Search

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]

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 explores China's strategies for addressing climate change on the industrial level. Focusing on six energy-intensive industries, this paper applies gray relational analysis theory to the affecting factors to CO emissions of each industry after calculating each industry's CO emissions during 2001-2010. Further research based on GM(1, 1) model is conducted to forecast the trend of the factors, the energy consumption and each industry's CO emissions during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. As a breakthrough in previous conclusions, energy consumption structure was divided into the respective proportion of coal, oil, natural gas and electricity in the primary energy consumption, with which industrial output and energy intensity are combined to analyze each of their impacts on the energy-intensive industries. It turns out that all the factors' impacts on emissions of the six major energy-intensive industries are significant, despite their differentiated extents. It is worth noting that, contrary to previous findings, industrial output is not the leading affecting factor to CO emissions of the energy-intensive industries compared with the proportion of coal and electricity in the primary energy consumption. The GM(1, 1) forecast results of energy consumption and CO emissions by the end of 2015 show that coal and electricity will remain a large proportion in primary energy consumption. This research may shed some light on China's adjustment of energy structure under the pressure of addressing climate change and hence provide decision support for the acceleration of renewable energy utilization in the industrial departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides are occurring more frequently in China under the conditions of extreme rainfall and changing climate, according to News reports. Landslide hazard assessment remains an international focus on disaster prevention and mitigation, and it is an important step for compiling and quantitatively characterizing landslide damages. This paper collected and analyzed the historical landslide events data of the past 60 years in China. Validated by the frequencies and distributions of landslides, nine key factors (lithology, convexity, slope gradient, slope aspect, elevation, soil property, vegetation coverage, flow, and fracture) are selected to construct landslide susceptibility (LS) empirical models by back-propagation artificial neural network method. By integrating landslide empirical models with surface multi-source geospatial and remote sensing data, this paper further performs a large-scale LS assessment throughout China. The resulting landslide hazard assessment map of China clearly illustrates the hot spots of the high landslide potential areas, mostly concentrated in the southwest. The study implements a complete framework of multi-source data collecting, processing, modeling, and synthesizing that fulfills the assessment of LS and provides a theoretical basis and practical guide for predicting and mitigating landslide disasters potentially throughout China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the questionnaire survey, this paper analyzes China's public perception of climate change in terms of several influence factors and some empirical findings are obtained. We find that some respondents are willing to take individual actions to address climate change, and they pay more attention to climate change or approve that climate change does harm to residents and society; meanwhile, they tend to have confidence in the government to deal with climate change or believe that fiscal and taxation policies are the effective policy measures. However, there are also other respondents unwilling to take actions and argue that climate change proves the natural consequences. Thus, in order to motivate the public to take actions, the paper suggests that the government should widespreadly disseminate relevant knowledge about climate change to the public and guide the work to address climate change and adopt proper fiscal and taxation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzed the drought situation in southwestern China with the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation–evapotranspiration index (SPEI) on multiple time scales. The spatial distribution, seasonal variation and features of drought in southwestern China were examined separately by drought frequency, probability of non-exceedance and runs theory. The results showed that the precipitation sequence will change suddenly near 2073 and an obvious, long-term drought will occur after 2073 due to the decline in precipitation. The spatial distribution of drought frequency indicated that the drought frequency will grow obviously in 2071–2100, and the growth rate will increase from the peripheral to the center of the region. The probability of non-exceedance for SPEI-1 less than − 1.0 will be 14.6% in the spring of 2011–2040, grow in 2041–2070 and reach 25.9% in 2071–2100, while that of SPEI in winter will gradually increase in all periods. When the SPEI-12 is smaller than − 1.0, the non-exceedance probability of the index in all seasons of 1981–2100 was and will be growing gradually, indicating that climate change has and will cause severe droughts in spring and winter from 1981 through 2100, especially the medium- and long-term drought. Through the analysis of the SPI and SPEI time sequences by runs theory, it is observed that the drought severity predicted by SPI-12 was and will be increasing over time, and the long-term drought will become more serious. On all time scales, if the SPEI is smaller than − 1.0, the drought duration will gradually increase from 1981–2010 to 2071–2100, indicating the drought in the study region will worsen due to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal is the primary source of China's carbon emissions due to the energy structure and its resource endowment. This reality creates enormous pressure and impetus for low-carbon pathways of coal production and consumption. Based on a literature review on carbon emissions accounting methods, this paper builds a source-driven CO2 emissions accounting model for the coal development sector using the emissions factor method. Scenario analysis is employed to predict future carbon emission equivalents and to indicate possible implications for climate change mitigation in this sector. Carbon emissions from coal development are mainly derived from coal mine gas emissions, which yield 62% of the sector's total carbon emissions, followed by energy consumption. The recent decline in coal mining-driven CO2 emissions is mainly due to the strict deployment of coal mine gas and the changing structure of coal mines. The results from the scenarios suggest that the carbon emissions reduction potential will largely be determined by technology innovation in the coal mine gas industry. Policy implications for further addressing