Mediterranean California’s water use future under multiple scenarios of developed and agricultural land use change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wilson, Tamara; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Cameron, D. Richard

2017-01-01

With growing demand and highly variable inter-annual water supplies, California’s water use future is fraught with uncertainty. Climate change projections, anticipated population growth, and continued agricultural intensification, will likely stress existing water supplies in coming decades. Using a state-and-transition simulation modeling approach, we examine a broad suite of spatially explicit future land use scenarios and their associated county-level water use demand out to 2062. We examined a range of potential water demand futures sampled from a 20-year record of historical (1992–2012) data to develop a suite of potential future land change scenarios, including low/high change scenarios for urbanization and agriculture as well as “lowest of the low” and “highest of the high” anthropogenic use. Future water demand decreased 8.3 billion cubic meters (Bm3) in the lowest of the low scenario and decreased 0.8 Bm3 in the low agriculture scenario. The greatest increased water demand was projected for the highest of the high land use scenario (+9.4 Bm3), high agricultural expansion (+4.6 Bm3), and high urbanization (+2.1 Bm3) scenarios. Overall, these scenarios show agricultural land use decisions will likely drive future demand more than increasing municipal and industrial uses, yet improved efficiencies across all sectors could lead to potential water use savings. Results provide water managers with information on diverging land use and water use futures, based on historical, observed land change trends and water use histories.

Mediterranean California’s water use future under multiple scenarios of developed and agricultural land use change

PubMed Central

Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Cameron, D. Richard

2017-01-01

With growing demand and highly variable inter-annual water supplies, California’s water use future is fraught with uncertainty. Climate change projections, anticipated population growth, and continued agricultural intensification, will likely stress existing water supplies in coming decades. Using a state-and-transition simulation modeling approach, we examine a broad suite of spatially explicit future land use scenarios and their associated county-level water use demand out to 2062. We examined a range of potential water demand futures sampled from a 20-year record of historical (1992–2012) data to develop a suite of potential future land change scenarios, including low/high change scenarios for urbanization and agriculture as well as “lowest of the low” and “highest of the high” anthropogenic use. Future water demand decreased 8.3 billion cubic meters (Bm3) in the lowest of the low scenario and decreased 0.8 Bm3 in the low agriculture scenario. The greatest increased water demand was projected for the highest of the high land use scenario (+9.4 Bm3), high agricultural expansion (+4.6 Bm3), and high urbanization (+2.1 Bm3) scenarios. Overall, these scenarios show agricultural land use decisions will likely drive future demand more than increasing municipal and industrial uses, yet improved efficiencies across all sectors could lead to potential water use savings. Results provide water managers with information on diverging land use and water use futures, based on historical, observed land change trends and water use histories. PMID:29088254

Acadia National Park Climate Change Scenario Planning Workshop summary

USGS Publications Warehouse

Star, Jonathan; Fisichelli, Nicholas; Bryan, Alexander; Babson, Amanda; Cole-Will, Rebecca; Miller-Rushing, Abraham J.

2016-01-01

This report summarizes outcomes from a two-day scenario planning workshop for Acadia National Park, Maine (ACAD). The primary objective of the workshop was to help ACAD senior leadership make management and planning decisions based on up-to-date climate science and assessments of future uncertainty. The workshop was also designed as a training program, helping build participants' capabilities to develop and use scenarios. The details of the workshop are given in later sections. The climate scenarios presented here are based on published global climate model output. The scenario implications for resources and management decisions are based on expert knowledge distilled through scientist-manager interaction during workgroup break-out sessions at the workshop. Thus, the descriptions below are from these small-group discussions in a workshop setting and should not be taken as vetted research statements of responses to the climate scenarios, but rather as insights and examinations of possible futures (Martin et al. 2011, McBride et al. 2012).

Early Childhood Education: A Projection for 2001.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LeVasseur, Natalie P.

This paper projects an image of the future from the present to early in the next century and provides a scenario of a day spent in a school for young children in 2001. The image of the future is based on a chronicle of events which might conceivably happen. The scenario, set in one particular time and place in the future, describes what early…

Alternative futures of proactive tools for a citizen's own wellbeing.

PubMed

Meristö, Tarja; Tuohimaa, Hanna; Leppimäki, Sami; Laitinen, Jukka

2009-01-01

The aim of this paper is to create the basis for a vision of an empowered citizen who can control his/her life, especially in relation to health and personal wellbeing with the use of new ICT-tools. The methods used in the study are based on futures studies, especially on scenario methodology. Alternative future paths, i.e. scenarios are constructed using the scenario filter model that we have developed, with market, technology and society perspectives. Scenarios not resulting in the vision are described in what if - analysis as well. The scenarios are combined with Viherä's model on citizen's skills, access and motivation to use new ICT-tools. The concept COPER is targeted to different user groups with an adaptable user interface and its development is user centered. We will consider the effects and the appropriate elements of COPER in every scenario, as well as the possibilities and challenges nursing will confront. As a result we will gain information of the characteristic of COPER that advance the vision. For the future development of COPER the alternative scenarios give the basis for flexibility planning, too.

HYDROLOGIC MODEL UNCERTAINTY ASSOCIATED WITH SIMULATING FUTURE LAND-COVER/USE SCENARIOS: A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

EPA Science Inventory

GIS-based hydrologic modeling offers a convenient means of assessing the impacts associated with land-cover/use change for environmental planning efforts. Alternative future scenarios can be used as input to hydrologic models and compared with existing conditions to evaluate pot...

Land-use impacts on water resources and protected areas: applications of state-and-transition simulation modeling of future scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilson, T. S.; Sleeter, B. M.; Sherba, J.; Cameron, D.

2014-12-01

Human land use will increasingly contribute to habitat losses and water shortages in California, given future population projections and associated demand for agricultural land. Understanding how land-use change may impact future water use and where existing protected areas may be threatened by land-use conversion will be important if effective, sustainable management approaches are to be implemented. We used a state-and-transition simulation modeling (STSM) framework to simulate spatially-explicit (1 km2) historical (1992-2010) and future (2011-2060) land-use change for 52 California counties within the Mediterranean California ecoregion. Historical land use change estimates were derived from the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program (FMMP) dataset and attributed with county-level agricultural water-use data from the California Department of Water Resources (CDWR). Six future alternative land-use scenarios were developed and modeled using the historical land-use change estimates and land-use projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) A2 and B1 scenarios. Resulting spatial land-use scenario outputs were combined based on scenario agreement and a land conversion threat index developed to evaluate vulnerability of existing protected areas. Modeled scenario output of county-level agricultural water use data were also summarized, enabling examination of alternative water use futures. We present results of two separate applications of STSM of land-use change, demonstrating the utility of STSM in analyzing land-use related impacts on water resources as well as potential threats to existing protected land. Exploring a range of alternative, yet plausible, land-use change impacts will help to better inform resource management and mitigation strategies.

Evaluating land-use change scenarios for the Puget Sound Basin, Washington, within the ecosystem recovery target model-based framework

USGS Publications Warehouse

Villarreal, Miguel; Labiosa, Bill; Aiello, Danielle

2017-05-23

The Puget Sound Basin, Washington, has experienced rapid urban growth in recent decades, with varying impacts to local ecosystems and natural resources. To plan for future growth, land managers often use scenarios to assess how the pattern and volume of growth may affect natural resources. Using three different land-management scenarios for the years 2000–2060, we assessed various spatial patterns of urban growth relative to maps depicting a model-based characterization of the ecological integrity and recent development pressure of individual land parcels. The three scenarios depict future trajectories of land-use change under alternative management strategies—status quo, managed growth, and unconstrained growth. The resulting analysis offers a preliminary assessment of how future growth patterns in the Puget Sound Basin may impact land targeted for conservation and how short-term metrics of land-development pressure compare to longer term growth projections.

Development of Future Scenario Emission Inventories for East Asia in Support of Multiple Modeling Studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Y.; Woo, J. H.; Choi, K. C.; Lee, J. B.; Song, C. K.; Kim, S. K.; Hong, J.; Hong, S. C.; Zhang, Q.; Hong, C.; Tong, D.

2015-12-01

Future emission scenarios based on up-to-date regional socio-economic and control policy information were developed in support of climate-air quality integrated modeling research over East Asia. Two IPCC-participated Integrated Assessment Models(IAMs) were used to developed those scenario pathways. The two emission processing systems, KU-EPS and SMOKE-Asia, were used to convert these future scenario emissions to comprehensive chemical transport model-ready form. The NIER/KU-CREATE (Comprehensive Regional Emissions inventory for Atmospheric Transport Experiment) served as the regional base-year emission inventory. For anthropogenic emissions, it has 54 fuel classes, 201 sub-sectors and 13 pollutants, including CO2, CH4, N2O, SO2, NOx, CO, NMVOC, NH3, OC, BC, PM10, PM2.5, and mercury. Fast energy growth and aggressive penetration of the control measures make emissions projection very active for East Asia. Despite of more stringent air pollution control policies by the governments, however, air quality over the region seems not been improved as much - even worse in many cases. The needs of more scientific understanding of inter-relationship among emissions, transport, chemistry over the region are very high to effectively protect public health and ecosystems against ozone, fine particles, and other toxic pollutants in the air. After developing these long-term future emissions, therefore, we also tried to apply our future scenarios to develop the present emissions inventory for chemical weather forecasting and aircraft field campaign. On site, we will present; 1) the future scenario development framework and process methodologies, 2) initial development results of the future emission pathways, 3) present emission inventories from short-term projection, and 4) air quality modeling performance improvements over the region.

Land use change modeling through scenario-based cellular automata Markov: improving spatial forecasting.

PubMed

Jahanishakib, Fatemeh; Mirkarimi, Seyed Hamed; Salmanmahiny, Abdolrassoul; Poodat, Fatemeh

2018-05-08

Efficient land use management requires awareness of past changes, present actions, and plans for future developments. Part of these requirements is achieved using scenarios that describe a future situation and the course of changes. This research aims to link scenario results with spatially explicit and quantitative forecasting of land use development. To develop land use scenarios, SMIC PROB-EXPERT and MORPHOL methods were used. It revealed eight scenarios as the most probable. To apply the scenarios, we considered population growth rate and used a cellular automata-Markov chain (CA-MC) model to implement the quantified changes described by each scenario. For each scenario, a set of landscape metrics was used to assess the ecological integrity of land use classes in terms of fragmentation and structural connectivity. The approach enabled us to develop spatial scenarios of land use change and detect their differences for choosing the most integrated landscape pattern in terms of landscape metrics. Finally, the comparison between paired forecasted scenarios based on landscape metrics indicates that scenarios 1-1, 2-2, 3-2, and 4-1 have a more suitable integrity. The proposed methodology for developing spatial scenarios helps executive managers to create scenarios with many repetitions and customize spatial patterns in real world applications and policies.

Scenarios Creation and Use in the Arctic Council's Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brigham, L. W.

2016-12-01

The Arctic Council's Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA), conducted 2004-2009, used a scenarios-based approach to reveal the complexity of future Arctic marine navigation and to develop a set of plausible futures. The initial task was to use experts and stakeholders in brainstorming sessions to identify the key drivers and uncertainties for Arctic marine navigation. AMSA scenario participants identified 120 driving forces or factors that may influence future levels of marine activity. This effort illustrated the broad, global connections that can impact future use of the Arctic Ocean. Two primary factors were selected to anchor, as axes of uncertainty, the scenarios matrix: resources and trade (the level of demand for Arctic natural resources and trade); and, governance (the degree of relative stability of rules and standards for marine use both within the Arctic and internationally). Four scenarios were created by crossing the two primary drivers: a Polar Lows scenario (low demand and unstable governance); an Arctic Race scenario (high demand and unstable governance); a Polar Preserve scenario (low demand and stable governance); and, an Arctic Saga scenario (high demand and stable governance). The AMSA scenarios effort proved to be an effective and powerful way to communicate to the Arctic Council diplomats, Arctic indigenous peoples, maritime stakeholders and many other actors in the global community the complexities influencing the future of Arctic shipping and marine operations. The scenarios approach facilitated unconstrained thinking and identified the many plausible linkages of the Arctic to the global economic system. The AMSA scenarios work was influential in the Arctic ministers' approval of the framework set of AMSA recommendations that are being implemented today to enhance Arctic marine safety and environmental protection.

Forecast of Future Aviation Fuels. Part 1: Scenarios

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

English, J. M.; Liu, C. Y.; Smith, J. L.; Yin, A. K. K.; Pan, G. A.; Ayati, M. B.; Gyamfi, M.; Arabzadah, M. R.

1978-01-01

A preliminary set of scenarios is described for depicting the air transport industry as it grows and changes, up to the year 2025. This provides the background for predicting the needs for future aviation fuels to meet the requirements of the industry as new basic sources, such as oil shale and coal, which are utilized to supplement petroleum. Five scenarios are written to encompass a range of futures from a serious resource-constrained economy to a continuous and optimistic economic growth. A unique feature is the choice of one immediate range scenario which is based on a serious interruption of economic growth occasioned by an energy shortfall. This is presumed to occur due to lags in starting a synfuels program.

Flood risk assessment and robust management under deep uncertainty: Application to Dhaka City

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mojtahed, Vahid; Gain, Animesh Kumar; Giupponi, Carlo

2014-05-01

The socio-economic changes as well as climatic changes have been the main drivers of uncertainty in environmental risk assessment and in particular flood. The level of future uncertainty that researchers face when dealing with problems in a future perspective with focus on climate change is known as Deep Uncertainty (also known as Knightian uncertainty), since nobody has already experienced and undergone those changes before and our knowledge is limited to the extent that we have no notion of probabilities, and therefore consolidated risk management approaches have limited potential.. Deep uncertainty is referred to circumstances that analysts and experts do not know or parties to decision making cannot agree on: i) the appropriate models describing the interaction among system variables, ii) probability distributions to represent uncertainty about key parameters in the model 3) how to value the desirability of alternative outcomes. The need thus emerges to assist policy-makers by providing them with not a single and optimal solution to the problem at hand, such as crisp estimates for the costs of damages of natural hazards considered, but instead ranges of possible future costs, based on the outcomes of ensembles of assessment models and sets of plausible scenarios. Accordingly, we need to substitute optimality as a decision criterion with robustness. Under conditions of deep uncertainty, the decision-makers do not have statistical and mathematical bases to identify optimal solutions, while instead they should prefer to implement "robust" decisions that perform relatively well over all conceivable outcomes out of all future unknown scenarios. Under deep uncertainty, analysts cannot employ probability theory or other statistics that usually can be derived from observed historical data and therefore, we turn to non-statistical measures such as scenario analysis. We construct several plausible scenarios with each scenario being a full description of what may happen in future and based on a meaningful synthesis of parameters' values with control of their correlations for maintaining internal consistencies. This paper aims at incorporating a set of data mining and sampling tools to assess uncertainty of model outputs under future climatic and socio-economic changes for Dhaka city and providing a decision support system for robust flood management and mitigation policies. After constructing an uncertainty matrix to identify the main sources of uncertainty for Dhaka City, we identify several hazard and vulnerability maps based on future climatic and socio-economic scenarios. The vulnerability of each flood management alternative under different set of scenarios is determined and finally the robustness of each plausible solution considered is defined based on the above assessment.

Future water demand in California under a broad range of land use scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilson, T. S.; Sleeter, B. M.; Cameron, D. R.

2016-12-01

California continues to be gripped by the most severe drought on record. Most general circulation models agree the state will continue to warm this century and research suggests persistent, long-term droughts may become the new normal, exacerbating an already uncertain water supply future. Population increases and agricultural intensification will likely stress existing, highly variable inter-annual water supplies even further in coming decades. Using the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS) model, we explore a wide range of potential water demand futures from 2012 to 2062 based on 8 alternative, spatially-explicit (1 km) land use scenarios and land-use related water demand. Scenarios include low and high rates for urbanization, agricultural expansion, and agricultural contraction as well as lowest and highest rates for the combined suite of anthropogenic land uses. Land change values were sampled from county-level historical (1991-2012) land change data and county-level average water use data for urban areas (i.e. municipal and industrial) and annual and perennial cropland. We modeled 100 Monte Carlo simulations for each scenario to better characterize and capture model uncertainty and a range of potential future outcomes. Results show water demand in Mediterranean California was lowest in the low anthropogenic change scenario, dropping an average 2.7 million acre feet (MAF) by 2062. The highest water demand was seen in the high urbanization (+3.2 MAF), high agricultural expansion (+4.1 MAF), and the high anthropogenic (+4.3 MAF) scenarios. Results provide water managers and policy makers with information on diverging land use and water use futures, based on observed land change and water use trends, helping better inform land and resource management decisions.

Development and Application of Future Climate Scenarios for Natural Resource Management in Southwestern Colorado

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rangwala, I.; Rondeau, R.; Wyborn, C.; Clifford, K. R.; Travis, W.

2015-12-01

Locally relevant projections of climate change provide critical insights for natural resource managers seeking to adapt their management activities to climate change in the context of uncertainty. To provide such information, we developed climate scenarios, in form of narratives and quantitative information, of future climate change and its impacts in southwestern Colorado. This information was intended to provide detailed insights into the range of changes that natural resource managers may face in the future. The scenarios were developed in an iterative process through interactions among the ecologists, social and climate scientists. In our scenario development process, climate uncertainty is acknowledged by having multiple scenarios, where each scenario is regarded as a storyline with equal likelihood as another scenario. We quantified changes in several decision relevant climate and ecological responses based on our best available understanding and provided a tight storyline for each scenario to facilitate (a) a more augmented use of scientific information in a decision-making process, (b) differential responses from stakeholders across the different scenarios, and (c) identification of strategies that could work across these multiple scenarios. Here, we discuss the process of selecting the scenarios, quantifying climate and ecological responses, and the criteria for building the narrative for each scenario. We also discuss the process by which these scenarios get used, and provide an assessment of their effectiveness and users' feedbacks that could inform the future development of these tools and processes. This research involvement and collaboration occurred, in part, as a result of the PACE Fellowship Program that is associated with NOAA Climate Program Office and the U.S. CLIVAR community.

The FORE-SCE model: a practical approach for projecting land cover change using scenario-based modeling

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sohl, Terry L.; Sayler, Kristi L.; Drummond, Mark A.; Loveland, Thomas R.

2007-01-01

A wide variety of ecological applications require spatially explicit, historic, current, and projected land use and land cover data. The U.S. Land Cover Trends project is analyzing contemporary (1973–2000) land-cover change in the conterminous United States. The newly developed FORE-SCE model used Land Cover Trends data and theoretical, statistical, and deterministic modeling techniques to project future land cover change through 2020 for multiple plausible scenarios. Projected proportions of future land use were initially developed, and then sited on the lands with the highest potential for supporting that land use and land cover using a statistically based stochastic allocation procedure. Three scenarios of 2020 land cover were mapped for the western Great Plains in the US. The model provided realistic, high-resolution, scenario-based land-cover products suitable for multiple applications, including studies of climate and weather variability, carbon dynamics, and regional hydrology.

Fueling the dragon: Alternative Chinese oil futures and their implications for the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eberling, George G.

This study examines how Chinese oil energy will likely shape future Sino-American relations under conditions of dependency and non-dependency. The study will list and describe three possible Chinese oil energy futures or scenarios (Competitive Dependency, Competitive Surplus and Cooperative Surplus) using Scenario Analysis to subsequently estimate their associated likelihoods using the PRINCE forecasting system and discuss and evaluate their strategic implications for the United States. Further, this study will determine the most likely oil energy future or scenario. Finally, the study will list and describe the most likely United States political, economic and/or military policy responses for each future or scenario. The study contributes to the literature on Chinese and United States energy security, foreign policy, political economy and political risk analysis by showing how China will most likely address its growing oil energy dependence and by determining what will be the most likely U.S. foreign policy consequences based on the most current literature available on energy security and foreign policy.

Developing Scenarios: Linking Environmental Scanning and Strategic Planning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whiteley, Meredith A.; And Others

1990-01-01

The multiple scenario analysis technique for organizational planning used by multinational corporations is adaptable for colleges and universities. Arizona State University launched a futures-based planning project using the Delphi technique and cross-impact analysis to produce three alternative scenarios (stable, turbulent, and chaotic) to expand…

Reducing a Knowledge-Base Search Space When Data Are Missing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

James, Mark

2007-01-01

This software addresses the problem of how to efficiently execute a knowledge base in the presence of missing data. Computationally, this is an exponentially expensive operation that without heuristics generates a search space of 1 + 2n possible scenarios, where n is the number of rules in the knowledge base. Even for a knowledge base of the most modest size, say 16 rules, it would produce 65,537 possible scenarios. The purpose of this software is to reduce the complexity of this operation to a more manageable size. The problem that this system solves is to develop an automated approach that can reason in the presence of missing data. This is a meta-reasoning capability that repeatedly calls a diagnostic engine/model to provide prognoses and prognosis tracking. In the big picture, the scenario generator takes as its input the current state of a system, including probabilistic information from Data Forecasting. Using model-based reasoning techniques, it returns an ordered list of fault scenarios that could be generated from the current state, i.e., the plausible future failure modes of the system as it presently stands. The scenario generator models a Potential Fault Scenario (PFS) as a black box, the input of which is a set of states tagged with priorities and the output of which is one or more potential fault scenarios tagged by a confidence factor. The results from the system are used by a model-based diagnostician to predict the future health of the monitored system.

The estimated future disease burden of hepatitis C virus in the Netherlands with different treatment paradigms.

PubMed

Willemse, S B; Razavi-Shearer, D; Zuure, F R; Veldhuijzen, I K; Croes, E A; van der Meer, A J; van Santen, D K; de Vree, J M; de Knegt, R J; Zaaijer, H L; Reesink, H W; Prins, M; Razavi, H

2015-11-01

Prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the Netherlands is low (anti-HCV prevalence 0.22%). All-oral treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) is tolerable and effective but expensive. Our analysis projected the future HCV-related disease burden in the Netherlands by applying different treatment scenarios. Using a modelling approach, the size of the HCV-viraemic population in the Netherlands in 2014 was estimated using available data and expert consensus. The base scenario (based on the current Dutch situation) and different treatment scenarios (with increased efficacy, treatment uptake, and diagnoses) were modelled and the future HCV disease burden was predicted for each scenario. The estimated number of individuals with viraemic HCV infection in the Netherlands in 2014 was 19,200 (prevalence 0.12%). By 2030, this number is projected to decrease by 4 5% in the base scenario and by 85% if the number of treated patients increases. Furthermore, the number of individuals with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related deaths is estimated to decrease by 19% and 27%, respectively, in the base scenario, but may both be further decreased by 68% when focusing on treatment of HCV patients with a fibrosis stage of ≥ F2. A substantial reduction in HCV-related disease burden is possible with increases in treatment uptake as the efficacy of current therapies is high. Further reduction of HCV-related disease burden may be achieved through increases in diagnosis and preventative measures. These results might inform the further development of effective disease management strategies in the Netherlands.

An analysis of the impacts of global climate and emissions changes on regional tropospheric ozone

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

John, Kuruvilla; Crist, Kevin C.; Carmichael, Gregory R.

1994-01-01

Many of the synergistic impacts resulting from future changes in emissions as well as changes in ambient temperature, moisture, and UV flux have not been quantified. A three-dimensional regional-scale photo-chemical model (STEM-2) is used in this study to evaluate these perturbations to trace gas cycles over the eastern half of the United States of America. The model was successfully used to simulate a regional-scale ozone episode (base case - June 1984) and four perturbations scenarios - viz., perturbed emissions, temperature, water vapor column, and incoming UV flux cases, and a future scenario (for the year 2034). The impact of these perturbation scenarios on the distribution of ozone and other major pollutants such as SO2 and sulfates were analyzed in detail. The spatial distribution and the concentration of ozone at the surface increased by about 5-15 percent for most cases except for the perturbed water vapor case. The regional scale surface ozone concentration distribution for the year 2034 (future scenario) showed an increase of non-attainment areas. The rural areas of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Georgia showed the largest change in the surface ozone field for the futuristic scenario when compared to the base case.

Modeling Future Land Use Scenarios in South Korea: Applying the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios and the SLEUTH Model on a Local Scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Haejin; Hwang, YunSeop; Ha, Sung Ryong; Kim, Byung Sik

2015-05-01

This study developed three scenarios of future land use/land cover on a local level for the Kyung-An River Basin and its vicinity in South Korea at a 30-m resolution based on the two scenario families of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report Emissions Scenarios (SRES): A2 and B1, as well as a business-as-usual scenario. The IPCC SRES A2 and B1 were used to define future local development patterns and associated land use change. We quantified the population-driven demand for urban land use for each qualitative storyline and allocated the urban demand in geographic space using the SLEUTH model. The model results demonstrate the possible land use/land cover change scenarios for the years from 2000 to 2070 by examining the broad narrative of each SRES within the context of a local setting, such as the Kyoungan River Basin, constructing narratives of local development shifts and modeling a set of `best guess' approximations of the future land use conditions in the study area. This study found substantial differences in demands and patterns of land use changes among the scenarios, indicating compact development patterns under the SRES B1 compared to the rapid and dispersed development under the SRES A2.

