban case studies located in the tropical areas of the South Asia region that illustrate gaps in risk communication that result in enhanced vulnerability and deviations in response. The findings are based on secondary data and literature focusing on global agreements, risk communication, and disaster response. The paper argues that even though global strategies address urban risks, the fragmented nature of risk communication results in poor response and contributes to losses that occur in disasters. Three critical gaps noted in risk communication include (i) it not prioritized at different levels, (ii) inadequate structures to measure its impacts and stakeholders inclusiveness, and (iii) indifference to cultural diversity and integration. Further, it is suggested that there is a need to redefine risk communication at the global scale that extends beyond warning generation and considers multiple factors influencing response including interlinked vulnerabilities and variations in perceptions emerging from varied geographical, socio-cultural, economic, and political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of sea level rise under a changing climate negatively affect the world's coastal zones and threaten livelihood opportunities of the dependent communities, thereby highlighting the need for improved coastal adaptation strategies. The study employed a two-step methodology (i.e. bibliometric and systematic review) to analyse the geospatiality of sea level rise impacts and communities' adaptation. In total, 363 papers were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science databases, and 292 were considered eligible and used for the bibliometric analysis. In the systematic review, the study aimed for specific community adaptation strategies from the 292 papers, and 118 papers were eligible following developed criteria. Results indicate that countries are committed to helping their coastal communities to adapt to sea level rise impacts and the USA has been significant in that regard. Coastal communities adapt to sea level rise impacts by increasing their structural/physical or social options; however, policy/institutional assistance to intensify these options is limited. Also, specific community adaptation strategies to sea level rise impacts have been more of the engineered and built environment (67%) strategies and few on ecosystem-based strategies (7%). More ecosystem-based strategies are, thus, needed considering their socio-ecological benefits. Further research and increased communities-policymakers engagement for enhanced adaptive capacity is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on worldwide scholars' 3,004 papers published in 658 academic journals in the Web of Science database on the topic of climate change vulnerability from 1991 to 2012, this paper quantitatively analyzes the global scientific performance and hot research areas in this field by adopting bibliometric method. The results show that (1) the vulnerability researches on climate change have experienced a rapid growth since 2006, and the publications are widely distributed in a large number of source journals, while the top two productive institutions are the University of East Anglia and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; (2) the cooperation at author level is on the rise, and there are closer relationships in institutional and national levels; (3) the most widely focused research topics in this field include health issues in the socioeconomic system, food security in the field of agricultural system and the issue of water resource management, etc.; (4) according to the papers from the top journals, we find that the research areas for climate change vulnerability in those publications are located in the ecological diversity, ecosystem service, water resource management and electric power supply, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multipurpose optimization algorithm (MOA) to optimize crop patterns under climate change, minimizing water use and maximizing crop revenue while enforcing food security and regional water security constraints. An application of the MOA yields a total of 12 Pareto fronts for 20-year horizons centered on 2030, 2050, 2070, and 2090 under representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5, each of which is associated with specific land use conditions. The results show that crop production must increase due to population growth. However, climate projections for the study region in eastern Iran indicate unsuitable conditions to support the incremental production. This paper's optimization results show that 89%, 73%, and 48% of optimal crop production are achievable considering food-safety constraints in 20-year periods centered on 2050, 2070, and 2090, respectively. This paper's results indicate that revenue would increase, water use would decline, and environmental sustainability would be reached in the study area under the optimized cropping patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses articles including impacts of natural disasters in the Pacific Island Countries; evaluation of water resources vulnerability to climate change in Beijing, China and impacts of temperature change on air quality and public health in China.