carbon emissions from the supply side of the coal industry include improvements in energy efficiency and coal mine gas extraction and utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is introduced to analyze the input-output efficiency of energy consumption and economic indicators in Beijing city under the influence of short-term climatic factors. Total energy consumption, fixed asset investment, average temperature, precipitation, sunshine hours, average wind velocity and the average pressure being employed as the input variables, gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita disposable income being employed as the output variables, effective technology and the validity of the scale of DEA of 31 decision-making units ( DMUs) under the influence of the short-term climatic factors are analyzed, and the inefficient DMUs are improved. Empirical analysis shows that both energy consumption and economic growth are sensitive to short-term climate condition, and the reasonable employing of extreme climatic conditions is a question worthy of consideration. This study provides effective basis for the scientific and reasonable arrangement of Beijing city's short-term climatic resources and energy-economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea level rise (SLR) and storm surge have significant impacts on tourism properties and activities in the low-lying coastal region. Coastal tourism in Zhejiang Province, China, is physically and socioeconomically susceptible to the flood risk posed by accelerated SLR and intensified storm surge. In this paper, within a scenario design of SLR and storm surge, a GIS-based dataset of major coastal tourist attractions in coastal Zhejiang is created to assess their potential flood risk by using a simple inundation model and a risk matrix. It is estimated that only two resorts would be directly flooded by a SLR of 1-2 m, but extensive inundation of coastal tourism communities may occur during low-frequency surges, especially after adding predicted 1-m SLR. The risk assessment further shows that a majority of the exposed sites is subject to moderate and low risk at current state but would be at higher (moderate and high)-risk categories in the future. In the long term, a combination of adaption measures is presented for policy-makers and other stakeholders for sustainable flood risk management in coastal tourism destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technical change has a pivotal role to play in low-carbon development. Recent research has offered different insights regarding the effect of technical change on CO2 emissions but ignored the bias of technical changes which lead to changes in CO2 emissions. To fill the gap, this paper uses the 2008 to 2015 provincial-level data on China's 22 industrial sub-sectors to investigate both the effect of directed technical change on CO2 emissions and its heterogeneity. We find that the technical change in most industrial sectors in China was capital-biased, although a labor-biased trend was evident. Labor-biased technical change is conducive to CO2 reduction, while capital-biased technical change has the opposite effect. Moreover, this effect is different by developmental periods, industries, and regions. Therefore, we propose that the government promotes labor-biased technical change based on the differentiated characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Kuznets curve is the graphical representation of Simon Kuznets' hypothesis that as a country develops, there is a natural cycle of economic inequality driven by market forces, which at first increase inequality and then decrease it after a certain average income is attained. The concept has been applied to environmental studies hypothesizing that the relationship between per capita income and the use of natural resources and/or the emission of wastes has an inverted-U shape. This paper presents a holistic study aimed at validating the applicability of the Kuznets curve to flood disaster. The focus is China and Japan. Both countries are prone to flooding and have experienced great economic growth. Data analysis detected the turning points of annual flood fatality in both countries, and the change in annual flood fatality with economic growth in both countries was found to match the Kuznets curve. However, the variation pattern of annual flood-caused economic loss was different between China and Japan. The difference may be partially attributed to the difference in residential characteristics between the two countries. Besides, it was found that climate change affected the flood-caused economic loss in Japan over recent decades. Furthermore, the variations in annual flood fatality and economic loss in the largest city of China were also analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, tropical cyclones on the Pacific Northwest have decreased. We cannot infer that tropical cyclones impact China have reduced, because the Pacific Northwest is not homogeneous, and the variation characteristics of tropical cyclones in different sea areas are not clear. This paper uses gray relational density clustering algorithm to cluster tropical cyclone data sets between 1949 and 2008, according to the generated position of tropical cyclones, generated density and the possibility of landing. The Pacific Northwest is divided into different sea areas. Then, we analyze the risk of tropical cyclones generated in these sea areas. The results show that the probability of tropical cyclones landing generated in some sea areas is very high, reached 74 %, but the probability of tropical cyclones landing generated in other sea areas is only 2 %. Tropical cyclones generated in some sea areas are more likely to develop into typhoons, strong typhoons and so on, but the intensity of tropical cyclones generated in other sea areas is lower, there is little risk for China. Finally, according to the climate change stage trends, we divide the period 1949-2008 into three stages and analyze the tropical cyclone risk of each sea areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is presently a major global challenge. As the world's largest developing country, China is particularly vulnerable to global warming, especially in the rapidly developing coastal regions in the southeast of the country. This paper provides an overview of the impacts of climate change on the nature of geological disasters in the coastal regions of southeastern China. In the context of climate change, processes with the potential for causing geological disasters in this region, including sea-level rise, land subsidence, storm surges, and slope failures, which already have a substantial occurrence history, are all aggravated. All these processes have their own characteristics and relevance to climate change. Sea-level rise together with land subsidence reduces the function of dikes and flood prevention infrastructure in the study areas and makes the region more vulnerable to typhoons, storm surges, floods, and astronomical tidal effects. Storm