Search results

Natural hazards such as floods, wildfires and droughts disrupt communities, their economies and environments, and cost millions every year. The existing literature on hazard mitigation shows that community resilience is best achieved when mitigation strategies are integrated with land use and comprehensive planning. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of hazard mitigation in local comprehensive plans.

The analysis uses a new plan evaluation protocol that integrates flood, wildfire and drought mitigation to evaluate the plans of the six largest and fastest growing counties in Arizona.

The study finds that counties do not plan equally well for all hazards, that they tend to plan better for droughts than wildfires and floods, and indicates the need to improve hazard information in plans to support the adoption of mitigation goals, objectives and strategies.

The research is based on a small sample of comprehensive plans. It focuses on the content of plans rather than the causes that may explain this content or the implementation of the strategies included in the plans. Future research will thus need to analyze larger numbers of plans to identify the determinants of the degree to which comprehensive plans integrate hazard mitigation; and evaluate whether strategies advanced in plans are integrated with other planning documents and implemented.

The paper makes recommendations to improve the plans evaluated and to guide planners as they develop or revise comprehensive plans in other jurisdictions subject to natural hazards.

The key methodological contribution of the paper is the new plan evaluation protocol designed to assess the wildfire, drought and flood mitigation provisions in comprehensive plans.

Examine the usability of rainfall and temperature outputs of a regional climate model (RCM) and meteorological drought indices to develop a macro-level risk transfer product to compensate the government of Central Java, Indonesia, for drought-related disaster payments to rice farmers.

Based on 0.5° gridded rainfall and temperature data (1960–2015) and projections of the WRF-RCM (2016–2040), the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) are calculated for Central Java over different time spans. The drought indices are correlated to annual and seasonal rice production, based on which a weather index insurance structure is developed.

The six-month SPI correlates best with the wet season rice production, which generates most output in Central Java. The SPI time series reveals that drought severity increases in future years (2016–2040) and leads to higher payouts from the weather index structure compared to the historical period (1960–2015).

The developed methodology in using SPI for historical and projected periods allows the development of weather index insurance in other regions which have a clear link between rainfall deficit and agricultural production volatility.

Meteorological drought indices are a viable alternative for weather index insurance, which is usually based on rainfall amounts. RCM outputs provide valuable insights into future climate variability and drought risk and prolong the time series, which should result in more robust weather index insurance products.

Many people as well as the government in Bangladesh perceive floods and cyclones as recurrent environmental hazards in the country. They also view that these two hazards are the main contributors to crop loss in the country. But, in reality, droughts afflict the country at least as frequently as do major floods and cyclones, averaging about once in 2.5 years (Adnan, 1993, p. 1; Erickson, 1993, p. 5; Hossain 1990, p. 33). In some years, droughts not only cause a greater damage to crops than floods or cyclones, but they also generally affect more farmers across a wider area (Paul, 1995). If not institutionally and economically tackled, the consequences tend to have a far-reaching effect on the given society, and the socioeconomic problems would assume a chronic pattern.

The kingdom of Cambodia is located in mainland Southeast Asia, between latitudes 10° and 15′ N and longitudes 102° and 108′ E. Cambodia covers an area of 181,035km² and is divided into 21 provinces. It is bordered to the north by Thailand and Laos, to the east and south by Vietnam, and to the south and southwest by the Gulf of Thailand. Most of Cambodia's land is relatively flat with vast tracts of land given over to rice production. Other areas of Cambodia are mountainous, including the Dangrek, Cardamom, and Elephant mountain ranges (Kingdom of Cambodia, 2001).

In many parts of the globe, drought is becoming frequent and severe. Drought is related to water and for that reason, this chapter begins by describing the movement of water on planet earth. In a second phase, the drought concept is defined and the different types of drought are identified. At the end, the impacts and the relationship between climate change and drought are described.

The Monsoon Asian region has a much wider rainfall distribution than other regions of the world. The countries in this region are characterized mostly by floods and typhoons, which result from the interplay among the ocean, the atmosphere, and the land. Thus, many factors affect the strength of the rainfall, including sea surface temperatures in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, variations in solar output, land snow cover and soil moisture over the Asian continent, and the position and strength of prevailing winds. The links between these factors and monsoons appear to wax and wane over time, and the observational record is too short to explain this longer-term variability. Precipitation and surface wind maps of Asia during the summer months of June to August show the average spatial patterns of monsoon circulation and moisture.