In settings where complex social decisions are made, information is often aggregated into indices to facilitate decision making. The value added of such composite indices depends, inter alia, on the extent to which decision makers trust and make use of them. This paper presents a randomized experiment on the use of an index designed to inform migrant resettlement decisions, using 410 graduate students in Bangladesh as respondents. Respondents were randomly assigned to control and treatment conditions. In the control group, respondents faced a discrete choice experiment where they were asked to allocate 1000 migrants between two locations described by five attributes (availability of cropland, distance to hospital, distance to school, poverty incidence, frequency of floods, droughts and cyclones). In the treatment group, respondents also had access to the migrant resettlement index for the two locations. Results show that the resettlement index is used by the respondents, and mechanism analyses suggest this is due to perceptions of improved benefits to costs from using the index to make decisions. Results from the control group also suggest that past adverse environmental events are particularly important for resettlement decisions, but less so for respondents who grew up in areas where such events were frequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The north-western part of Bangladesh especially the Barind region is considered as a drought-prone area. The objective of this paper is to find out the adaptation measures practised by farmers to cope with climate change and agricultural drought in two drought-prone villages of the north-western Bangladesh. The primary data for this study were collected from a structured questionnaire survey conducted on 130 households selected from 192 through simple random sampling. The present study finds that agriculture of this area is recurrently disrupted by frequent drought events. Moreover, the climate change will increase both frequency and magnitude of extreme drought events in this region. This paper identifies that the impacts of drought on agriculture are difficulties in irrigation, disruption in cropping pattern, depletion of ground water table, problem in fish cultivation and so on. On the other hand, analyses unveil that respondents practised a range of adjustment strategies to combat adverse impacts of drought such as adoptions of drought-tolerant crop varieties, rainwater harvesting, mango and jujube intercropping with rice, kitchen gardening, weed control and reducing water loss, constructing water control structures, irrigation and cultivation of fast-growing fish species. Therefore, the present study recommends proper drought early warning system, reserving surface water, managing supplemental irrigation, tree plantation, re-excavation of canals and traditional ponds, credit support to the farmers, preparedness and awareness rising to ensure the future sustainable agricultural development in the study areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green transformation of energy use in China's transport sector will promote sustainable development in the country. This paper extends the Bounded-adjusted Measure and Luenberger indicators to detect the performance of China's inland transport sector across 2006–2015. In the framework, the climate change and traffic accident risks are taken as undesirable outputs. In addition, source-specific and variable-specific decomposition are proposed for investigating the sources of inefficiency and productivity, and quantifying the contributions of climate change and traffic accident risks. This paper opens up the "black box" of technological progress, identifying the different channels (i.e., quantity and time-dimensions) through which affect economic growth. Therefore, policymakers can find out the most effective pathway to boost productivity growth and mitigate climate change and traffic accident risks in the transport sector, which are ignored in the conventional framework. Empirical results indicate great variances exist among 30 provinces in inefficiency scores, productivity change, and technological progress. Hence, classified regulations help to tackle this issue. We clustered 30 provinces into 4 groups according to their technological progress along quantity and time-dimensions. Variable-wise, CO2 emission-reduction and civil vehicle gains promote the TFP gains most. Also, we verify that economic development and environmental regulations can coordinate to promote the sustainable development of the transport sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change, continuous economic development and accelerated urbanisation have increased the frequency and complexity of various incidents. Risk assessment is an important means to deal with different crises and incidents. Based on the systematic analysis of the basic connotation, attribute relationship and main contents of risk assessment, this study extends the traditional two-dimensional risk matrix to multi-dimensional risk matrix. On this basis, this study further proposes four comprehensive risk assessment methods, including total ordinal, weighted average, Euclidean distance and two-norm methods. Empirical research was conducted by selecting three types of natural disasters, regional agro-meteorological disasters, geological disasters and forest fires, in 30 related regions in China between 2010 and 2019. The results indicated that compared to the two-dimensional risk matrix, the multi-dimensional risk matrix can intuitively characterise and compare the all-round risk situation of different regions, periods, types and dimensions, which is more helpful for a systematic analysis and risk comparison. All four evaluation methods proposed in this paper proved able to effectively conduct comprehensive regional risk evaluations with consistent results. However, when considering the fitting coefficient between the results obtained by various evaluation methods and the comprehensive evaluation results, it can be found that the accuracy (i.e. fitting coefficient) of Euclidean distance method is significantly higher than that of the other three methods. In the last 10 years, the temporal order of natural disaster risk in China has been more volatile, with Beijing, Shanxi, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning, Ningxia, Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Fujian and Gansu experiencing higher volatility in the ranking of natural disaster risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several impacts of climate change are becoming