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

A critical knowledge pathway to low-carbon, sustainable futures: Integrated understanding of urbanization, urban areas, and carbon

Independent lines of research on urbanization, urban areas, and carbon have advanced our understanding of some of the processes through which energy and land uses affect carbon. This synthesis integrates some of these diverse viewpoints as a first step toward a coproduced, integrated framework for understanding urbanization, urban areas, and their relationships to carbon. It suggests the need for approaches that complement and combine the plethora of existing insights into interdisciplinary explorations of how different urbanization processes, and socio-ecological and technological components of urban areas, affect the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon emissions, differentially over time and within and across cities. It also calls for a more holistic approach to examining the carbon implications of urbanization and urban areas, based not only on demographics or income but also on other interconnected features of urban development pathways such as urban form, economic function, economic-growth policies, and other governance arrangements. It points to a wide array of uncertainties around the urbanization processes, their interactions with urban socio-institutional and built environment systems, and how these impact the exchange of carbon flows within and outside urban areas. We must also understand in turn how carbon feedbacks, including carbon impacts and potential impacts of climate change, can affect urbanization processes. Finally, the paper explores options, barriers, and limits to transitioning cities to low-carbon trajectories, and suggests the development of an end-to-end, coproduced and integrated scientific understanding that can more effectively inform the navigation of transitional journeys and the avoidance of obstacles along the way

The Influence of Internal Migration on Exposure to Extreme Weather Events in Mexico

Between 2005 and 2010, 6.3 million migrants (approximately 6% of the population) moved domestically within Mexico. These shifts have potential implications for exposure to natural disasters. To examine this relationship, we use census microdata in conjunction with information on natural disaster events. The populations exposed to extreme weather events are first calculated based on observed disasters and demographic change between 2005 and 2010. This is compared to a hypothetical scenario with no migration between 2005 and 2010. The results presented in this research note demonstrate that while migration has slightly decreased overall exposure within Mexico, this influence is highly localized in select areas, with internal migration increasing exposure in key urban destinations. This highlights the need to better understand the interacting roles of household-scale migratory decision making and economic/urban growth policy in climate change mitigation, and provides guidance on geographic regions to target for more detailed analysis

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

Thank you Earth's Future reviewers in 2019

AGU's open‐access transdisciplinary science journal Earth's Future continued to grow in size and stature in 2019, with ~40% acceptance rate for ~280 new submissions that were evaluated by a similar number of external reviewers; their names are listed here

Climate Change Impacts on Freshwater Wetland Hydrology and Vegetation Cover Cycling Along a Regional Aridity Gradient

Global mean temperature may increase up to 6°C by the end of this century and together with precipitation change may steepen regional aridity gradients. The hydrology, productivity, and ecosystem services from freshwater wetlands depend on their future water balance. We simulated the hydrology and vegetation dynamics of wetland complexes in the North American Prairie Pothole Region with the WETLANDSCAPE model. Simulations for 63 precipitation × temperature combinations spanning 6°C warming and −20% to +20% annual precipitation change at 19 locations along a mid-continental aridity gradient showed that aridity explained up to 99% of the variation in wetland stage and hydroperiod for all wetland permanence types, and in vegetation cycling for semipermanent wetlands. The magnitude and direction of hydrologic responses depended on whether climate changes increased or decreased water deficits. Warming to 6°C and 20% less precipitation increased wetland water deficits and more strongly decreased wetland stage and hydroperiod from historic levels at low aridity, especially in semipermanent wetlands, where peak vegetation cycling (Cover Cycle Index, CCI) also shifted to lower aridity. In contrast, 20% more precipitation decreased water deficits, increasing wetland stage and hydroperiod most strongly in shallow wetlands at high aridity, but filling semipermanent wetlands and reducing CCI at low aridity. All climate changes narrowed the range of aridity favorable to high productivity. Climate changes that reduce water deficits may help maintain wetlands at high aridity at the expense of those at low aridity, but with warming certain, increased deficits are more likely and will help maintain wetlands at lower aridity but exacerbate loss of wetlands at high aridity. Thus, there is likely not a universally applicable approach to mitigating climate change impacts on freshwater wetlands across regional aridity gradients. Conservation strategies need to account for aridity-specific effects of climate change on freshwater wetland ecosystems

Thank you to Earth’s Future Reviewers in 2018

Peer review is one of the most important professional activities for scientists, because it ensures the quality of science that is shared with colleagues and with the world. Reviewers generously donate their time and effort with the knowledge that are key to sustaining scientific rigor. Earth’s Future is fortunate to engage excellent reviewers that support the growth and reputation of our young journal as it receives and publishes highâ quality, highâ impact articles. We recognize the time, effort, and dedication that each review requires and extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our reviewers. Last year, Earth’s Future received 395 peer reviews from 297 individuals that are listed below; reviewers who contributed three or more reviews are recognized in italics. Our acceptance rate remains steady at ~40%, while the number of submissions continue to increase at a healthy pace (269 in 2018).Thank you all for your important and valued contributions to our science in 2018.Key PointsLast year, Earth’s Future received 395 peer reviews from 297 individualsThank you all for your important and valued contributions to our science in 2018Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150554/1/eft2549_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150554/2/eft2549.pd

The (In)Visible Health Risks of Climate Change

This paper scrutinizes the assertion that knowledge gaps concerning health risks from climate change are unjust, and must be addressed, because they hinder evidence-led interventions to protect vulnerable populations. First, we construct a taxonomy of six inter-related forms of invisibility (social marginalization, forced invisibility by migrants, spatial marginalization, neglected diseases, mental health, uneven climatic monitoring and forecasting) which underlie systematic biases in current understanding of these risks in Latin America, and advocate an approach to climate-health research that draws on intersectionality theory to address these inter-relations. We propose that these invisibilities should be understood as outcomes of structural imbalances in power and resources rather than as haphazard blindspots in scientific and state knowledge. Our thesis, drawing on theories of governmentality, is that context-dependent tensions condition whether or not benefits of making vulnerable populations legible to the state outweigh costs. To be seen is to be politically counted and eligible for rights, yet evidence demonstrates the perils of visibility to disempowered people. For example, flood-relief efforts in remote Amazonia expose marginalized urban river-dwellers to the traumatic prospect of forced relocation and social and economic upheaval. Finally, drawing on research on citizenship in post-colonial settings, we conceptualize climate change as an ‘open moment’ of political rupture, and propose strategies of social accountability, empowerment and trans-disciplinary research which encourage the marginalized to reach out for greater power. These achievements could reduce drawbacks of state legibility and facilitate socially-just governmental action on climate change adaptation that promotes health for all