Towards climate resilience in agriculture for Southeast Asia: an overview for decision-makers.

This sourcebook, and accompanying poster learning series, is aimed at policy makers, planners in government, local research administrators, civil society partners and researchers in Southeast Asia. Compiled and repackaged by Dr. Julian Gonsalves and a resource team, the Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) source book draws from a rich pool of literature from over 700 sources. The compilation provides succinct, relevant and timely information about climate challenges, and potential solutions from previously published work in a simplified or a shortened form from around the world. While the focus is on challenges specific to Southeast Asia, solutions may come from, or already have been tested elsewhere; it is for this reason that articles from around the world have been included, to demonstrate that adaptation efforts are already being implemented, and a wide range of approaches and strategies are available. This resource seeks to bridge the gap between what policy makers know, and what research shows can work on the ground to improve adaptation, increase productivity, enhance livelihoods, and contribute to sustainable development affected by climate change. The related poster series can be found here: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/71099

Towards Multi-perspective conformance checking with fuzzy sets

Conformance checking techniques are widely adopted to pinpoint possible discrepancies between process models and the execution of the process in reality. However, state of the art approaches adopt a crisp evaluation of deviations, with the result that small violations are considered at the same level of significant ones. This affects the quality of the provided diagnostics, especially when there exists some tolerance with respect to reasonably small violations, and hampers the flexibility of the process. In this work, we propose a novel approach which allows to represent actors' tolerance with respect to violations and to account for severity of deviations when assessing executions compliance. We argue that besides improving the quality of the provided diagnostics, allowing some tolerance in deviations assessment also enhances the flexibility of conformance checking techniques and, indirectly, paves the way for improving the resilience of the overall process management system.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Towards Multi-perspective Conformance Checking with Fuzzy Sets

Nowadays organizations often need to employ data-driven techniques to audit their business processes and ensure they comply with laws and internal/external regulations. Failing in complying with the expected process behavior can indeed pave the way to inefficiencies or, worse, to frauds or abuses. An increasingly popular approach to automatically assess the compliance of the executions of organization processes is represented by alignment-based conformance checking. These techniques are able to compare real process executions with models representing the expected behaviors, providing diagnostics able to pinpoint possible discrepancies. However, the diagnostics generated by state of the art techniques still suffer from some limitations. They perform a crisp evaluation of process compliance, marking process behavior either as compliant or deviant, without taking into account the severity of the identified deviation. This hampers the accuracy of the obtained diagnostics and can lead to misleading results, especially in contexts where there is some tolerance with respect to violations of the process guidelines. In the present work, we discuss the impact and the drawbacks of a crisp deviation assessment approach. Then, we propose a novel conformance checking approach aimed at representing actors’ tolerance with respect to process deviations, taking it into account when assessing the severity of the deviations. As a proof of concept, we performed a set of synthetic experiments to assess the approach. The obtained results point out the potential of the usage of a more flexible evaluation of process deviations, and its impact on the quality and the interpretation of the obtained diagnostics

Children’s perceptions of climate change in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

We are in the midst of a climate crisis (IPBES, 2022). Our reliance on burning fossil fuels as the primary energy source for the global economy is leading to atmospheric and oceanic heating, which is leading to a range of societal consequences including unstable, unpredictable, and more intense hydrological extremes such as tropical storms and associated, extended periods of drought, as well as sea level rise, ocean acidification, and ecological instability; amongst many other ill effects (United Nations Environment Programme, 2021). Perhaps most significantly, Climate Change is placing a growing number of people at heightened flood risk in low laying deltaic regions around the world, including one of the most at-risk deltas, the Mekong Delta in Vietnam (Dun, 2011a; Human Rights Watch, 2019; Huong & Pathirana, 2013; Ngo et al., 2019; World Bank, 2020b), which is home for 18 million people.Among those people most at risk from Climate Change, both here and around the world, are children (Jones et al., 2021; O'Brien et al., 2018). Yet, these voices are often the least consulted or explored within Climate Change research, knowledge exchange and policy formulation (Beer, 2014; Malin & Ryder, 2018; Schlosberg & Collins, 2014; Smith, 2021; Son et al., 2021). Using a qualitative, creative, and place-based approach, this thesis provides an indepth exploration of the knowledges, perceptions, and experiences that children living in the Mekong Delta hold in relation to Climate Change and hydrological extremes – paying particular attention to the socio-cultural dimensions that shape these views. The findings presented demonstrate how children psychologically distance the issue of Climate Change both spatially and temporally and highlights the suite of reasons generating disconnects between lived experiences and formal education. The findings, however, also identify many socio-cultural factors that serve as opportunities for enhancing Climate Change education across the region and suggests ways in which these could be leveraged in future education initiatives with the aim of improving decision making and longer-term Climate Change adaptation and mitigation

