Supporting governance for climate resilience: working with political institutions

Political institutions, formal or informal, embody the underlying rules and norms within which organisations such as governments, NGOs or companies, operate (North, 1990) and play a defining role in how people and organisations respond to climate-related shocks and stresses. Democratic relations between national and local government, for example, influence capacities for quick response in an emergency, and these responses can in turn affect economic prosperity, competitiveness, livelihoods and well-being. Governance provides us with a broad term for understanding the institutions working across the state, market and civil society. This working paper identifies an agenda for research and practice to create governance that can support human resilience to multiple shocks and stresses

Designing the next generation of climate adaptation research for development

Adaptation research has changed significantly in recent years as funders and researchers seek to encourage greater impact, ensure value for money and promote interdiscipinarity across the natural and social sciences. While these developments are inherently positive they also bring fresh challenges. This Perspective reviews experiences from the delivery of past and current adaptation research and reflects on the merits and limitations of the evolving adaptation research landscape. We propose five key areas that need to be changed in order to meet the needs of future adaptation research, namely: increasing transparency and consultation in research design; encouraging innovation in the design and delivery of adaptation research programmes; demonstrating impact on the ground; addressing incentive structures; and promoting more effective brokering, knowledge management and learning. As large international funding initiatives such as the Future Earth and the Global Challenges Research Fund start to take shape we underscore the importance of learning from past experiences and scaling-up of successful innovations in research funding models

Inter-comparison of satellite sensor land surface phenology and ground phenology in Europe

Land surface phenology (LSP) and ground phenology (GP) are both important sources of information for monitoring terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate changes. Each measures different vegetation phenological stages and has different sources of uncertainties, which make comparison in absolute terms challenging, and therefore, there has been limited attempts to evaluate the complementary nature of both measures. However, both LSP and GP are climate driven and therefore should exhibit similar interannual variation. LSP obtained from the whole time series of Medium-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer data was compared to thousands of deciduous tree ground phenology records of the Pan European Phenology network (PEP725). Correlations observed between the interannual time series of the satellite sensor estimates of phenology and PEP725 records revealed a close agreement (especially for Betula Pendula and Fagus Sylvatica species). In particular, 90% of the statistically significant correlations between LSP and GP were positive (mean R2 = 0.77). A large spatiotemporal correlation was observed between the dates of the start of season (end of season) from space and leaf unfolding (autumn coloring) at the ground (pseudo R2 of 0.70 (0.71)) through the application of nonlinear multivariate models, providing, for the first time, the ability to predict accurately the date of leaf unfolding (autumn coloring) across Europe (root-mean-square error of 5.97 days (6.75 days) over 365 days)

Ambivalence towards discourse of disaster resilience

This paper investigates empirically how the international aid community (IAC)—donors and practitioners—considers and implements disaster resilience in a specific country setting, Nepal, and throughout the rest of the world. A key finding is that there is ambivalence about a concept that has become a discourse. On a global level, the IAC utilises the discourse of resilience in a cautiously positive manner as a bridging concept. On a national level, it is being used to influence the Government of Nepal, as well as serving as an operational tool of donors. The mythical resilient urban community is fashioned in the IAC's imaginary; understanding how people create communities and what type of linkages with government urban residents desire to develop their resilience strategies is missing, though, from the discussion. Disaster resilience can be viewed as another grand plan to enhance the lives of people. Yet, regrettably, an explicit focus on individuals and their communities is lost in the process

Synthesis and characterisation of some lead containing supercoductors

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