evident and will be more and more apparent in the future. The threats and challenges posed by weather patterns variations can change according to the variables of interest, geography, and socio-economic contexts. At the moment, we are compelled to assess their impacts, so as to identify priorities and devise effective countermeasures. A major concern is that of geo-hydrological risks, including the potential effects of landslide evolution in unstable areas. Based on available data on the relationship between soil–atmosphere interaction and mobility of a slow active earthflow in Southern Italy, the paper tries to correlate the expected future precipitation potential evapotranspiration balance and the water level fluctuations that govern landslide mobility. The investigation is carried out in the framework of the bottom-up approach known as decision scaling, which lets us evaluate landslide dynamics sensitivity to the variations in soil water budget by means of a simple abacus. Such a tool will make it possible to obtain fast updates on assessing landslide trends when new generations of climate projections become available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the "protect/accommodate/retreat/avoid" or "PARA" framework to categorize and examine flood disaster risk reduction approaches used to build climate change resilience in communities across Canada. We suggest that the PARA framework, first developed for climate change adaptation planning in communities facing sea level rise, is also a useful framework for flood risk reduction and flood resilience. The paper reviews four case studies of Canadian flood disaster risk reduction, with each case chosen to represent one of the four PARA risk reduction options. The extensive network of dikes and pumping stations employed in British Columbia's Lower Mainland (Fraser River) is used in the paper as an example of a "protect" approach to flood risk reduction; Winnipeg, Manitoba's Basement Flood Relief Program is used to highlight the "accommodate" approach; zoning changes and land expropriation following Toronto, Ontario's 1954 Hurricane Hazel flood disaster are used to showcase the "retreat" approach; and, modern floodplain development planning approaches in Calgary, Alberta are used to highlight the "avoid" approach. Overall, this paper contends that the PARA framework can be an effective approach for comprehensive flood disaster risk reduction and flood resilience; however, contextual factors, including equity considerations, should guide its application in situ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of mobile pastoralist livelihoods have shown that a variety of socio-technical practices have been developed to achieve reliable outputs from livestock in variable arid and semi-arid environments. This paper builds upon the concept of pastoralists as high-reliability seekers rather than risk-averse and makes a case for understanding Mongolian herders as well adapted to livestock production in highly variable climatic conditions within a certain threshold of risk and uncertainty. This system fails, however, during instances of high uncertainty and covariate risk such as in cases of the natural hazard dzud, which requires individual households to make significant cash investments in risk management. It forwards the idea that investing in local government—soum and bag level—administrative capacity and infrastructure is needed to build system resilience to covariate risk. Based on ethnographic research in rural Bayankhongor, this paper interrogates how dzud interfaces with socio-economic factors amongst pastoralists in central west Mongolia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the risk of collision between asteroids and Earth. It focuses on uncertainty in the human consequences of asteroid collisions, with emphasis on the possibility of global catastrophe to human civilization. A detailed survey of the asteroid risk literature shows that while human consequences are recognized as a major point of uncertainty, the studies focus mainly on physical and environmental dimensions of the risk. Some potential human consequences are omitted entirely, such as the possibility of asteroid explosions inadvertently causing nuclear war. Other human consequences are modeled with varying degrees of detail. Direct medical effects are relatively well-characterized, while human consequences of global environmental effects are more uncertain. The latter are evaluated mainly in terms of a global catastrophe threshold, but such a threshold is deeply uncertain and may not even exist. To handle threshold uncertainty in asteroid policy, this paper adapts the concept of policy boundaries from literature on anthropogenic global environmental change (i.e., planetary boundaries). The paper proposes policy boundaries of 100 m asteroid diameter for global environmental effects and 1 m for inadvertent nuclear war. Other policy implications include a more aggressive asteroid risk mitigation policy and measures to avoid inadvertent nuclear war. The paper argues that for rare events like large asteroid collisions, the absence of robust data means that a wide range of possible human consequences should be considered. This implies humility for risk analysis and erring on the side of caution in policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated disaster risk management in a changing climate is a key concern for disaster reduction and global sustainable development now and in the future. This study conducted descriptive statistical and bibliometric analysis of 488 articles on integrated disaster risk in a changing climate from 2008 to 2020 using Excel, CiteSpace, and Gephi. The research process of integrated disaster risk in a changing climate was divided into three periods, 2008–2010, 2011–2015, and 2016–2020, which is similar to the changing characteristic of the number of publications. Results showed that, first, although