Southeast Asia and the Civil Society Gaze

As developing countries with recent histories of isolation and extreme poverty, followed by restoration and reform, both Cambodia and Vietnam have seen new opportunities and demands for non-state actors to engage in and manage the effects of rapid socio-economic transformation. This book examines how in both countries, civil society actors and the state manage their relationship to one another in an environment that is continuously shaped and (re)constructed by changing legislation, collaboration and negotiation, advocacy and protest, and social control. Further, it explores the countries’ divergent experiences whilst also uncovering the underlying basis and drivers of civil society activity that are shared by Cambodia and Vietnam. Crucially, this book engages with the contested nature of civil society and how it is socially constructed through research and development activities, by looking at contemporary discourses and manifestations of civil society in the two countries, including national and community-level organisations, associations, and networks that operate in a variety of sectors, such as gender, the environment and health. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in Cambodia and Vietnam, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian studies, Southeast Asian politics, development studies and civil society

Evaluating Tidal Flood Risk on Salt Farming Land Empirical and Methodological Insights from a Case Study in Northern Java

Coastal regions have been threatened by coastal hazards, including tidal flooding, in recent years. Many studies have focused on evaluating flood risks in urban areas because complete data is available. However, tidal flooding in data-poor rural coastal areas has hardly been discussed. In addition, there is still no consensus among academics concerning the development of methods to evaluate flood risk in rural coastal areas with different local set-tings, including agriculture, aquaculture, or even salt farming. Filling the re-search gaps on developing flood risk evaluation on data-sparse regions is cru-cial to support disaster risk reduction policies integrated with local economic resources. This dissertation presents an original approach in integrating a hy-drodynamic model, geospatial data, and a geographic information system (GIS) in the rural coastal area of Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia, with a salt farming setting. The study focuses on answering the central topic: Developing an initial model to evaluate tidal flood risk in a data-scarce region using geo-spatial data. Because limited data is available, the model developed must be able to be implemented in rural coastal areas that are subject to regular tidal flooding. The current thesis evaluates the tidal flood hazard through depth and duration factors. The physical vulnerability from natural science and engineering perspectives have been manifested through the so-called damage function. This study also presents detailed economic loss figures for each par-cel representing the risk level in different stages of production. Moreover, a comparison method has been implemented by multicriteria analysis (MCA) using an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) to validate the flood risk model. This MCA-AHP process involves experts justifying all selected variables in the hazard, vulnerability, and risk analysis. The results reveal that tidal floods have affected rural coastal regions, especially in the salt farming area of Cirebon. The established hydrodynamic model has successfully identified the magnitude and distribution of tidal flooding for two events of 2016 and 2018 on salt ponds. This finding extends the utilization of the hydrodynamic model to simulate specific tidal flood events for rural coastal settings with restricted datasets. A synthetic approach using local information from farmers has contributed to the measurement of the expected monetary loss for these two former tidal flood events. This method is employed to construct a damage function that portrays a simple form of physical vulnerability of salt farming based on flood depth and dura-tion factors. The two tidal flood events studied represented the pre-production and harvesting periods had minimal economic impacts. Lastly, the multicriteria approach has also portrayed the risk condition of salt farming by using hazard and vulnerability parameters. With limited data available, this approach has successfully identified the tidal flood risk in salt ponds into the maps. The comparison of this parametric approach with the hydrodynamical approach has shown a strong statistical correlation that marks the relation between risk level and expected loss. However, there are some uncertainties from data input in the numerical hydrodynamic model and the subjectivity of the experts in the analytical process. The findings in this thesis can be converted to the advancement of cru-cial policy implications. The thesis has the potential to improve disaster risk reduction, specifically in salt-farming areas. The integration of flood risk maps based on hydrodynamic and multicriteria inputs can support the im-plementation of a targeted disaster risk reduction policy under data-poor conditions. Finally, the risk evaluation analysis can assist government policies targeting the increase of productivity of salt farming, such as the national Indonesian target of salt self-sufficiency, flood risk reduction via structural measures, mangrove conservation and integrated coastal planning policies