Modeling future land use scenarios in South Korea: applying the IPCC special report on emissions scenarios and the SLEUTH model on a local scale.

PubMed

Han, Haejin; Hwang, YunSeop; Ha, Sung Ryong; Kim, Byung Sik

2015-05-01

This study developed three scenarios of future land use/land cover on a local level for the Kyung-An River Basin and its vicinity in South Korea at a 30-m resolution based on the two scenario families of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report Emissions Scenarios (SRES): A2 and B1, as well as a business-as-usual scenario. The IPCC SRES A2 and B1 were used to define future local development patterns and associated land use change. We quantified the population-driven demand for urban land use for each qualitative storyline and allocated the urban demand in geographic space using the SLEUTH model. The model results demonstrate the possible land use/land cover change scenarios for the years from 2000 to 2070 by examining the broad narrative of each SRES within the context of a local setting, such as the Kyoungan River Basin, constructing narratives of local development shifts and modeling a set of 'best guess' approximations of the future land use conditions in the study area. This study found substantial differences in demands and patterns of land use changes among the scenarios, indicating compact development patterns under the SRES B1 compared to the rapid and dispersed development under the SRES A2.

Response of a multi-stressed Mediterranean river to future climate and socio-economic scenarios.

PubMed

Stefanidis, Konstantinos; Panagopoulos, Yiannis; Mimikou, Maria

2018-06-15

Streams and rivers are among the most threatened ecosystems in Europe due to the combined effects of multiple pressures related to anthropogenic activities. Particularly in the Mediterranean region, changes in hydromorphology along with increased nutrient loadings are known to affect the ecological functions and ecosystem services of streams and rivers with the anticipated climate change being likely to further impair their functionality and structure. In this study, we investigated the combined effects of agricultural driven stressors on the ecology and delivered services of the Pinios river basin in Greece under three future world scenarios developed within the EU funded MARS project. Scenarios are based on combinations of Representative Concentration Pathways and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and refer to early century (2030) and mid-century (2060) representing future climate worlds with particular socioeconomic characteristics. To assess the responses of ecological and ecosystem service indicators to the scenarios we first simulated hydrology and water quality in Pinios with a process-based model. Simulated abiotic stressor parameters (predictors) were linked to two biotic indicators, the macroinvertebrate indicators ASPT and EPT, with empirical modelling based on boosted regression trees and general linear models. Our results showed that the techno world scenario driven by fast economic growth and intensive exploitation of energy resources had the largest impact on both the abiotic status (nutrient loads and concentrations in water) and the biotic indicators. In contrast, the predicted changes under the other two future worlds, consensus and fragmented, were more diverse and were mostly dictated by the projected climate. This work showed that the future scenarios, especially the mid-century ones, had significant impact on both abiotic status and biotic responses underpinning the need for implementing catchment management practices able to mitigate the ecological threat on waters in the long-term. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Utilizing Traveler Demand Modeling to Predict Future Commercial Flight Schedules in the NAS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Viken, Jeff; Dollyhigh, Samuel; Smith, Jeremy; Trani, Antonio; Baik, Hojong; Hinze, Nicholas; Ashiabor, Senanu

2006-01-01

The current work incorporates the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) to predict the future demand for airline travel. TSAM is a multi-mode, national model that predicts the demand for all long distance travel at a county level based upon population and demographics. The model conducts a mode choice analysis to compute the demand for commercial airline travel based upon the traveler s purpose of the trip, value of time, cost and time of the trip,. The county demand for airline travel is then aggregated (or distributed) to the airport level, and the enplanement demand at commercial airports is modeled. With the growth in flight demand, and utilizing current airline flight schedules, the Fratar algorithm is used to develop future flight schedules in the NAS. The projected flights can then be flown through air transportation simulators to quantify the ability of the NAS to meet future demand. A major strength of the TSAM analysis is that scenario planning can be conducted to quantify capacity requirements at individual airports, based upon different future scenarios. Different demographic scenarios can be analyzed to model the demand sensitivity to them. Also, it is fairly well know, but not well modeled at the airport level, that the demand for travel is highly dependent on the cost of travel, or the fare yield of the airline industry. The FAA projects the fare yield (in constant year dollars) to keep decreasing into the future. The magnitude and/or direction of these projections can be suspect in light of the general lack of airline profits and the large rises in airline fuel cost. Also, changes in travel time and convenience have an influence on the demand for air travel, especially for business travel. Future planners cannot easily conduct sensitivity studies of future demand with the FAA TAF data, nor with the Boeing or Airbus projections. In TSAM many factors can be parameterized and various demand sensitivities can be predicted for future travel. These resulting demand scenarios can be incorporated into future flight schedules, therefore providing a quantifiable demand for flights in the NAS for a range of futures. In addition, new future airline business scenarios are investigated that illustrate when direct flights can replace connecting flights and larger aircraft can be substituted, only when justified by demand.

Spatiotemporal Characteristics, Determinants and Scenario Analysis of CO2 Emissions in China Using Provincial Panel Data.

PubMed

Wang, Shaojian; Fang, Chuanglin; Li, Guangdong

2015-01-01

This paper empirically investigated the spatiotemporal variations, influencing factors and future emission trends of China's CO2 emissions based on a provincial panel data set. A series of panel econometric models were used taking the period 1995-2011 into consideration. The results indicated that CO2 emissions in China increased over time, and were characterized by noticeable regional discrepancies; in addition, CO2 emissions also exhibited properties of spatial dependence and convergence. Factors such as population scale, economic level and urbanization level exerted a positive influence on CO2 emissions. Conversely, energy intensity was identified as having a negative influence on CO2 emissions. In addition, the significance of the relationship between CO2 emissions and the four variables varied across the provinces based on their scale of economic development. Scenario simulations further showed that the scenario of middle economic growth, middle population increase, low urbanization growth, and high technology improvement (here referred to as Scenario BTU), constitutes the best development model for China to realize the future sustainable development. Based on these empirical findings, we also provide a number of policy recommendations with respect to the future mitigation of CO2 emissions.

Spatiotemporal Characteristics, Determinants and Scenario Analysis of CO2 Emissions in China Using Provincial Panel Data

PubMed Central

Wang, Shaojian

2015-01-01

This paper empirically investigated the spatiotemporal variations, influencing factors and future emission trends of China’s CO2 emissions based on a provincial panel data set. A series of panel econometric models were used taking the period 1995–2011 into consideration. The results indicated that CO2 emissions in China increased over time, and were characterized by noticeable regional discrepancies; in addition, CO2 emissions also exhibited properties of spatial dependence and convergence. Factors such as population scale, economic level and urbanization level exerted a positive influence on CO2 emissions. Conversely, energy intensity was identified as having a negative influence on CO2 emissions. In addition, the significance of the relationship between CO2 emissions and the four variables varied across the provinces based on their scale of economic development. Scenario simulations further showed that the scenario of middle economic growth, middle population increase, low urbanization growth, and high technology improvement (here referred to as Scenario BTU), constitutes the best development model for China to realize the future sustainable development. Based on these empirical findings, we also provide a number of policy recommendations with respect to the future mitigation of CO2 emissions. PMID:26397373

Analysis of regional natural flow for evaluation of flood risk according to RCP climate change scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, J. Y.; Chae, B. S.; Wi, S.; KIm, T. W.

2017-12-01

Various climate change scenarios expect the rainfall in South Korea to increase by 3-10% in the future. The future increased rainfall has significant effect on the frequency of flood in future as well. This study analyzed the probability of future flood to investigate the stability of existing and new installed hydraulic structures and the possibility of increasing flood damage in mid-sized watersheds in South Korea. To achieve this goal, we first clarified the relationship between flood quantiles acquired from the flood-frequency analysis (FFA) and design rainfall-runoff analysis (DRRA) in gauged watersheds. Then, after synthetically generating the regional natural flow data according to RCP climate change scenarios, we developed mathematical formulas to estimate future flood quantiles based on the regression between DRRA and FFA incorporated with regional natural flows in unguaged watersheds. Finally, we developed a flood risk map to investigate the change of flood risk in terms of the return period for the past, present, and future. The results identified that the future flood quantiles and risks would increase in accordance with the RCP climate change scenarios. Because the regional flood risk was identified to increase in future comparing with the present status, comprehensive flood control will be needed to cope with extreme floods in future.

Fuel Cycle Analysis Framework Base Cases for the IAEA/INPRO GAINS Collaborative Project

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brent Dixon

Thirteen countries participated in the Collaborative Project GAINS “Global Architecture of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems Based on Thermal and Fast Reactors Including a Closed Fuel Cycle”, which was the primary activity within the IAEA/INPRO Program Area B: “Global Vision on Sustainable Nuclear Energy” for the last three years. The overall objective of GAINS was to develop a standard framework for assessing future nuclear energy systems taking into account sustainable development, and to validate results through sample analyses. This paper details the eight scenarios that constitute the GAINS framework base cases for analysis of the transition to future innovative nuclear energymore » systems. The framework base cases provide a reference for users of the framework to start from in developing and assessing their own alternate systems. Each base case is described along with performance results against the GAINS sustainability evaluation metrics. The eight cases include four using a moderate growth projection and four using a high growth projection for global nuclear electricity generation through 2100. The cases are divided into two sets, addressing homogeneous and heterogeneous scenarios developed by GAINS to model global fuel cycle strategies. The heterogeneous world scenario considers three separate nuclear groups based on their fuel cycle strategies, with non-synergistic and synergistic cases. The framework base case analyses results show the impact of these different fuel cycle strategies while providing references for future users of the GAINS framework. A large number of scenario alterations are possible and can be used to assess different strategies, different technologies, and different assumptions about possible futures of nuclear power. Results can be compared to the framework base cases to assess where these alternate cases perform differently versus the sustainability indicators.« less

Simulation of future stream alkalinity under changing deposition and climate scenarios.

PubMed

Welsch, Daniel L; Cosby, B Jack; Hornberger, George M

2006-08-31

Models of soil and stream water acidification have typically been applied under scenarios of changing acidic deposition, however, climate change is usually ignored. Soil air CO2 concentrations have potential to increase as climate warms and becomes wetter, thus affecting soil and stream water chemistry by initially increasing stream alkalinity at the expense of reducing base saturation levels on soil exchange sites. We simulate this change by applying a series of physically based coupled models capable of predicting soil air CO2 and stream water chemistry. We predict daily stream water alkalinity for a small catchment in the Virginia Blue Ridge for 60 years into the future given stochastically generated daily climate values. This is done for nine different combinations of climate and deposition. The scenarios for both climate and deposition include a static scenario, a scenario of gradual change, and a scenario of abrupt change. We find that stream water alkalinity continues to decline for all scenarios (average decrease of 14.4 microeq L-1) except where climate is gradually warming and becoming more moist (average increase of 13 microeq L-1). In all other scenarios, base cation removal from catchment soils is responsible for limited alkalinity increase resulting from climate change. This has implications given the extent that acidification models are used to establish policy and legislation concerning deposition and emissions.

Can conservation funding be left to carbon finance? Evidence from participatory future land use scenarios in Peru, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ravikumar, Ashwin; Larjavaara, Markku; Larson, Anne; Kanninen, Markku

2017-01-01

Revenues derived from carbon have been seen as an important tool for supporting forest conservation over the past decade. At the same time, there is high uncertainty about how much revenue can reasonably be expected from land use emissions reductions initiatives. Despite this uncertainty, REDD+ projects and conservation initiatives that aim to take advantage of available or, more commonly, future funding from carbon markets have proliferated. This study used participatory multi-stakeholder workshops to develop divergent future scenarios of land use in eight landscapes in four countries around the world: Peru, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Mexico. The results of these future scenario building exercises were analyzed using a new tool, CarboScen, for calculating the landscape carbon storage implications of different future land use scenarios. The findings suggest that potential revenues from carbon storage or emissions reductions are significant in some landscapes (most notably the peat forests of Indonesia), and much less significant in others (such as the low-carbon forests of Zanzibar and the interior of Tanzania). The findings call into question the practicality of many conservation programs that hinge on expectations of future revenue from carbon finance. The future scenarios-based approach is useful to policy-makers and conservation program developers in distinguishing between landscapes where carbon finance can substantially support conservation, and landscapes where other strategies for conservation and land use should be prioritized.

Evaluating hydrological response to forecasted land-use change—scenario testing with the automated geospatial watershed assessment (AGWA) tool

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kepner, William G.; Semmens, Darius J.; Hernandez, Mariano; Goodrich, David C.

2009-01-01

Envisioning and evaluating future scenarios has emerged as a critical component of both science and social decision-making. The ability to assess, report, map, and forecast the life support functions of ecosystems is absolutely critical to our capacity to make informed decisions to maintain the sustainable nature of our ecosystem services now and into the future. During the past two decades, important advances in the integration of remote imagery, computer processing, and spatial-analysis technologies have been used to develop landscape information that can be integrated with hydrologic models to determine long-term change and make predictive inferences about the future. Two diverse case studies in northwest Oregon (Willamette River basin) and southeastern Arizona (San Pedro River) were examined in regard to future land use scenarios relative to their impact on surface water conditions (e.g., sediment yield and surface runoff) using hydrologic models associated with the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) tool. The base reference grid for land cover was modified in both study locations to reflect stakeholder preferences 20 to 60 yrs into the future, and the consequences of landscape change were evaluated relative to the selected future scenarios. The two studies provide examples of integrating hydrologic modeling with a scenario analysis framework to evaluate plausible future forecasts and to understand the potential impact of landscape change on ecosystem services.

Land-use and land-cover scenarios and spatial modeling at the regional scale

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sohl, Terry L.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.

2012-01-01

Land-use and land-cover (LULC) change has altered a large part of the earth's surface. Scenarios of potential future LULC change are required in order to better manage potential impacts on biodiversity, carbon fluxes, climate change, hydrology, and many other ecological processes. The U.S. Geological Survey is analyzing potential future LULC change in the United States, using an approach based on scenario construction and spatially explicit modeling. Similar modeling techniques are being used to produce historical LULC maps from 1940 to present. With the combination of backcast and forecast LULC data, the USGS is providing consistent LULC data for historical, current, and future time frames to support a variety of research applications.

Design Support of an Above Cap-rock Early Detection Monitoring System using Simulated Leakage Scenarios at the FutureGen2.0 Site

DOE PAGES

Williams, Mark D.; USA, Richland Washington; Vermuel, Vince R.; ...

2014-12-31

The FutureGen 2.0 Project will design and build a first-of-its-kind, near-zero emissions coal-fueled power plant with carbon capture and storage (CCS). To assess storage site performance and meet the regulatory requirements of the Class VI Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program for CO 2 Geologic Sequestration, the FutureGen 2.0 project will implement a suite of monitoring technologies designed to evaluate CO 2 mass balance and detect any unforeseen loss in CO 2 containment. The monitoring program will include direct monitoring of the reservoir, and early-leak-detection monitoring directly above the primary confining zone. This preliminary modeling study described here focuses on hypotheticalmore » leakage scenarios into the first permeable unit above the primary confining zone (Ironton Sandstone) and is used to support assessment of early-leak detection capabilities. Future updates of the model will be used to assess potential impacts on the lowermost underground source of drinking water (Saint Peter Sandstone) for a range of theoretical leakage scenarios. This preliminary modeling evaluation considers both pressure response and geochemical signals in the overlying Ironton Sandstone. This model is independent of the FutureGen 2.0 reservoir model in that it does not simulate caprock discontinuities, faults, or failure scenarios. Instead this modeling effort is based on theoretical, volumetric-rate based leakage scenarios. The scenarios include leakage of 1% of the total injected CO 2 mass, but spread out over different time periods (20, 100, and 500 years) with each case yielding a different mass flux (i.e., smaller mass fluxes for longer duration leakage cases]. A brine leakage scenario using a volumetric leakage similar to the 20 year 1% CO 2 case was also considered. A framework for the comparison of the various cases was developed based on the exceedance of selected pressure and geochemical thresholds at different distances from the point of leakage and at different vertical positions within the Ironton Sandstone. These preliminary results, and results from an updated models that incorporate additional site-specific characterization data, support development/refinement of the monitoring system design.« less

Impact of a future H2-based road transportation sector on the composition and chemistry of the atmosphere - Part 1: Tropospheric composition and air quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, D.; Jia, W.; Olsen, S. C.; Wuebbles, D. J.; Dubey, M. K.; Rockett, A. A.

2013-07-01

Vehicles burning fossil fuel emit a number of substances that change the composition and chemistry of the atmosphere, and contribute to global air and water pollution and climate change. For example, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted as byproducts of fossil fuel combustion are key precursors to ground-level ozone and aerosol formation. In addition, on-road vehicles are major CO2 emitters. In order to tackle these problems, molecular hydrogen (H2) has been proposed as an energy carrier to substitute for fossil fuels in the future. However, before implementing any such strategy it is crucial to evaluate its potential impacts on air quality and climate. Here, we evaluate the impact of a future (2050) H2-based road transportation sector on tropospheric chemistry and air quality for several possible growth and technology adoption scenarios. The growth scenarios are based on the high and low emissions Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, A1FI and B1, respectively. The technological adoption scenarios include H2 fuel cell and H2 internal combustion engine options. The impacts are evaluated with the Community Atmospheric Model Chemistry global chemistry transport model (CAM-Chem). Higher resolution simulations focusing on the contiguous United States are also carried out with the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ) regional chemistry transport model. For all scenarios future air quality improves with the adoption of a H2-based road transportation sector; however, the magnitude and type of improvement depend on the scenario. Model results show that the adoption of H2 fuel cells would decrease tropospheric burdens of ozone (7%), CO (14%), NOx (16%), soot (17%), sulfate aerosol (4%), and ammonium nitrate aerosol (12%) in the A1FI scenario, and would decrease those of ozone (5%), CO (4%), NOx (11%), soot (7%), sulfate aerosol (4%), and ammonium nitrate aerosol (9%) in the B1 scenario. The adoption of H2 internal combustion engines would decrease tropospheric burdens of ozone (1%), CO (18%), soot (17%), and sulfate aerosol (3%) in the A1FI scenario, and would decrease those of ozone (1%), CO (7%), soot (7%), and sulfate aerosol (3%) in the B1 scenario. In the future, people residing in the contiguous United States could expect to experience significantly fewer days of elevated levels of pollution if a H2 fuel cell road transportation sector were to be adopted. Health benefits of transitioning to a H2 economy for citizens in developing nations, like China and India, will be much more dramatic, particularly in megacities with severe, intensifying air-quality problems.

The impact of a future H2-based road transportation sector on the composition and chemistry of the atmosphere - Part 1: Tropospheric composition and air quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, D.; Jia, W.; Olsen, S. C.; Wuebbles, D. J.; Dubey, M. K.; Rockett, A. A.

2012-08-01

Vehicles burning fossil fuel emit a number of substances that change the composition and chemistry of the atmosphere, and contribute to global air and water pollution and climate change. For example, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted as byproducts of fossil fuel combustion are key precursors to ground-level ozone and aerosol formation. In addition, on-road vehicles are major CO2 emitters. In order to tackle these problems, molecular hydrogen (H2) has been proposed as an energy carrier to substitute for fossil fuel in the future. However, before implementing any such strategy it is crucial to evaluate its potential impacts on air quality and climate. Here we evaluate the impact of a future (2050) H2-based road transportation sector on tropospheric chemistry and air quality for several possible growth and technology adoption scenarios. The growth scenarios are based on the high and low emissions Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, A1FI and B1, respectively. The technological adoption scenarios include H2 fuel cell and H2 internal combustion engine options. The impacts are evaluated with the Community Atmospheric Model Chemistry global chemistry transport model (CAM-Chem). Higher resolution simulations focusing on the contiguous United States are also carried out with the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ) regional chemistry transport model. For all scenarios future air quality improves with the adoption of a H2-based road transportation sector, however, the magnitude and type of improvement depend on the scenario. Model results show that with the adoption of H2 fuel cells decreases tropospheric burdens of ozone (7%), CO (14%), NOx (16%), soot (17%), sulfate aerosol (4%), and ammonium nitrate aerosol (12%) in the A1FI scenario, and decreases those of ozone (5%), CO (4%), NOx (11%), soot (7%), sulfate aerosol (4%), and ammonium nitrate aerosol (9 %) in the B1 scenario. The adoption of H2 internal combustion engines decreases tropospheric burdens of ozone (1%), CO (18%), soot (17%), and sulfate aerosol (3%) in the A1FI scenario, and decreases those of ozone (1%), CO (7%), soot (7%), and sulfate aerosol (3%) in the B1 scenario. In the future, people residing in the contiguous United States are expected to experience significantly fewer days of elevated levels of pollution if a H2 fuel cell road transportation sector is adopted. Health benefits of transitioning to a H2 economy for citizens in developing nations, like China and India, will be much more dramatic particularly in megacities with severe air-quality problems that are exacerbating.

An Objective Approach to Select Climate Scenarios when Projecting Species Distribution under Climate Change

PubMed Central

Casajus, Nicolas; Périé, Catherine; Logan, Travis; Lambert, Marie-Claude; de Blois, Sylvie; Berteaux, Dominique

2016-01-01

An impressive number of new climate change scenarios have recently become available to assess the ecological impacts of climate change. Among these impacts, shifts in species range analyzed with species distribution models are the most widely studied. Whereas it is widely recognized that the uncertainty in future climatic conditions must be taken into account in impact studies, many assessments of species range shifts still rely on just a few climate change scenarios, often selected arbitrarily. We describe a method to select objectively a subset of climate change scenarios among a large ensemble of available ones. Our k-means clustering approach reduces the number of climate change scenarios needed to project species distributions, while retaining the coverage of uncertainty in future climate conditions. We first show, for three biologically-relevant climatic variables, that a reduced number of six climate change scenarios generates average climatic conditions very close to those obtained from a set of 27 scenarios available before reduction. A case study on potential gains and losses of habitat by three northeastern American tree species shows that potential future species distributions projected from the selected six climate change scenarios are very similar to those obtained from the full set of 27, although with some spatial discrepancies at the edges of species distributions. In contrast, projections based on just a few climate models vary strongly according to the initial choice of climate models. We give clear guidance on how to reduce the number of climate change scenarios while retaining the central tendencies and coverage of uncertainty in future climatic conditions. This should be particularly useful during future climate change impact studies as more than twice as many climate models were reported in the fifth assessment report of IPCC compared to the previous one. PMID:27015274

An Objective Approach to Select Climate Scenarios when Projecting Species Distribution under Climate Change.

PubMed

Casajus, Nicolas; Périé, Catherine; Logan, Travis; Lambert, Marie-Claude; de Blois, Sylvie; Berteaux, Dominique

2016-01-01

An impressive number of new climate change scenarios have recently become available to assess the ecological impacts of climate change. Among these impacts, shifts in species range analyzed with species distribution models are the most widely studied. Whereas it is widely recognized that the uncertainty in future climatic conditions must be taken into account in impact studies, many assessments of species range shifts still rely on just a few climate change scenarios, often selected arbitrarily. We describe a method to select objectively a subset of climate change scenarios among a large ensemble of available ones. Our k-means clustering approach reduces the number of climate change scenarios needed to project species distributions, while retaining the coverage of uncertainty in future climate conditions. We first show, for three biologically-relevant climatic variables, that a reduced number of six climate change scenarios generates average climatic conditions very close to those obtained from a set of 27 scenarios available before reduction. A case study on potential gains and losses of habitat by three northeastern American tree species shows that potential future species distributions projected from the selected six climate change scenarios are very similar to those obtained from the full set of 27, although with some spatial discrepancies at the edges of species distributions. In contrast, projections based on just a few climate models vary strongly according to the initial choice of climate models. We give clear guidance on how to reduce the number of climate change scenarios while retaining the central tendencies and coverage of uncertainty in future climatic conditions. This should be particularly useful during future climate change impact studies as more than twice as many climate models were reported in the fifth assessment report of IPCC compared to the previous one.

Tailored scenarios for streamflow climate change impacts based on the perturbation of precipitation and evapotranspiration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ntegeka, Victor; Willems, Patrick; Baguis, Pierre; Roulin, Emmanuel

2015-04-01

It is advisable to account for a wide range of uncertainty by including the maximum possible number of climate models and scenarios for future impacts. As this is not always feasible, impact assessments are inevitably performed with a limited set of scenarios. The development of tailored scenarios is a challenge that needs more attention as the number of available climate change simulations grows. Whether these scenarios are representative enough for climate change impacts is a question that needs addressing. This study presents a methodology of constructing tailored scenarios for assessing runoff flows including extreme conditions (peak flows) from an ensemble of future climate change signals of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (ETo) derived from the climate model simulations. The aim of the tailoring process is to formulate scenarios that can optimally represent the uncertainty spectrum of climate scenarios. These tailored scenarios have the advantage of being few in number as well as having a clear description of the seasonal variation of the climate signals, hence allowing easy interpretation of the implications of future changes. The tailoring process requires an analysis of the hydrological impacts from the likely future change signals from all available climate model simulations in a simplified (computationally less expensive) impact model. Historical precipitation and ETo time series are perturbed with the climate change signals based on a quantile perturbation technique that accounts for the changes in extremes. For precipitation, the change in wetday frequency is taken into account using a markov-chain approach. Resulting hydrological impacts from the perturbed time series are then subdivided into high, mean and low hydrological impacts using a quantile change analysis. From this classification, the corresponding precipitation and ETo change factors are back-tracked on a seasonal basis to determine precipitation-ETo covariation. The established precipitation-ETo covariations are used to inform the scenario construction process. Additionally, the back-tracking of extreme flows from driving scenarios allows for a diagnosis of the physical responses to climate change scenarios. The method is demonstrated through the application of scenarios from 10 Regional Climate Models,21 Global Climate Models and selected catchments in central Belgium. Reference Ntegeka, V., Baguis, P., Roulin, E., & Willems, P. (2014). Developing tailored climate change scenarios for hydrological impact assessments. Journal of Hydrology, 508, 307-321.

