10,857 research outputs found
Bridging the Climate Information Gap: A Framework for Engaging Knowledge Brokers and Decision Makers in State Climate Assessments
Large-scale analyses like the National Climate Assessment (NCA) contain a wealth of information critical to national and regional responses to climate change but tend to be insufficiently detailed for action at state or local levels. Many states now engage in assessment processes to meet information needs for local authorities. The goals of state climate assessments (SCAs) should be to provide relevant, actionable information to state and local authorities, and to generate primary sources, build networks and inform stakeholders. To communicate local climate impacts to decision makers, SCAs should express credibility, salience and legitimacy. They can provide information (e.g., case studies, data sets) and connect stakeholders to the NCA and its process. Based on our experience in the Vermont Climate Assessment (VCA), we present a framework to engage decision makers in SCAs using a fluid network of scientific experts and knowledge brokers to conduct subject area prioritization, data analysis and writing. The VCA addressed economic, environmental and social impacts of climate change at local scales to increase resiliency and manage risk. Knowledge brokers communicated VCA findings through their own stakeholder networks. We include a qualitative impact evaluation, and believe our framework for interaction among scientists, knowledge brokers and stakeholders to be an effective structure for SCAs and a transformative experience for students
Modelling and Design of Resilient Networks under Challenges
Communication networks, in particular the Internet, face a variety of challenges that can disrupt our daily lives resulting in the loss of human lives and significant financial costs in the worst cases. We define challenges as external events that trigger faults that eventually result in service failures. Understanding these challenges accordingly is essential for improvement of the current networks and for designing Future Internet architectures. This dissertation presents a taxonomy of challenges that can help evaluate design choices for the current and Future Internet. Graph models to analyse critical infrastructures are examined and a multilevel graph model is developed to study interdependencies between different networks. Furthermore, graph-theoretic heuristic optimisation algorithms are developed. These heuristic algorithms add links to increase the resilience of networks in the least costly manner and they are computationally less expensive than an exhaustive search algorithm. The performance of networks under random failures, targeted attacks, and correlated area-based challenges are evaluated by the challenge simulation module that we developed. The GpENI Future Internet testbed is used to conduct experiments to evaluate the performance of the heuristic algorithms developed
Modeling the Multi-layer Nature of the European Air Transport Network: Resilience and Passengers Re-scheduling under random failures
We study the dynamics of the European Air Transport Network by using a
multiplex network formalism. We will consider the set of flights of each
airline as an interdependent network and we analyze the resilience of the
system against random flight failures in the passenger's rescheduling problem.
A comparison between the single-plex approach and the corresponding multiplex
one is presented illustrating that the multiplexity strongly affects the
robustness of the European Air Network.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures - Accepted for publication in European Physical
Journal Special Topic
Enhancing Ontario’s Rural Infrastructure Preparedness: Inter-Community Service Sharing in a Changing Climate — Environmental Scan
Given the research that has been done in this environmental scan and the gaps found in this research, it is our aim to find out: What types of service sharing are going on in Ontario municipalities, particularly in rural/remote areas? How can inter-community service sharing (ICSS) benefit the asset management planning process in these rural/remote areas to enhance capacities for climate change resilience?
Climate change (CC) will exacerbate deterioration to existing infrastructure and increase replacement costs. Improved preparedness reduces risks and increases efficiency, readiness and coping capacity. To increase the preparedness of Ontario rural communities, this project develops CC-Prepared Inter-Community Service Sharing (ICSS) as an innovative strategy that expands cost-effective solutions within Ontario’s standardized Asset Management Planning (AMP) process. Overseen by a Project Advisory Board (PAB), it identifies a suite of best practice ICSS processes and principles and a range of factors and indicators that influence the uptake of ICSS as a viable and practical opportunity targeted to enhance rural infrastructure preparedness for CC. It utilizes a multimethod, interdisciplinary approach involving an environmental scan, interviews, a survey and case studies and develops an ICSS Toolkit consisting of reports, workbook, policy brief and media kit. Knowledge translation and transfer (KTT) includes blogs, teleconferences, articles, presentations and a workshop.