the number of papers was increasing exponentially, the number of publications in each period remained relatively small. Second, the main features of the cooperation network of authors across the world showed a small concentration of groups, large dispersion, and weak connections. Third, the literature focused on five key issues, including basic disaster theory research; the construction of databases; research on underlying concepts, relationships, determinants and influences of vulnerability, risk, adaptability and resilience; the construction of frameworks and models of integrated disaster risk; and impact analysis of integrated disaster risk assessment and governance in regard to the relationships and interactions among disasters, nature, society, and human behavior. Fourth, the priorities, foci, and frontiers of integrated disaster risk research were mainly reflected in five aspects, including disasters; climate change adaptation; climate change impacts; health, insurance, critical infrastructure, communities, and various frameworks; and research on key regions and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the long run, ongoing climate change is expected to alter fuel production as well as the frequency and severity of fire weather, which may result in an unprecedented frequency of extreme fire events. In this paper we propose a simplified and spatially explicit method to assess the probability of experiencing large fires, based on topography (slope length) as well as extent and aggregation of the forested area (fuel connectivity). We considered 21 homogeneous pyroregions covering entire Switzerland as a study case and computed the length of the upslope paths within the forested areas, simulating ignition points on a systematic 100 × 100 m square grid. We then compared the obtained path lengths for each pyroregion with selected historical large forest fire statistics (e.g., mean area of the largest 5% of fires, maximum burnt area per fire) collected over the course of the last 30 years. This resulted in rather high R2 values, ranging from 0.558 to 0.651. The proposed approach was shown to allow for an easy identification and geo-localization of potential hotspots in terms of the likelihood for large fires to occur in mountainous regions, which is a prerequisite for a targeted planning of fire management measures aimed at preventing large fires and related post-fire gravitative natural hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning and decision making in emergency response systems face new challenges due to climate changes and the increased risk of multiple or compound natural hazards. This is especially the case in areas with inexperience of such events. The aim of this paper is to identify important activities concerning planning and decision-making during responses to natural hazards, and their potential need for decision support. The knowledge base of the study consists of interviews with 12 representatives from the Swedish emergency response system, supplemented by documents covering policies, operations, and responsibility. Thematic coding was applied to the interview data for identification of important planning and decision activities. Needs of decision support were identified by applying activity theory to the identified activities. We found needs of decision support connected to eight identified key activities concerning consequence analysis, national reinforcements, and resource management. The results illuminate a lack of technology to support response activities during both single and multiple natural hazards. The findings can inform policy makers of emergency response of where to concentrate the development of tools for collaborative preparedness and response work to cope with future challenges from natural hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of current uncertainties about the processes of climate change and its consequences, the search for possible response strategies is urgently needed. One of the most serious repercussions of climate change, which threatens many coastal areas globally, is the sea-level rise. To deepen understanding of this phenomenon and its related impacts, several models have recently been developed to satisfy the unique needs of coastal zone management. These models are very useful because of their visualization and prediction capabilities as they aid in decision-making regarding the adaptation of current protected area investments. This review, therefore, provides evidence of the potential and effectiveness of recent mapping models for managing the effects of sea-level rise. This study examined current models for mapping flood risk areas as a result of sea-level rise. It also provides guidelines to help coastal zone managers and policymakers decide the applicability of various models at local, regional, and global scales. There is no universally accepted model, and each of the models reviewed in this paper has its strengths and weaknesses. However, the models provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are commonly used by organizations and others. These models are more accessible and comprehensible for scientists and individuals with limited scientific background knowledge on sea-level rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transportation sector is the main energy consumer and carbon emitter in China. To accurately evaluate the dynamic changes in the energy-carbon performance of the sector and to propose alternatives for sustainable development, this paper proposes an approach incorporating the meta-frontier method, global benchmark technology, and non-radial directional distance function. Using this approach, the paper proposes a new definition, named the global meta-frontier non-radial Malmquist energy-carbon performance index (GMNMECPI). GMNMECPI can be decomposed into technical efficiency change (EC), best-practice gap change (BPC), and technology gap