NAS Demand Predictions, Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) Compared with Other Forecasts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Viken, Jeff; Dollyhigh, Samuel; Smith, Jeremy; Trani, Antonio; Baik, Hojong; Hinze, Nicholas; Ashiabor, Senanu

2006-01-01

The current work incorporates the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) to predict the future demand for airline travel. TSAM is a multi-mode, national model that predicts the demand for all long distance travel at a county level based upon population and demographics. The model conducts a mode choice analysis to compute the demand for commercial airline travel based upon the traveler s purpose of the trip, value of time, cost and time of the trip,. The county demand for airline travel is then aggregated (or distributed) to the airport level, and the enplanement demand at commercial airports is modeled. With the growth in flight demand, and utilizing current airline flight schedules, the Fratar algorithm is used to develop future flight schedules in the NAS. The projected flights can then be flown through air transportation simulators to quantify the ability of the NAS to meet future demand. A major strength of the TSAM analysis is that scenario planning can be conducted to quantify capacity requirements at individual airports, based upon different future scenarios. Different demographic scenarios can be analyzed to model the demand sensitivity to them. Also, it is fairly well know, but not well modeled at the airport level, that the demand for travel is highly dependent on the cost of travel, or the fare yield of the airline industry. The FAA projects the fare yield (in constant year dollars) to keep decreasing into the future. The magnitude and/or direction of these projections can be suspect in light of the general lack of airline profits and the large rises in airline fuel cost. Also, changes in travel time and convenience have an influence on the demand for air travel, especially for business travel. Future planners cannot easily conduct sensitivity studies of future demand with the FAA TAF data, nor with the Boeing or Airbus projections. In TSAM many factors can be parameterized and various demand sensitivities can be predicted for future travel. These resulting demand scenarios can be incorporated into future flight schedules, therefore providing a quantifiable demand for flights in the NAS for a range of futures. In addition, new future airline business scenarios are investigated that illustrate when direct flights can replace connecting flights and larger aircraft can be substituted, only when justified by demand.

Development of flood regressions and climate change scenarios to explore estimates of future peak flows

USGS Publications Warehouse

Burns, Douglas A.; Smith, Martyn J.; Freehafer, Douglas A.

2015-12-31

The application uses predictions of future annual precipitation from five climate models and two future greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and provides results that are averaged over three future periods—2025 to 2049, 2050 to 2074, and 2075 to 2099. Results are presented in ensemble form as the mean, median, maximum, and minimum values among the five climate models for each greenhouse gas emissions scenario and period. These predictions of future annual precipitation are substituted into either the precipitation variable or a water balance equation for runoff to calculate potential future peak flows. This application is intended to be used only as an exploratory tool because (1) the regression equations on which the application is based have not been adequately tested outside the range of the current climate and (2) forecasting future precipitation with climate models and downscaling these results to a fine spatial resolution have a high degree of uncertainty. This report includes a discussion of the assumptions, uncertainties, and appropriate use of this exploratory application.

Contribution of future urbanisation expansion to flood risk changes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bruwier, Martin; Mustafa, Ahmed; Archambeau, Pierre; Erpicum, Sébastien; Pirotton, Michel; Teller, Jacques; Dewals, Benjamin

2016-04-01

The flood risk is expected to increase in the future due to climate change and urban development. Climate change modifies flood hazard and urban development influences exposure and vulnerability to floods. While the influence of climate change on flood risk has been studied widely, the impact of urban development also needs to be considered in a sustainable flood risk management approach. The main goal of this study is the determination of the sensitivity of future flood risk to different urban development scenarios at a relatively short-time horizon in the River Meuse basin in Wallonia (Belgium). From the different scenarios, the expected impact of urban development on flood risk is assessed. Three urban expansion scenarios are developed up to 2030 based on a coupled cellular automata (CA) and agent-based (AB) urban expansion model: (i) business-as-usual, (ii) restrictive and (iii) extreme expansion scenarios. The main factor controlling these scenarios is the future urban land demand. Each urban expansion scenario is developed by considering or not high and/or medium flood hazard zones as a constraint for urban development. To assess the model's performance, it is calibrated for the Meuse River valley (Belgium) to simulate urban expansion between 1990 and 2000. Calibration results are then assessed by comparing the 2000 simulated land-use map and the actual 2000 land-use map. The flood damage estimation for each urban expansion scenario is determined for five flood discharges by overlaying the inundation map resulting from a hydraulic computation and the urban expansion map and by using damage curves and specific prices. The hydraulic model Wolf2D has been extensively validated by comparisons between observations and computational results during flood event .This study focuses only on mobile and immobile prices for urban lands, which are associated to the most severe damages caused by floods along the River Meuse. These findings of this study offers tools to drive urban expansion based on numerous policies visions to mitigate future flood risk along the Meuse River. In particular, we assess the impacts on future flood risk of the prohibition of urban development in high and/or medium flood hazard zones. Acknowledgements The research was funded through the ARC grant for Concerted Research Actions, financed by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

Energy crops on landfills: functional, environmental, and costs analysis of different landfill configurations.

PubMed

Pivato, Alberto; Garbo, Francesco; Moretto, Marco; Lavagnolo, Maria Cristina

2018-02-09

The cultivation of energy crops on landfills represents an important challenge for the near future, as the possibility to use devalued sites for energy production is very attractive. In this study, four scenarios have been assessed and compared with respect to a reference case defined for northern Italy. The scenarios were defined taking into consideration current energy crops issues. In particular, the first three scenarios were based on energy maximisation, phytotreatment ability, and environmental impact, respectively. The fourth scenario was a combination of these characteristics emphasised by the previous scenarios. A multi-criteria analysis, based on economic, energetic, and environmental aspects, was performed. From the analysis, the best scenario resulted to be the fourth, with its ability to pursue several objectives simultaneously and obtain the best score relatively to both environmental and energetic criteria. On the contrary, the economic criterion emerges as weak, as all the considered scenarios showed some limits from this point of view. Important indications for future designs can be derived. The decrease of leachate production due to the presence of energy crops on the top cover, which enhances evapotranspiration, represents a favourable but critical aspect in the definition of the results.

Biodiversity scenarios neglect future land-use changes.

PubMed

Titeux, Nicolas; Henle, Klaus; Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste; Regos, Adrián; Geijzendorffer, Ilse R; Cramer, Wolfgang; Verburg, Peter H; Brotons, Lluís

2016-07-01

Efficient management of biodiversity requires a forward-looking approach based on scenarios that explore biodiversity changes under future environmental conditions. A number of ecological models have been proposed over the last decades to develop these biodiversity scenarios. Novel modelling approaches with strong theoretical foundation now offer the possibility to integrate key ecological and evolutionary processes that shape species distribution and community structure. Although biodiversity is affected by multiple threats, most studies addressing the effects of future environmental changes on biodiversity focus on a single threat only. We examined the studies published during the last 25 years that developed scenarios to predict future biodiversity changes based on climate, land-use and land-cover change projections. We found that biodiversity scenarios mostly focus on the future impacts of climate change and largely neglect changes in land use and land cover. The emphasis on climate change impacts has increased over time and has now reached a maximum. Yet, the direct destruction and degradation of habitats through land-use and land-cover changes are among the most significant and immediate threats to biodiversity. We argue that the current state of integration between ecological and land system sciences is leading to biased estimation of actual risks and therefore constrains the implementation of forward-looking policy responses to biodiversity decline. We suggest research directions at the crossroads between ecological and environmental sciences to face the challenge of developing interoperable and plausible projections of future environmental changes and to anticipate the full range of their potential impacts on biodiversity. An intergovernmental platform is needed to stimulate such collaborative research efforts and to emphasize the societal and political relevance of taking up this challenge. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Future changes in drought characteristics over South Korea using multi regional climate models with the standardized precipitation index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Yeon-Woo; Ahn, Joong-Bae; Suh, Myoung-Seok; Cha, Dong-Hyun; Lee, Dong-Kyou; Hong, Song-You; Min, Seung-Ki; Park, Seong-Chan; Kang, Hyun-Suk

2016-05-01

In this study, the projection of future drought conditions is estimated over South Korea based on the latest and most advanced sets of regional climate model simulations under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios, within the context of the national downscaling project of the Republic of Korea. The five Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are used to produce climate-change simulations around the Korean Peninsula and to estimate the uncertainty associated with these simulations. The horizontal resolution of each RCM is 12.5 km and model simulations are available for historical (1981-2010) and future (2021-2100) periods under forcing from the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. To assess the characteristics of drought on multiple time scales in the future, we use Standardized Precipitation Indices for 1-month (SPI- 1), 6-month (SPI-6) and 12-month (SPI-12). The number of drought months in the future is shown to be characterized by strong variability, with both increasing and decreasing trends among the scenarios. In particular, the number of drought months over South Korea is projected to increase (decrease) for the period 2041-2070 in the RCP8.5 (RCP4.5) scenario and increase (decrease) for the period 2071-2100 in the RCP4.5 (RCP8.5) scenario. In addition, the percentage area under any drought condition is overall projected to gradually decrease over South Korea during the entire future period, with the exception of SPI-1 in the RCP4.5 scenario. Particularly, the drought areas for SPI-1 in the RCP4.5 scenario show weakly positive long-term trend. Otherwise, future changes in drought areas for SPI-6 and SPI-12 have a marked downward trend under the two RCP scenarios.

Decision support systems and methods for complex networks

DOEpatents

Huang, Zhenyu [Richland, WA; Wong, Pak Chung [Richland, WA; Ma, Jian [Richland, WA; Mackey, Patrick S [Richland, WA; Chen, Yousu [Richland, WA; Schneider, Kevin P [Seattle, WA

2012-02-28

Methods and systems for automated decision support in analyzing operation data from a complex network. Embodiments of the present invention utilize these algorithms and techniques not only to characterize the past and present condition of a complex network, but also to predict future conditions to help operators anticipate deteriorating and/or problem situations. In particular, embodiments of the present invention characterize network conditions from operation data using a state estimator. Contingency scenarios can then be generated based on those network conditions. For at least a portion of all of the contingency scenarios, risk indices are determined that describe the potential impact of each of those scenarios. Contingency scenarios with risk indices are presented visually as graphical representations in the context of a visual representation of the complex network. Analysis of the historical risk indices based on the graphical representations can then provide trends that allow for prediction of future network conditions.

Integrated assessment of future potential global change scenarios and their hydrological impacts in coastal aquifers - a new tool to analyse management alternatives in the Plana Oropesa-Torreblanca aquifer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pulido-Velazquez, David; Renau-Pruñonosa, Arianna; Llopis-Albert, Carlos; Morell, Ignacio; Collados-Lara, Antonio-Juan; Senent-Aparicio, Javier; Baena-Ruiz, Leticia

2018-05-01

Any change in the components of the water balance in a coastal aquifer, whether natural or anthropogenic, can alter the freshwater-salt water equilibrium. In this sense climate change (CC) and land use and land cover (LULC) change might significantly influence the availability of groundwater resources in the future. These coastal systems demand an integrated analysis of quantity and quality issues to obtain an appropriate assessment of hydrological impacts using density-dependent flow solutions. The aim of this work is to perform an integrated analysis of future potential global change (GC) scenarios and their hydrological impacts in a coastal aquifer, the Plana Oropesa-Torreblanca aquifer. It is a Mediterranean aquifer that extends over 75 km2 in which important historical LULC changes have been produced and are planned for the future. Future CC scenarios will be defined by using an equi-feasible and non-feasible ensemble of projections based on the results of a multi-criteria analysis of the series generated from several regional climatic models with different downscaling approaches. The hydrological impacts of these CC scenarios combined with future LULC scenarios will be assessed with a chain of models defined by a sequential coupling of rainfall-recharge models, crop irrigation requirements and irrigation return models (for the aquifer and its neighbours that feed it), and a density-dependent aquifer approach. This chain of models, calibrated using the available historical data, allow testing of the conceptual approximation of the aquifer behaviour. They are also fed with series representatives of potential global change scenarios in order to perform a sensitivity analysis regarding future scenarios of rainfall recharge, lateral flows coming from the hydraulically connected neighbouring aquifer, agricultural recharge (taking into account expected future LULC changes) and sea level rise (SLR). The proposed analysis is valuable for improving our knowledge about the aquifer, and so comprises a tool to design sustainable adaptation management strategies taking into account the uncertainty in future GC conditions and their impacts. The results show that GC scenarios produce significant increases in the variability of flow budget components and in the salinity.

Future efficiency of run of the river hydropower schemes based on climate change scenarios: case study in UK catchments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pasten Zapata, Ernesto; Moggridge, Helen; Jones, Julie; Widmann, Martin

2017-04-01

Run-of-the-River (ROR) hydropower schemes are expected to be importantly affected by climate change as they rely in the availability of river flow to generate energy. As temperature and precipitation are expected to vary in the future, the hydrological cycle will also undergo changes. Therefore, climate models based on complex physical atmospheric interactions have been developed to simulate future climate scenarios considering the atmosphere's greenhouse gas concentrations. These scenarios are classified according to the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) that are generated according to the concentration of greenhouse gases. This study evaluates possible scenarios for selected ROR hydropower schemes within the UK, considering three different RCPs: 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 W/m2 for 2100 relative to pre-industrial values. The study sites cover different climate, land cover, topographic and hydropower scheme characteristics representative of the UK's heterogeneity. Precipitation and temperature outputs from state-of-the-art Regional Climate Models (RCMs) from the Euro-CORDEX project are used as input for a HEC-HMS hydrological model to simulate the future river flow available. Both uncorrected and bias-corrected RCM simulations are analyzed. The results of this project provide an insight of the possible effects of climate change towards the generation of power from the ROR hydropower schemes according to the different RCP scenarios and contrasts the results obtained from uncorrected and bias-corrected RCMs. This analysis can aid on the adaptation to climate change as well as the planning of future ROR schemes in the region.

A changing climate: impacts on human exposures to O3 using ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Predicting the impacts of changing climate on human exposure to air pollution requires future scenarios that account for changes in ambient pollutant concentrations, population sizes and distributions, and housing stocks. An integrated methodology to model changes in human exposures due to these impacts was developed by linking climate, air quality, land-use, and human exposure models. This methodology was then applied to characterize changes in predicted human exposures to O3 under multiple future scenarios. Regional climate projections for the U.S. were developed by downscaling global circulation model (GCM) scenarios for three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The regional climate results were in turn used to generate air quality (concentration) projections using the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. For each of the climate change scenarios, future U.S. census-tract level population distributions from the Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios (ICLUS) model for four future scenarios based on the IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) storylines were used. These climate, air quality, and population projections were used as inputs to EPA’s Air Pollutants Exposure (APEX) model for 12 U.S. cities. Probability density functions show changes in the population distribution of 8 h maximum daily O3 exposur

Developing scenarios to assess future landslide risks: a model-based approach applied to mountainous regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vacquie, Laure; Houet, Thomas

2016-04-01

In the last century, European mountain landscapes have experienced significant transformations. Natural and anthropogenic changes, climate changes, touristic and industrial development, socio-economic interactions, and their implications in terms of LUCC (land use and land cover changes) have directly influenced the spatial organization and vulnerability of mountain landscapes. This study is conducted as part of the SAMCO project founded by the French National Science Agency (ANR). It aims at developing a methodological approach, combining various tools, modelling platforms and methods, to identify vulnerable regions to landslide hazards accounting for futures LUCC. It presents an integrated approach combining participative scenarios and a LULC changes simulation models to assess the combined effects of LUCC and climate change on landslide risks in the Cauterets valley (French Pyrenees Mountains) up to 2100. Through vulnerability and risk mapping, the objective is to gather information to support landscape planning and implement land use strategies with local stakeholders for risk management. Four contrasting scenarios are developed and exhibit contrasting trajectories of socio-economic development. Prospective scenarios are based on national and international socio-economic contexts relying on existing assessment reports. The methodological approach integrates knowledge from local stakeholders to refine each scenario during their construction and to reinforce their plausibility and relevance by accounting for local specificities, e.g. logging and pastoral activities, touristic development, urban planning, etc. A process-based model, the Forecasting Scenarios for Mountains (ForeSceM) model, developed on the Dinamica Ego modelling platform is used to spatially allocate futures LUCC for each prospective scenario. Concurrently, a spatial decision support tool, i.e. the SYLVACCESS model, is used to identify accessible areas for forestry in scenario projecting logging activities. The method results in the development of LULC maps providing insights into a range of alternative futures using a scope of socio-economic and environmental conditions. A landslides assessment model, the ALICE model is then used as a final tool to analyze the potential impacts of simulated LUCC on landslide risks and the consequences in terms of vulnerability, e.g. changes in disaster risk allocation or characterization, degree of perturbation. This assessment intends to provide insights onto the potential future development of the valley to help identify areas at stake and to guide decision makers to help the risk management. Preliminary results show strong differences of futures land use and land cover maps that have significant influence on landslides hazards.

Towards estimates of future rainfall erosivity in Europe based on REDES and WorldClim datasets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panagos, Panos; Ballabio, Cristiano; Meusburger, Katrin; Spinoni, Jonathan; Alewell, Christine; Borrelli, Pasquale

2017-05-01

The policy requests to develop trends in soil erosion changes can be responded developing modelling scenarios of the two most dynamic factors in soil erosion, i.e. rainfall erosivity and land cover change. The recently developed Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and a statistical approach used to spatially interpolate rainfall erosivity data have the potential to become useful knowledge to predict future rainfall erosivity based on climate scenarios. The use of a thorough statistical modelling approach (Gaussian Process Regression), with the selection of the most appropriate covariates (monthly precipitation, temperature datasets and bioclimatic layers), allowed to predict the rainfall erosivity based on climate change scenarios. The mean rainfall erosivity for the European Union and Switzerland is projected to be 857 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1 till 2050 showing a relative increase of 18% compared to baseline data (2010). The changes are heterogeneous in the European continent depending on the future projections of most erosive months (hot period: April-September). The output results report a pan-European projection of future rainfall erosivity taking into account the uncertainties of the climatic models.

Towards estimates of future rainfall erosivity in Europe based on REDES and WorldClim datasets.

PubMed

Panagos, Panos; Ballabio, Cristiano; Meusburger, Katrin; Spinoni, Jonathan; Alewell, Christine; Borrelli, Pasquale

2017-05-01

The policy requests to develop trends in soil erosion changes can be responded developing modelling scenarios of the two most dynamic factors in soil erosion, i.e. rainfall erosivity and land cover change. The recently developed Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and a statistical approach used to spatially interpolate rainfall erosivity data have the potential to become useful knowledge to predict future rainfall erosivity based on climate scenarios. The use of a thorough statistical modelling approach (Gaussian Process Regression), with the selection of the most appropriate covariates (monthly precipitation, temperature datasets and bioclimatic layers), allowed to predict the rainfall erosivity based on climate change scenarios. The mean rainfall erosivity for the European Union and Switzerland is projected to be 857 MJ mm ha -1  h -1  yr -1 till 2050 showing a relative increase of 18% compared to baseline data (2010). The changes are heterogeneous in the European continent depending on the future projections of most erosive months (hot period: April-September). The output results report a pan-European projection of future rainfall erosivity taking into account the uncertainties of the climatic models.

Mapping of multiple parameter m-health scenarios to mobile WiMAX QoS variables.

PubMed

Alinejad, Ali; Philip, N; Istepanian, R S H

2011-01-01

Multiparameter m-health scenarios with bandwidth demanding requirements will be one of key applications in future 4 G mobile communication systems. These applications will potentially require specific spectrum allocations with higher quality of service requirements. Furthermore, one of the key 4 G technologies targeting m-health will be medical applications based on WiMAX systems. Hence, it is timely to evaluate such multiple parametric m-health scenarios over mobile WiMAX networks. In this paper, we address the preliminary performance analysis of mobile WiMAX network for multiparametric telemedical scenarios. In particular, we map the medical QoS to typical WiMAX QoS parameters to optimise the performance of these parameters in typical m-health scenario. Preliminary performance analyses of the proposed multiparametric scenarios are evaluated to provide essential information for future medical QoS requirements and constraints in these telemedical network environments.

Environmental assessment of spatial plan policies through land use scenarios

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Geneletti, Davide, E-mail: davide.geneletti@ing.unitn.it

2012-01-15

This paper presents a method based on scenario analysis to compare the environmental effects of different spatial plan policies in a range of possible futures. The study aimed at contributing to overcome two limitations encountered in Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for spatial planning: poor exploration of how the future might unfold, and poor consideration of alternative plan policies. Scenarios were developed through what-if functions and spatial modeling in a Geographical Information System (GIS), and consisted in maps that represent future land uses under different assumptions on key driving forces. The use of land use scenarios provided a representation of howmore » the different policies will look like on the ground. This allowed gaining a better understanding of the policies' implications on the environment, which could be measured through a set of indicators. The research undertook a case-study approach by developing and assessing land use scenarios for the future growth of Caia, a strategically-located and fast-developing town in rural Mozambique. The effects of alternative spatial plan policies were assessed against a set of environmental performance indicators, including deforestation, loss of agricultural land, encroachment of flood-prone areas and wetlands and access to water sources. In this way, critical environmental effects related to the implementation of each policy were identified and discussed, suggesting possible strategies to address them. - Graphical abstract: Display Omitted Research Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer The method contributes to two critical issues in SEA: exploration of the future and consideration of alternatives. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Future scenarios are used to test the environmental performance of different spatial plan policies in uncertainty conditions. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Spatially-explicit land use scenarios provide a representation of how different policies will look like on the ground.« less

Uncertainties in the projection of species distributions related to general circulation models

PubMed Central

Goberville, Eric; Beaugrand, Grégory; Hautekèete, Nina-Coralie; Piquot, Yves; Luczak, Christophe

2015-01-01

Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) are increasingly used by ecologists to project species potential future distribution. However, the application of such models may be challenging, and some caveats have already been identified. While studies have generally shown that projections may be sensitive to the ENM applied or the emission scenario, to name just a few, the sensitivity of ENM-based scenarios to General Circulation Models (GCMs) has been often underappreciated. Here, using a multi-GCM and multi-emission scenario approach, we evaluated the variability in projected distributions under future climate conditions. We modeled the ecological realized niche (sensu Hutchinson) and predicted the baseline distribution of species with contrasting spatial patterns and representative of two major functional groups of European trees: the dwarf birch and the sweet chestnut. Their future distributions were then projected onto future climatic conditions derived from seven GCMs and four emissions scenarios using the new Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR5 report. Uncertainties arising from GCMs and those resulting from emissions scenarios were quantified and compared. Our study reveals that scenarios of future species distribution exhibit broad differences, depending not only on emissions scenarios but also on GCMs. We found that the between-GCM variability was greater than the between-RCP variability for the next decades and both types of variability reached a similar level at the end of this century. Our result highlights that a combined multi-GCM and multi-RCP approach is needed to better consider potential trajectories and uncertainties in future species distributions. In all cases, between-GCM variability increases with the level of warming, and if nothing is done to alleviate global warming, future species spatial distribution may become more and more difficult to anticipate. When future species spatial distributions are examined, we propose to use a large number of GCMs and RCPs to better anticipate potential trajectories and quantify uncertainties. PMID:25798227

Biodiversity losses and conservation trade-offs: Assessing future urban growth scenarios for a North American trade corridor

USGS Publications Warehouse

Villarreal, Miguel; Norman, Laura M.; Wallace, Cynthia S.A.; Boykin, Kenneth

2013-01-01

The Sonoran Desert and Apache Highlands ecoregions of North America are areas of exceptionally high plant and vertebrate biodiversity. However, much of the vertebrate biodiversity is supported by only a few vegetation types with limited distributions, some of which are increasingly threatened by changing land uses. We assessed the impacts of two future urban growth scenarios on biodiversity in a binational watershed in Arizona, USA and Sonora, Mexico. We quantified and mapped terrestrial vertebrate species richness using Wildlife Habitat Relation models and validated the results with data from National Park Service biological inventories. Future urban growth, based on historical trends, was projected to the year 2050 for 1) a “Current Trends” scenario and, 2) a “Megalopolis” scenario that represented a transnational growth corridor with open-space conservation attributes. Based on Current Trends, 45% of existing riparian woodland (267 of 451species), and 34% of semi-desert grasslands (215 of 451 species) will be lost, whereas, in the Megalopolis scenario, these types would decline by 44% and 24% respectively. Outcomes of the two models suggest a trade-off at the taxonomic class level: Current Trends would reduce and fragment mammal and herpetofauna habitat, while Megalopolis would result in loss of avian-rich riparian habitat.

