Search results

The purpose this paper is to examine how aware and prepared the elderly and a number of related housing associations (HAs) are of extreme weather events and the impact on their built assets as a result of climate change. It investigates how extreme weather and associated risks are perceived and the measures taken to protect the assets.

Desk research and two questionnaire surveys were conducted to collect data and information in relation to the awareness of extreme weather events and how built assets are adapted as a response. Survey results were tabulated and analysed using qualitative coding techniques and examined to identify relationships and patterns across different criteria in relation to awareness and built form adaptation to extreme weather events.

The surveys illustrate that awareness is high but the actions carried out as adaptations do not significantly reduce risks. Lack of personalisation of the risk and the resulting avoidance behaviour seems to prevent any considerable actions being taken. Thus, the elderly seem to accept basic energy saving measures as extreme weather adaptations rather than seek substantial actions that minimise risk to their houses. The results highlight the need to identify different design, construction and management solutions to improve resilience of different dwelling types to different economic sectors and different community groups.

The HA survey sample is too small to derive general conclusions but illustrates the varying positions of different organisations. Future research will further the survey with a larger sample and extend to local authorities (LAs).

The findings provide valuable information and insights to all related stakeholders in formulating programmes in securing built assets in extreme weather events.

Provide an understanding of the awareness and the preparedness of a vulnerable group, the elderly, and their dwellings to extreme weather events.

While the government hold consultations and dissemination events at national and regional levels, individual community groups and local agencies who are directly involved in providing services are not yet engaged in this dialogue. These two surveys made an attempt to gauge the awareness and the preparedness of the respondents of two such segments, in adapting their homes and built assets as a response to extreme weather associated risks.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current state of FM preparedness required to deal with the risks to healthcare delivery posed by climate change‐related extreme weather events.

Selected stakeholders were invited to participate in targeted focus groups that, using the ROMS methodology, explored the status of current knowledge and preparedness of the NSW health system to deal with the expected demands imposed by increasing incidences of extreme weather events. Findings are summarised and discussed in terms of the key stakeholder objectives identified. Further areas of required research are then discussed.

The key objectives of the stakeholders were readily agreed, however a lack of information regarding the quantifiable impacts forecast to be associated with climate change constrained the development of other than generic strategies for dealing with these impacts. Further areas of research included assessment of changing demand for health services, likely physical impacts on facilities and their adequacy in coping with these, implementation strategies for augmenting coping capacity and associated costs, plus the need for integrating disaster planning and management strategies to ensure the continuity of operation of health facilities during extreme weather events.

The paper outlines the status of current knowledge regarding the likely impact of climate change‐related extreme weather events on healthcare infrastructure. It explores key issues and determines where future work should be undertaken to ensure that rigorous FM responses are available to cope with a clear and identified threat to the health of the Australian, and similar communities.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of using indigenous forecasts (IFs) and scientific forecasts (SFs) on pastoralists’ adaptation methods in Rwenzori region, Western Uganda.

Data were collected using a household survey from 270 pastoralists and focus group discussions. The multivariate probit model was used in the analysis.

The results revealed that pastoralists using of IF only more likely to be non-farm enterprises and livestock sales as adaptation strategies. Pastoralists using both SF and IF were more likely to practise livestock migration.

Other factors found to be important included land ownership, land tenure, gender, education level, non-farm and productive assets, climate-related risks and agricultural extension access.

Increasing the number of weather stations in pastoral areas would increase the predictive accuracy of scientific climate information, which results in better adaptive capacity of pastoralists. Active participation of pastoral households in national meteorological dissemination processes should be explored.

A two-prong approach that supports both mobile and sedentary pastoralism should be adopted in rangeland development policies.

This study has shown the relevance of IFs in climate change adaptation methods of pastoralists. It has also shown that IFs compliment SFs in climate change adaptation in pastoralism.

Using Nigeria, as a point of reference, this study aims to explore the applicability of climatic variables as analytically valid factors for conceptual cost estimation. This is in view of the vastness and topographical alignment of Nigeria's landmass, which makes it a country of extreme climatic variability from north to south. As construction costs in Nigeria, similarly, tend to show a north-south alignment, the study's objective is to establish cost-estimating relationships (CERs) between the variability of climatic elements and the variance in construction cost, to arouse interest in the concept.

Deploying correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis, significant associations/relationships between meteorological variables and building cost for selected locations, following a North-South transect of the major climatic zones, are sought, to explain climate-induced construction cost variance. Validation of the regression model was carried out using variance analysis and the Mean Absolute Percentage Error of a different dataset.

Climatic indices of atmospheric moisture exhibited strong direct and partial correlations with construction costs, while sunshine hours and temperature were inversely correlated. The study further establishes statistically significant CERs between climatic variables and building cost in Nigeria, which accounted for 47.9% of the variance in construction cost across the climatic zones.

The study outcome provides a statistically valid platform for the development of more elaborate analytical costing models, for prototype buildings to be cited in disparate climatic settings.

This study establishes the statistical validity of climatic variables in constituting CERs for predicting construction costs in disparate climatic settings.

This paper aims to investigate weather sensitivity of tourism businesses in New Zealand to examine whether adaptive responses and “learning” about current weather can help operators to prepare more proactively for future climatic changes.