surges have caused great losses in the study areas and also have contributed to increases in rainstorms. As a result, numerous rainfall-induced slope failures, characterized by focused time concentration, high frequencies, strong 'burstiness,' and substantial damage, occur in the study areas. To prevent and mitigate such disasters that are accelerated by climate change, and to reduce losses, a series of measures is proposed that may help to achieve sustainable development in coastal southeastern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite continuing efforts to upgrade the urban storm sewer system since the late 1950s, the City of Shanghai is still vulnerable to persistent rainstorm waterlogging due to excess surface runoff and sewer surcharge, which frequently cause significant damage to buildings and disruption to traffic. Rapid urbanization and associated land cover changes are the major factors contributing to waterlogging. However, it is unclear to what extent changes in rainfall variability over the past few decades are also involved. This paper investigates the combined impacts of land use and land cover change, storm sewer development, and long-term variations in precipitation. Evidence of persistent waterlogging is presented first. We then give an account of land surface modifications during the process of urbanization and the development of the city's urban storm sewer system. Statistical analysis suggests that the increase in runoff coefficient due to conversion of lands from agricultural to industrial, commercial, and residential uses is a major factor driving greater waterlogging risk. In particular, historical analysis of aerial photographs reveals the rate and extent of modification to river networks in the past few decades. The natural drainage network has shrunk by 270 km, significantly reducing the city's capacity to transport excess surface flow. In line with other studies, we find no significant overall trends in annual rainfall totals (at Baoshan and Xujiahui). However, seasonal and monthly rainfall intensities have increased. At the daily scale, we find that compared to pre-1980s: (i) there has been an increase in the number of wet days with precipitation exceeding 25 mm (Heavy Rainfall) and decrease in those below 25 mm and (ii) the number of consecutive wet days with precipitation maximum and average exceeding the threshold known to cause waterlogging shows an increasing trend. Since rainfall intensity is expected to increase under climate change, this could further compound the impacts of land use changes and place even greater pressure on the existing storm sewer system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 has resulted in 50% of Guangyuan city facing recovery from different extents of damages. The massive reconstruction provides a good opportunity for Guangyuan city to response to the National Council's call for tackling climate change by developing a harmonised and low-carbon economy. However, there are many arguments about the definition of 'low carbon' and the framework that low-carbon development should follow. Low-carbon development in an economically least developed region such as Guangyuan would provide evidence and contribute to the discussion. The paper employs CO emissions as an environmental indicator in scenario analysis to investigate Guangyuan's future carbon performance in following the national call of reducing 40% of carbon intensity by 2020 and an alternative low-carbon development path. The results have demonstrated that a 'win-win' solution can be reached-keeping rapid economic growth while reducing CO emissions, however, only by addressing the 'correct' determining factors. Technology improvements and production structure changes have been identified as the key determining factors to affect both carbon intensity and CO emissions in the future. The two factors are also interdependent. Governmental policies should give appropriate guideline to address both factors but with strong emphasis on production structure decarbonisation in order to avoid the mistake of 'polluting first and deal with the pollution later' during the emission-intensive industrialisation processes that many western countries and China's coastal regions have followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enormous losses caused by typhoon storm surges in coastal areas highlight the importance of assessing direct economic losses induced by typhoon storm surges. It is assumed that the trend of losses is mainly caused by the change in storm intensity resulting from climate change and the exposure and vulnerability of socioeconomic levels. This study constructed a hazard dataset of typhoon storm surges covering zero-loss events in mainland China from 1989 to 2019. Following the annual data trend analysis, the improved elasticity estimation model was used innovatively to assess and attribute the occurrence and the amount of typhoon storm surge-induced direct economic losses. The results show that the risks of typhoon storm surge are more sensitive to changes in climate-induced hazard intensity factors than socioeconomic factors. A 1% increase in minimum pressure decreases the hazard occurrence probability ratio by nearly 130% and disaster losses by approximately 47%, while a 1% increase in gross domestic product per capita increases the ratio by 1.4% and decreases losses by approximately 0.98%. A 1% increase in population density would increase the ratio by 0.97% and disaster losses by 0.63%. However, the rapid socioeconomic development of the typhoon storm surge-affected area is the main factor for the loss trend during the study interval. Wealth increments and population concentrations in coastal areas have contributed to the increasing possibility of loss occurrence. The growth in wealth has also contributed to the improvement of disaster risk management and the reduction of the loss amount. This study clarifies the quantitative relationship between typhoon storm surge risk (the occurrence and the amount of losses) and physical and socioeconomic drivers, and highlights how socioeconomic dimensions contribute to storm surge losses. The model can be used for risk predictions given the considerations for climate change and future socioeconomic development in coastal regions of China and can be further applied to risk management and disaster prevention and mitigation of storm surges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of global climate change and rapid development of urbanization, urban extreme occurs more frequently. In consideration of the existing problems in the emergency management decision-making of urban rainstorm and flood disasters in China, this study put forward the decision-making method of urban rainstorm and flood disaster emergency management based on similar cases analysis method. Based on the evolution process of urban waterlogging disaster, the problem attribute system of urban rainstorm and flood disasters was established. The case-based reasoning (CBR) method was used to calculate