Challenges associated with projecting urbanization-induced heat-related mortality.

PubMed

Hondula, David M; Georgescu, Matei; Balling, Robert C

2014-08-15

Maricopa County, Arizona, anchor to the fastest growing megapolitan area in the United States, is located in a hot desert climate where extreme temperatures are associated with elevated risk of mortality. Continued urbanization in the region will impact atmospheric temperatures and, as a result, potentially affect human health. We aimed to quantify the number of excess deaths attributable to heat in Maricopa County based on three future urbanization and adaptation scenarios and multiple exposure variables. Two scenarios (low and high growth projections) represent the maximum possible uncertainty range associated with urbanization in central Arizona, and a third represents the adaptation of high-albedo cool roof technology. Using a Poisson regression model, we related temperature to mortality using data spanning 1983-2007. Regional climate model simulations based on 2050-projected urbanization scenarios for Maricopa County generated distributions of temperature change, and from these predicted changes future excess heat-related mortality was estimated. Subject to urbanization scenario and exposure variable utilized, projections of heat-related mortality ranged from a decrease of 46 deaths per year (-95%) to an increase of 339 deaths per year (+359%). Projections based on minimum temperature showed the greatest increase for all expansion and adaptation scenarios and were substantially higher than those for daily mean temperature. Projections based on maximum temperature were largely associated with declining mortality. Low-growth and adaptation scenarios led to the smallest increase in predicted heat-related mortality based on mean temperature projections. Use of only one exposure variable to project future heat-related deaths may therefore be misrepresentative in terms of direction of change and magnitude of effects. Because urbanization-induced impacts can vary across the diurnal cycle, projections of heat-related health outcomes that do not consider place-based, time-varying urban heat island effects are neglecting essential elements for policy relevant decision-making. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Large Ensemble Analytic Framework for Consequence-Driven Discovery of Climate Change Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lamontagne, Jonathan R.; Reed, Patrick M.; Link, Robert; Calvin, Katherine V.; Clarke, Leon E.; Edmonds, James A.

2018-03-01

An analytic scenario generation framework is developed based on the idea that the same climate outcome can result from very different socioeconomic and policy drivers. The framework builds on the Scenario Matrix Framework's abstraction of "challenges to mitigation" and "challenges to adaptation" to facilitate the flexible discovery of diverse and consequential scenarios. We combine visual and statistical techniques for interrogating a large factorial data set of 33,750 scenarios generated using the Global Change Assessment Model. We demonstrate how the analytic framework can aid in identifying which scenario assumptions are most tied to user-specified measures for policy relevant outcomes of interest, specifically for our example high or low mitigation costs. We show that the current approach for selecting reference scenarios can miss policy relevant scenario narratives that often emerge as hybrids of optimistic and pessimistic scenario assumptions. We also show that the same scenario assumption can be associated with both high and low mitigation costs depending on the climate outcome of interest and the mitigation policy context. In the illustrative example, we show how agricultural productivity, population growth, and economic growth are most predictive of the level of mitigation costs. Formulating policy relevant scenarios of deeply and broadly uncertain futures benefits from large ensemble-based exploration of quantitative measures of consequences. To this end, we have contributed a large database of climate change futures that can support "bottom-up" scenario generation techniques that capture a broader array of consequences than those that emerge from limited sampling of a few reference scenarios.

Journal of Air Transportation, Volume 9, No. 2. Volume 9, No. 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bowen, Brent (Editor); Kabashkin, Igor (Editor); Gudmundsson, Sveinn Vidar (Editor); Scarpellini, Nanette (Editor)

2004-01-01

The following articles from the "Journal of Air Transportation" were processed: Future Requirements and Concepts for Cabins of Blended Wing Body Configurations:A Scenario Approach; Future Scenarios for the European Airline Industry: A Marketing-Based Perspective; An Application of the Methodology for Assessment of the Sustainability of the Air Transport System; Modeling the Effect of Enlarged Seating Room on Passenger Preferences of Domestic Airlines in Taiwan; Developing a Fleet Standardization Index for Airline Pricing; and Future Airport Capacity Utilization in Germany: Peaked Congestion and/or Idle Capacity).

Market-based demand forecasting promotes informed strategic financial planning.

PubMed

Beech, A J

2001-11-01

Market-based demand forecasting is a method of estimating future demand for a healthcare organization's services by using a broad range of data that describe the nature of demand within the organization's service area. Such data include the primary and secondary service areas, the service-area populations by various demographic groupings, discharge utilization rates, market size, and market share by service line and organizationwide. Based on observable market dynamics, strategic planners can make a variety of explicit assumptions about future trends regarding these data to develop scenarios describing potential future demand. Financial planners then can evaluate each scenario to determine its potential effect on selected financial and operational measures, such as operating margin, days cash on hand, and debt-service coverage, and develop a strategic financial plan that covers a range of contingencies.

Carbon plants nutrition and global food security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mariani, Luigi

2017-02-01

To evaluate the effects of carbon nutrition on agricultural productivity, a physiological-process-based crop simulation model, driven by the 1961-1990 monthly climate data from global FAO dataset, was developed and applied to four crops (wheat, maize, rice and soybean -WMRS) which account for 64% of the global caloric consumption of humans. Five different temperatures and CO2 scenarios (current; glacial; pre-industrial; future_1 with 560 ppmv for CO2 and +2 °C for temperature; and future_2 with 800 ppmv for CO2 and +4 °C) were investigated. The relative values of WMRS global productions for past and future scenarios were, respectively, 49% of the present-day scenario for glacial, 82% for pre-industrial, 115% for future_1 and 124% for future_2. A sensitive growth of productivity of future scenarios (respectively to 117% and 134%) was observed if the northward shift of crops was allowed, and a strong increase was obtained without water limitation (from 151% to 157% for the five scenarios) and without biotic and abiotic stresses (from 30% to 40% for WMRS subject to the current scenario). Furthermore since the beginning of the Green Revolution (roughly happened between the '30s and the '50s of the twentieth century) production losses due to sub-optimal levels of CO2 and to biotic and abiotic stresses have been masked by the strong technological innovation trend still ongoing, which, in the last century, led to a strong increase in the global crop production (+400%-600%). These results show the crucial relevance of the future choices of research and development in agriculture (genetics, land reclamation, irrigation, plant protection, and so on) to ensure global food security.

Statistical bias correction method applied on CMIP5 datasets over the Indian region during the summer monsoon season for climate change applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prasanna, V.

2018-01-01

This study makes use of temperature and precipitation from CMIP5 climate model output for climate change application studies over the Indian region during the summer monsoon season (JJAS). Bias correction of temperature and precipitation from CMIP5 GCM simulation results with respect to observation is discussed in detail. The non-linear statistical bias correction is a suitable bias correction method for climate change data because it is simple and does not add up artificial uncertainties to the impact assessment of climate change scenarios for climate change application studies (agricultural production changes) in the future. The simple statistical bias correction uses observational constraints on the GCM baseline, and the projected results are scaled with respect to the changing magnitude in future scenarios, varying from one model to the other. Two types of bias correction techniques are shown here: (1) a simple bias correction using a percentile-based quantile-mapping algorithm and (2) a simple but improved bias correction method, a cumulative distribution function (CDF; Weibull distribution function)-based quantile-mapping algorithm. This study shows that the percentile-based quantile mapping method gives results similar to the CDF (Weibull)-based quantile mapping method, and both the methods are comparable. The bias correction is applied on temperature and precipitation variables for present climate and future projected data to make use of it in a simple statistical model to understand the future changes in crop production over the Indian region during the summer monsoon season. In total, 12 CMIP5 models are used for Historical (1901-2005), RCP4.5 (2005-2100), and RCP8.5 (2005-2100) scenarios. The climate index from each CMIP5 model and the observed agricultural yield index over the Indian region are used in a regression model to project the changes in the agricultural yield over India from RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The results revealed a better convergence of model projections in the bias corrected data compared to the uncorrected data. The study can be extended to localized regional domains aimed at understanding the changes in the agricultural productivity in the future with an agro-economy or a simple statistical model. The statistical model indicated that the total food grain yield is going to increase over the Indian region in the future, the increase in the total food grain yield is approximately 50 kg/ ha for the RCP4.5 scenario from 2001 until the end of 2100, and the increase in the total food grain yield is approximately 90 kg/ha for the RCP8.5 scenario from 2001 until the end of 2100. There are many studies using bias correction techniques, but this study applies the bias correction technique to future climate scenario data from CMIP5 models and applied it to crop statistics to find future crop yield changes over the Indian region.

[Horizon scanning in preparation for future health threats: a pilot exercise conducted by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance in 2014].

PubMed

Eilstein, Daniel; Xerri, Bertrand; Viso, Anne-Catherine; Therre, Hélène; Gorza, Maud; Fuchs, Doriane; Pozuelos, Jérôme; Ioos, Sophie; Che, Didier; Bertrand, Edwige; El Yamani, Mounia; Empereur-Bissonnet, Pascal; Duport, Nicolas; Desenclos, Jean-Claude

2016-01-01

Background: Health surveillance is a reactive process, with no real hindsight for dealing with signals and alerts. It may fail to detect more radical changes with a major medium-term or long-term impact on public health. To increase proactivity, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance has opted for a prospective monitoring approach.Methods: Several steps were necessary: 1) Identification of public health determinants. 2) Identification of key variables based on a combination of determinants. Variables were classified into three groups (health event trigger factors, dissemination factors and response factors) and were submitted to future development assumptions. 3) Identification, in each of the three groups, of micro-scenarios derived from variable trends. 4) Identification of macro-scenarios, each built from the three micro-scenarios for each of the three groups. 5) Identification of issues for the future of public health.Results: The exercise identified 22 key variables, 17 micro-scenarios and 5 macro-scenarios. The topics retained relate to issues on social and territorial health inequalities, health burden, individual and collective responsibilities in terms of health, ethical aspects, emerging phenomena, ‘Big data’, data mining, new health technologies, interlocking of analysis scales.Conclusions: The approach presented here guides the programming of activities of a health safety agency, particularly for monitoring and surveillance. By describing possible future scenarios, health surveillance can help decision-makers to influence the context towards one or more favourable futures.

Performance of a system of reservoirs on futuristic front

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saha, Satabdi; Roy, Debasri; Mazumdar, Asis

2017-10-01

Application of simulation model HEC-5 to analyze the performance of the DVC Reservoir System (a multipurpose system with a network of five reservoirs and one barrage) on the river Damodar in Eastern India in meeting projected future demand as well as controlling flood for synthetically generated future scenario is addressed here with a view to develop an appropriate strategy for its operation. Thomas-Fiering model (based on Markov autoregressive model) has been adopted for generation of synthetic scenario (monthly streamflow series) and subsequently downscaling of modeled monthly streamflow to daily values was carried out. The performance of the system (analysed on seasonal basis) in terms of `Performance Indices' (viz., both quantity based reliability and time based reliability, mean daily deficit, average failure period, resilience and maximum vulnerability indices) for the projected scenario with enhanced demand turned out to be poor compared to that for historical scenario. However, judicious adoption of resource enhancement (marginal reallocation of reservoir storage capacity) and demand management strategy (curtailment of projected high water requirements and trading off between demands) was found to be a viable option for improvement of the performance of the reservoir system appreciably [improvement being (1-51 %), (2-35 %), (16-96 %), (25-50 %), (8-36 %) and (12-30 %) for the indices viz., quantity based reliability, time based reliability, mean daily deficit, average failure period, resilience and maximum vulnerability, respectively] compared to that with normal storage and projected demand. Again, 100 % reliability for flood control for current as well as future synthetically generated scenarios was noted. The results from the study would assist concerned authority in successful operation of reservoirs in the context of growing demand and dwindling resource.

Assessment of future impacts of potential climate change scenarios on aquifer recharge in continental Spain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pulido-Velazquez, David; Collados-Lara, Antonio-Juan; Alcalá, Francisco J.

2017-04-01

This research proposes and applies a method to assess potential impacts of future climatic scenarios on aquifer rainfall recharge in wide and varied regions. The continental Spain territory was selected to show the application. The method requires to generate future series of climatic variables (precipitation, temperature) in the system to simulate them within a previously calibrated hydrological model for the historical data. In a previous work, Alcalá and Custodio (2014) used the atmospheric chloride mass balance (CMB) method for the spatial evaluation of average aquifer recharge by rainfall over the whole of continental Spain, by assuming long-term steady conditions of the balance variables. The distributed average CMB variables necessary to calculate recharge were estimated from available variable-length data series of variable quality and spatial coverage. The CMB variables were regionalized by ordinary kriging at the same 4976 nodes of a 10 km x 10 km grid. Two main sources of uncertainty affecting recharge estimates (given by the coefficient of variation, CV), induced by the inherent natural variability of the variables and from mapping were segregated. Based on these stationary results we define a simple empirical rainfall-recharge model. We consider that spatiotemporal variability of rainfall and temperature are the most important climatic feature and variables influencing potential aquifer recharge in natural regime. Changes in these variables can be important in the assessment of future potential impacts of climatic scenarios over spatiotemporal renewable groundwater resource. For instance, if temperature increases, actual evapotranspitration (EA) will increases reducing the available water for others groundwater balance components, including the recharge. For this reason, instead of defining an infiltration rate coefficient that relates precipitation (P) and recharge we propose to define a transformation function that allows estimating the spatial distribution of recharge (both average value and its uncertainty) from the difference in P and EA in each area. A complete analysis of potential short-term (2016-2045) future climate scenarios in continental Spain has been performed by considering different sources of uncertainty. It is based on the historical climatic data for the period 1976-2005 and the climatic models simulations (for the control [1976-2005] and future scenarios [2016-2045]) performed in the frame of the CORDEX EU project. The most pessimistic emission scenario (RCP8.5) has been considered. For the RCP8.5 scenario we have analyzed the time series generated by simulating with 5 Regional Climatic models (CCLM4-8-17, RCA4, HIRHAM5, RACMO22E, and WRF331F) nested to 4 different General Circulation Models (GCMs). Two different conceptual approaches (bias correction and delta change techniques) have been applied to generate potential future climate scenarios from these data. Different ensembles of obtained time series have been proposed to obtain more representative scenarios by considering all the simulations or only those providing better approximations to the historical statistics based on a multicriteria analysis. This was a step to analyze future potential impacts on the aquifer recharge by simulating them within a rainfall-recharge model. This research has been supported by the CGL2013-48424-C2-2-R (MINECO) and the PMAFI/06/14 (UCAM) projects.

Analysis of consistency of global net land-use change carbon emission scenario using offline vegetation model and earth system model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, E.; Kawamiya, M.

2010-12-01

For CMIP5 experiments, emissions scenarios data sets for climate models are prepared as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) by the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). IAMs also have depicted regional land-use scenarios based on the socioeconomic assumption of the future scenarios of RCPs. In the land-use harmonization project, gridded land-use transition data has been constructed from the regional IAMs future land-use scenarios which smoothly connects historical reconstructions of land-use based on HYDE 3 data and FAO wood harvest data. In this study, using the gridded transition land-use scenario data, global net CO2 emission from land-use change for each RCPs scenarios is evaluated with a offline version of terrestrial biogeochemical model, VISIT (Vegetation Integrative SImulation Tool), utilizing a protocol to estimate carbon emission from deforested biomass considering delayed decomposition of product pools, and regrowth absorption from the secondary lands with abandoned agricultural lands. From the model output, effect of CO2 fertilization and land-use scenario itself on the emission is assessed to see the consistency of the scenarios. In addition, to see the effect of climate change and the climate-carbon feedback on terrestrial ecosystems, net land-use change CO2 emission is also evaluated with an earth system model, MIROC-ESM incorporating a DGVM with land-use change component. In the simulations with earth system model, RCP 6.0 scenario has been evaluated by model runs with and without land-use change forcing.

Clustering of Global Climate Models outputs as a tool for scenario-based risk assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

R Pereira, V.; Zullo, J., Jr.; Avila, A. M. H. D.

2016-12-01

The choice of the Global Climate Models (GCMs) future projections outputs for the scenario based risk assessment studies is a challenge for the non-climate models scientists. This study presents a method to select a range of the GCMs scenarios for regional/continental agriculture studies. The technique proposed here is based on grouping the surface air temperature (tas) anomalies in a continental /regional scale - in Brazil-South America - projected by the AR5-CMIP5-GCMs. We run the k-means cluster algorithm and the silhouette method to identify the optimal number and to group the GCMs tas outputs under the rcp 8.5. We applied the delta method to calculate the near future climate change. This method is based on the difference between the future and the baseline in a 30 year running mean periods basis. The future considered here is the 2021-2050 [2030s] and the baseline is the period of 1976-2005 (1980s). As expected, all the models projections showed increases in tas in the near future, ranging from ≅ 3.6 to 0.2 oC. The k-means clustering clearly indicates 5 groups of GCMs tas deltas. The majority of GCMs indicated an intermediate future temperature changes. There is a group of 12 GCMs that is indicating an average change of ≅ 2 oC and another group of 16 indicating ≅ 1 oC. The other two groups with 3 GCMs each indicated a most extreme tas scenario - 0.2 and 3.6 oC respectively. The results were in agreement with previous studies with the AR4 GCMs in which the Miroc5 and HADGEM ES predecessors were classified in different groups of models. The results also allowed us to gradually access the optimist - pessimist groups of 34 GCMs that is a good reference to guide the public policy demands for agriculture under climate change conditions.

A future without health? Health dimension in global scenario studies.

PubMed Central

Martens, Pim; Huynen, Maud

2003-01-01

This paper reviews the health dimension and sociocultural, economic, and ecological determinants of health in existing global scenario studies. Not even half of the 31 scenarios reviewed gave a good description of future health developments and the different scenario studies did not handle health in a consistent way. Most of the global driving forces of health are addressed adequately in the selected scenarios, however, and it therefore would have been possible to describe the future developments in health as an outcome of these multiple driving forces. To provide examples on how future health can be incorporated in existing scenarios, we linked the sociocultural, economic, and environmental developments described in three sets of scenarios (special report on emission scenarios (SRES), global environmental outlook-3 (GEO3), and world water scenarios (WWS)) to three potential, but imaginary, health futures ("age of emerging infectious diseases", "age of medical technology", and "age of sustained health"). This paper provides useful insights into how to deal with future health in scenarios and shows that a comprehensive picture of future health evolves when all important driving forces and pressures are taken into account. PMID:14997242

Policy Options for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Application in Healthcare; a Prospective View

PubMed Central

van Oranje-Nassau, Constantijn; Schindler, Helen Rebecca; Vilamovska, Anna-Marie; Botterman, Maarten

2012-01-01

Abstract This article reviews the state of play of European markets and applications of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in healthcare in Europe. Based on the current situation the study presents three scenarios for 2020, to describe futures in which the technology and health care sectors develop in different ways. The scenarios were discussed in expert workshops to derive issues that need to be addressed by future policies of the European Union and other stakeholders. The market assessment is based on a review of literature and an analysis of proprietary market data. The information on the state of RFID applications in Health in Europe summarises the results of a literature review, an online Delphi survey, expert interviews and seven cases studies in Europe and the US. The policy analysis is based on the outcomes of a scenario gaming workshop with experts from academia, industry, healthcare providers, policymakers and representatives of patient organisations. PMID:28083212

Plant distributions in the southwestern United States; a scenario assessment of the modern-day and future distribution ranges of 166 Species

USGS Publications Warehouse

Thomas, Kathryn A.; Guertin, Patricia P.; Gass, Leila

2012-01-01

The authors developed spatial models of the predicted modern-day suitable habitat (SH) of 166 dominant and indicator plant species of the southwestern United States (herein referred to as the Southwest) and then conducted a coarse assessment of potential future changes in the distribution of their suitable habitat under three climate-change scenarios for two time periods. We used Maxent-based spatial modeling to predict the modern-day and future scenarios of SH for each species in an over 342-million-acre area encompassing all or parts of six states in the Southwest--Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Modern-day SH models were predicted by our using 26 annual and monthly average temperature and precipitation variables, averaged for the years 1971-2000. Future SH models were predicted for each species by our using six climate models based on application of the average of 16 General Circulation Models to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios B1, A1B, and A2 for two time periods, 2040 to 2069 and 2070 and 2100, referred to respectively as the 2050 and 2100 time periods. The assessment examined each species' vulnerability to loss of modern-day SH under future climate scenarios, potential to gain SH under future climate scenarios, and each species' estimated risk as a function of both vulnerability and potential gains. All 166 species were predicted to lose modern-day SH in the future climate change scenarios. In the 2050 time period, nearly 30 percent of the species lost 75 percent or more of their modern-day suitable habitat, 21 species gained more new SH than their modern-day SH, and 30 species gained less new SH than 25 percent of their modern-day SH. In the 2100 time period, nearly half of the species lost 75 percent or more of their modern-day SH, 28 species gained more new SH than their modern-day SH, and 34 gained less new SH than 25 percent of their modern-day SH. Using nine risk categories we found only two species were in the least risk category, while 20 species were in the highest risk category. The assessment showed that species respond independently to predicted climate change, suggesting that current plant assemblages may disassemble under predicted climate change scenarios. This report presents the results for each species in tables (Appendix A) and maps (14 for each species) in Appendix B.

Using the New Scenarios Framework to Inform Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Finland

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carter, T. R.

2013-12-01

In 2005, Finland was among the first countries in the world to develop a national climate change adaptation strategy (Marttila et al., 2005). This included a characterization of future changes in climate and socioeconomic conditions using scenarios based on the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES - IPCC, 2000). Following a government evaluation of the strategy, completion of a national adaptation research programme, and in light of the recent European Union adaptation strategy, the Finnish strategy is now under revision. As part of this revision process, the New Scenario Framework (Moss et al., 2010) is being used to guide the mapping of future conditions in Finland out to the end of the 21st century. Future Finnish climate is being analysed using the CMIP5 climate model simulations (Taylor et al., 2012), including downscaled information based on regional climate model projections in the EURO-CORDEX project (Vautard et al., 2013). All projections are forced by the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs - van Vuuren et al., 2011). Socioeconomic scenarios are also being developed by outlining alternative pathways that reflect national social, economic, environmental and planning goals. These are designed according to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) framework of challenges to adaptation and mitigation (Kriegler et al., 2012). Work is in progress to characterize these pathways, mainly qualitatively, for different sectors in Finland. Preliminary results of the conceptual scenario development phase will be presented in this session. These initial ideas will be exchanged with representatives of ministries, regional government and key stakeholder groups. The eventual form and number of scenarios that appear in the revised strategy will be determined following a formal review of the draft document to be prepared in 2014. Future work could include quantification of scenarios, possibly mapping them onto the specific SSP worlds. This would then provide a firm basis for future climate change impact, adaptation and vulnerability assessments, offering RCP/SSP-based scenarios that are not only related to the global New Scenarios Framework, but are also recognised by national policy makers and key stakeholders, via the revised national climate change adaptation strategy. References IPCC (2000) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios: A Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [Nakićenović, N. et al. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, 600 pp. Kriegler E et al. (2012) The need for and use of socio-economic scenarios for climate change analysis: A new approach based on shared socio-economic pathways. Glob. Envir. Change 22:807-822. Marttila V et al. (2005) Finland's National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change, MMM publications 1a/2005, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Helsinki, Finland, 280 pp. Moss RH et al. (2010) The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment. Nature 463:747-756. Taylor KE et al. (2012) A summary of the CMIP5 experiment design. BAMS 93:485-498. van Vuuren DP et al. (2011) The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Clim. Change 109:5-31. Vautard R et al. (2013) The simulation of European heat waves from an ensemble of regional climate models within the EURO-CORDEX project. Clim. Dyn. doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1714-z

Future scenarios of land change based on empirical data and demographic trends

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Wilson, Tamara; Sharygin, Ethan; Sherba, Jason

2017-01-01

Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) have important and fundamental interactions with the global climate system. Top-down global scale projections of land use change have been an important component of climate change research; however, their utility at local to regional scales is often limited. The goal of this study was to develop an approach for projecting changes in LULC based on land use histories and demographic trends. We developed a set of stochastic, empirical-based projections of LULC change for the state of California, for the period 2001–2100. Land use histories and demographic trends were used to project a “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario and three population growth scenarios. For the BAU scenario, we projected developed lands would more than double by 2100. When combined with cultivated areas, we projected a 28% increase in anthropogenic land use by 2100. As a result, natural lands were projected to decline at a rate of 139 km2 yr−1; grasslands experienced the largest net decline, followed by shrublands and forests. The amount of cultivated land was projected to decline by approximately 10%; however, the relatively modest change masked large shifts between annual and perennial crop types. Under the three population scenarios, developed lands were projected to increase 40–90% by 2100. Our results suggest that when compared to the BAU projection, scenarios based on demographic trends may underestimate future changes in LULC. Furthermore, regardless of scenario, the spatial pattern of LULC change was likely to have the greatest negative impacts on rangeland ecosystems.