Towards Sustainable Global Food Systems

environment; food; agriculture; policy; global food system

Sustaining export-oriented value chains of farmed seafood in China

This thesis is intended to improve the understanding of China’s evolving export-oriented farmed seafood systems, and in particularly, shrimp and tilapia farming value chains in Southern China. An integrated, systems thinking and interdisciplinary approach in which both top–down and bottom–up approaches were combined. The research moved from system reviews, to field surveys and workshops, and then to improving sustainability by Action Research (AR), in order to form a holistic understanding of sustainability at both national and local scales. In the new millennium, the aquaculture sector has matured, and many factors now slow the growth rate of Chinese aquaculture production, such as increasing culture of high-value species and an emerging trend of extensification. There are been some strategy shifts in the aquaculture industry such as changing from a high production to high profit orientation and from causing environmental damage to ecological remediation. A key conclusion is that high growth rates, regularly used in policy dialogues, are misleading indicators and do not reflect, realistic or sustainable, growth profiles. Although overall Chinese aquaculture production is likely to further increase to meet an increasing and changing market demand, growth rates will decrease further. China already is and will continue to be a fisheries products net importer, however, if fishmeal excluded China will remain as a seafood net exporter. The status and development of four internationally-traded farmed seafood, tilapia, penaeid shrimp, macrobrachium prawns and striped catfish in China were reviewed. China is the largest producer of tilapia, penaeid shrimp and macrobrachium prawns, and striped catfish is not produced in significant quantities due to climate limitations. Meanwhile, China is the largest exporter of tilapia, the second largest exporter in the volume and third in value of shrimp in the world, while macrobrachium prawns mainly support domestic markets. Tilapia and penaeid shrimp were selected for further research. An analysis of tilapia and shrimp farm scale indicators and their relationship to farming system and market orientation, farm intensification and performance was made. Farm area, both land and water area, labour, including paid and unpaid were effective indicators to distinguish farm scale. Small-scale farms had higher land productivity in production terms but no difference in value output term, and they had much lower labour productivity than medium and large-scale farms. Farming systems were also correlated with land and labour productivities. Market orientation was closely linked to farm scale as most farms with an export orientation required registration with CIQ (China Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine) and were mainly large-scale. An assessment of local stakeholder sustainability perspectives along value chains revealed that more than 80% shrimp and tilapia farmers didn’t want their children to continue basing their living on aquaculture; because they considered it hard work, high risk and poorly remunerated. Farming was comparative stable with few changes in the five years prior to the survey. Major sustainability factors identified by stakeholders included input costs, profit, water availability & quality and the weather, most of which were outside their control. The measurement of these sustainability factors was firstly proposed by stakeholders and then developed to a set of sustainability indicators (SIs). Life cycle assessment (LCA) was used as evaluate the environmental performance of tilapia, pig and integrated tilapia-pig farming systems in China. Pig farming had higher environment impacts based on most impact categories than tilapia, and integrated farming systems. Sensitivity analysis showed that improvements of 5% and 10% higher feed efficiency, reduction of fishmeal in feed to 1% level and use of EU electricity could significant reduce overall environmental impacts. An action research (AR) approach was used to assess the practice of farm record keeping with farmers which were found to be generally low and a major constraint to improving product traceability increasingly demanded by consumers. Large scale and CIQ farms were more likely to keep records and for them to be detailed and analysed to inform improved management. Farmers’ motivation, ability and capability and background had significant correlation with record keeping practice. Two major dilemmas were identified by the analysis. Easy-to-use farm record-keeping system more suitable for less formally educated farmers was a clear requirement but useful storage and analysis of farm data capacity requires sophisticated management tools such as a computer system. Another dilemma is the need for coercion by regulatory authorities or encouragement through provision of education and training in increasing on-farm record-keeping to a level required for international trade and, increasingly, domestic markets. “Precision aquaculture”, value chain integrated solution, and further social-economic reforms were discussed. Finally, sustainable intensification, diversification, and extensification were proposed as strategies for China to meet the challenges of globalization and the growing demands of export and domestic value chains. In order to enhance sustainability of the sector and provide opportunities for small-scale farmers, the current status and changes of the Chinese social, economic context, food safety and environments issues were discussed. Farmers’ organizations, future consolidation, and land reforms were identified as key to the required changes of farmed seafood value chains