This paper draws on data from interviews with 57 tourism operators and stakeholders in three key tourist destinations in New Zealand. Data were content-analysed and coded into weather types, impacts and business responses.

This research found that tourism stakeholders were well aware of the specific weather conditions that caused business problems, and they had considerable knowledge and experience in responding to conditions effectively, even though the causal chain of weather conditions and direct and indirect tourism impacts was often quite complex. Importantly, operators were found to learn from previous experience and also from other agents at the destination. Thus, the research established that a collective process of “sense making” occurred in relation to managing the weather. A longer term perspective of future, and possibly more dramatic, climatic changes, was not taken however.

This paper is limited to three case study destinations and is also subject to the usual limitations of qualitative research (including interviewee selection and coding). However, the research does indicate a great level of weather literacy which could be extended into adaptive capacity for climate change, if general awareness of climate change adaptation needs could be enhanced among operators.

This paper provides detailed insights into the weather sensitivity of tourism operators and stakeholders, and of their current ability to deal with various conditions and impacts. Their weather “sense” and weather responses provide a solid platform on which more explicit and planned climate change adaptation might be based.

The aim of this paper is to develop a discussion of the production of community resilience to extreme weather during the first years of a new national government, one which is cognisant of the political change and uncertainty, the legislative framework and the institutional complexity that defines the adaptation scenario in the UK and London specifically.

Qualitative semi‐structured interviews and group interventions were conducted amongst regional and local authority decision‐makers in London in the period from late 2010 through to early 2011.

Hazard experience and political will were found to be important, interrelated drivers of community resilience. Adaptation work was found to face a tangibility problem that challenged stakeholders to make the case for its higher prioritisation in a highly economistic decision‐making process. Citywide resilience‐building schemes were observed of increasing organisational sophistication, and remained difficult to test and largely disengaged from the general public.

The paper offers tools to understand movement in the administrative architecture of adaptation, probing the associated inter‐agency workings. It introduces the idea of the epistemic ecology to describe and explain the multiple kinds of knowledge employed by stakeholders in the adaptation scenario, and anticipates the impacts of localism and insurance policies currently in the pipeline.

Climate change will affect tourism at several temporal and spatial levels. This chapter focuses on the quantification of effects and the development of strategies to reduce extremes and frequencies as well as thresholds in tourism areas. Knowledge about possibilities for mitigation and adaptation of current and expected climate conditions requires interdisciplinary approaches and solutions. Several examples are presented, including the effects of trees against climate change and extreme events (heat waves), behavior adaptations, urban and regional planning measures, bioclimatic conditions in the Mediterranean and human–biometeorological conditions under climate change conditions, and user-friendly computer tools for the quantification of urban bioclimate conditions.

This paper aims to investigate how organizational learning (OL) affects the development of anticipatory adaptation to climate change in companies. Because the need to learn increases in circumstances of greater uncertainty such as the case of climate change, one of the processes that can explain different levels of anticipatory adaptation to climate change (AACC) by companies is OL.

The research uses a case study design. Following the procedures of qualitative sampling, an exemplary case of organizational adaptation to climate change in a sector that is extremely affected by the impacts of weather events was chosen. Empirical data collection includes semi-structured interviews and the collection of private and public documents. Such data were analyzed through thematic analysis.

The process of OL for anticipatory adaptation to climate change presents substantial differences from the traditional OL process presented by the specialized literature. In particular, the concepts of single- and double-loop learning were challenging to fit into the learning processes required for AACC.

Organizations have historically been working towards the adaption to external unforeseen events, but anticipatory adaptation to climate change presents new challenges and requires new forms of learning. Previous research has examined the interplay between learning and climate change adaptation, especially at the inter-organizational level. By developing research at the organizational level, this paper addresses a gap in the literature and shows that the required learning to adapt to climate change differs from the traditional learning, described in the management literature.

The future of healthcare delivery will depend in part on the adaptive capacity of hospital infrastructure required to respond to the predicted physical and health‐related impacts of climate change. The purpose of this paper is to assess the vulnerabilities and opportunities of existing hospital facilities faced with climate‐related extreme weather events and to identify adaptive strategies that will enable existing hospital facilities to assist rather than hinder healthcare continuity and quality during these events.

Four major hospitals in Australia and New Zealand, significantly exposed to climate change‐associated extreme weather event risks, were selected as case studies. A risk management workshop was conducted for each case study using the risk and opportunity management system methodology.

The preliminary findings identified several key objectives associated with responding to the impact of extreme weather events on healthcare infrastructure. Assuming the overall aim of ensuring continuity of service delivery, the common objectives are: guaranteeing the availability of essential (building) services; maintaining the physical integrity of the hospital; supporting effective inter‐agency communication; and providing access to and from the hospital for staff and patients.

Given Australia's relatively high exposure to climate extremes, the social, economic and health benefits of developing hospital adaptation strategies to mitigate risks and maximize opportunities in responding are significant.

The outcomes of this research will contribute to a growing evidence base of design and facilities management adaptation strategies for hospitals susceptible to increasing risks of extreme weather events.

The paper presents the first assessment of climate vulnerabilities and opportunities for hospital facilities in Australia and New Zealand.