Future Scenarios of Land Change Based on Empirical Data and Demographic Trends

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Wilson, Tamara S.; Sharygin, Ethan; Sherba, Jason T.

2017-11-01

Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) have important and fundamental interactions with the global climate system. Top-down global scale projections of land use change have been an important component of climate change research; however, their utility at local to regional scales is often limited. The goal of this study was to develop an approach for projecting changes in LULC based on land use histories and demographic trends. We developed a set of stochastic, empirical-based projections of LULC change for the state of California, for the period 2001-2100. Land use histories and demographic trends were used to project a "business-as-usual" (BAU) scenario and three population growth scenarios. For the BAU scenario, we projected developed lands would more than double by 2100. When combined with cultivated areas, we projected a 28% increase in anthropogenic land use by 2100. As a result, natural lands were projected to decline at a rate of 139 km2 yr-1; grasslands experienced the largest net decline, followed by shrublands and forests. The amount of cultivated land was projected to decline by approximately 10%; however, the relatively modest change masked large shifts between annual and perennial crop types. Under the three population scenarios, developed lands were projected to increase 40-90% by 2100. Our results suggest that when compared to the BAU projection, scenarios based on demographic trends may underestimate future changes in LULC. Furthermore, regardless of scenario, the spatial pattern of LULC change was likely to have the greatest negative impacts on rangeland ecosystems.

[Current status and future of telemonitoring : Scenarios for telemedical care in 2025].

PubMed

Zippel-Schultz, Bettina; Schultz, Carsten; Helms, Thomas M

2017-09-01

Telemonitoring is an already realized implementation of digital transformation in the healthcare system. It has the potential to support and secure a sustainable and comprehensive provision of healthcare for a rising number of chronically ill patients, e. g. patients with chronic heart failure. Remote regions in particular can profit from the benefits of telemonitoring; however, so far telemonitoring services have not become truly established in the German healthcare market. Together with experts from politics, science and practice, a scenario analysis "Health Care System 2025 - A Place for Telemonitoring?" was carried out with the aim to examine the future development of the healthcare market and to draw conclusions for providers of telemonitoring services or devices. The scenario analysis contained two workshops and an expert survey and was supported by a scenario software. The current drivers and barriers of the diffusion of telemonitoring were identified and the most relevant factors that influence the future development of the healthcare market were discussed. Based on those influencing factors, three different scenarios were determined: (1) administrating rather than shaping, (2) safely into the future and (3) interconnected and digital world. In the subsequent consequence analysis activities were defined, which describe the necessary infrastructure, software instruments, organizational structures and provision of services and discuss possible activities, which prepare telemonitoring solutions for the future.

The Anticipated Positive Psychosocial Impact of Present Web-Based E-Health Services and Future Mobile Health Applications: An Investigation among Older Swedes.

PubMed

Wiklund Axelsson, S; Nyberg, L; Näslund, A; Melander Wikman, A

2013-01-01

This study investigates the anticipated psychosocial impact of present web-based e-health services and future mobile health applications among older Swedes. Random sample's of Swedish citizens aged 55 years old and older were given a survey containing two different e-health scenarios which respondents rated according to their anticipated psychosocial impact by means of the PIADS instrument. Results consistently demonstrated the positive anticipation of psychosocial impacts for both scenarios. The future mobile health applications scored more positively than the present web-based e-health services. An increase in age correlated positively to lower impact scores. These findings indicate that from a psychosocial perspective, web-based e-health services and mobile health applications are likely to positively impact quality of life. This knowledge can be helpful when tailoring and implementing e-health services that are directed to older people.

Impact of a future H2 transportation on atmospheric pollution in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Popa, M. E.; Segers, A. J.; Denier van der Gon, H. A. C.; Krol, M. C.; Visschedijk, A. J. H.; Schaap, M.; Röckmann, T.

2015-07-01

Hydrogen (H2) is being explored as a fuel for passenger vehicles; it can be used in fuel cells to power electric motors or burned in internal combustion engines. In order to evaluate the potential influence of a future H2-based road transportation on the regional air quality in Europe, we implemented H2 in the atmospheric transport and chemistry model LOTOS-EUROS. We simulated the present and future (2020) air quality, using emission scenarios with different proportions of H2 vehicles and different H2 leakage rates. The reference future scenario does not include H2 vehicles, and assumes that all present and planned European regulations for emissions are fully implemented. We find that, in general, the air quality in 2020 is significantly improved compared to the current situation in all scenarios, with and without H2 cars. In the future scenario without H2 cars, the pollution is reduced due to the strict European regulations: annually averaged CO, NOx and PM2.5 over the model domain decrease by 15%, 30% and 20% respectively. The additional improvement brought by replacing 50% or 100% of traditionally-fueled vehicles by H2 vehicles is smaller in absolute terms. If 50% of vehicles are using H2, the CO, NOx and PM2.5 decrease by 1%, 10% and 1% respectively, compared to the future scenario without H2 cars. When all vehicles run on H2, then additional decreases in CO, NOx and PM2.5 are 5%, 40%, and 5% relative to the no-H2 cars future scenario. Our study shows that H2 vehicles may be an effective pathway to fulfill the strict future EU air quality regulations. O3 has a more complicated behavior - its annual average decreases in background areas, but increases in the high-NOx area in western Europe, with the decrease in NOx. A more detailed analysis shows that the population exposure to high O3 levels decreases nevertheless. In all future scenarios, traffic emissions account for only a small proportion of the total anthropogenic emissions, thus it becomes more important to better regulate emissions of non-traffic sectors. Although atmospheric H2 increases significantly in the high-leakage scenarios considered, the additional H2 added into the atmosphere does not have a significant effect on the ground level air pollution in Europe.

Tools and Techniques for Basin-Scale Climate Change Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zagona, E.; Rajagopalan, B.; Oakley, W.; Wilson, N.; Weinstein, P.; Verdin, A.; Jerla, C.; Prairie, J. R.

2012-12-01

The Department of Interior's WaterSMART Program seeks to secure and stretch water supplies to benefit future generations and identify adaptive measures to address climate change. Under WaterSMART, Basin Studies are comprehensive water studies to explore options for meeting projected imbalances in water supply and demand in specific basins. Such studies could be most beneficial with application of recent scientific advances in climate projections, stochastic simulation, operational modeling and robust decision-making, as well as computational techniques to organize and analyze many alternatives. A new integrated set of tools and techniques to facilitate these studies includes the following components: Future supply scenarios are produced by the Hydrology Simulator, which uses non-parametric K-nearest neighbor resampling techniques to generate ensembles of hydrologic traces based on historical data, optionally conditioned on long paleo reconstructed data using various Markov Chain techniuqes. Resampling can also be conditioned on climate change projections from e.g., downscaled GCM projections to capture increased variability; spatial and temporal disaggregation is also provided. The simulations produced are ensembles of hydrologic inputs to the RiverWare operations/infrastucture decision modeling software. Alternative demand scenarios can be produced with the Demand Input Tool (DIT), an Excel-based tool that allows modifying future demands by groups such as states; sectors, e.g., agriculture, municipal, energy; and hydrologic basins. The demands can be scaled at future dates or changes ramped over specified time periods. Resulting data is imported directly into the decision model. Different model files can represent infrastructure alternatives and different Policy Sets represent alternative operating policies, including options for noticing when conditions point to unacceptable vulnerabilities, which trigger dynamically executing changes in operations or other options. The over-arching Study Manager provides a graphical tool to create combinations of future supply scenarios, demand scenarios, infrastructure and operating policy alternatives; each scenario is executed as an ensemble of RiverWare runs, driven by the hydrologic supply. The Study Manager sets up and manages multiple executions on multi-core hardware. The sizeable are typically direct model outputs, or post-processed indicators of performance based on model outputs. Post processing statistical analysis of the outputs are possible using the Graphical Policy Analysis Tool or other statistical packages. Several Basin Studies undertaken have used RiverWare to evaluate future scenarios. The Colorado River Basin Study, the most complex and extensive to date, has taken advantage of these tools and techniques to generate supply scenarios, produce alternative demand scenarios and to set up and execute the many combinations of supplies, demands, policies, and infrastructure alternatives. The tools and techniques will be described with example applications.

Response of streamflow to projected climate change scenarios in an eastern Himalayan catchment of India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Senzeba, K. T.; Rajkumari, S.; Bhadra, A.; Bandyopadhyay, A.

2016-04-01

Snowmelt run-off model (SRM) based on degree-day approach has been employed to evaluate the change in snow-cover depletion and corresponding streamflow under different projected climatic scenarios for an eastern Himalayan catchment in India. Nuranang catchment located at Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh with an area of 52 km2 is selected for the present study with an elevation range of 3143-4946 m above mean sea level. Satellite images from October to June of the selected hydrological year 2006-2007 were procured from National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad. Snow cover mapping is done using NDSI method. Based on long term meteorological data, temperature and precipitation data of selected hydrological year are normalized to represent present climatic condition. The projected temperature and precipitation data are downloaded from NCAR's GIS data portal for different emission scenarios (SRES), viz., A1B, A2, B1; and IPCC commitment (non-SRES) scenario for different future years (2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050). Projected temperature and precipitation data are obtained at desired location by spatially interpolating the gridded data and then by statistical downscaling using linear regression. Snow depletion curves for all projected scenarios are generated for the study area and compared with conventional depletion curve for present climatic condition. Changes in cumulative snowmelt depth for different future years are highest under A1B and lowest under IPCC commitment, whereas A2 and B1 values are in-between A1B and IPCC commitment. Percentage increase in streamflow for different future years follows almost the same trend as change in precipitation from present climate under all projected climatic scenarios. Hence, it was concluded that for small catchments having seasonal snow cover, the total streamflow under projected climatic scenarios in future years will be primarily governed by the change in precipitation and not by change in snowmelt depth. Advancing of depletion curves for different future years are highest under A1B and lowest under IPCC commitment. A2 and B1 values are in-between A1B and IPCC commitment.

Proposal of global flood vulnerability scenarios for evaluating future potential flood losses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kinoshita, Y.; Tanoue, M.; Watanabe, S.; Hirabayashi, Y.

2015-12-01

Flooding is one of the most hazardous and damaging natural disasters causing serious economic loss and casualties across the world (Jongman et al., 2015). Previous studies showed that the global temperature increase affects regional weather pattern, and several general circulation model (GCM) simulations suggest the increase of flood events in both frequency and magnitude in many parts of the world (Hirabayashi et al., 2013). Effective adaptation to potential flood risks under the warming climate requires an in-depth understanding of both the physical and socioeconomic contributors of the flood risk. To assess the realistic future potential flood risk, future sophisticated vulnerability scenarios associated with the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) are necessary. In this study we propose a new future vulnerability scenarios in mortality. Our vulnerability scenarios are constructed based on the modeled flood exposure (population potentially suffered by flooding) and a past from 1980 to 2005. All the flood fatality data were classified according to four income levels (high, mid-high, mid-low and low). Our proposed scenarios have three pathways regarding to SSPs; High efficiency (HE) scenario (SSP1, SSP4 (rich country) and SSP5), Medium efficiency (ME) scenario (SSP2), and Low efficiency (LE) scenario (SSP3 and SSP4 (poor country)). The maximum mortality protection level on each category was detected by applying exponential curve fitting with offset term. Slopes in the HE scenario are assumed to be equal to slopes estimated by regression analysis in each category. The slope in the HE scenario is defined by the mean value of all countries' slope value that is approximately -0.33 mortality decreases per year. The EM-DAT mortality data shows a decreasing trend in time in almost all of the countries. Although mortalities in some countries show an increasing trend, this is because these countries were affected by once-in-hundred-years floods after 1990's. The slope in the ME scenario are half of that in the HE scenario, and a quarter in the LE scenario. In addition, we set three categories depending on mortality level. Our proposed vulnerability scenarios would enable us to reasonably replicate self-sustained vulnerability change against flood hazard associated with the SSPs.

Understanding London's Water Supply Tradeoffs When Scheduling Interventions Under Deep Uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huskova, I.; Matrosov, E. S.; Harou, J. J.; Kasprzyk, J. R.; Reed, P. M.

2015-12-01

Water supply planning in many major world cities faces several challenges associated with but not limited to climate change, population growth and insufficient land availability for infrastructure development. Long-term plans to maintain supply-demand balance and ecosystem services require careful consideration of uncertainties associated with future conditions. The current approach for London's water supply planning utilizes least cost optimization of future intervention schedules with limited uncertainty consideration. Recently, the focus of the long-term plans has shifted from solely least cost performance to robustness and resilience of the system. Identifying robust scheduling of interventions requires optimizing over a statistically representative sample of stochastic inputs which may be computationally difficult to achieve. In this study we optimize schedules using an ensemble of plausible scenarios and assess how manipulating that ensemble influences the different Pareto-approximate intervention schedules. We investigate how a major stress event's location in time as well as the optimization problem formulation influence the Pareto-approximate schedules. A bootstrapping method that respects the non-stationary trend of climate change scenarios and ensures the even distribution of the major stress event in the scenario ensemble is proposed. Different bootstrapped hydrological scenario ensembles are assessed using many-objective scenario optimization of London's future water supply and demand intervention scheduling. However, such a "fixed" scheduling of interventions approach does not aim to embed flexibility or adapt effectively as the future unfolds. Alternatively, making decisions based on the observations of occurred conditions could help planners who prefer adaptive planning. We will show how rules to guide the implementation of interventions based on observations may result in more flexible strategies.

Misrepresentation of the IPCC CO2 emission scenarios

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Manning, Martin; Edmonds, James A.; Emori, S.

2010-06-01

Estimates of recent fossil fuel CO2 emissions have been compared with the IPCC SRES (Special Report on Emission Scenarios) emission scenarios that had been developed for analysis of future climate change, impacts and mitigation. In some cases this comparison uses averages across subgroups of SRES scenarios and for one category of greenhouse gases (industrial sources of CO2). That approach can be misleading and cause confusion as it is inconsistent with many of the papers on future climate change projections that are based on a specific subset of closely scrutinized SRES scenarios, known as illustrative marker scenarios. Here, we show thatmore » comparison between recent estimates of fossil fuel emissions trends and the SRES illustrative marker scenarios leads to the conclusion that recent trends are not outside the SRES range. Furthermore, the recent economic downturn appears to have brought actual emission back toward the middle of the SRES illustrative marker scenarios. We also note that SRES emission scenarios are designed to reflect potential alternative long-term trends in a world without climate policy intervention and the trend in the resulting climate change is not sensitive to short-term fluctuations.« less

Dystopia and Disutopia: Hope and Hopelessness in German Pupils' Future Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nordensvard, Johan

2014-01-01

Within the academic field of futures in education there has been concern that pupils' negative and pessimistic future scenarios could be deleterious to their minds. Eckersley ("Futures" 31:73-90, 1999) argues that pessimism among young people can produce cynicism, mistrust, anger, apathy and an approach to life based on instant…

Genome-Wide Analysis of Yield in Europe: Allelic Effects Vary with Drought and Heat Scenarios1[OPEN

PubMed Central

Millet, Emilie J.; Welcker, Claude; Kruijer, Willem; Negro, Sandra; Coupel-Ledru, Aude; Laborde, Jacques; Bauland, Cyril; Praud, Sebastien; Presterl, Thomas; Usadel, Björn; Charcosset, Alain; Van Eeuwijk, Fred; Tardieu, François

2016-01-01

Assessing the genetic variability of plant performance under heat and drought scenarios can contribute to reduce the negative effects of climate change. We propose here an approach that consisted of (1) clustering time courses of environmental variables simulated by a crop model in current (35 years × 55 sites) and future conditions into six scenarios of temperature and water deficit as experienced by maize (Zea mays L.) plants; (2) performing 29 field experiments in contrasting conditions across Europe with 244 maize hybrids; (3) assigning individual experiments to scenarios based on environmental conditions as measured in each field experiment; frequencies of temperature scenarios in our experiments corresponded to future heat scenarios (+5°C); (4) analyzing the genetic variation of plant performance for each environmental scenario. Forty-eight quantitative trait loci (QTLs) of yield were identified by association genetics using a multi-environment multi-locus model. Eight and twelve QTLs were associated to tolerances to heat and drought stresses because they were specific to hot and dry scenarios, respectively, with low or even negative allelic effects in favorable scenarios. Twenty-four QTLs improved yield in favorable conditions but showed nonsignificant effects under stress; they were therefore associated with higher sensitivity. Our approach showed a pattern of QTL effects expressed as functions of environmental variables and scenarios, allowing us to suggest hypotheses for mechanisms and candidate genes underlying each QTL. It can be used for assessing the performance of genotypes and the contribution of genomic regions under current and future stress situations and to accelerate breeding for drought-prone environments. PMID:27436830

Assessing uncertainties in global cropland futures using a conditional probabilistic modelling framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Engström, Kerstin; Olin, Stefan; Rounsevell, Mark D. A.; Brogaard, Sara; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Alexander, Peter; Murray-Rust, Dave; Arneth, Almut

2016-11-01

We present a modelling framework to simulate probabilistic futures of global cropland areas that are conditional on the SSP (shared socio-economic pathway) scenarios. Simulations are based on the Parsimonious Land Use Model (PLUM) linked with the global dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS (Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator) using socio-economic data from the SSPs and climate data from the RCPs (representative concentration pathways). The simulated range of global cropland is 893-2380 Mha in 2100 (± 1 standard deviation), with the main uncertainties arising from differences in the socio-economic conditions prescribed by the SSP scenarios and the assumptions that underpin the translation of qualitative SSP storylines into quantitative model input parameters. Uncertainties in the assumptions for population growth, technological change and cropland degradation were found to be the most important for global cropland, while uncertainty in food consumption had less influence on the results. The uncertainties arising from climate variability and the differences between climate change scenarios do not strongly affect the range of global cropland futures. Some overlap occurred across all of the conditional probabilistic futures, except for those based on SSP3. We conclude that completely different socio-economic and climate change futures, although sharing low to medium population development, can result in very similar cropland areas on the aggregated global scale.

Future nutrient load scenarios for the Baltic Sea due to climate and lifestyle changes.

PubMed

Hägg, Hanna Eriksson; Lyon, Steve W; Wällstedt, Teresia; Mörth, Carl-Magnus; Claremar, Björn; Humborg, Christoph

2014-04-01

Dynamic model simulations of the future climate and projections of future lifestyles within the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin (BSDB) were considered in this study to estimate potential trends in future nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea. Total nitrogen and total phosphorus loads were estimated using a simple proxy based only on human population (to account for nutrient sources) and stream discharges (to account for nutrient transport). This population-discharge proxy provided a good estimate for nutrient loads across the seven sub-basins of the BSDB considered. All climate scenarios considered here produced increased nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea over the next 100 years. There was variation between the climate scenarios such that sub-basin and regional differences were seen in future nutrient runoff depending on the climate model and scenario considered. Regardless, the results of this study indicate that changes in lifestyle brought about through shifts in consumption and population potentially overshadow the climate effects on future nutrient runoff for the entire BSDB. Regionally, however, lifestyle changes appear relatively more important in the southern regions of the BSDB while climatic changes appear more important in the northern regions with regards to future increases in nutrient loads. From a whole-ecosystem management perspective of the BSDB, this implies that implementation of improved and targeted management practices can still bring about improved conditions in the Baltic Sea in the face of a warmer and wetter future climate.

A scenario elicitation methodology to identify the drivers of electricity infrastructure cost in South America

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moksnes, Nandi; Taliotis, Constantinos; Broad, Oliver; de Moura, Gustavo; Howells, Mark

2017-04-01

Developing a set of scenarios to assess a proposed policy or future development pathways requires a certain level of information, as well as establishing the socio-economic context. As the future is difficult to predict, great care in defining the selected scenarios is needed. Even so it can be difficult to assess if the selected scenario is covering the possible solution space. Instead, this paper's methodology develops a large set of scenarios (324) in OSeMOSYS using the SAMBA 2.0 (South America Model Base) model to assess long-term electricity supply scenarios and applies a scenario-discovery statistical data mining algorithm, Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM). By creating a multidimensional space, regions related to high and low cost can be identified as well as their key driver. The six key drivers are defined a priori in three (high, medium, low) or two levers (high, low): 1) Demand projected from GDP, population, urbanization and transport, 2) Fossil fuel price, 3) Climate change impact on hydropower, 4) Renewable technology learning rate, 5) Discount rate, 6) CO2 emission targets.

Scenarios reveal pathways to sustain future ecosystem services in an agricultural landscape.

PubMed

Qiu, Jiangxiao; Carpenter, Stephen R; Booth, Eric G; Motew, Melissa; Zipper, Samuel C; Kucharik, Christopher J; Chen, Xi; Loheide, Steven P; Seifert, Jenny; Turner, Monica G

2018-01-01

Sustaining food production, water quality, soil retention, flood, and climate regulation in agricultural landscapes is a pressing global challenge given accelerating environmental changes. Scenarios are stories about plausible futures, and scenarios can be integrated with biophysical simulation models to explore quantitatively how the future might unfold. However, few studies have incorporated a wide range of drivers (e.g., climate, land-use, management, population, human diet) in spatially explicit, process-based models to investigate spatial-temporal dynamics and relationships of a portfolio of ecosystem services. Here, we simulated nine ecosystem services (three provisioning and six regulating services) at 220 × 220 m from 2010 to 2070 under four contrasting scenarios in the 1,345-km 2 Yahara Watershed (Wisconsin, USA) using Agro-IBIS, a dynamic model of terrestrial ecosystem processes, biogeochemistry, water, and energy balance. We asked (1) How does ecosystem service supply vary among alternative future scenarios? (2) Where on the landscape is the provision of ecosystem services most susceptible to future social-ecological changes? (3) Among alternative future scenarios, are relationships (i.e., trade-offs, synergies) among food production, water, and biogeochemical services consistent over time? Our results showed that food production varied substantially with future land-use choices and management, and its trade-offs with water quality and soil retention persisted under most scenarios. However, pathways to mitigate or even reverse such trade-offs through technological advances and sustainable agricultural practices were apparent. Consistent relationships among regulating services were identified across scenarios (e.g., trade-offs of freshwater supply vs. flood and climate regulation, and synergies among water quality, soil retention, and climate regulation), suggesting opportunities and challenges to sustaining these services. In particular, proactive land-use changes and management may buffer water quality against undesirable future climate changes, but changing climate may overwhelm management efforts to sustain freshwater supply and flood regulation. Spatially, changes in ecosystem services were heterogeneous across the landscape, underscoring the power of local actions and fine-scale management. Our research highlights the value of embracing spatial and temporal perspectives in managing ecosystem services and their complex interactions, and provides a system-level understanding for achieving sustainability of the food-water-climate nexus in agricultural landscapes. © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America.

A Statistical Bias Correction Tool for Generating Climate Change Scenarios in Indonesia based on CMIP5 Datasets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faqih, A.

2017-03-01

Providing information regarding future climate scenarios is very important in climate change study. The climate scenario can be used as basic information to support adaptation and mitigation studies. In order to deliver future climate scenarios over specific region, baseline and projection data from the outputs of global climate models (GCM) is needed. However, due to its coarse resolution, the data have to be downscaled and bias corrected in order to get scenario data with better spatial resolution that match the characteristics of the observed data. Generating this downscaled data is mostly difficult for scientist who do not have specific background, experience and skill in dealing with the complex data from the GCM outputs. In this regards, it is necessary to develop a tool that can be used to simplify the downscaling processes in order to help scientist, especially in Indonesia, for generating future climate scenario data that can be used for their climate change-related studies. In this paper, we introduce a tool called as “Statistical Bias Correction for Climate Scenarios (SiBiaS)”. The tool is specially designed to facilitate the use of CMIP5 GCM data outputs and process their statistical bias corrections relative to the reference data from observations. It is prepared for supporting capacity building in climate modeling in Indonesia as part of the Indonesia 3rd National Communication (TNC) project activities.

The Southern Forest Futures Project: summary report

Treesearch

David N. Wear; John G. Greis

2012-01-01

The Southern Forest Futures Project provides a science-based “futuring” analysis of the forests of the 13 States of the Southeastern United States. With findings organized in a set of scenarios and using a combination of computer models and science synthesis, the authors of the Southern Forest Futures Project examine a variety of possible futures that could shape...

The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6

DOE PAGES

O'Neill, Brian C.; Tebaldi, Claudia; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; ...

