Climate change, water risks and urban responses in the Pearl River Delta, China

Currently, concerns are increasing that climate change may intensify natural disasters, like droughts, floods and storms which pose risks to human society, especially at the coastal urban area. This thesis studies climate change, water shortage and flood risks as well as human response measures in the highly urbanized Pearl River Delta (PRD) area in South China. Analysis on climate change in the PRD area is based on existing datasets and model projections, with an integration of literature results. Findings indicate significant climate change in both the past and future of the area, with a trend of increasing mean temperature, fluctuating precipitation, rising sea level and increasing typhoon intensity as well as the frequency of extreme weather events. In particular, the annual mean temperature in the PRD area is likely to rise by around 3℃ and precipitation to increase slightly but with greater fluctuations by 2100, while the sea level is projected to rise with an annual rate of 0.33cm to 1cm in this century. Climate change is likely to increase rainfall variability, drought intensity and duration, and damages on water-related infrastructure by extreme weather events, which all increasingly threaten the local freshwater availability. The water supply situation is becoming more complicated along with the population growth, economic development and difficulties in response/management. Hence, ensuring sufficient freshwater availability is one of the major water management challenges for all the PRD cities. Taking Hong Kong as a case study, this thesis highlights six interrelated risks within the context of climate change, namely: drought, rainstorm/flood events, sea-level rise, water pollution, social management and policy gaps. It suggests that for a sustainable future, Hong Kong needs to invest in improving water self-sufficiency, diversify water sources and conduct aggressive public awareness to increase individual adaptation to predicted climate change impacts. Flood implications of climate change trends are pronounced in most of the cities in PRD as well. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events have assumed significant change, together with continuing development in flood-prone areas, which increase both the scale and degree of urban flood risk. Further estimation was made on the flood risk in the 11 cities of PRD area from both aspects of the probability of a flood occurrence and the vulnerability of the cities. The results suggest that the exposure and sensitivity of Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen and Guangzhou are very high because of highly exposed populations and assets located in lowland areas. However, the potential vulnerability and risk is low due to high adaptive capacities in both hard and soft flood-control measures. A novel framework on flood responses is proposed to identify vulnerable links and response strategies in different phases of a flood event. It further suggests that the flood risks can be reduced by developing an integrated climate response strategy, releasing accurate early warning and action guidance, sharing flood related information to the public and applying the advantages of social network analysis. Further, an agent-based model is developed as an instrument to simulate the process by which individual households optimize benefits through flood response investment and damage control. The model implements a subjective response framework in which households appraise inundation scenarios according to warnings, and decide whether to invest in mitigation measures to reduce potential inundation damages. Households may have variant flood response preferences and activities but they all require investments which are consequently considered as part of the final flood losses. A case study was carried out in the Ng Tung River basin, an urbanized watershed in Northern Hong Kong. First results underline that in-time, accurate and wide-covered flood warning plays a significant role in reducing flood losses. And earlier investments in responding measures are more efficient than late activities. This dynamic agent-based modeling approach finally demonstrates its capacity to analyze the interactions between flood inundation and households responses. Overall, findings of this study help understand the level of climate change impacts and vulnerability in water domain, which are vital to gauge the cities’ risks and corresponding responses and therefore inform decisions about how best to deal with emerging climate-related water risks like drought and flood

Climate change and firm strategies

My dissertation explores the overarching question: how do firms respond to climate change? Chapter 1 is entitled “Climate Change Exposure and Firm’s Adaptation Strategies”. In this chapter, I build a novel dataset that compiles information on the adaptation strategies of publicly traded companies globally and merge it with climate science data. Using these data, I examine whether, how, and under which conditions firms adapt to physical climate change exposures. I find that most firms don’t adapt to different climate change exposures. Firms take a targeted approach to adaptation – responding more to those aspects of climate exposures that are likely to affect them directly. Also, I show that firms with better ESG ratings are more responsive to varying climate exposures. I then report evidence that perception and capabilities may provide the mechanisms for different adaptation rates and strategies. The 2nd chapter, titled “Assessing the Climate Change Exposure of Foreign Direct Investment" (published in Nature Communications in 2022 and coauthored with Kevin Gallagher) explores the climate change exposure of foreign direct investments. Despite the increasing impact of physical climate risks on firms and facilities globally, little is known about how multinational companies incorporate such risks into their overseas investment decisions. This chapter examines the climate change exposures of multinational companies’ overseas investments. Globally, foreign investments are significantly exposed to lower physical climate risks, compared with local firms across countries. Within countries, however, the differences of physical climate risks between foreign and local facilities are small. We also examine China, as it is rapidly becoming one of the largest sources of outward foreign investment across the globe. We find that foreign investment from China is significantly more exposed to water stress, floods, hurricanes, and typhoon risks across countries, compared with other foreign facilities. Within host countries, however, the physical climate risks of Chinese overseas facilities are comparable to those of non-Chinese foreign investments. Chapter 3 is titled “Competing or Complementary Labels? Estimating Spillovers in Chinese Green Building Certification” (published in the Strategic Management Journal, 2021). I and Tim Simcoe examine the spillovers in the adoption of “competing” green building certifications, one important climate change mitigation strategy. In this chapter, we argue that there can be positive spillovers in the adoption of “competing” certifications and propose a framework for understanding how such spillovers arise through three channels: suppliers, adopters, and users of various labels. Our empirical analysis demonstrates these effects in the context of Chinese green-building certification. Specifically, we measure spillovers from adoption of the Chinese Green Building Evaluation Label (GBEL) to adoption of the alternative LEED standard within the same city. To isolate the causal impact of GBEL on LEED adoption, we use local government subsidies as an instrumental variable. We find evidence of market-level spillovers through the supplier and user channels, but little evidence of building-level scope economies

Proceedings of the XXVIIIth TELEMAC User Conference 18-19 October 2022

Hydrodynamic

Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference of the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction

Proceedings of The 9th Annual International Conference of the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction. The conference was held at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia from 8-10 July 2013. The event title for the 9th Annual Conference was: Risk-informed Disaster Management: Planning for Response, Recovery and Resilience. All papers were double blind peer reviewed and the Proceedings were published online in March 2015

World Ocean Review 2015 : living with the oceans 5. Coasts - a vital habitat under pressure

The fifth World Ocean Review (WOR) explores the coastal habitat and the diverse expectations upon this habitat. It provides a glimpse into millions of years of history, elucidates the theory of continental drift and discusses the many ways in which coasts have changed. It also illustrates how the diverse ecosystem services rendered by the coasts are being subjected to increasing pressure, and profiles measures that will be necessary in the future to respond effectively to the threats from both climate change and natural disasters