Climate change is projected to bring a range of changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, and sea level. As a result, widespread occurrence of floods, cyclones, droughts, cold and heat waves, etc. are projected with uneven distribution in time and spatial scales (Rosenzweig et al., 2007). These changes can manifest in the form of long-term slow changes in the mean state of the climate and sudden changes in the extremes of the climate (Carter et al., 2007). The sudden severe changes can have high impacts with widespread devastation, severely impacting years of developmental efforts in many vulnerable countries.

Water is the source of life and civilization. However, the world is facing water crises – imminent and worse crises that demand immediate and concerted actions. Even today, around the world, nearly 1.1 billion people are living without access to safe drinking water (Shaw & Thaitakoo, 2010). This has adverse impacts on their health and livelihoods. Approximately 2.6 billion people live without access to basic sanitation. This is a threat to their dignity as well as health. Water pollution is getting worse in many places across the world. Moreover, water-related disasters are widespread. These are serious natural disasters that cause catastrophic damage to human lives. Water problems are fundamental causes of endemic diseases, hunger, gender inequality, lack of education and jobs, endangered ecosystems, and other socioeconomic and environmental problems across the world. Most of the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without solving water problems (Hashimoto, 2006).

The authors describe the challenges and opportunities associated with developing an interdisciplinary sustainability programme in an emerging economy and illustrate how these are addressed through the approach taken for the development of the first postgraduate programme (MSc and PhD) in sustainability science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach that has a potential for application in other parts of Latin America and perhaps more broadly in other world regions sharing some of the same challenges and opportunities as found in Mexico.

The implemented collaborative framework enabled a transformation of disciplinary research and teaching at UNAM into a postgraduate programme designed to generate cutting-edge educational and research capabilities. The approach to curriculum and programme design emphasized the process and methodological framework for curriculum development as much as the outcome itself. It entailed three primary elements: theory on collaborative processes; the curriculum design approach; and a formative and summative evaluation.

Several of the challenges faced were related to the nature of the institution (mainly because of the complexity of its organization and the emphasis in maintaining disciplinary boundaries), as well as to the curriculum development and design approach (acceptance of a competency-based programme appropriate for the MSc but considered restrictive for the PhD). The experience the authors relate in this paper exemplifies how to cope with such challenges. The approach enabled the emergence of a shared vision that was appropriated by all the participants. This ultimately empowered them in the presentation of the curriculum to their disciplinary peers. Furthermore, the approach facilitated the creation of a programme that remained salient along the process, while increasingly gained legitimacy and credibility among the academic community.

In Mexico, the number of sustainability practitioners and scientists is still insufficient, and there is a clear lack of capacities in key themes and tools. UNAM combines a strong scientific tradition and a foundational mandate to serve both the country and humanity and is, thus, a natural platform for developing a higher education programme in sustainability science. The approach taken in the development of UNAM’s programme has useful lessons for the development of similar programmes in other developing nations facing similar educational and institutional challenges.

This model not only resulted in an innovative and novel programme in sustainability education but also, in the process, strengthened the competencies of diverse stakeholders through a systematic collaborative framework that fosters sustainability as a social learning process. Such experience illustrates the advantages of implementing a collaborative approach to enable the emergence of a critical mass capable to handle the diversity presupposed by a curriculum in sustainability science. It also shows how such a collaborative process can be implemented to overcome the limited resources, lack of experience in sustainability education and strong disciplinary focus that hampers the advancement of higher education in institutions similar to UNAM.

The Indian state of Assam is situated in a high rainfall zone and the river Brahmaputra flowing through the state causes annual floods which adversely impact the agro‐economic base of the region. The situation is likely to become exacerbated under the impact of climate change. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the vulnerability of the farmers in Assam to floods in the scenario of the present climate variability taking a case study of the Majuli Island of Jorhat district.

The current vulnerability of the farmers in the Majuli Island of Jorhat district of Assam is quantified using the “indicator method”. A Composite Vulnerability Index is calculated taking into account various indicators reflective of the exposure, sensitivity and the adaptive capacity of the farmers' community to floods. The indicators have been quantified based on the data obtained from household surveys and participatory rural appraisals (PRAs) in the villages and secondary data sources.

The results show that biophysical factors have the greatest impact on the overall vulnerability of the study area and that strengthened adaptive capacity, proper scientific planning and management is required to protect the Majuli Island from the adverse effects of recurrent floods.

This paper shows that the more decentralized the spatial unit of vulnerability assessment is, the more helpful it would be for policy makers and stakeholders to formulate efficient mitigation measures, plan apposite developmental programmes and improve the adaptive capacity of Assam as a whole to face the natural phenomenon of floods.