2016-09-28

Projections of future climate change play a fundamental role in improving understanding of the climate system as well as characterizing societal risks and response options. The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) is the primary activity within Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) that will provide multi-model climate projections based on alternative scenarios of future emissions and land use changes produced with integrated assessment models. Here, we describe ScenarioMIP's objectives, experimental design, and its relation to other activities within CMIP6. The ScenarioMIP design is one component of a larger scenario process that aims to facilitate a wide rangemore » of integrated studies across the climate science, integrated assessment modeling, and impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability communities, and will form an important part of the evidence base in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. Furthermore, it will provide the basis for investigating a number of targeted science and policy questions that are especially relevant to scenario-based analysis, including the role of specific forcings such as land use and aerosols, the effect of a peak and decline in forcing, the consequences of scenarios that limit warming to below 2°C, the relative contributions to uncertainty from scenarios, climate models, and internal variability, and long-term climate system outcomes beyond the 21st century. In order to serve this wide range of scientific communities and address these questions, a design has been identified consisting of eight alternative 21st century scenarios plus one large initial condition ensemble and a set of long-term extensions, divided into two tiers defined by relative priority. Some of these scenarios will also provide a basis for variants planned to be run in other CMIP6-Endorsed MIPs to investigate questions related to specific forcings. Harmonized, spatially explicit emissions and land use scenarios generated with integrated assessment models will be provided to participating climate modeling groups by late 2016, with the climate model simulations run within the 2017–2018 time frame, and output from the climate model projections made available and analyses performed over the 2018–2020 period.« less

The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

O'Neill, Brian C.; Tebaldi, Claudia; van Vuuren, Detlef P.

2016-01-01

Projections of future climate change play a fundamental role in improving understanding of the climate system as well as characterizing societal risks and response options. The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) is the primary activity within Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) that will provide multi-model climate projections based on alternative scenarios of future emissions and land use changes produced with integrated assessment models. In this paper, we describe ScenarioMIP's objectives, experimental design, and its relation to other activities within CMIP6. The ScenarioMIP design is one component of a larger scenario process that aims to facilitate amore » wide range of integrated studies across the climate science, integrated assessment modeling, and impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability communities, and will form an important part of the evidence base in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. At the same time, it will provide the basis for investigating a number of targeted science and policy questions that are especially relevant to scenario-based analysis, including the role of specific forcings such as land use and aerosols, the effect of a peak and decline in forcing, the consequences of scenarios that limit warming to below 2 °C, the relative contributions to uncertainty from scenarios, climate models, and internal variability, and long-term climate system outcomes beyond the 21st century. To serve this wide range of scientific communities and address these questions, a design has been identified consisting of eight alternative 21st century scenarios plus one large initial condition ensemble and a set of long-term extensions, divided into two tiers defined by relative priority. Some of these scenarios will also provide a basis for variants planned to be run in other CMIP6-Endorsed MIPs to investigate questions related to specific forcings. Harmonized, spatially explicit emissions and land use scenarios generated with integrated assessment models will be provided to participating climate modeling groups by late 2016, with the climate model simulations run within the 2017–2018 time frame, and output from the climate model projections made available and analyses performed over the 2018–2020 period.« less

The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Neill, Brian C.; Tebaldi, Claudia; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Eyring, Veronika; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Hurtt, George; Knutti, Reto; Kriegler, Elmar; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Lowe, Jason; Meehl, Gerald A.; Moss, Richard; Riahi, Keywan; Sanderson, Benjamin M.

2016-09-01

Projections of future climate change play a fundamental role in improving understanding of the climate system as well as characterizing societal risks and response options. The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) is the primary activity within Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) that will provide multi-model climate projections based on alternative scenarios of future emissions and land use changes produced with integrated assessment models. In this paper, we describe ScenarioMIP's objectives, experimental design, and its relation to other activities within CMIP6. The ScenarioMIP design is one component of a larger scenario process that aims to facilitate a wide range of integrated studies across the climate science, integrated assessment modeling, and impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability communities, and will form an important part of the evidence base in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. At the same time, it will provide the basis for investigating a number of targeted science and policy questions that are especially relevant to scenario-based analysis, including the role of specific forcings such as land use and aerosols, the effect of a peak and decline in forcing, the consequences of scenarios that limit warming to below 2 °C, the relative contributions to uncertainty from scenarios, climate models, and internal variability, and long-term climate system outcomes beyond the 21st century. To serve this wide range of scientific communities and address these questions, a design has been identified consisting of eight alternative 21st century scenarios plus one large initial condition ensemble and a set of long-term extensions, divided into two tiers defined by relative priority. Some of these scenarios will also provide a basis for variants planned to be run in other CMIP6-Endorsed MIPs to investigate questions related to specific forcings. Harmonized, spatially explicit emissions and land use scenarios generated with integrated assessment models will be provided to participating climate modeling groups by late 2016, with the climate model simulations run within the 2017-2018 time frame, and output from the climate model projections made available and analyses performed over the 2018-2020 period.

The Mediterranean surface wave climate inferred from future scenario simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lionello, P.; Cogo, S.; Galati, M. B.; Sanna, A.

2008-09-01

This study is based on 30-year long simulations of the wind-wave field in the Mediterranean Sea carried out with the WAM model. Wave fields have been computed for the 2071-2100 period of the A2, B2 emission scenarios and for the 1961-1990 period of the present climate (REF). The wave model has been forced by the wind field computed by a regional climate model with 50 km resolution. The mean SWH (Significant Wave Height) field over large fraction of the Mediterranean sea is lower for the A2 scenario than for the present climate during winter, spring and autumn. During summer the A2 mean SWH field is also lower everywhere, except for two areas, those between Greece and Northern Africa and between Spain and Algeria, where it is significantly higher. All these changes are similar, though smaller and less significant, in the B2 scenario, except during winter in the north-western Mediterranean Sea, when the B2 mean SWH field is higher than in the REF simulation. Also extreme SWH values are smaller in future scenarios than in the present climate and such SWH change is larger for the A2 than for the B2 scenario. The only exception is the presence of higher SWH extremes in the central Mediterranean during summer for the A2 scenario. In general, changes of SWH, wind speed and atmospheric circulation are consistent, and results show milder marine storms in future scenarios than in the present climate.

Stress testing hydrologic models using bottom-up climate change assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stephens, C.; Johnson, F.; Marshall, L. A.

2017-12-01

Bottom-up climate change assessment is a promising approach for understanding the vulnerability of a system to potential future changes. The technique has been utilised successfully in risk-based assessments of future flood severity and infrastructure vulnerability. We find that it is also an ideal tool for assessing hydrologic model performance in a changing climate. In this study, we applied bottom-up climate change to compare the performance of two different hydrologic models (an event-based and a continuous model) under increasingly severe climate change scenarios. This allowed us to diagnose likely sources of future prediction error in the two models. The climate change scenarios were based on projections for southern Australia, which indicate drier average conditions with increased extreme rainfall intensities. We found that the key weakness in using the event-based model to simulate drier future scenarios was the model's inability to dynamically account for changing antecedent conditions. This led to increased variability in model performance relative to the continuous model, which automatically accounts for the wetness of a catchment through dynamic simulation of water storages. When considering more intense future rainfall events, representation of antecedent conditions became less important than assumptions around (non)linearity in catchment response. The linear continuous model we applied may underestimate flood risk in a future climate with greater extreme rainfall intensity. In contrast with the recommendations of previous studies, this indicates that continuous simulation is not necessarily the key to robust flood modelling under climate change. By applying bottom-up climate change assessment, we were able to understand systematic changes in relative model performance under changing conditions and deduce likely sources of prediction error in the two models.

Potential future scenarios for Australia's native biodiversity given on-going increases in human population.

PubMed

Pepper, D A; Lada, Hania; Thomson, James R; Bakar, K Shuvo; Lake, P S; Mac Nally, Ralph

2017-01-15

Most natural assets, including native biodiversity (our focus), are under increasing threat from direct (loss of habitat, hunting) and indirect (climate change) human actions. Most human impacts arise from increasing human populations coupled with rises in per capita resource use. The rates of change of human actions generally outpace those to which the biota can respond or adapt. If we are to maintain native biodiversity, then we must develop ways to envisage how the biota may be affected over the next several decades to guide management and policy responses. We consider the future for Australia's native biodiversity in the context of two assumptions. First, the human population in Australia will be 40million by 2050, which has been mooted by federal government agencies. Second, greenhouse gas emissions will track the highest rates considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The scenarios are based on major drivers of change, which were constructed from seven key drivers of change pertinent to native biodiversity. Five scenarios deal with differing distributions of the human population driven by uncertainties in climate change and in the human responses to climate change. Other scenarios are governed largely by global change and explore different rates of resource use, unprecedented rates of technological change, capabilities and societal values. A narrative for each scenario is provided. The set of scenarios spans a wide range of possible future paths for Australia, with different implications for the future of native biodiversity. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Meeting our need for electric energy: the role of nuclear power

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1984-07-01

This report focuses on the projected long-term growth of electric demand and the resultant need for new electric generating capacity through the year 2010. It summarizes the results of several technical and economic analyses done over the past two years to present two alternative scenarios for the future growth of nuclear energy in the United States. The first of these scenarios is based on a reference assumption of continued economic recovery and growth, while the second assumes a more vigorous economic recovery. These alternative scenarios reflect both the role that electricity could play in assuring the future economic wellbeing ofmore » the United States and the role that nuclear power could play in meeting future electricity needs. The scenarios do not project an expected future; rather, they describe a future that can be achieved only if US industry is revitalized in several key areas and if current obstacles to construction and operation of nuclear power plants are removed. This report underscores the need for renewed domestic industrialization as well as the need for government and industry to take steps to allow nuclear energy to fulfill its original potential. Further, it suggests some specific actions that must be taken if these goals are to be met.« less

QUANTIFYING AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE: HYDROLOGIC MODEL PERFORMANCE FOR A SERIES OF REALIZED "FUTURE" CONDITIONS

EPA Science Inventory

GIS-based hydrologic modeling offers a convenient means of assessing the impacts associated with land-cover/use change for environmental planning efforts. Future scenarios can be developed through a combination of modifications to the land-cover/use maps used to parameterize hydr...

CreativeDrought: An interdisciplinary approach to building resilience to drought

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rangecroft, Sally; Van Loon, Anne; Rohse, Melanie; Day, Rosie; Birkinshaw, Stephen; Makaya, Eugine

2017-04-01

Drought events cause severe water and food insecurities in many developing countries where resilience to natural hazards and change is low due to a number of reasons (including poverty, social and political inequality, and limited access to information). Furthermore, with climate change and increasing pressures from population and societal change, populations are expected to experience future droughts outside of their historic range. Integrated water resources management is an established tool combining natural science, engineering and management to help address drought and associated impacts. However, it often lacks a strong social and cultural aspect, leading to poor implementation on the ground. For a more holistic approach to building resilience to future drought, a stronger interdisciplinary approach is required which can incorporate the local cultural context and perspectives into drought and water management, and communicate information effectively to communities. In this pilot project 'CreativeDrought', we use a novel interdisciplinary approach aimed at building resilience to future drought in rural Africa by combining hydrological modelling with rich local information and engaging communicative approaches from social sciences. The work is conducted through a series of steps in which we i) engage with local rural communities to collect narratives on drought experiences; ii) generate hydrological modelling scenarios based on IPCC projections, existing data and the collected narratives; iii) feed these back to the local community to gather their responses to these scenarios; iv) iteratively adapt them to obtain hypothetical future drought scenarios; v) engage the community with the scenarios to formulate new future drought narratives; and vi) use this new data to enhance local water resource management. Here we present some of the indigenous knowledge gathered through narratives and the hydrological modelling scenarios for a rural community in Southern Africa. We use this local knowledge to develop the hypothetical future scenarios with a hydrological model (SHETRAN), with an iterative process to build trust in the tool. Through workshops, the communities can then use their own experiences, the modelling scenarios and climate analogies to experiment with stories about future drought events and possible effective ways of responding to them. This interdisciplinary approach allows the local community to extrapolate their narrated, experienced droughts from outside their historic range and into their projected range. These workshops will find innovative and effective ways to communicate science and information to the rural population. In this co-creation process of using creative experimentation based on narratives and scenario hydrological modelling, we develop new ways of adapting to drought and building resilience. This approach to increasing resilience is regarded as robust because it uses scientific methods, but is also culturally embedded and bottom-up.

Coupling urban growth scenarios with nearshore biophysical change models to inform coastal restoration planning in Puget Sound, Washington

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Byrd, K. B.; Kreitler, J.; Labiosa, W.

2010-12-01

A scenario represents an account of a plausible future given logical assumptions about how conditions change over discrete bounds of space and time. Development of multiple scenarios provides a means to identify alternative directions of urban growth that account for a range of uncertainty in human behavior. Interactions between human and natural processes may be studied by coupling urban growth scenario outputs with biophysical change models; if growth scenarios encompass a sufficient range of alternative futures, scenario assumptions serve to constrain the uncertainty of biophysical models. Spatially explicit urban growth models (map-based) produce output such as distributions and densities of residential or commercial development in a GIS format that can serve as input to other models. Successful fusion of growth model outputs with other model inputs requires that both models strategically address questions of interest, incorporate ecological feedbacks, and minimize error. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Puget Sound Ecosystem Portfolio Model (PSEPM) is a decision-support tool that supports land use and restoration planning in Puget Sound, Washington, a 35,500 sq. km region. The PSEPM couples future scenarios of urban growth with statistical, process-based and rule-based models of nearshore biophysical changes and ecosystem services. By using a multi-criteria approach, the PSEPM identifies cross-system and cumulative threats to the nearshore environment plus opportunities for conservation and restoration. Sub-models that predict changes in nearshore biophysical condition were developed and existing models were integrated to evaluate three growth scenarios: 1) Status Quo, 2) Managed Growth, and 3) Unconstrained Growth. These decadal scenarios were developed and projected out to 2060 at Oregon State University using the GIS-based ENVISION model. Given land management decisions and policies under each growth scenario, the sub-models predicted changes in 1) fecal coliform in shellfish growing areas, 2) sediment supply to beaches, 3) State beach recreational visits, 4) eelgrass habitat suitability, 5) forage fish habitat suitability, and 6) nutrient loadings. In some cases thousands of shoreline units were evaluated with multiple predictive models, creating a need for streamlined and consistent database development and data processing. Model development over multiple disciplines demonstrated the challenge of merging data types from multiple sources that were inconsistent in spatial and temporal resolution, classification schemes, and topology. Misalignment of data in space and time created potential for error and misinterpretation of results. This effort revealed that the fusion of growth scenarios and biophysical models requires an up-front iterative adjustment of both scenarios and models so that growth model outputs provide the needed input data in the correct format. Successful design of data flow across models that includes feedbacks between human and ecological systems was found to enhance the use of the final data product for decision making.

Decadal analysis of impact of future climate on wheat production in dry Mediterranean environment: A case of Jordan.

PubMed

Dixit, Prakash N; Telleria, Roberto; Al Khatib, Amal N; Allouzi, Siham F

2018-01-01

Different aspects of climate change, such as increased temperature, changed rainfall and higher atmospheric CO 2 concentration, all have different effects on crop yields. Process-based crop models are the most widely used tools for estimating future crop yield responses to climate change. We applied APSIM crop simulation model in a dry Mediterranean climate with Jordan as sentinel site to assess impact of climate change on wheat production at decadal level considering two climate change scenarios of representative concentration pathways (RCP) viz., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Impact of climatic variables alone was negative on grain yield but this adverse effect was negated when elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentrations were also considered in the simulations. Crop cycle of wheat was reduced by a fortnight for RCP4.5 scenario and by a month for RCP8.5 scenario at the approach of end of the century. On an average, a grain yield increase of 5 to 11% in near future i.e., 2010s-2030s decades, 12 to 16% in mid future i.e., 2040s-2060s decades and 9 to 16% in end of century period can be expected for moderate climate change scenario (RCP4.5) and 6 to 15% in near future, 13 to 19% in mid future and 7 to 20% increase in end of century period for a drastic climate change scenario (RCP8.5) based on different soils. Positive impact of elevated CO 2 is more pronounced in soils with lower water holding capacity with moderate increase in temperatures. Elevated CO 2 had greater positive effect on transpiration use efficiency (TUE) than negative effect of elevated mean temperatures. The change in TUE was in near perfect direct relationship with elevated CO 2 levels (R 2 >0.99) and every 100-ppm atmospheric CO 2 increase resulted in TUE increase by 2kgha -1 mm -1 . Thereby, in this environment yield gains are expected in future and farmers can benefit from growing wheat. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Policy Options for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Application in Healthcare; a Prospective View: Final Report (D5).

PubMed

van Oranje-Nassau, Constantijn; Schindler, Helen Rebecca; Vilamovska, Anna-Marie; Botterman, Maarten

2012-01-01

This article reviews the state of play of European markets and applications of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in healthcare in Europe. Based on the current situation the study presents three scenarios for 2020, to describe futures in which the technology and health care sectors develop in different ways. The scenarios were discussed in expert workshops to derive issues that need to be addressed by future policies of the European Union and other stakeholders. The market assessment is based on a review of literature and an analysis of proprietary market data. The information on the state of RFID applications in Health in Europe summarises the results of a literature review, an online Delphi survey, expert interviews and seven cases studies in Europe and the US. The policy analysis is based on the outcomes of a scenario gaming workshop with experts from academia, industry, healthcare providers, policymakers and representatives of patient organisations.

Climate Sensitivity Runs and Regional Hydrologic Modeling for Predicting the Response of the Greater Florida Everglades Ecosystem to Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Obeysekera, Jayantha; Barnes, Jenifer; Nungesser, Martha

2015-04-01

It is important to understand the vulnerability of the water management system in south Florida and to determine the resilience and robustness of greater Everglades restoration plans under future climate change. The current climate models, at both global and regional scales, are not ready to deliver specific climatic datasets for water resources investigations involving future plans and therefore a scenario based approach was adopted for this first study in restoration planning. We focused on the general implications of potential changes in future temperature and associated changes in evapotranspiration, precipitation, and sea levels at the regional boundary. From these, we developed a set of six climate and sea level scenarios, used them to simulate the hydrologic response of the greater Everglades region including agricultural, urban, and natural areas, and compared the results to those from a base run of current conditions. The scenarios included a 1.5 °C increase in temperature, ±10 % change in precipitation, and a 0.46 m (1.5 feet) increase in sea level for the 50-year planning horizon. The results suggested that, depending on the rainfall and temperature scenario, there would be significant changes in water budgets, ecosystem performance, and in water supply demands met. The increased sea level scenarios also show that the ground water levels would increase significantly with associated implications for flood protection in the urbanized areas of southeastern Florida.

Futures Scenario in Science Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lloyd, David; Vanderhout, Annastasia; Lloyd, Lisa; Atkins, David

2010-01-01

In this article we describe our experiences in developing futures scenarios in two science contexts, space science and atmospheric science/climate change. Futures scenario writing can develop scientific literacy by connecting science learning to students' lifeworlds--past, present and future. They also provide a synthesising mechanism for…

Human health risk assessment case study: an abandoned metal smelter site in Poland.

PubMed

Wcisło, Eleonora; Ioven, Dawn; Kucharski, Rafal; Szdzuj, Jerzy

2002-05-01

United States Environmental Protection Agency methodologies for human health risk assessment (HRA) were applied in a Brownfields Demonstration Project on the Warynski smelter site (WSS), an abandoned industrial site at Piekary Slaskie town, Upper Silesia, Poland. The HRA included the baseline risk assessment (BRA) and the development of risk-based preliminary remedial goals (RBPRGs). The HRA focused on surface area covered with waste materials, which were evaluated with regard to the potential risks they may pose to humans. Cadmium, copper, iron, manganese, lead, and zinc were proposed as the contaminants of potential concern (COPCs) at WSS based on archive data on chemical composition of waste located on WSS. For the defined future land use patterns, the industrial (I) and recreational (II) exposure scenarios were assumed and evaluated. The combined hazard index for all COPCs was 3.1E+00 for Scenario I and 3.2E+00 for Scenario II. Regarding potential carcinogenic risks associated with the inhalation route, only cadmium was a contributor, with risks of 1.6E-06 and 2.6E-07 for Scenario I and Scenario II, respectively. The results of the BRA indicated that the potential health risks at WSS were mainly associated with waste material exposure to cadmium (industrial and recreational scenarios) and lead (industrial scenario). RBPRGs calculated under the industrial scenario were 1.17E+03 and 1.62E+03 mg/kg for cadmium and lead, respectively. The RBPRG for cadmium was 1.18E+03 mg/kg under the recreational scenario. The BRA results, as well as RBCs, are comparable for both scenarios, so it is impossible to prioritize land use patterns for WSS based on these results. For choosing a future land use pattern or an appropriate redevelopment option, different factors would be decisive in the decision-making process, e.g., social, market needs, technical feasibility and costs of redevelopment actions or acceptance of local community.

Modelling the impacts of global change on concentrations of Escherichia coli in an urban river

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jalliffier-Verne, Isabelle; Leconte, Robert; Huaringa-Alvarez, Uriel; Heniche, Mourad; Madoux-Humery, Anne-Sophie; Autixier, Laurène; Galarneau, Martine; Servais, Pierre; Prévost, Michèle; Dorner, Sarah

2017-10-01

Discharges of combined sewer system overflows (CSOs) affect water quality in drinking water sources despite increasing regulation and discharge restrictions. A hydrodynamic model was applied to simulate the transport and dispersion of fecal contaminants from CSO discharges and to quantify the impacts of climate and population changes on the water quality of the river used as a drinking water source in Québec, Canada. The dispersion model was used to quantify Escherichia coli (E. coli) concentrations at drinking water intakes. Extreme flows during high and low water events were based on a frequency analysis in current and future climate scenarios. The increase of the number of discharges was quantified in current and future climate scenarios with regards to the frequency of overflows observed between 2009 and 2012. For future climate scenarios, effects of an increase of population were estimated according to current population growth statistics, independently of local changes in precipitation that are more difficult to predict than changes to regional scale hydrology. Under ;business-as-usual; scenarios restricting increases in CSO discharge frequency, mean E. coli concentrations at downstream drinking water intakes are expected to increase by up to 87% depending on the future climate scenario and could lead to changes in drinking water treatment requirements for the worst case scenarios. The greatest uncertainties are related to future local discharge loads. Climate change adaptation with regards to drinking water quality must focus on characterizing the impacts of global change at a local scale. Source water protection planning must consider the impacts of climate and population change to avoid further degradation of water quality.

Comparison of the results of climate change impact assessment between RCP8.5 and SSP2 scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, D. K.; Park, J. H.; Park, C.; Kim, S.

2017-12-01

Climate change scenarios are mainly published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and include SRES (Special Report on Emission Scenario) scenarios (IPCC Third Report), RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) scenarios (IPCC 5th Report), and SSP (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) scenarios. Currently widely used RCP scenarios are based on how future greenhouse gas concentrations will change. In contrast, SSP scenarios are that predict how climate change will change in response to socio-economic indicators such as population, economy, land use, and energy change. In this study, based on RCP 8.5 climate data, we developed a new Korean scenario using the future social and economic scenarios of SSP2. In the development of the scenario, not only Korea's emissions but also China and Japan's emissions were considered in terms of space. In addition, GHG emissions and air pollutant emissions were taken into consideration. Using the newly developed scenarios, the impacts assessments of the forest were evaluated and the impacts were evaluated using the RCP scenarios. The average precipitation is similar to the SSP2 scenario and the RCP8.5 scenario, but the SSP2 scenario shows the maximum value is lower than RCP8.5 scenario. This is because the SSP2 scenario simulates the summer precipitation weakly. The temperature distribution is similar for both scenarios, and it can be seen that the average temperature in the 2090s is higher than that in the 2050s. At present, forest net primary productivity of Korea is 693 tC/km2, and it is 679 tC/km2 when SSP2 scenario is applied. Also, the damage of forest by ozone is about 4.1-5.1%. On the other hand, when SSP2 scenario is applied, the forest net primary productivity of Korea is 607 tC/km2 and the forest net primary productivity of RCP8.5 scenario is 657 tC/km2. The analysis shows that the damage caused by climate change is reduced by 14.2% for the SSP2 scenario and 6.9% for the RCP8.5 scenario. The damage caused by ozone was about 5.0-5.6% in the SSP2 scenario and 3.8-4.2% in the RCP scenario.

Evaluating Global Land-use Change Scenario: Carbon Emission in RCP Scenarios and its Effects on Climate Response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, E.; Kawamiya, M.

2011-12-01

In CMIP5 experiments, new emissions scenarios for GCMs and Earth System Models (ESMs) have been constructed as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) by a community effort of Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) groups. In RCP scenarios, regional land-use scenarios have been depicted based on the socio-economic assumption of IAMs, and also downscaled spatially explicit land-use maps from the regional scenarios are prepared. In the land-use harmonization project, integrated gridded land-use transition data for the past and future time period has been developed from the reconstruction based on HYDE 3 agricultural data and FAO wood harvest data, and the future land-use scenarios from IAMs. These gridded land-use dataset are used as a forcing of some ESMs participating to the CMIP5 experiments, to assess the biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects of land-use and land cover change in the climate change simulation. In this study, global net CO2 emissions from land-use change for RCP scenarios are evaluated with an offline terrestrial biogeochemical model, VISIT (Vegetation Integrative SImulation Tool). Also the emissions are evaluated with coupled ESM, MIROC-ESM following the LUCID-CMIP5 protocol to see the effect of land-use and land cover change on climate response. Using the model output, consistency of the land-use change CO2 emission scenarios provided by RCPs are evaluated in terms of effect of CO2 fertilization, climate change, and land-use transition itself including the effect of biomass crops production with CCS. We find that a land-use scenario with decreased agricultural land-use intensity such as RCP 6.0 shows possibility of further absorption of CO2 through the climate-carbon feedback, and cooling effect through both biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects.

