Variables As Currency: Linking Meta-Analysis Research and Data Paths in Sciences

Meta-analyses are studies that bring together data or results from multiple independent studies to produce new and over-arching findings. Current data curation systems only partially support meta-analytic research. Some important meta-analytic tasks, such as the selection of relevant studies for review and the integration of research datasets or findings, are not well supported in current data curation systems. To design tools and services that more fully support meta-analyses, we need a better understanding of meta-analytic research. This includes an understanding of both the practices of researchers who perform the analyses and the characteristics of the individual studies that are brought together. In this study, we make an initial contribution to filling this gap by developing a conceptual framework linking meta-analyses with data paths represented in published articles selected for the analysis. The framework focuses on key variables that represent primary/secondary datasets or derived socio-ecological data, contexts of use, and the data transformations that are applied. We introduce the notion of using variables and their relevant information (e.g., metadata and variable relationships) as a type of currency to facilitate synthesis of findings across individual studies and leverage larger bodies of relevant source data produced in small science research. Handling variables in this manner provides an equalizing factor between data from otherwise disparate data-producing communities. We conclude with implications for exploring data integration and synthesis issues as well as system development

Interdependencies and Risk to People and Critical Food, Energy, and Water Systems: 2013 Flood, Boulder, Colorado, USA

This paper examines the interdependencies mediating the cascading negative consequences triggered by the September 2013 flood, in Boulder, Colorado, USA. By illustrating the risks to people and critical food-energy-water systems of a low probability, high-impact event, we draw lessons on what is likely to occur in the future. Other scholars have modeled the influence of interdependent infrastructures on cascading effects. But this is one of the first studies integrating stakeholders' understanding of the influence of interdependent actions, institutions, and infrastructures. These interdependencies create the conditions for vulnerability, which is a product of multiscale and dynamic sociodemographic, economic, technologic, environmental, and governance interactions. Political histories and historical decisions on where and how to design infrastructure exert a deep influence on short- and long-term capacity to manage risk. Boulder's high socio-institutional and learning capacity, while key, is not enough to influence integrative, transformative changes. Contrary to current approaches to nexus thinking, the regimes in which emergency and recovery actions are embedded are dynamically stable, thus imposing a logic for incremental change along established pathways of understanding and action. Our study offers some lessons on the challenges of bringing together diverse sectoral and jurisdictional sectors during and after an extreme event

Risk Inequality and the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus: A Study of 43 City Adaptation Plans

Goals aimed at adapting to climate change in sustainable and just ways are embedded in global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. However, largely unexamined, are the ways that narrative understandings conveyed in adaptation plans consider and attempt to address inequality in climate risk to urban populations and FEW-systems. In this paper, we examine whether and how adaptation plans from C40 member cities address inequality in risk, by planning actions to reduce hazard exposure or tackling the drivers of social vulnerability. C40 is a network of 94 of the world's cities fostering policies to address climate change. We apply a mixed methods approach, including a discourse analysis and meta-analysis of adaptation plans. The discourse analysis helps to unpack framings of urban equity issues as they relate to policy actions, and the meta-analysis seeks to quantitatively investigate patterns of framing and policy across adaptation plans. Our findings suggest that FEW-nexus thinking is not yet embedded in narrative understandings of risk and planned adaptation actions, within the adaptation plans we studied. In the city adaptation plans we analyzed, we found multiple frames coexisting behind the broader adaptation visions (e.g., risk and resilience). Rather than converging, issues, and principles such as those of equality, coexist with economic issues in an imbalance of incongruent political movements and priorities. Techno-infrastructural and economic investments and concerns tend to take precedence over concerns and interests for inequality in climate risks. We discuss some of the institutional factors explaining this. Knowledge integration, for instance, is constrained by the existence of a plurality of sectors, levels of government, power, values, and ways of understanding and managing climate risk. We also suggest that the relatively low importance of equality considerations in the adaptation plans will likely limit the capacity of cities to support broader goals such as those of the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals

Public Health Adaptation to Climate Change in Canadian Jurisdictions

Climate change poses numerous risks to the health of Canadians. Extreme weather events, poor air quality, and food insecurity in northern regions are likely to increase along with the increasing incidence and range of infectious diseases. In this study we identify and characterize Canadian federal, provincial, territorial and municipal adaptation to these health risks based on publically available information. Federal health adaptation initiatives emphasize capacity building and gathering information to address general health, infectious disease and heat-related risks. Provincial and territorial adaptation is varied. Quebec is a leader in climate change adaptation, having a notably higher number of adaptation initiatives reported, addressing almost all risks posed by climate change in the province, and having implemented various adaptation types. Meanwhile, all other Canadian provinces and territories are in the early stages of health adaptation. Based on publically available information, reported adaptation also varies greatly by municipality. The six sampled Canadian regional health authorities (or equivalent) are not reporting any adaptation initiatives. We also find little relationship between the number of initiatives reported in the six sampled municipalities and their provinces, suggesting that municipalities are adapting (or not adapting) autonomously

