10 research outputs found
A Geographic Information System (GIS)-based approach to adaptation to regional climate change: a case study of Okutama-machi, Tokyo, Japan
Preliminary Study on the Visualization and Quantification of Elemental Compositions in Individual Microdroplets using Solidification and Synchrotron Radiation Techniques
Mortality on extreme heat days using official thresholds in Spain: a multi-city time series analysis.
BACKGROUND: The 2003 heat wave had a high impact on mortality in Europe, which made necessary to develop heat health watch warning systems. In Spain this was carried-out by the Ministry of Health in 2004, being based on exceeding of city-specific simultaneous thresholds of minimum and maximum daily temperatures. The aim of this study is to assess effectiveness of the official thresholds established by the Ministry of Health for each provincial capital city, by quantifying and comparing the short-term effects of above-threshold days on total daily mortality. METHODS: Total daily mortality and minimum and maximum temperatures for the 52 capitals of province in Spain were collected during summer months (June to September) for the study period 1995-2004. Data was analysed using GEE for Poisson regression. Relative Risk (RR) of total daily mortality was quantified for the current day of official thresholds exceeded. RESULTS: The number of days in which the thresholds were exceeded show great inconsistency, with provinces with great number of exceeded days adjacent to provinces that did not exceed or rarely exceeded. The average overall excess risk of dying during an extreme heat day was about 25% (RR = 1.24; 95% confidence interval (CI) = [1.19-1.30]). Relative risks showed a significant heterogeneity between cities (I2 = 54.9%). Western situation and low mean summer temperatures were associated with higher relative risks, suggesting thresholds may have been set too high in these areas. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirmed that extreme heat days have a considerable impact on total daily mortality in Spain. Official thresholds gave consistent relative risk in the large capital cities. However, in some other cities thresholds
Seasonal characteristics of the relationship between daily precipitation intensity and surface temperature
Adaptive Capacity as a Dynamic Institutional Process: Conceptual Perspectives and Their Application
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Managing the impacts of drought: the role of cultural beliefs in small-scale farmers’ responses to drought in Gaza Province, southern Mozambique
Drought has had a harsh impact on small-scale farmers' agricultural activities, livestock production, and well-being, so that even droughts dating back to 1947 remain memorable. These memories, experiences, and knowledge of the impacts frame farmers' awareness of the need to respond to drought, and they therefore implement an array of responses collectively to tackle its causes, and individually to reduce its impacts. Farmers' collective responses, comprised of prayers or traditional rainmaking ceremonies, are directly framed by their enduring cultural beliefs of the causes of drought and appropriate responses to address them. Farmers’ individual responses involve dependence on help, activities which generate income or secure immediate food needs. Cultural beliefs indirectly influence these individual responses by determining the timing and order of their implementation because farmers usually implement first collective responses. Thus, farmers tend to implement short-term, reactive coping strategies, which are often insufficient to feed their large families. Although cultural beliefs do not necessarily help farmers to adapt to drought, the enduring collective responses bind farmers together in solidarity during times of drought, since they are driven by their common need of rainfall for agricultural activities. Thus, acting as a psychological support system to deal with the causes, maintain their livelihoods, recover from the hardship and survive. Therefore, we conclude that it is important to account for these direct and indirect influences of cultural beliefs as they may affect the level of engagement, endorsement and position that farmers will (consciously or unconsciously) attribute to the implementation of drought-related adaptation strategies