the global similarity to determine the best historical case. The case-based decision theory (CBDT) method was used to calculate the comprehensive utility value of alternative cases to determine the optimal alternative cases. The empirical analysis was took in Xi'an city, one of the national center cities of China. Results show that the CBR method was used to obtain the highest similarity of historical case P3, which is 0.481. The CBDT method was used to calculate the high similarity of historical cases P3 and P4 to form the similar case set, with the similarity of 0.820 and 0.851, respectively. Combined with the event development, the comprehensive utility values were calculated. When the decision-maker pays the same attention to the emergency effect and response cost, the comprehensive utility value of P3 and P4 is 0.922 and 0.900, respectively, and P3 is the best reference scheme. By comparison, the latter is more suitable. The results can provide scientific basis for emergency management of urban rainstorm and flood disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is one of the main factors that affect runoff changes. In the upstream of Minjiang River, the temperature increased significantly in the last 50 years, while the precipitation decreased on the contrary. In order to analyze the effect of climate change on site runoff, watershed runoff depth and evaporation, nine climate scenarios are assumed based on rainfall and temperature indicators. A SWAT model of Minjiang River is constructed, and runoff simulation is carried out with the nine scenarios. The results show that if precipitation increases or decreases 20 %, the change rate of runoff depth will increase or decrease 28-32 %; if temperature increases or decreases 2 °C, the change rate of runoff depth will decrease or increase 1-6 %; if temperature increases or decreases 2 °C, the change rate of the potential evaporation will increase or decrease 5-16 %, and the actual evaporation rate of variation will increase or decrease 1-6 %. Overall, precipitation variation has greater effect on simulated runoff than temperature variation dose. In addition, temperature variation has more obvious effect on the runoff simulation results in dry years than in wet years. The actual evaporation of watershed depends on evaporation capacity and precipitation and increases with the increasing of the potential evaporation and precipitation. The study also shows that the climate change scenarios analysis technology, combined with SWAT hydrological model, can effectively simulate the effect of climate change on runoff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including how natural disasters in China are affecting investments in the country, energy sustainability and climate change.

Both climate and land-use changes can influence drought in different ways. Thus, to predict future drought conditions, hydrological simulations, as an ideal means, can be used to account for both projected climate change and projected land-use change. In this study, projected climate and land-use changes were integrated with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to estimate the combined impact of climate and land-use projections on hydrological droughts in the Lutheran River basin. We showed that the measured runoff and the remote sensing inversion of soil water content were simultaneously used to validate the model to ensure the reliability of the model parameters. Following calibration and validation, the SWAT model was forced with downscaled precipitation and temperature outputs from a suite of nine global climate models (GCMs) based on CMIP5, corresponding to three different representative concentration pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for three distinct time periods: 2011–2040, 2041–2070 and 2071–2100, referred to as early century, mid-century and late-century, respectively, and the land use predicted by the CA–Markov model in the same future periods. Hydrological droughts were quantified using the standardized runoff index (SRI). Compared to the baseline scenario (1961–1990), mild drought occurred more frequently during the next three periods (except for the 2080s under the RCP2.6 emissions scenario). Under the RCP8.5 emissions scenario, the probability of severe drought or above occurring in the 2080s increased, the duration was prolonged, and the severity increased. Under the RCP2.6 scenario, the upper central region of the Luanhe River in the 2020s and upper reaches of the Luanhe River in the 2080s were more likely to experience extreme drought events. Under the RCP8.5 scenario, the middle and lower Luanhe River in the 2080s was more likely to experience these conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With worsening global climate change, we still do not fully understand how to cope with possible extreme precipitation events or secondary disasters on highway networks. Correctly estimating the impact on the highway network from extreme precipitation plays a vital role in decision making regarding future highway investment. This study uses datasets from 21 NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP) under the RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. We use the percentile method to select the extreme precipitation threshold. A set of system performance measures for an impact analysis of Chinese highways under different scenarios is developed from the perspectives of physical exposure, network function and sensitivity analyses for high-impact areas in China. The results show that the intensity of extreme precipitation will increase in the future. More than 10,000 km and at least 4,000 intersections will be affected by extreme precipitation in 2030 and 2050. Based on a functional analysis of the highway network in Guangdong and Guangxi, more than 80% of the mileage of highways in Guangdong and Guangxi will be exposed to extreme precipitation. The network function of Chinese highways will dramatically decrease when precipitation reaches a critical value, which will shed light on highway fortification standards and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the rich tapestry of studies on drought disasters, drought vulnerability, drought severity and water shortage (DDVS_WS), taking into account the critical situation and circumstance posed by drought in line with the shortage in water supplies. In total, 1117 original articles were downloaded in a BibTeX format for further analysis. The downloaded information included, but was not limited to authors, title, year of publication, citations, author keywords, keywords plus, countries of publications, institutions, journals, citations. Published studies on DDVS_WS obtained from the web of science (WOS) and Scopus databases on 20 May 2020 were used in this study. The field of DDVS_WS experienced a drastic increase with an annual growth of about 12.7% in terms of continued publications output during the years under assessment. Considering the country level, China ranked first with the highest