Insights into future air quality: a multipollutant analysis of future scenarios using the MARKAL model

EPA Science Inventory

In this presentation, we will provide an update on the development and evaluation of the Air Quality Futures (AQF) scenarios. These scenarios represent widely different assumptions regarding the evolution of the U.S. energy system over the next 40 years. The four AQF scenarios di...

Spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration modeling and climate projections.

PubMed

Gharbia, Salem S; Smullen, Trevor; Gill, Laurence; Johnston, Paul; Pilla, Francesco

2018-08-15

Evapotranspiration integrates energy and mass transfer between the Earth's surface and atmosphere and is the most active mechanism linking the atmosphere, hydrosphsophere, lithosphere and biosphere. This study focuses on the fine resolution modeling and projection of spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration on the large catchment scale as response to climate change. Six potential evapotranspiration designed algorithms, systematically selected based on a structured criteria and data availability, have been applied and then validated to long-term mean monthly data for the Shannon River catchment with a 50m 2 cell size. The best validated algorithm was therefore applied to evaluate the possible effect of future climate change on potential evapotranspiration rates. Spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration projections have been modeled based on climate change projections from multi-GCM ensembles for three future time intervals (2020, 2050 and 2080) using a range of different Representative Concentration Pathways producing four scenarios for each time interval. Finally, seasonal results have been compared to baseline results to evaluate the impact of climate change on the potential evapotranspiration and therefor on the catchment dynamical water balance. The results present evidence that the modeled climate change scenarios would have a significant impact on the future potential evapotranspiration rates. All the simulated scenarios predicted an increase in potential evapotranspiration for each modeled future time interval, which would significantly affect the dynamical catchment water balance. This study addresses the gap in the literature of using GIS-based algorithms to model fine-scale spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration on the large catchment systems based on climatological observations and simulations in different climatological zones. Providing fine-scale potential evapotranspiration data is very crucial to assess the dynamical catchment water balance to setup management scenarios for the water abstractions. This study illustrates a transferable systematic method to design GIS-based algorithms to simulate spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration on the large catchment systems. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Integrated impacts of future electricity mix scenarios on select southeastern US water resources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yates, D.; Meldrum, J.; Flores-Lopez, F.; Davis, Michelle

2013-09-01

Recent studies on the relationship between thermoelectric cooling and water resources have been made at coarse geographic resolution and do not adequately evaluate the localized water impacts on specific rivers and water bodies. We present the application of an integrated electricity generation-water resources planning model of the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint (ACF) and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) rivers based on the regional energy deployment system (ReEDS) and the water evaluation and planning (WEAP) system. A future scenario that includes a growing population and warmer, drier regional climate shows that benefits from a low-carbon, electricity fuel-mix could help maintain river temperatures below once-through coal-plants. These impacts are shown to be localized, as the cumulative impacts of different electric fuel-mix scenarios are muted in this relatively water-rich region, even in a warmer and drier future climate.

The Education Council Report 2001: An Evaluation Based on the ATEE-RDC19 Scenarios.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mikl, Josef

2003-01-01

Examines recent developments in European Union educational policy, highlighting a 2001 document of the Education Council. Evaluates the document's intentions and directions from a pedagogical viewpoint and assesses the document using the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's scenario framework. Shows that future European Union education…

Ecological responses of a large shallow lake (Okeechobee, Florida) to climate change and potential future hydrologic regimes.

PubMed

Havens, Karl E; Steinman, Alan D

2015-04-01

We considered how Lake Okeechobee, a large shallow lake in Florida, USA, might respond to altered hydrology associated with climate change scenarios in 2060. Water budgets and stage hydrographs were provided from the South Florida Water Management Model, a regional hydrologic model used to develop plans for Everglades restoration. Future scenarios include a 10% increase or decrease in rainfall (RF) and a calculated increase in evapotranspiration (ET), which is based on a 1.5 °C rise in temperature. Increasing RF and ET had counter-balancing effects on the water budget and when changing concurrently did not affect hydrology. In contrast, when RF decreased while ET increased, this resulted in a large change in hydrology. The surface elevation of the lake dropped by more than 2 m under this scenario compared to a future base condition, and extreme low elevation persisted for multiple years. In this declining RF/increasing ET scenario, the littoral and near-shore zones, areas that support emergent and submerged plants, were dry 55% of the time compared to less than 4% of the time in the future base run. There also were times when elevation increased as much as 3 m after intense RF events. Overall, these changes in hydrologic conditions would dramatically alter ecosystem services. Uncertainty about responses is highest at the pelagic-littoral interface, in regard to whether an extremely shallow lake could support submerged vascular plants, which are critical to the recreational fishery and for migratory birds. Along with improved regional climate modeling, research in that interface zone is needed to guide the adaptive process of Everglades restoration.

Ecological Responses of a Large Shallow Lake (Okeechobee, Florida) to Climate Change and Potential Future Hydrologic Regimes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Havens, Karl E.; Steinman, Alan D.

2015-04-01

We considered how Lake Okeechobee, a large shallow lake in Florida, USA, might respond to altered hydrology associated with climate change scenarios in 2060. Water budgets and stage hydrographs were provided from the South Florida Water Management Model, a regional hydrologic model used to develop plans for Everglades restoration. Future scenarios include a 10 % increase or decrease in rainfall (RF) and a calculated increase in evapotranspiration (ET), which is based on a 1.5 °C rise in temperature. Increasing RF and ET had counter-balancing effects on the water budget and when changing concurrently did not affect hydrology. In contrast, when RF decreased while ET increased, this resulted in a large change in hydrology. The surface elevation of the lake dropped by more than 2 m under this scenario compared to a future base condition, and extreme low elevation persisted for multiple years. In this declining RF/increasing ET scenario, the littoral and near-shore zones, areas that support emergent and submerged plants, were dry 55 % of the time compared to less than 4 % of the time in the future base run. There also were times when elevation increased as much as 3 m after intense RF events. Overall, these changes in hydrologic conditions would dramatically alter ecosystem services. Uncertainty about responses is highest at the pelagic-littoral interface, in regard to whether an extremely shallow lake could support submerged vascular plants, which are critical to the recreational fishery and for migratory birds. Along with improved regional climate modeling, research in that interface zone is needed to guide the adaptive process of Everglades restoration.

Land-use threats and protected areas: a scenario-based, landscape level approach

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wilson, Tamara S.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Sleeter, Rachel R.; Soulard, Christopher E.

2014-01-01

Anthropogenic land use will likely present a greater challenge to biodiversity than climate change this century in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Even if species are equipped with the adaptive capacity to migrate in the face of a changing climate, they will likely encounter a human-dominated landscape as a major dispersal obstacle. Our goal was to identify, at the ecoregion-level, protected areas in close proximity to lands with a higher likelihood of future land-use conversion. Using a state-and-transition simulation model, we modeled spatially explicit (1 km2) land use from 2000 to 2100 under seven alternative land-use and emission scenarios for ecoregions in the Pacific Northwest. We analyzed scenario-based land-use conversion threats from logging, agriculture, and development near existing protected areas. A conversion threat index (CTI) was created to identify ecoregions with highest projected land-use conversion potential within closest proximity to existing protected areas. Our analysis indicated nearly 22% of land area in the Coast Range, over 16% of land area in the Puget Lowland, and nearly 11% of the Cascades had very high CTI values. Broader regional-scale land-use change is projected to impact nearly 40% of the Coast Range, 30% of the Puget Lowland, and 24% of the Cascades (i.e., two highest CTI classes). A landscape level, scenario-based approach to modeling future land use helps identify ecoregions with existing protected areas at greater risk from regional land-use threats and can help prioritize future conservation efforts.

Future trends of global atmospheric antimony emissions from anthropogenic activities until 2050

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Junrui; Tian, Hezhong; Zhu, Chuanyong; Hao, Jiming; Gao, Jiajia; Wang, Yong; Xue, Yifeng; Hua, Shenbin; Wang, Kun

2015-11-01

This paper presents the scenario forecast of global atmospheric antimony (Sb) emissions from anthropogenic activities till 2050. The projection scenarios are built based on the comprehensive global antimony emission inventory for the period 1995-2010 which is reported in our previous study. Three scenarios are set up to investigate the future changes of global antimony emissions as well as their source and region contribution characteristics. Trends of activity levels specified as 5 primary source categories are projected by combining the historical trend extrapolation with EIA International energy outlook 2013, while the source-specific dynamic emission factors are determined by applying transformed normal distribution functions. If no major changes in the efficiency of emission control are introduced and keep current air quality legislations (Current Legislation scenario), global antimony emissions will increase by a factor of 2 between 2010 and 2050. The largest increase in Sb emissions is projected from Asia due to large volume of nonferrous metals production and waste incineration. In case of enforcing the pollutant emission standards (Strengthened Control scenario), global antimony emissions in 2050 will stabilize with that of 2010. Moreover, we can anticipate further declines in Sb emissions for all continents with the best emission control performances (Maximum Feasible Technological Reduction scenario). Future antimony emissions from the top 10 largest emitting countries have also been calculated and source category contributions of increasing emissions of these countries present significant diversity. Furthermore, global emission projections in 2050 are distributed within a 1° × 1°latitude/longitude grid. East Asia, Western Europe and North America present remarkable differences in emission intensity under the three scenarios, which implies that source-and-country specific control measures are necessary to be implemented for abating Sb emissions from varied continents and countries in the future.

Public Support for Public Schools: The Past, the Future, and the Federal Role.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piele, Philip K.

1983-01-01

Various indices of public support for the schools--school finance voting patterns, public opinion polls, and court litigation--are analyzed to document current trends. Two possible scenarios are forecast for the future, based on socioeconomic and demographic patterns. The need for future government support is stressed. (PP)

Land-use impacts on water resources and protected areas: applications of state-and-transition simulation modeling of future scenarios

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wilson, Tamara; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Sherba, Jason T.; Dick Cameron,

2015-01-01

Human land use will increasingly contribute to habitat loss and water shortages in California, given future population projections and associated land-use demand. Understanding how land-use change may impact future water use and where existing protected areas may be threatened by land-use conversion will be important if effective, sustainable management approaches are to be implemented. We used a state-and-transition simulation modeling (STSM) framework to simulate spatially-explicit (1 km2) historical (1992-2010) and future (2011-2060) land-use change for 52 California counties within Mediterranean California ecoregions. Historical land use and land cover (LULC) change estimates were derived from the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program dataset and attributed with county-level agricultural water-use data from the California Department of Water Resources. Five future alternative land-use scenarios were developed and modeled using the historical land-use change estimates and land-use projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission Scenarios A2 and B1 scenarios. Spatial land-use transition outputs across scenarios were combined to reveal scenario agreement and a land conversion threat index was developed to evaluate vulnerability of existing protected areas to proximal land conversion. By 2060, highest LULC conversion threats were projected to impact nearly 10,500 km2 of land area within 10 km of a protected area boundary and over 18,000 km2 of land area within essential habitat connectivity areas. Agricultural water use declined across all scenarios perpetuating historical drought-related land use from 2008-2010 and trends of annual cropland conversion into perennial woody crops. STSM is useful in analyzing land-use related impacts on water resource use as well as potential threats to existing protected land. Exploring a range of alternative, yet plausible, LULC change impacts will help to better inform resource management and mitigation strategies.

Development of a new methodology for the creation of water temperature scenarios using frequency analysis tool.

PubMed

Val, Jonatan; Pino, María Rosa; Chinarro, David

2018-03-15

Thermal quality in river ecosystems is a fundamental property for the development of biological processes and many of the human activities linked to the aquatic environment. In the future, this property is going to be threatened due to global change impacts, and basin managers will need useful tools to evaluate these impacts. Currently, future projections in temperature modelling are based on the historical data for air and water temperatures, and the relationship with past temperature scenarios; however, this represents a problem when evaluating future scenarios with new thermal impacts. Here, we analysed the thermal impacts produced by several human activities, and linked them with the decoupling degree of the thermal transfer mechanism from natural systems measured with frequency analysis tools (wavelet coherence). Once this relationship has been established we develop a new methodology for simulating different thermal impacts scenarios in order to project them into future. Finally, we validate this methodology using a site that changed its thermal quality during the studied period due to human impacts. Results showed a high correlation (r 2 =0.84) between the decoupling degree of the thermal transfer mechanisms and the quantified human impacts, obtaining 3 thermal impact scenarios. Furthermore, the graphic representation of these thermal scenarios with its wavelet coherence spectrums showed the impacts of an extreme drought period and the agricultural management. The inter-conversion between the scenarios gave high morphological similarities in the obtained wavelet coherence spectrums, and the validation process clearly showed high efficiency of the developed model against old methodologies when comparing with Nash-Stucliffe criterion. Although there is need for further investigation with different climatic and anthropic management conditions, the developed frequency models could be useful in decision-making processes by managers when faced with future global change impacts. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Integrating Future Information through Scenarios. AIR 1985 Annual Forum Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zentner, Rene D.

The way that higher education planners can take into account changes in the post-industrial society is discussed. The scenario method is proposed as a method of integrating futures information. The planner can be provided with several probable futures, each of which can be incorporated in a scenario. An effective scenario provides the planner…

Projections of global mortality and burden of disease from 2002 to 2030.

PubMed

Mathers, Colin D; Loncar, Dejan

2006-11-01

Global and regional projections of mortality and burden of disease by cause for the years 2000, 2010, and 2030 were published by Murray and Lopez in 1996 as part of the Global Burden of Disease project. These projections, which are based on 1990 data, continue to be widely quoted, although they are substantially outdated; in particular, they substantially underestimated the spread of HIV/AIDS. To address the widespread demand for information on likely future trends in global health, and thereby to support international health policy and priority setting, we have prepared new projections of mortality and burden of disease to 2030 starting from World Health Organization estimates of mortality and burden of disease for 2002. This paper describes the methods, assumptions, input data, and results. Relatively simple models were used to project future health trends under three scenarios-baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic-based largely on projections of economic and social development, and using the historically observed relationships of these with cause-specific mortality rates. Data inputs have been updated to take account of the greater availability of death registration data and the latest available projections for HIV/AIDS, income, human capital, tobacco smoking, body mass index, and other inputs. In all three scenarios there is a dramatic shift in the distribution of deaths from younger to older ages and from communicable, maternal, perinatal, and nutritional causes to noncommunicable disease causes. The risk of death for children younger than 5 y is projected to fall by nearly 50% in the baseline scenario between 2002 and 2030. The proportion of deaths due to noncommunicable disease is projected to rise from 59% in 2002 to 69% in 2030. Global HIV/AIDS deaths are projected to rise from 2.8 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2030 under the baseline scenario, which assumes coverage with antiretroviral drugs reaches 80% by 2012. Under the optimistic scenario, which also assumes increased prevention activity, HIV/AIDS deaths are projected to drop to 3.7 million in 2030. Total tobacco-attributable deaths are projected to rise from 5.4 million in 2005 to 6.4 million in 2015 and 8.3 million in 2030 under our baseline scenario. Tobacco is projected to kill 50% more people in 2015 than HIV/AIDS, and to be responsible for 10% of all deaths globally. The three leading causes of burden of disease in 2030 are projected to include HIV/AIDS, unipolar depressive disorders, and ischaemic heart disease in the baseline and pessimistic scenarios. Road traffic accidents are the fourth leading cause in the baseline scenario, and the third leading cause ahead of ischaemic heart disease in the optimistic scenario. Under the baseline scenario, HIV/AIDS becomes the leading cause of burden of disease in middle- and low-income countries by 2015. These projections represent a set of three visions of the future for population health, based on certain explicit assumptions. Despite the wide uncertainty ranges around future projections, they enable us to appreciate better the implications for health and health policy of currently observed trends, and the likely impact of fairly certain future trends, such as the ageing of the population, the continued spread of HIV/AIDS in many regions, and the continuation of the epidemiological transition in developing countries. The results depend strongly on the assumption that future mortality trends in poor countries will have a relationship to economic and social development similar to those that have occurred in the higher-income countries.

Future possible crop yield scenarios under multiple SSP and RCP scenarios.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sakurai, G.; Yokozawa, M.; Nishimori, M.; Okada, M.

2016-12-01

Understanding the effect of future climate change on global crop yields is one of the most important tasks for global food security. Future crop yields would be influenced by climatic factors such as the changes of temperature, precipitation and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. On the other hand, the effect of the changes of agricultural technologies such as crop varieties, pesticide and fertilizer input on crop yields have large uncertainty. However, not much is available on the contribution ratio of each factor under the future climate change scenario. We estimated the future global yields of four major crops (maize, soybean, rice and wheat) under three Shared Socio Economic Pathways (SSPs) and four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). For this purpose, firstly, we estimated a parameter of a process based model (PRYSBI2) using a Bayesian method for each 1.125 degree spatial grid. The model parameter is relevant to the agricultural technology (we call "technological parameter" here after). Then, we analyzed the relationship between the values of technological parameter and GDP values. We found that the estimated values of the technological parameter were positively correlated with the GDP. Using the estimated relationship, we predicted future crop yield during 2020 and 2100 under SSP1, SSP2 and SSP3 scenarios and RCP 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5. The estimated crop yields were different among SSP scenarios. However, we found that the yield difference attributable to SSPs were smaller than those attributable to CO2 fertilization effects and climate change. Particularly, the estimated effect of the change of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on global yields was more than four times larger than that of GDP for C3 crops.

Future changes in tropospheric ozone under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kawase, Hiroaki; Nagashima, Tatsuya; Sudo, Kengo; Nozawa, Toru

2011-03-01

We consider future changes in tropospheric ozone based on the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), which are new emission and concentration scenarios for the 5th coupled model intercomparison project. In contrast to the SRES scenarios, all the RCP scenarios assume an emission reduction of NOx by the late 21st Century that has the potential to achieve tropospheric ozone reduction. However, increasing radiative forcing (RF) due to greenhouse gases and changes in CH4 concentration also contribute to differences in the tropospheric ozone distribution among RCP scenarios. In the RCP4.5 and RCP6.0, assuming the stabilization of RF, the increase in tropospheric ozone due to enhanced residual circulation is cancelled out by the ozone reduction due to ozone precursor reductions. In contrast, in the RCP8.5, assuming increasing RF even after 2100, further enhanced residual circulation and significant increase in CH4 cause a dramatic increase in tropospheric ozone.

Impact of Spatial Scales on the Intercomparison of Climate Scenarios

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Luo, Wei; Steptoe, Michael; Chang, Zheng

2017-01-01

Scenario analysis has been widely applied in climate science to understand the impact of climate change on the future human environment, but intercomparison and similarity analysis of different climate scenarios based on multiple simulation runs remain challenging. Although spatial heterogeneity plays a key role in modeling climate and human systems, little research has been performed to understand the impact of spatial variations and scales on similarity analysis of climate scenarios. To address this issue, the authors developed a geovisual analytics framework that lets users perform similarity analysis of climate scenarios from the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) using a hierarchicalmore » clustering approach.« less

Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis of Impacts of Future Heat Waves on Mortality in the Eastern United States

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wu, Jianyong; Zhou, Ying; Gao, Yang

Background: It is anticipated that climate change will influence heat-related mortality in the future. However, the estimation of excess mortality attributable to future heat waves is subject to large uncertainties, which have not been examined under the latest greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Objectives: We estimated the future heat wave impact on mortality in the eastern United States (~ 1,700 counties) under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and analyzed the sources of uncertainties. Methods Using dynamically downscaled hourly temperature projections in 2057-2059, we calculated heat wave days and episodes based on four heat wave metrics, and estimated the excess mortality attributablemore » to them. The sources of uncertainty in estimated excess mortality were apportioned using a variance-decomposition method. Results: In the eastern U.S., the excess mortality attributable to heat waves could range from 200-7,807 with the mean of 2,379 persons/year in 2057-2059. The projected average excess mortality in RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios was 1,403 and 3,556 persons/year, respectively. Excess mortality would be relatively high in the southern and eastern coastal areas. The major sources of uncertainty in the estimates are relative risk of heat wave mortality, the RCP scenarios, and the heat wave definitions. Conclusions: The estimated mortality risks from future heat waves are likely an order of magnitude higher than its current level and lead to thousands of deaths each year under the RCP8.5 scenario. The substantial spatial variability in estimated county-level heat mortality suggests that effective mitigation and adaptation measures should be developed based on spatially resolved data.« less

Modelling the influence of predicted future climate change on the risk of wind damage within New Zealand's planted forests.

PubMed

Moore, John R; Watt, Michael S

2015-08-01

Wind is the major abiotic disturbance in New Zealand's planted forests, but little is known about how the risk of wind damage may be affected by future climate change. We linked a mechanistic wind damage model (ForestGALES) to an empirical growth model for radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) and a process-based growth model (cenw) to predict the risk of wind damage under different future emissions scenarios and assumptions about the future wind climate. The cenw model was used to estimate site productivity for constant CO2 concentration at 1990 values and for assumed increases in CO2 concentration from current values to those expected during 2040 and 2090 under the B1 (low), A1B (mid-range) and A2 (high) emission scenarios. Stand development was modelled for different levels of site productivity, contrasting silvicultural regimes and sites across New Zealand. The risk of wind damage was predicted for each regime and emission scenario combination using the ForestGALES model. The sensitivity to changes in the intensity of the future wind climate was also examined. Results showed that increased tree growth rates under the different emissions scenarios had the greatest impact on the risk of wind damage. The increase in risk was greatest for stands growing at high stand density under the A2 emissions scenario with increased CO2 concentration. The increased productivity under this scenario resulted in increased tree height, without a corresponding increase in diameter, leading to more slender trees that were predicted to be at greater risk from wind damage. The risk of wind damage was further increased by the modest increases in the extreme wind climate that are predicted to occur. These results have implications for the development of silvicultural regimes that are resilient to climate change and also indicate that future productivity gains may be offset by greater losses from disturbances. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Past and predicted future changes in the land cover of the Upper Mississippi River floodplain, USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

De Jager, N. R.; Rohweder, J.J.; Nelson, J.C.

2013-01-01

This study provides one historical and two alternative future contexts for evaluating land cover modifications within the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) floodplain. Given previously documented changes in land use, river engineering, restoration efforts and hydro-climatic changes within the UMR basin and floodplain, we wanted to know which of these changes are the most important determinants of current and projected future floodplain land cover. We used Geographic Information System data covering approximately 37% of the UMR floodplain (3232 km2) for ca 1890 (pre-lock and dam) and three contemporary periods (1975, 1989 and 2000) across which river restoration actions have increased and hydro-climatic changes have occurred. We further developed two 50-year future scenarios from the spatially dependent land cover transitions that occurred from 1975 to 1989 (scenario A) and from 1989 to 2000 (scenario B) using Markov models.Land cover composition of the UMR did not change significantly from 1975 to 2000, indicating that current land cover continues to reflect historical modifications that support agricultural production and commercial navigation despite some floodplain restoration efforts and variation in river discharge. Projected future land cover composition based on scenario A was not significantly different from the land cover for 1975, 1989 or 2000 but was different from the land cover of scenario B, which was also different from all other periods. Scenario B forecasts transition of some forest and marsh habitat to open water by the year 2050 for some portions of the northern river and projects that some agricultural lands will transition to open water in the southern portion of the river. Future floodplain management and restoration planning efforts in the UMR should consider the potential consequences of continued shifts in hydro-climatic conditions that may occur as a result of climate change and the potential effects on floodplain land cover.