Risk Inequality and the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus: A Study of 43 City Adaptation Plans

Goals aimed at adapting to climate change in sustainable and just ways are embedded in global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. However, largely unexamined, are the ways that narrative understandings conveyed in adaptation plans consider and attempt to address inequality in climate risk to urban populations and FEW-systems. In this paper, we examine whether and how adaptation plans from C40 member cities address inequality in risk, by planning actions to reduce hazard exposure or tackling the drivers of social vulnerability. C40 is a network of 94 of the world's cities fostering policies to address climate change. We apply a mixed methods approach, including a discourse analysis and meta-analysis of adaptation plans. The discourse analysis helps to unpack framings of urban equity issues as they relate to policy actions, and the meta-analysis seeks to quantitatively investigate patterns of framing and policy across adaptation plans. Our findings suggest that FEW-nexus thinking is not yet embedded in narrative understandings of risk and planned adaptation actions, within the adaptation plans we studied. In the city adaptation plans we analyzed, we found multiple frames coexisting behind the broader adaptation visions (e.g., risk and resilience). Rather than converging, issues, and principles such as those of equality, coexist with economic issues in an imbalance of incongruent political movements and priorities. Techno-infrastructural and economic investments and concerns tend to take precedence over concerns and interests for inequality in climate risks. We discuss some of the institutional factors explaining this. Knowledge integration, for instance, is constrained by the existence of a plurality of sectors, levels of government, power, values, and ways of understanding and managing climate risk. We also suggest that the relatively low importance of equality considerations in the adaptation plans will likely limit the capacity of cities to support broader goals such as those of the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals

Riesgo climático, vulnerabilidad y capacidades de respuesta en ciudades

Los procesos de urbanización y las áreas urbanas juegan un papel fundamental en la vulnerabilidad y el riesgo de impactos negativos por exposición a inundaciones, olas de calor y otras amenazas que el cambio climático está agravando. Las ciudades y el desarrollo urbano son fuente también, al mismo tiempo, de un conjunto de capacidades y opciones para construir respuestas de adaptación y mitigación sustentables. El objetivo de la presentación fue analizar la vulnerabilidad y el riesgo climático en ciudades latinoamericanas y asiáticas, algunos de los mecanismos mediante los cuales las poblaciones experimentan riesgos urbanos, y evaluar su capacidad, es decir, su habilidad de percibir y responder a amenazas climáticas.Trabajo publicado en Acta Bioquímica Clínica Latinoamericana; no. 52, supl. 2, parte II, diciembre de 2018.Universidad Nacional de La Plat

Distancia entre objetivo y logro

Para consultar el libro dar clic en URIA partir de la década de 1980 el gobierno mexicano dio decidido impulso a la política ambiental mexicana creó organismos de gestión y, a partir de 1994, la Secretaría de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca (hoy Semarnat) ha desechado leyes, reglamentos, programas e instrumentos de política inició diversos acuerdos y proyectos nacionales e internacionales orientados a la inclusión de la sustentabilidad en las políticas de desarrollo. A pesar de estos esfuerzos, prosiguen las tendencias de pérdida de biodiversidad, deterioro y contaminación de aire, suelo, agua y otros recursos naturales existe una enorme discrepancia entre objetivos de política y logros (déficit de gestión). En este libro, Patricia Romero Lankao explora tres determinantes de los déficit de gestión de la problemática ambiental en materia de agricultura e industria y sus posibilidades de reestructuración con criterios ambientales. El primero las peculiaridades de la definición y diagnóstico de la problemática ambiental de ambas actividades; para entenderlas, es necesario analizar sus fundamentos teóricos normativos, o procedentes de distintas disciplinas naturales y sociales, encabezadas por la ecología y la economía. El segundo se refiere al diseño de estrategias e instrumentos de política ambiental, a sus alcances y límites para el logro de los objetivos de política. El tercer determinante se relaciona con los destinatarios de la política ambiental -empresarios textiles y agricultores- con el peso en la instrumentación de su posición frente a la política y la problemática que gestiona; con el conjunto de factores que inciden en las pautas de acción de los destinatarios, la cual afecta la ejecución de la política ambiental. Sobresalen entre las determinantes los mercados, las políticas macro y sectoriales y los valores y actitudes ambientales de los destinatarios.Patricia Romero Lankao es socióloga, doctora en planeación regional (UAM-X) y ciencias agrarias (Universidad Bonnd); es profesora de tiempo completo en el Departamento de Política y Cultura de la UAM Xochimilco. Destacan sobre sus publicaciones en español México ¿quién está haciendo que en torno a las dimensiones humanas del cambio ambiental? (2000), Obra hidráulica de la ciudad de México y su impacto socio-ambiental, 1880-1990, y Visión y esquemas de Gestión de lo Ambiental ¿Sustentadores de una política racional? (1999)

Visión y esquemas de gestión estatal de lo ambiental

Sin resumen