For small rural Ontario communities, this study enhances management of CC impacts on infrastructure through the development of a CC-Prepared ICSS strategy, increasing anticipatory, collective actions that reduce dam age and increase efficiencies. It informs sound municipal/provincial level programs and policies about innovative ICSS that benefit rural communities through the identification of Ontario-wide trends, case study best practises and action-oriented recommendations
Multilayer Networks
In most natural and engineered systems, a set of entities interact with each
other in complicated patterns that can encompass multiple types of
relationships, change in time, and include other types of complications. Such
systems include multiple subsystems and layers of connectivity, and it is
important to take such "multilayer" features into account to try to improve our
understanding of complex systems. Consequently, it is necessary to generalize
"traditional" network theory by developing (and validating) a framework and
associated tools to study multilayer systems in a comprehensive fashion. The
origins of such efforts date back several decades and arose in multiple
disciplines, and now the study of multilayer networks has become one of the
most important directions in network science. In this paper, we discuss the
history of multilayer networks (and related concepts) and review the exploding
body of work on such networks. To unify the disparate terminology in the large
body of recent work, we discuss a general framework for multilayer networks,
construct a dictionary of terminology to relate the numerous existing concepts
to each other, and provide a thorough discussion that compares, contrasts, and
translates between related notions such as multilayer networks, multiplex
networks, interdependent networks, networks of networks, and many others. We
also survey and discuss existing data sets that can be represented as
multilayer networks. We review attempts to generalize single-layer-network
diagnostics to multilayer networks. We also discuss the rapidly expanding
research on multilayer-network models and notions like community structure,
connected components, tensor decompositions, and various types of dynamical
processes on multilayer networks. We conclude with a summary and an outlook.Comment: Working paper; 59 pages, 8 figure
From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design
As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain
"ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in
socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a
network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run
all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback
and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the
reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying
models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy
decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of
Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but
they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of
society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The
results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into
informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis
Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources,
environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected
with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make
complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and
the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c
The role of motorized transport and mobile phones in the diffusion of agricultural information in Tanggamus Regency, Indonesia
Limited access to agricultural information constrains the well-being of
farmers in developing countries and leads to environmental
deterioration. Although new information-communication technologies
(ICTs) are expected to alleviate this problem, the importance of
physical mobility is rarely considered. This study explores the roles of
motorized transport and mobile phones in the diffusion of agricultural
information within and between Indonesian farming communities. In 2012,
we surveyed 315 household heads from 16 coffee and cocoa farming groups
in Sumatra. The respondents identified 1575 sources from which they
obtained agricultural information, the exact location of the sources,
and the mode of contact. In 2013, we followed up with in-depth
interviews of 20 farmers to obtain a qualitative description of their
agricultural information-seeking behavior. Although 75 % of respondents
had a mobile phone, the main mode of information sharing was
face-to-face meetings for 97 % of the elicited relationships. Mobile
phones were used to communicate with people living at the edge of the
regular physical mobility radius enabled by motorbikes (approximately 10
km). A hierarchical logit model was applied to examine the implications
of the respondents’ tendency to use motorized transport vis-à -vis
walking for information gathering. Respondents with a higher general
preference for faster transport tended to have more extensive access to
information from other communities. However, we also find weak evidence
that individual motorized transport might decrease internal social
contact and information exchange inside these communities. The policy
implication for rural development in less-industrialized countries is
that providing ICTs without increasing the inhabitants’ mobility through
appropriate means may not significantly improve the inhabitants’ access
to important information and the diffusion of successful agricultural
practices. </p
Transnational Actors and the Governance of Urban Climate Adaptation in India
In cities that are pursuing climate change adaptation actions, transnational
actors are critical catalysts for financing programs, generating public
awareness, and legitimizing the agenda. However, scholars of urban climate
adaptation have yet to understand whether such external interventions have
long-lasting effects on the sustainability and equity of urban governance
processes, particularly when placed in context with competing development
priorities across the global South. In this paper, I draw on experiences from
three cities in India – Surat, Indore, and Bhubaneswar – to analyze the
multilevel dynamics that link local adaptation actions with their supporting
transnational networks and funders. Drawing on a comparative multi-scale case
study methodology, I find that current capacity deficits in Indian cities
indeed allow external actors to catalyze adaptation, but this relationship
becomes more dialectical farther into the planning and implementation stages.
The governance of climate adaptation in fact involves embedding adaptation
into bureaucratic practices, financial processes, spatial plans, and
institutional cultures. The interaction between these four pathways results in
the coproduction of knowledge, co-creation of options, and inter-
institutionalization of standards, practices, and behaviors. A particular
actor’s ability to exert authority over how interventions are framed,
financed, bureaucratized, and built across the urban landscape then yields
different patterns of adaptation. This finding therefore reasserts the role of
urban political actors operating within the global climate governance regime
and the marketplace for climate finance
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