number of publications, and the USA has great academic influence with most top articles' citations emerging from the USA affiliated institutions and research centres. Based on the top keyword, drought and climate change are at the centre of issues related to drought and water shortage, this provides a hint on the relatedness of drought and climate change for further studies. This study offers a map to navigate the intellectual quandary of DDVS_WS research and guidance for further studies in this area of specialization. It is fundamental to stress that this study only covers the core area of DDVS_WS research, hence, it is expected that new empirical studies and potential solutions would offer new insight on drought and water shortage as new research evolves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an extremely important region for the socioeconomic development of China, the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) is vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. In recent decades, hydrological droughts have jeopardized regional water supply, local ecosystem services, and economic development in this region. This study simulates the characteristics of hydrological droughts in the YRB using the PCR-GLOBWB v2.0 model and the variable threshold method. High-spatial-resolution (about 10 km) PCR-GLOBWB v2.0 simulations considering the effects of human activities closely match the observed hydrological data for the YRB. Thus, the results indicate that human activities directly influence the tempo-spatial characteristics of hydrological droughts in the YRB. Reservoir operation decreases the multi-year monthly discharge but increases low flow in the severe drought years in the middle and lower subbasins of the YRB. These findings highlight the uneven effects of human activities on hydrological droughts in the YRB. In conclusion, anthropogenic activities must be considered when developing future mitigation and adaptation strategies for the YRB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural water sustainability in a basin environment experiencing climate change has become a critical issue in the past few decades. This study used the DPSIR (Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response) framework as a conceptual basis to explore the relationship between water footprint (WF) trends and climate change and agricultural-economic variation. With the aim of mitigating water crisis and ensuring robust responses to the uncertainty of the future, an uncertainty-based multivariate statistical approach was proposed for WF prediction by using various scenarios combined with multiple linear regression and Monte Carlo simulation. Lake Dianchi in China was used as the case study area. The results indicate that (1) the total WF had an increasing trend of 394.39 m3 ton−1 year−1; the WFgreen (the precipitation used in the crop production process) had a decreasing trend, while the WFblue (the irrigation water withdrawn from the ground or surface water) and WFgrey (the water used to dilute the load of pollutants, based on existing ambient water quality standards) exhibited an increasing trend; (2) the total WF showed a distinct increasing trend under climate change and agricultural-economic variation due to the increase of the WFgrey during 1981–2011; and (3) the impact of agricultural-economic factors on WF trends, especially on the WFblue and WFgrey, far outweighed the impact of climatic factors under the alternative scenarios. Our results suggest that adaptive management of anthropogenic activities should be prioritized to mitigate water stress under climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gansu Province is a high-incidence area for many meteorological disasters. In this research, using affected and covered risk indices for the main agro-meteorological disasters (drought, flood, wind hail, and frost), the variability characteristics of agro-meteorological disasters were analyzed and the risks calculated based on the information diffusion method against the background of climate change in Gansu Province. The results showed that of affected (crop yield reduced by >10%) and covered (crop yield reduced by >30%) areas for drought and frost tended to increase between 1978 and 2014, whereas those for flood and wind hail tended to decrease. The affected and covered risk indices for drought increased, those for flood and wind hail showed a slight decreasing trend, the frost affected risk index decreased, and the frost covered risk index increased. Comparing the four kinds of risk for agro-meteorological disasters, the estimated risk decreased as the affected and covered risk indices increased. The risk of drought was more serious than those for other agro-meteorological disasters for the same affected risk index, followed by frost, flood, and wind hail. The most serious disaster agro-meteorological covered risk was wind hail, followed by drought, flood, and frost. After a rapid change in temperature in 1994, the estimated affected risk values of drought and frost increased on average by 17.56 and 96.83%, respectively, whereas the estimated risks of flood and wind hail decreased on average by 15.59 and 5.90%, respectively. After the temperature jump, the estimated covered risk of drought increased on average by 19.57%, whereas those of flood, wind hail, and frost decreased on average by 3.02, 1.78, and 26.10%, respectively. These new scientific discoveries are significant for agro-meteorological disaster prevention in Gansu Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid population growth and increased economic activity impose an urgent challenge on the sustainability of water resources in Beijing. Water resources system is a complex uncertain system under climate change which is of vulnerability. But water resources system vulnerability research is relatively weak. In this study, we present a multifunctional hierarchy indicator system for the performance evaluation of water resources vulnerability (WRV) under climate change. We established an evaluation model, i.e., analytic hierarchy process combining set pair analysis (AHPSPA) model, for assessing WRV, in which weight is determined by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and the evaluation degrees are determined by the set pair analysis (SPA) theory. According to the principle of scientificalness, representative, completeness and operability, the index systems and standard of water resources vulnerability evaluation are established based on the analysis of sensibility and adaptability which include five subsystems: climate change, water resources change, social and economic infrastructure, water use level and water security capability. The AHPSPA model is used to assess water resource vulnerability in Beijing with 26 indexes under eight kinds of future climate change scenarios. Certain and uncertain information quantity of the WRV is calculated by connection numbers in the AHPSPA model. Results show that the WRV of Beijing is in the middle