Climate change impacts in agricultural communities in rural areas of coastal Bangladesh: a tale of many stories

This paper identifies and analyses climate change impacts, their cascading consequences and the livelihood implications of these impacts on smallholder agricultural communities of coastal Bangladesh. Six physically and socio-economically vulnerable communities of south-western coastal regions were studied. Primary data was collected through focus group discussions, a seasonal calendar, and historical transect analysis. Three orders of impacts of climate change on smallholder farmers are identified and described. The first order impacts involve increasing erosion of the capacity of local communities to mitigate vulnerability to climate change impacts. This situation led to the second order impacts, which significantly transformed the agricultural landscape and production patterns. The cumulative effects of the first and second order impacts sparked the third order impacts in the form of worsening community livelihood assets and conditions. The findings of this paper can contribute to the formulation of sustainable adaptation policies and programs to manage the vulnerability of local communities to climate change impacts in the country effectively

An Integrated Approach for Including Social Capacities, and Economic Valuation in Risk Assessment of Water Related Hazards in Uncertain Scenarios

We propose a conceptual framework, KR-FWK (i.e. KULTURisk Framework from the name of the European project within which it originated) and its implementation methods SERRA (Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment) for integrated (physical and economical) risk assessment, and economic valuation of risk prevention benefits on multiple receptors. The KR-FWK and the SERRA approach are characterised by: (i) integration of physical-environmental dimensions and the socio-economic ones in risk assessment; (ii) consideration of the role of social capacities (adaptive and coping capacity) in reducing risk and related costs, (iii) quantitative (even monetary) assessment of risks and of the benefits of risk reduction measures, and (iv) solutions to deal with multiple sources of uncertainty in view of including the change dimension in decision support. Building on a widely adopted conceptual model, Risk is here considered as the combination of Hazard, Vulnerability and Exposure. In turn, Vulnerability is the result of the interactions between physical characteristics (susceptibility) and the capacities of the socio-economic system to adapt and cope with a given natural hazard. Exposure quantifies the natural and anthropogenic assets, which may be subject to the hazard. Whenever possible and desirable, exposure can be assessed in monetary terms, and thus the multiplicative combination of two indices ranging between 0 and 1 (H and V) with a third one (E) expressed in monetary terms produces a monetary quantification of risk. KR-FWK and SERRA have been applied to a series of case studies to test and consolidate the approach in various contexts of data availability, scale, etc

Challenges in operationalizing the water–energy–food nexus

Concerns about the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus have motivated many discussions regarding new approaches for managing water, energy and food resources. Despite the progress in recent years, there remain many challenges in scientific research on the WEF nexus, while implementation as a management tool is just beginning. The scientific challenges are primarily related to data, information and knowledge gaps in our understanding of the WEF inter-linkages. Our ability to untangle the WEF nexus is also limited by the lack of systematic tools that could address all the trade-offs involved in the nexus. Future research needs to strengthen the pool of information. It is also important to develop integrated software platforms and tools for systematic analysis of the WEF nexus. The experience made in integrated water resources management in the hydrological community, especially in the framework of Panta Rhei, is particularly well suited to take a lead in these advances

Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment (SERRA) application to flood risk in the Vipacco Basin (north-east Italy)

According to EEA (European Environmental Agency), flood is the most dangerous natural hazard in Europe in terms of economic losses. TheKULTURisk Project (EU FP7) has developed a novel methodology for evaluating the integrated benefits of risk prevention of water related natural hazards: SERRA (i.e. Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment). The proposed methodology enhances the traditional flood risk assessment by integrating the missing socio-economic dimension into the established regional risk assessment. Several case studies across Europe allowed for the consolidation, validation, and refinement of SERRA. This paper presents the results of its application to assess the benefits deriving from the installation of an Early Warning System in Vipacco river basin in Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy). Social, economic and physical data are used to assess the total expected risk for several receptors such as economic activities, cultural heritage, people, etc. The collected socio-economic data are stored in Geographic Information System (GIS) and processed according to SERRA algorithms to produce maps of various categories of costs (beyond physical-environmental damages) in order to assist the Decision Makers (DMs) in making more informative decisions. The visualization of total risk through GIS maps allows the DMs to understand the spatial distribution of social vulnerability, risk, and associated costs

A dynamic assessment of water scarcity risk in the Lower Brahmaputra River Basin: An integrated approach

Many international river basins are likely to experience increasing water scarcity over the coming decades. This water scarcity is not rooted only in the limitation of resources, i.e. the shortage in the availability of freshwater relative to water demand, but also on social factors (e.g. flawed water planning and management approaches, institutional incapability to provide water services, unsustainable economic policies). Therefore, the assessment of water scarcity risks is not limited to the assessment of physical water supply and demand, but it requires also consideration of several socio-economic factors. In this study, we provide a comprehensive dynamic assessment of water scarcity risks for the Lower Brahmaputra river basin, a region where the hydrological impact of climate change is expected to be particularly strong and population pressure is high. The basin area of Brahmaputra River lies among four different countries: China, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. For water scarcity assessment, we propose a novel integration of different approaches: (i) the assessment of water scarcity risk, considering complex social-ecological system; (ii) the analysis of dynamic behaviour of the system; (iii) exploration of participatory approach in which limited number of stakeholders identify the most relevant issues with reference to water scarcity risks and provide their preferences for the aggregation of risk assessment indicators. Results show that water scarcity risk is expected to slightly increase and to fluctuate remarkably as a function of the hazard signal. Social indicators show trends that can at least partially compensate the increasing trend of the drought index. The results of this study are intended to be used for contributing to planned adaptation of water resources systems, in Lower Brahmaputra River Basin

Measuring global water security towards sustainable development goals

Water plays an important role in underpinning equitable, stable and productive societies and ecosystems. Hence, United Nations recognized ensuring water security as one (Goal 6) of the seventeen sustainable development goals(SDGs). Many international river basins are likely to experience ‘low water security’ over the coming decades. Water security is rooted not only in the physical availability of freshwater resources relative to water demand, but also on social and economic factors(e.g. sound water planning and management approaches, institutional capacity to provide water services, sustainable economic policies). Until recently, advanced tools and methods are available for the assessment of water scarcity. However, quantitative and integrated—physical and socio-economic—approaches for spatial analysis of water security at global level are not available yet. In this study, we present a spatial multi-criteria analysis framework to provide a global assessment of water security. The selected indicators are based on Goal 6 of SDGs. The term ‘security’ is conceptualized as a function of ‘availability’, ‘accessibility to services’, ‘safety and quality’, and ‘management’. The proposed global water security index (GWSI) is calculated by aggregating indicator values on a pixel-by-pixel basis, using the ordered weighted average method, which allows for the exploration of the sensitivity of final maps to different attitudes of hypothetical policy makers. Our assessment suggests that countries of Africa, South Asia and Middle East experience very low water security. Other areas of high water scarcity, such as some parts of United States, Australia and Southern Europe, show better GWSI values, due to good performance of management, safety and quality, and accessibility. The GWSI maps show the areas of the world in which integrated strategies are needed to achieve water related targets of the SDGs particularly in the African and Asian continents