change (TGC). This new method was then used to estimate the dynamic changes of energy-carbon performance in China's transportation sector from 2006 to 2015. The paper also identifies the effect of current policies. The empirical results show that the energy-carbon performance of China's transportation sector decreased annually by 1.636% during the study period. This reduction was mainly caused by a significant technology lag in the central area while primarily influenced by deterioration in efficiency in both the east and west. There is a distinct heterogeneity in technology across China's three areas. Based on the findings, the paper closes with policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a synthesis of the main characteristics of precipitation in the State of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) based on extreme rainfall indicators. Daily precipitation data are derived from 56 rainfall stations during the second half of the twentieth century and the 2000s. Eight indices related to extreme precipitation were analyzed. The Mann–Kendall nonparametric test and the Sen's Curvature were employed to evaluate the significance and magnitude of trends. The primary climatological aspects and identified trends throughout the last decades are discussed, besides the hydrometeorological impacts associated with them. Lower values of annual total precipitation are recorded in northern Rio de Janeiro (around 800 mm) and higher in the southern State (up to 2,200 mm). The Serra do Mar affects the frequency of heavy precipitation, and the areas near the sea and high relief present the highest values of consecutive days with expressive rainfall (more than 150 mm in 5 days). These areas also showed a high concentration of flood and landslides events. Most of Rio de Janeiro exhibits precipitation intensity of about 13 mm/day. The maximum number of consecutive dry days shows a gradient from the coast (about 30 days) to the State's interior (around 50 days). Regarding trends, there is a growth of accumulated extreme precipitation in various stations near the ocean. The extreme rainfall in 24 h displays an increase in most Rio de Janeiro (+ 1 to + 5 mm/decade). The consecutive dry and rainy days present similar signs of decreasing trends, suggesting irregularly distributed precipitation in the State. This study is especially relevant for decision-makers who need detailed information in the short and long term to prevent natural hazards like floods and landslides and the related impacts in the environmental and socioeconomic sectors of the Rio de Janeiro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst climate change has been regarded as a growing concern in recent years due the disruptive and detrimental effects experienced across the globe, one of its most compelling and threatening evidence is Sea Level Rise (SLR). This phenomenon is more prominent in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and such islands are already facing escalating associated environmental threats, causing social and economic disruptions as well as insecurities. Amongst the SIDS, the coastal areas of Mauritius are considered among the most vulnerable to SLR, where statistics showed that between the years 1987 and 2007, an annual increase of 2.1 mm in the sea level has been observed around Mauritius. Although SLR has various associated impacts, limited work has been undertaken to assess the coastal vulnerability of the impacts of SLR for Mauritius and to compute the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) of the island. Taking cognizance of this limitation, the purpose of this paper is to quantify, prioritize and critically assess the vulnerability of key impacts of sea level rise on the coastal areas of Mauritius following computation of a CVI. In this process, five key research questions are answered towards calculating the CVI of the island to eventually conceptualize a framework with the aim to reduce the adverse impacts of SLR on coastal zones of Mauritius. Findings of this study aim at the advancement of resilience and increased sustainability of coastal areas to the impacts of SLR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of global disasters per year is projected to increase 40% by 2030. In part, this increase can be tied to climate change which is exasperating existing hazards and contributing to new hazards. The specific type of hazard response that communities employ varies, dependent on demographics such as location, socioeconomic statis, governance quality, risk perception, and infrastructure, leading to a need to understand how specific communities, with their unique characteristics, respond to hazards. The main objective of this paper was to highlight hazards of concern to small coastal communities, and to determine what actions can be taken to alleviate concern. This study incorporates a hazard survey conducted across 20 coastal communities in Nova Scotia, Canada. For each community, municipal documents (bylaws/policies/plans) were compared with the lived experience of community representatives. Overall, four key insights were observed: (1) There was a general tendency that the more experience a community has had with a given hazard, the greater the concern, and the more likely the municipality was to have developed corresponding plans, policies or bylaws; (2) there were exceptions to the links between experience with hazards, concerns about them, and governmental response; (3) significant uncertainties and gaps in awareness need to be addressed in order for hazards to be dealt with effectively at community and municipal levels; (4) while municipalities engage in a certain level of responses to some specific hazards, there is a clear tendency to adopt a multi-hazard approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper investigates the impact of future scenarios for the past two storms (namely, Vardah and Madi). These two