vulnerability (3 or III) under above-mentioned different climate change scenarios. The uncertain information is between 37.77 and 39.99 % in the WRV evaluation system in Beijing. Compared with present situation, the WRV will become better under scenario I and III and will become worse under scenario II, scenario IV, scenario representative concentration pathways (RCP)2.6, scenario RCP4.5, scenario RCP6.0 and scenario RCP8.5. In addition, we find that water resources change and water use level factors play more important role in the evaluation system of water resource vulnerability in Beijing. Finally, we make some suggestions for water resources management of Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important component of soil fertility and agricultural production that also controls the atmospheric CO which affects the global carbon cycle. Soil erosion is a major hazard which is directly affected by the rainfall change caused by the climate change. SOC is depleted through soil erosion affected by a change in the rainfall pattern. This study aims at quantifying the impact of climate change on future soil erosion and SOC with respect to the different controlling parameters (slope, soil and landuse) of soil erosion. The study area is a part of the Narmada river basin in India. Future rainfall is estimated by least square support vector machine method using Hadley Centre coupled model, version 3 data of A2 scenario. Revised universal soil loss equation has been used to estimate the soil erosion spatially, and field data collection is done to estimate SOC. Regression-kriging (RK) method is used for spatial interpolation of SOC on the top surface considering ancillary information of the land. Results show that sediment load has changed by −5.33, 17.97 and 58.37 % in the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s, respectively, from current erosion rate. Soil erosion and SOC loss rate are higher in a high degree of slope (>20), while SOC stock is low here (5.77 gm/kg). Again, SOC stock (1.27 gm/kg) is high in the clay soil, but soil erosion and SOC loss are less, while sandy loam indicates the opposite. Agricultural land and fallow lands have higher rate of soil erosion and SOC loss, while stock SOC is 12.24 and 9.65 gm/kg, respectively. Results show that soil erosion and SOC loss will be increased in the future and steeper slopes, sandy soil and fallow lands are more vulnerable to the loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is to identify the major methods used by local farmers to adapt to the drought hazard and to examine factors influencing their decisions to adapt in Yongqiao District, China. A random sampling technique was used to select 200 households in Yongqiao, while descriptive statistics and binary logit models were used to analyze the data obtained from the households. The results show that most farmers in the study area were aware of climate change. They were taking measures to protect their livelihoods against perceived change in climate. Results indicate that factors explaining farmers' adaptation choices include gender, the level of education, farming experience, farm size, household income, and perceptions of climate change impacts. The findings of this study can help decision-makers to design appropriate adaptation policies to cope with and adapt in drought situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed a new reconstruction of annual precipitation (August-July) for the Helan Mountains near the southern edge of the Gobi Desert, using a regional tree-ring width chronology. The reconstruction explained 52.1 % of the observed precipitation variance during the period 1953-2008. In addition to the new precipitation reconstruction for the Helan Mountains, two previously published annual precipitation reconstructions from the same region were also used to infer the large-scale precipitation signal of the southern edge of the Gobi Desert. Spatial correlation analyses with gridded precipitation data showed that the tree-ring records were indeed able to capture much of the regional interannual precipitation variability. Using principal component analyses on the precipitation reconstructions and documentary records, 29 large-scale dry events were found during the period AD 1760-2006. Many of these dry events have had profound impacts on the people of the study area over the past several centuries. A notably good agreement with a temperature reconstruction for Zhangye suggests that the precipitation of the Gobi Desert has the characteristics of monsoon rainfall variability (wet-warm and cold-dry). Our precipitation reconstruction exhibited a downward trend during the last two decades, a trend also found in northern and eastern China. It might be caused by a weakening of the Asian summer monsoon induced by global warming (especially increased sea surface temperature). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought hazard is the main restrictive factor in the field of food production in China, and climate change may aggravate it over the long run. The present study aims to assess the potential drought hazard at present, as well as determine future different climate change scenarios based on the data of monthly precipitation and temperature. Drought is defined using the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index. The probability density function of SPEI was used to create the drought hazard index (DH), which provides a comprehensive overview of the frequency and intensity of drought events. The statistical downscale method was used to convert the regional climate model output grid data into meteorological station data for the near future (2020-2050) under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The results showed that in the baseline (1981-2010), DH is much serious in Jilin compared with Henan. In the near future (2020-2050), DH increases in the case of RCP8.5, and the increased scale is larger in Henan. In the case of RCP4.5, the DH will be flat with baseline in Jilin and slightly increase in Henan. DH may relieve in case of RCP2.6. The results can help to optimize agriculture allocation and policy making with regard to climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the combined principles of fairness and efficiency, a comprehensive allocating indicator system is developed, and the TOPSIS approach is applied to allocate China's 40-45 % carbon emission intensity (carbon emission per unit of GDP) reduction target by 2020. The results indicate that, first of all, the unequally weighted indicator system outperforms the equally weighted one according to regional developing situation in China; and the most important indicator affecting the allowance allocation is carbon reduction responsibility, followed by future development right and emission reduction efficiency. Second, China's carbon emission intensity should be cut, but its absolute carbon emission volume may inevitably increase in the future due to the continuous economic growth, and we confirm that the western provinces may take the highest shares to increase carbon emissions, followed by the central, northeast and eastern provinces. Finally, in order to achieve the national target of carbon emission intensity reduction, the northeast and eastern provinces require reducing carbon emission intensity significantly from 2013 to 2020, while the central and western provinces should be given more developing room. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has had a huge impact on Southwest China, where extreme weather events have taken on an increasing trend. The region lies in the transition zone of three monsoons (East Asian, Indian, and Tibetan Plateau). We analyzed long-term trends of drought and flood disasters using sequential data on China's drought and flood incidence over 500 years (1501-2000), as well as precipitation records from 45 weather stations during 1961-2010. Results show that both types of disaster became more frequent. During 1501-2000, drought frequency rose from 2.12 to 4.15 per century to 9.03 and flood frequency from 2.06 to 5.09 per century to 11.94. For the 10 decades during 1900-2000, droughts exhibited a significant increasing trend ( R = 0.4491), while floods showed a slight increasing trend ( R = 0.0346). For extreme floods and droughts in 1961-2010, precipitation records revealed that most (2/3) areas in the region had increasing drought or flood frequencies. Generally, both frequency and intensity of these weather hazards conspicuously increased in Southwest China during 1501-2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic changes characteristics of salt dust storm in the Ebinur Lake of Xinjiang were investigated using the monitoring data during 1957-2007 of atmospheric dust storm and floating dust from four meteorological stations surrounding the dry lakebeds, and the gray correlation analysis method was used to calculate the correlation degree between annual dust storm days and meteorological and socioeconomic factors. The results showed that salt dust storm in the Ebinur Lake region presented a fluctuating process during 1957-2007, in which 1975 and 2000 were the two cut-off points. During 1975-2000, there were very frequent storms, and the average annual number of salt dust storm days was 10-48, while the average annual number of storm days was not more than 12 both before 1975 and after 2000. The annual variation of salt dust storm displayed a double-peak pattern, of which storm in spring accounted for 62-90 % of the total dust storm days of a year, and that in autumn accounted for 7-13 %. Among the meteorological factors, strong winds had the greatest impact on salt dust storm, followed by temperature and precipitation. For the anthropogenic factors, agricultural acreage exhibited the strongest influence on salt dust storm, followed by lake surface area and population number, while livestock number showed the smallest effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activities have become a major source of Earth's climate change, which brings the rise of surface air temperature and subsurface ocean temperature. Therefore, promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns is imperative to minimize the use of natural resources and reduce emissions of pollutants. This study uses Economic Input-Output Life-Cycle Assessment method and structural decomposition model to identify the driving forces that influence the changes in carbon emissions from China's residential consumption in the context of sustainable consumption. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) indirect carbon emissions from Chinese household consumption increase rapidly over time; (2) the largest carbon dioxide emitting sector turns from agriculture sector in 1992 into service sector in 2007; (3) the consumption level and the emission intensity are the main drivers that influence the change in indirect carbon emissions; and (4) the factor of consumption level presents positive effect on the emissions, while the emission intensity effect plays a negative role. Besides, the factors of urbanization, production structure, population size and consumption structure also promote the rapid increase in carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought severity was simulated with four drought indices to examine the impacts of climate change on drought conditions in Shaanxi province over the period 1951 to 2012. The drought metrics analyzed were based on the original Palmer drought severity index (orPDSI), self-calibrated PDSI (scPDSI), the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI). Both Thornthwaite (Thor) and Penman-Monteith (PM) parameterizations were used to calculate potential evapotranspiration (PET), and the differences between two PET estimators were studied. Nonparametric Mann-Kendall monotonic test was used to examine the trends of hydroclimatic data. Series of drought indices were compared at five meteorological stations with different climate characteristics, located in the north, central and south parts of Shaanxi province, respectively. Effects of climate change in drought conditions were investigated with hypothetical progressive precipitation decrease (−15 %) and temperature increase (2 °C). The results showed that there was discrepancy between PET estimated using the Thor and PM parameterization estimators, while the SPEI calculated with the two PET estimators are found to be similar. The SPEI has the combined advantages over the scPDSI and the SPI, considering the effect of temperature variability on drought severity and its multi-scalar characteristic, while scPDSI has an inherent approximately 12-month time scale. The Pearson's correlation is used to compare the three pairs of drought indices combinations at different time scales. Under climate change conditions, the drought severity increases with the decline of precipitation and higher water demand as a result of the temperature increase based on the metrics of the scPDSI, the SPI and the SPEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate disasters are now on the rise and more likely to increase in frequency and/or severity under climate change in the future. To clearly illustrate spatial-temporal distributions of climate disasters and the response of wheat yields to disasters over the past three decades, several disaster indices including the impact of climate disasters, the sensitivity to climate disasters and the response index of wheat yield losses to climate disasters were defined and calculated. The impact and sensitivity indices were examined by the agricultural production losses due to climate disasters, and the response of wheat yields to climate disasters was assessed by wheat yield loss compared with the 5-year moving average. The results showed that the indices of climate disaster impacts and sensitivities as well as response index of wheat yields to climate disasters could represent the spatial-temporal distributions of climate disasters well in the whole China. Droughts in northern China had higher impacts and sensitivities