storms had a different intensity over Bay of Bengal, India. The recent study in this region shows that the influence of these Tropical Cyclones (TC) may be severe in future climatic conditions. Different future Representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios are investigated in this study. The combined sea level rise (SLR) and high wind intensity in future scenarios has been investigated in the present study for their influence on maximum water level (MWL), wave climate and coastal inundations. The coupled surge and wave models are used to analyze the influence of SLR and wind intensity for different RCPs. The variations of MWL and inundation extent with increase and decrease in wind increment for different RCPs of the TC's were reported. Overall, for the Far Future RCP 8.5 scenario, the relative percentage of difference (compared to the current scenario) in MWL has increased by 135% for TC Vardah and 180% for TC Madi. Further, the flood area for TC's Vardah and Madi will increase by 70% and 95% compared to the current scenario. Finally, the study reveals that the extreme wind intensity of the TC's in future scenarios plays a significant contribution of up to 50% in coastal inundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to provide a thorough assessment of water quality and quantity incorporating the estimation of future patterns as a result of climate change from economic, environmental and social perspectives. Its scope extends from studying the physical parameters and rainfall patterns to maintaining an environmental flow with a better water quality using ecohydrological techniques. The village of Nagaa Mobarak in Souhag, Egypt, is taken as a case study being in a critical location that is vulnerable to flash floods. This paper managed to quantify change in water quantity and quality due to the impacts of flash floods and climate change. Several traditional engineering alternatives are proposed for flood management such as constructing a dam, a storage pond and a routing channel to the nearest water body; as well as non-traditional ecohydrological alternatives such as constructing a dam with vegetated foreshore, natural levees and constructed wetlands. The results of applying these methods for our case study showed that a hybrid solution that employs both traditional and non-traditional solutions for flood management is optimal. A constructed wetland along a section of the constructed channel for diverting flow into the Nagaa Hammade Canal would decrease the runoff volume and peak time so that the capacity of the Canal is not exceeded in a flood event and purifies the incoming stormwater improving its quality and the health of the ecosystem within the canal. Moreover, our proposed approach was investigated and found to target 10 out of the 17 UN SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to the growing literature highlighting the significance of assessing risk and vulnerability, micro-level perceptions and adaptation decision-making in building resilience of farm communities to climate change in dryland region of India. To select a region for grassroots enquiry, spatial differential in risk to climate change was assessed in Rajasthan, using IPCC AR5 framework. Among the highly vulnerable and risky districts, Bikaner district was selected for elicitation of micro-level imperatives. Rising atmospheric temperature, inter-seasonal displacements of rainfall and recurrence of extreme events were perceived by the farmers resulting in resource degradation, production risks and erosion of households' socio-economic dynamics. As risk preventive measures, suitable adjustment in agricultural practices, natural resource management, shift to off-farm activities and other relief measures were adopted by the farmers. Farmer's choice of adaptation was influenced by several climatic, socio-economic and infrastructural & institutional factors in varying degree. Moreover, several financial, economic, infrastructural and informational bottlenecks to adaptations were reported during household survey and FGDs. The results suggest that capturing grassroots evidence is crucial for directing locally tailored adaptation strategies, along with the improving deficiencies in the developmental pathways for climate-resilient agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to analyze the future runoff changes using a more realistic climate classification scheme. This paper investigates the climate changes and runoff variation by runoff simulation from global climate models participating in the CMIP5. This study also focuses on the uncertain effect of meteorological input data and hydrological model parameters on the runoff. TOPMODEL is used to simulate runoff, and the sensibility of runoff to precipitation and temperature variabilities is analyzed under the scenario of 25 hypothesis. Considering the uncertainty of input data of hydrological model, the predicted future precipitation and temperature data under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are input into the TOPMODEL model to simulate the future runoff under different scenarios, and the M-GLUE method is used to analyze the uncertainty of model parameters. Jinghe River basin is selected as the study area in this paper. The analytical results reveal decreasing trends for runoff and precipitation, and the influence of precipitation change on runoff is more sensitive than the change of temperature. Integrating the results of the two climate models, the annual average runoff will decrease by from 13.3 to 27.7% under RCP4.5 scenario and under RCP8.5 scenario the decrease interval is from 17.1 to 25.2%. The RV, SR and S are the most sensitive parameters for the TOPMODEL. M-GLUE method can effectively analyze the uncertainty of hydrological simulation, and the interval width and coverage rate of the 90% confidence interval are 19 and 74%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]