than those in southern China during the period 1983-2008, but the impacts of floods were opposite. In northern China, although impacted area by drought was larger than that by flood, the flood sensitivities were larger than drought sensitivities when flood happened. Although drought significantly affected wheat yields in most of the regions with drier conditions during 1983-2008 in major wheat-producing regions, better management practices like irrigation and drought-tolerant cultivars applied in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain can adapt to climate disasters especially droughts. To ensure the stability of agricultural production, future food security will need to be achieved through quantifying the relative effects of climate disasters and effective adaptation to increasingly frequent extreme climate events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agro-meteorological (AM) disasters have been reported to be more frequent with climate change. In this study, the spatial and temporal changes in the frequency of major AM disasters affecting maize production are investigated by analyzing observed records at 224 national AM stations in China from 1991 to 2009. To investigate the temporal changes of the disasters with climate warming, the whole study period was separated into a cool period (1991-2000) and a warmer one (2000-2009). We found drought was the most common disaster with a frequency of 49 %, followed by chilling injures (19.46 %). The frequency of disasters affecting maize increased significantly during the reproductive growth period than the vegetative growth period. Spatial patterns of major disaster frequency were characterized by region-specific, with more cold stress in northeastern China, drought in northern and western China, and rainstorms in southwestern China. Our study highlighted that the frequency and scope both increased significantly, implying a potential increasing risk for maize production. It is critical and important for local farmers and governors to take reasonable and timely adaptation measures based on the latest disasters' features to mitigate the potential yield loss from AM disasters in order to ensure food security in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme climatic events are likely to adversely affect many countries throughout the world, but the degrees among countries may be different. China and Japan are the countries with high incidences of extreme weather/disaster, both facing with the urgent task of addressing climate change. This study seeks to quantitatively compare the impacts of extreme climatic events on socioeconomic systems (defined as vulnerability) of the two countries by simulating the consequences of hypothetical same degree of electricity disruption along with extreme events. To do that, two computable general equilibrium models are constructed, by using which three-stage scenarios are simulated for China and Japan, respectively. The results reveal that China and Japan have unequal socioeconomic vulnerabilities to extreme events. (1) Negative impact of the same degree of power outages is bigger on China's socioeconomic system than on that of Japan, and this difference is more obvious in the very short-run scenario. (2) The decline of China's GDP, total output, and employment levels is 2-3 times higher than that of Japan, while the difference of the resident welfare levels is sharper, which of China drops 3-5 times of Japan. (3) Structural factors are the main reason for vulnerability differences between China and Japan, including the differences of expenditure structure, factor input structure for production of life requirement sectors, material and energy dependence for the production of industrial sectors, and usage structure of services outputs. Based on these findings, some policy implications and recommendations for fairness issues on climate change adaptation are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial and temporal changes in flood events in China are becoming increasingly important due to the rapid climate warming that is occurring. This study was conducted to consider changes in flood events and the factors affecting such changes. To accomplish this, China was divided into natural and social-economic flood regions: north China, northwest China, northeast China, southwest China, central China, east China, south China, and Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Spatial and temporal changes in flood patterns were rebuilt during 1980-2009, and Fast Fourier Transform Filtering was then employed to stimulate the changes in floods during this period. The factors affecting flooding were then analyzed quantitatively. The results showed that, based on the time series for China as a whole, flooding was more serious during 1990-1999 than 1980-1989 and 2000-2009. However, in different regions, the trends in flooding differed greatly. Based on spatial changes, the areas hardest hit by floods were northeast China in the 1980s, northeast China, central China and east China in the 1990s, and central China after 2000. In China, the main flood-affecting factors were meteorological, ecological, population, water conservation facilities, and policy factors. However, the main affecting factors differed by region. Overall, the complex spatial and temporal features of flood variations and various affecting factors demand proper national and regional governmental action in the face of the changing flood patterns in China. The results of the present study provide valuable information to flood policymakers and flood disaster researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lightning-related fatalities, injuries and property damages reported in China from 1997 to 2009 are summarized by using the National Lightning Hazards Database. Therefore, characteristics of the incidents including 5,033 deaths, 4,670 injuries and 61,614 damage reports are analyzed. For the spatial distribution of lightning disasters in China, the eastern costal and southern areas have more frequent lightning disasters than the western areas. Lightning disasters mainly occur in summer months from July to September, while fewer damages occur in winter months from October to March, which correlate significantly with the temporal variability of lightning frequency in China. Lightning-related casualties and damages in China have increased for the period of 1997 to 2007 and then began to decrease since 2008. The national fatalities and injuries per million people per year are 0.31 and 0.28, respectively. Rural people account for 51 and 29% of all lightning fatalities and injuries, which makes residents in agricultural and rural area the major lightning victims. Characteristics of lightning disasters and correlative factors are also studied, including hazard-affected industries and locations. The results show that civil industry has the worst property loss and farmland is the largest category in lightning-caused casualty locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]