Climate Change Effects on Heat- and Cold-Related Mortality in the Netherlands: A Scenario-Based Integrated Environmental Health Impact Assessment

PubMed Central

Huynen, Maud M. T. E.; Martens, Pim

2015-01-01

Although people will most likely adjust to warmer temperatures, it is still difficult to assess what this adaptation will look like. This scenario-based integrated health impacts assessment explores baseline (1981–2010) and future (2050) population attributable fractions (PAF) of mortality due to heat (PAFheat) and cold (PAFcold), by combining observed temperature–mortality relationships with the Dutch KNMI’14 climate scenarios and three adaptation scenarios. The 2050 model results without adaptation reveal a decrease in PAFcold (8.90% at baseline; 6.56%–7.85% in 2050) that outweighs the increase in PAFheat (1.15% at baseline; 1.66%–2.52% in 2050). When the 2050 model runs applying the different adaptation scenarios are considered as well, however, the PAFheat ranges between 0.94% and 2.52% and the PAFcold between 6.56% and 9.85%. Hence, PAFheat and PAFcold can decrease as well as increase in view of climate change (depending on the adaptation scenario). The associated annual mortality burdens in 2050—accounting for both the increasing temperatures and mortality trend—show that heat-related deaths will range between 1879 and 5061 (1511 at baseline) and cold-related deaths between 13,149 and 19,753 (11,727 at baseline). Our results clearly illustrate that model outcomes are not only highly dependent on climate scenarios, but also on adaptation assumptions. Hence, a better understanding of (the impact of various) plausible adaptation scenarios is required to advance future integrated health impact assessments. PMID:26512680

Collaborative development of land use change scenarios for analysing hydro-meteorological risk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malek, Žiga; Glade, Thomas

2015-04-01

Simulating future land use changes remains a difficult task, due to uncontrollable and uncertain driving forces of change. Scenario development emerged as a tool to address these limitations. Scenarios offer the exploration of possible futures and environmental consequences, and enable the analysis of possible decisions. Therefore, there is increasing interest of both decision makers and researchers to apply scenarios when studying future land use changes and their consequences. The uncertainties related to generating land use change scenarios are among others defined by the accuracy of data, identification and quantification of driving forces, and the relation between expected future changes and the corresponding spatial pattern. To address the issue of data and intangible driving forces, several studies have applied collaborative, participatory techniques when developing future scenarios. The involvement of stakeholders can lead to incorporating a broader spectrum of professional values and experience. Moreover, stakeholders can help to provide missing data, improve detail, uncover mistakes, and offer alternatives. Thus, collaborative scenarios can be considered as more reliable and relevant. Collaborative scenario development has been applied to study a variety of issues in environmental sciences on different spatial and temporal scales. Still, these participatory approaches are rarely spatially explicit, making them difficult to apply when analysing changes to hydro-meteorological risk on a local scale. Spatial explicitness is needed to identify potentially critical areas of land use change, leading to locations where the risk might increase. In order to allocate collaboratively developed scenarios of land change, we combined participatory modeling with geosimulation in a multi-step scenario generation framework. We propose a framework able to develop scenarios that are plausible, can overcome data inaccessibility, address intangible and external driving forces of land change, and is transferable to other case study areas with different land use change processes and consequences. The framework starts with the involvement of stakeholders where driving forces of land use change are being studied by performing interviews and group discussions. In order to bridge the gap between qualitative methods and conventional geospatial techniques, we applied cognitive mapping and the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact and Response framework (DPSIR) to develop a conceptual land use change model. This was later transformed into a spatially explicit land use change model based on remote sensing data, GIS and cellular automata spatial allocation. The methodology was developed and applied in a study area in the eastern Italian Alps, where the uncertainties regarding future urban expansion are high. Later, we transferred it to a study area in the Romanian Carpathians, where the identified prevailing process of land use change is deforestation. Both areas are subject to hydro-meteorological risk, posing a need for the analysis of the possible future spatial pattern and locations of land use change. The resulting scenarios enabled us, to point at identifying hot-spots of land use change, serving as a possible input for a risk assessment.

River flood risk in Jakarta under scenarios of future change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Budiyono, Yus; Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.; Tollenaar, Daniel; Ward, Philip J.

2016-03-01

Given the increasing impacts of flooding in Jakarta, methods for assessing current and future flood risk are required. In this paper, we use the Damagescanner-Jakarta risk model to project changes in future river flood risk under scenarios of climate change, land subsidence, and land use change. Damagescanner-Jakarta is a simple flood risk model that estimates flood risk in terms of annual expected damage, based on input maps of flood hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. We estimate baseline flood risk at USD 186 million p.a. Combining all future scenarios, we simulate a median increase in risk of +180 % by 2030. The single driver with the largest contribution to that increase is land subsidence (+126 %). We simulated the impacts of climate change by combining two scenarios of sea level rise with simulations of changes in 1-day extreme precipitation totals from five global climate models (GCMs) forced by the four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The results are highly uncertain; the median change in risk due to climate change alone by 2030 is a decrease by -46 %, but we simulate an increase in risk under 12 of the 40 GCM-RCP-sea level rise combinations. Hence, we developed probabilistic risk scenarios to account for this uncertainty. If land use change by 2030 takes places according to the official Jakarta Spatial Plan 2030, risk could be reduced by 12 %. However, if land use change in the future continues at the same rate as the last 30 years, large increases in flood risk will take place. Finally, we discuss the relevance of the results for flood risk management in Jakarta.

Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclone Model Tracks in Present and Future Climates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nakamura, Jennifer; Camargo, Suzana J.; Sobel, Adam H.; Henderson, Naomi; Emanuel, Kerry A.; Kumar, Arun; LaRow, Timothy E.; Murakami, Hiroyuki; Roberts, Malcolm J.; Scoccimarro, Enrico; Vidale, Pier Luigi; Wang, Hui; Wehner, Michael F.; Zhao, Ming

2017-09-01

Western North Pacific tropical cyclone (TC) model tracks are analyzed in two large multimodel ensembles, spanning a large variety of models and multiple future climate scenarios. Two methodologies are used to synthesize the properties of TC tracks in this large data set: cluster analysis and mass moment ellipses. First, the models' TC tracks are compared to observed TC tracks' characteristics, and a subset of the models is chosen for analysis, based on the tracks' similarity to observations and sample size. Potential changes in track types in a warming climate are identified by comparing the kernel smoothed probability distributions of various track variables in historical and future scenarios using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov significance test. Two track changes are identified. The first is a statistically significant increase in the north-south expansion, which can also be viewed as a poleward shift, as TC tracks are prevented from expanding equatorward due to the weak Coriolis force near the equator. The second change is an eastward shift in the storm tracks that occur near the central Pacific in one of the multimodel ensembles, indicating a possible increase in the occurrence of storms near Hawaii in a warming climate. The dependence of the results on which model and future scenario are considered emphasizes the necessity of including multiple models and scenarios when considering future changes in TC characteristics.

Scenario Development for the Southwestern United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mahmoud, M.; Gupta, H.; Stewart, S.; Liu, Y.; Hartmann, H.; Wagener, T.

2006-12-01

The primary goal of employing a scenario development approach for the U.S. southwest is to inform regional policy by examining future possibilities related to regional vegetation change, water-leasing, and riparian restoration. This approach is necessary due to a lack of existing explicit water resources application of scenarios to the entire southwest region. A formal approach for scenario development is adopted and applied towards water resources issues within the arid and semi-arid regions of the U.S. southwest following five progressive and reiterative phases: scenario definition, scenario construction, scenario analysis, scenario assessment, and risk management. In the scenario definition phase, the inputs of scientists, modelers, and stakeholders were collected in order to define and construct relevant scenarios to the southwest and its water sustainability needs. From stakeholder-driven scenario workshops and breakout sessions, the three main axes of principal change were identified to be climate change, population development patterns, and quality of information monitoring technology. Based on the extreme and varying conditions of these three main axes, eight scenario narratives were drafted to describe the state of each scenario's respective future and the events which led to it. Events and situations are described within each scenario narrative with respect to key variables; variables that are both important to regional water resources (as distinguished by scientists and modelers), and are good tracking and monitoring indicators of change. The current phase consists of scenario construction, where the drafted scenarios are re-presented to regional scientists and modelers to verify that proper key variables are included (or excluded) from the eight narratives. The next step is to construct the data sets necessary to implement the eight scenarios on the respective computational models of modelers investigating vegetation change, water-leasing, and riparian restoration in the southwest

Maximising the Effectiveness of a Scenario Planning Process: Tips for Scenario Planners in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sayers, Nicola

2011-01-01

Scenario planning is a tool which can help organisations and people to think about, and plan for, the long-term future. In basic terms, it involves creating a number of in-depth scenarios (stories), each of which tells of a different possible future for an organisation or issue, and considering how each different future might influence…

Scenario analysis of the future of medicines.

PubMed Central

Leufkens, H.; Haaijer-Ruskamp, F.; Bakker, A.; Dukes, G.

1994-01-01

Planning future policy for medicines poses difficult problems. The main players in the drug business have their own views as to how the world around them functions and how the future of medicines should be shaped. In this paper we show how a scenario analysis can provide a powerful teaching device to readjust peoples' preconceptions. Scenarios are plausible, not probable or preferable, portraits of alternative futures. A series of four of alternative scenarios were constructed: "sobriety in sufficiency," "risk avoidance," "technology on demand," and "free market unfettered." Each scenario was drawn as a narrative, documented quantitatively wherever possible, that described the world as it might be if particular trends were to dominate development. The medical community and health policy markers may use scenarios to take a long term view in order to be prepared adequately for the future. PMID:7987110

A scenario framework to explore the future migration and adaptation in deltas: A multi-scale and participatory approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kebede, Abiy S.; Nicholls, Robert J.; Allan, Andrew; Arto, Inaki; Cazcarro, Ignacio; Fernandes, Jose A.; Hill, Chris T.; Hutton, Craig W.; Kay, Susan; Lawn, Jon; Lazar, Attila N.; Whitehead, Paul W.

2017-04-01

Coastal deltas are home for over 500 million people globally, and they have been identified as one of the most vulnerable coastal environments during the 21st century. They are susceptible to multiple climatic (e.g., sea-level rise, storm surges, change in temperature and precipitation) and socio-economic (e.g., human-induced subsidence, population and urbanisation changes, GDP growth) drivers of change. These drivers also operate at multiple scales, ranging from local to global and short- to long-term. This highlights the complex challenges deltas face in terms of both their long-term sustainability as well as the well-being of their residents and the health of ecosystems that support the livelihood of large (often very poor) population under uncertain changing conditions. A holistic understanding of these challenges and the potential impacts of future climate and socio-economic changes is central for devising robust adaptation policies. Scenario analysis has long been identified as a strategic management tool to explore future climate change and its impacts for supporting robust decision-making under uncertainty. This work presents the overall scenario framework, methodology, and processes adopted for the development of scenarios in the DECCMA* project. DECCMA is analysing the future of three deltas in South Asia and West Africa: (i) the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta (Bangladesh/India), (ii) the Mahanadi delta (India), and (iii) the Volta delta (Ghana). This includes comparisons between these three deltas. Hence, the scenario framework comprises a multi-scale hybrid approach, with six levels of scenario considerations: (i) global (climate change, e.g., sea-level rise, temperature change; and socio-economic assumptions, e.g., population and urbanisation changes, GDP growth); (ii) regional catchments (e.g., river flow modelling), (iii) regional seas (e.g., fisheries modelling), (iv) regional politics (e.g., transboundary disputes), (v) national (e.g., socio-economic factors), and (vi) delta-scale (e.g., future adaptation and migration policies) scenarios. The framework includes and combines expert-based and participatory approaches and provides improved specification of the role of scenarios to analyse the future state of adaptation and migration across the three deltas. It facilitates the development of appropriate and consistent endogenous and exogenous scenario futures: (i) at the delta-scale, (ii) across all deltas, and (iii) with wider climate change, environmental change, and adaptation & migration research. Key words: Coastal deltas, sea-level rise, migration and adaptation, multi-scale scenarios, participatory approach *DECCMA (Deltas, Vulnerability & Climate Change: Migration & Adaptation) project is part of the Collaborative ADAPTATION Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), with financial support from the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Risk Analysis of Near-Coastal Species of the U.S. Pacific Coast: Case Study Comparing Risks Associated with Two Future Climate Scenarios

EPA Science Inventory

Fundamental questions for climate change policy and adaptation strategies are to what extent does ecological risk change under different climate scenarios and how do any changes in risk vary among taxa and geographically. To evaluate these questions, we developed a rule-based fra...

Forecasting the effects of land use scenarios on farmland birds reveal a potential mitigation of climate change impacts.

PubMed

Princé, Karine; Lorrillière, Romain; Barbet-Massin, Morgane; Léger, François; Jiguet, Frédéric

2015-01-01

Climate and land use changes are key drivers of current biodiversity trends, but interactions between these drivers are poorly modeled, even though they could amplify or mitigate negative impacts of climate change. Here, we attempt to predict the impacts of different agricultural change scenarios on common breeding birds within farmland included in the potential future climatic suitable areas for these species. We used the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) to integrate likely changes in species climatic suitability, based on species distribution models, and changes in area of farmland, based on the IMAGE model, inside future climatic suitable areas. We also developed six farmland cover scenarios, based on expert opinion, which cover a wide spectrum of potential changes in livestock farming and cropping patterns by 2050. We ran generalized linear mixed models to calibrate the effects of farmland cover and climate change on bird specific abundance within 386 small agricultural regions. We used model outputs to predict potential changes in bird populations on the basis of predicted changes in regional farmland cover, in area of farmland and in species climatic suitability. We then examined the species sensitivity according to their habitat requirements. A scenario based on extensification of agricultural systems (i.e., low-intensity agriculture) showed the greatest potential to reduce reverse current declines in breeding birds. To meet ecological requirements of a larger number of species, agricultural policies accounting for regional disparities and landscape structure appear more efficient than global policies uniformly implemented at national scale. Interestingly, we also found evidence that farmland cover changes can mitigate the negative effect of climate change. Here, we confirm that there is a potential for countering negative effects of climate change by adaptive management of landscape. We argue that such studies will help inform sustainable agricultural policies for the future.

Diversity modelling for electrical power system simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharip, R. M.; Abu Zarim, M. A. U. A.

2013-12-01

This paper considers diversity of generation and demand profiles against the different future energy scenarios and evaluates these on a technical basis. Compared to previous studies, this research applied a forecasting concept based on possible growth rates from publically electrical distribution scenarios concerning the UK. These scenarios were created by different bodies considering aspects such as environment, policy, regulation, economic and technical. In line with these scenarios, forecasting is on a long term timescale (up to every ten years from 2020 until 2050) in order to create a possible output of generation mix and demand profiles to be used as an appropriate boundary condition for the network simulation. The network considered is a segment of rural LV populated with a mixture of different housing types. The profiles for the 'future' energy and demand have been successfully modelled by applying a forecasting method. The network results under these profiles shows for the cases studied that even though the value of the power produced from each Micro-generation is often in line with the demand requirements of an individual dwelling there will be no problems arising from high penetration of Micro-generation and demand side management for each dwellings considered. The results obtained highlight the technical issues/changes for energy delivery and management to rural customers under the future energy scenarios.

AN ALTERNATIVE FUTURES ANALYSIS OF FARMINGTON BAY WETLANDS IN THE GREAT SALT LAKE

EPA Science Inventory

An Alternative Futures Analysis (AFA) was conducted to evaluate tradeoffs between landscape design scenarios and ecological services for Farmington Bay, Great Salt Lake (GSL), wetlands. Model scenarios included plan trend and conservation "futures" scenarios projected to 2030. ...

[Estimating the impacts of future climate change on water requirement and water deficit of winter wheat in Henan Province, China].

PubMed

Ji, Xing-jie; Cheng, Lin; Fang, Wen-song

2015-09-01

Based on the analysis of water requirement and water deficit during development stage of winter wheat in recent 30 years (1981-2010) in Henan Province, the effective precipitation was calculated using the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation method, the water requirement (ETC) was estimated by using FAO Penman-Monteith equation and crop coefficient method recommended by FAO, combined with the climate change scenario A2 (concentration on the economic envelopment) and B2 ( concentration on the sustainable development) of Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) , the spatial and temporal characteristics of impacts of future climate change on effective precipitation, water requirement and water deficit of winter wheat were estimated. The climatic impact factors of ETc and WD also were analyzed. The results showed that under A2 and B2 scenarios, there would be a significant increase in anomaly percentage of effective precipitation, water requirement and water deficit of winter wheat during the whole growing period compared with the average value from 1981 to 2010. Effective precipitation increased the most in 2030s under A2 and B2 scenarios by 33.5% and 39.2%, respectively. Water requirement increased the most in 2010s under A2 and B2 scenarios by 22.5% and 17.5%, respectively, and showed a significant downward trend with time. Water deficit increased the most under A2 scenario in 2010s by 23.6% and under B2 scenario in 2020s by 13.0%. Partial correlation analysis indicated that solar radiation was the main cause for the variation of ETc and WD in future under A2 and B2 scenarios. The spatial distributions of effective precipitation, water requirement and water deficit of winter wheat during the whole growing period were spatially heterogeneous because of the difference in geographical and climatic environments. A possible tendency of water resource deficiency may exist in Henan Province in the future.

Asian water futures - Multi scenarios, models and criteria assessment -

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satoh, Yusuke; Burek, Peter; Wada, Yoshihide; Flrörke, Martina; Eisner, Stephanie; Hanasaki, Naota; Kahil, Taher; Tramberend, Sylvia; Fischer, Günther; Wiberg, David

2016-04-01

A better understanding of the current and future availability of water resources is essential for the implementation of the recently agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Long-term/efficient strategies for coping with current and potential future water-related challenges are urgently required. Although Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) were develop for the impact assessment of climate change, very few assessments have yet used the SSPs to assess water resources. Then the IIASA Water Futures and Solutions Initiative (WFaS), developed a set of water use scenarios consistent with RCPs and SSPs and applying the latest climate changes scenarios. Here this study focuses on results for Asian countries for the period 2010-2050. We present three conceivable future pathways of Asian water resources, determined by feasible combinations of two RCPs and three SSPs. Such a scenario approach provides valuable insights towards identifying appropriate strategies as gaps between a "scenario world" and reality. In addition, for the assessment of future water resources a multi-criteria analysis is applied. A classification system for countries and watershed that consists of two broad dimensions: (i) economic and institutional adaptive capacity, (ii) hydrological complexity. The latter is composed of several sub-indexes including total renewable water resources per capita, the ratio of water demand to renewable water resource, variability of runoff and dependency ratio to external. Furthermore, this analysis uses a multi-model approach to estimate runoff and discharge using 5 GCMs and 5 global hydrological models (GHMs). Three of these GHMs calculate water use based on a consistent set of scenarios in addition to water availability. As a result, we have projected hot spots of water scarcity in Asia and their spatial and temporal change. For example, in a scenario based on SSP2 and RCP6.0, by 2050, in total 2.1 billion people (46% of Asian population) are going to live in countries classified as high hydrological complexity. In particular, in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Pakistan, then home to 370 million people, hydrological complexity will be high while adaptation capacity is still low. On the other hand, a part of people however who live in countries with higher expected adaptive capacities may have better futures depending on policies and investment. Besides country scale, grid scale analyses clearly highlighted that a large part of population living under strong water stress in highly populated areas of Asia, such as east and coastal areas in China and large parts of India. Our preliminary results show that a significant impact of socioeconomic scenarios on each of the indexes which is comparable to that of climate scenarios. For instance, the least timing, trend and spatial distribution of water resource per capita are highly affected by projected population. This study shows that features of time series change in each indexes are also informative particularly for decision makers because they support in optimal timing of investment for countermeasures. In this presentation, we are showing our analysis framework and results of each integrated indexes.

Assessment of vulnerability to future marine processes of urbanized coastal environments by a GIS-based approach: expected scenario in the metropolitan area of Bari (Italy)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mancini, F.; Ceppi, C.; Christopulos, V.

2013-12-01

Literature concerning the risk assessment procedures after extreme meteorological events is generally focused on the establishing of relationship between actual severe weather conditions and impact detected over the involved zones. Such an events are classified on the basis of measurements and observation able to assess the magnitude of phenomena or on the basis of related effects on the affected area, the latter being deeply connected with the overall physical vulnerability. However such assessment almost never do consider scenario about expected extreme event and possible pattern of urbanization at the time of impact and nor the spatial and temporal uncertainty of phenomena are taken into account. The drawn of future scenario about coastal vulnerability to marine processes is therefore difficult. This work focuses the study case of the Metropoli Terra di Bari (metropolitan area of Bari, Apulia, Italy) where a coastal vulnerability analysis due to climate changes expected on the basis of expert opinions coming from the scientific community was carried out. Several possible impacts on the coastal environments were considered, in particular sea level rise inundation, flooding due to storm surge and coastal erosion. For such a purpose the methodology base on SRES (Special Report on Emission Scenario) produced by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was adopted after a regionalization procedure as carried out by Verburgh and others (2006) at the European scale. The open source software SLEUTH, base on the cellular automate principle, was used and the reliability of obtained scenario verified through the Monte Carlo method. Once these scenario were produced, a GIS-based multicriteria methodology was implemented to evaluate the vulnerability of the urbanized coastal area of interest. Several vulnerability maps related are therefore available for different scenario able to consider the degree of hazards and potential development of the typology and extent of urban settlements. The vulnerability assessments under different scenario could represent a suitable tool in the designing of risk mitigation strategies under uncertain scenario of hazard.

Controlling the Growth of Future LEO Debris Populations with Active Debris Removal

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liou, J.-C.; Johnson, N. L.; Hill, N. M.

2008-01-01

Active debris removal (ADR) was suggested as a potential means to remediate the low Earth orbit (LEO) debris environment as early as the 1980s. The reasons ADR has not become practical are due to its technical difficulties and the high cost associated with the approach. However, as the LEO debris populations continue to increase, ADR may be the only option to preserve the near-Earth environment for future generations. An initial study was completed in 2007 to demonstrate that a simple ADR target selection criterion could be developed to reduce the future debris population growth. The present paper summarizes a comprehensive study based on more realistic simulation scenarios, including fragments generated from the 2007 Fengyun-1C event, mitigation measures, and other target selection options. The simulations were based on the NASA long-term orbital debris projection model, LEGEND. A scenario, where at the end of mission lifetimes, spacecraft and upper stages were moved to 25-year decay orbits, was adopted as the baseline environment for comparison. Different annual removal rates and different ADR target selection criteria were tested, and the resulting 200-year future environment projections were compared with the baseline scenario. Results of this parametric study indicate that (1) an effective removal strategy can be developed based on the mass and collision probability of each object as the selection criterion, and (2) the LEO environment can be stabilized in the next 200 years with an ADR removal rate of five objects per year.

Modeling vulnerability of groundwater to pollution under future scenarios of climate change and biofuels-related land use change: a case study in North Dakota, USA.

PubMed

Li, Ruopu; Merchant, James W

2013-03-01

Modeling groundwater vulnerability to pollution is critical for implementing programs to protect groundwater quality. Most groundwater vulnerability modeling has been based on current hydrogeology and land use conditions. However, groundwater vulnerability is strongly dependent on factors such as depth-to-water, recharge and land use conditions that may change in response to future changes in climate and/or socio-economic conditions. In this research, a modeling framework, which employs three sets of models linked within a geographic information system (GIS) environment, was used to evaluate groundwater pollution risks under future climate and land use changes in North Dakota. The results showed that areas with high vulnerability will expand northward and/or northwestward in Eastern North Dakota under different scenarios. GIS-based models that account for future changes in climate and land use can help decision-makers identify potential future threats to groundwater quality and take early steps to protect this critical resource. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Global Food Demand Scenarios for the 21st Century

PubMed Central

Biewald, Anne; Weindl, Isabelle; Popp, Alexander; Lotze-Campen, Hermann

2015-01-01

Long-term food demand scenarios are an important tool for studying global food security and for analysing the environmental impacts of agriculture. We provide a simple and transparent method to create scenarios for future plant-based and animal-based calorie demand, using time-dependent regression models between calorie demand and income. The scenarios can be customized to a specific storyline by using different input data for gross domestic product (GDP) and population projections and by assuming different functional forms of the regressions. Our results confirm that total calorie demand increases with income, but we also found a non-income related positive time-trend. The share of animal-based calories is estimated to rise strongly with income for low-income groups. For high income groups, two ambiguous relations between income and the share of animal-based products are consistent with historical data: First, a positive relation with a strong negative time-trend and second a negative relation with a slight negative time-trend. The fits of our regressions are highly significant and our results compare well to other food demand estimates. The method is exemplarily used to construct four food demand scenarios until the year 2100 based on the storylines of the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). We find in all scenarios a strong increase of global food demand until 2050 with an increasing share of animal-based products, especially in developing countries. PMID:26536124

Global Food Demand Scenarios for the 21st Century.

PubMed

Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Rolinski, Susanne; Biewald, Anne; Weindl, Isabelle; Popp, Alexander; Lotze-Campen, Hermann

2015-01-01

Long-term food demand scenarios are an important tool for studying global food security and for analysing the environmental impacts of agriculture. We provide a simple and transparent method to create scenarios for future plant-based and animal-based calorie demand, using time-dependent regression models between calorie demand and income. The scenarios can be customized to a specific storyline by using different input data for gross domestic product (GDP) and population projections and by assuming different functional forms of the regressions. Our results confirm that total calorie demand increases with income, but we also found a non-income related positive time-trend. The share of animal-based calories is estimated to rise strongly with income for low-income groups. For high income groups, two ambiguous relations between income and the share of animal-based products are consistent with historical data: First, a positive relation with a strong negative time-trend and second a negative relation with a slight negative time-trend. The fits of our regressions are highly significant and our results compare well to other food demand estimates. The method is exemplarily used to construct four food demand scenarios until the year 2100 based on the storylines of the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). We find in all scenarios a strong increase of global food demand until 2050 with an increasing share of animal-based products, especially in developing countries.

From climate-change spaghetti to climate-change distributions for 21st Century California

USGS Publications Warehouse

Dettinger, M.D.

2005-01-01

The uncertainties associated with climate-change projections for California are unlikely to disappear any time soon, and yet important long-term decisions will be needed to accommodate those potential changes. Projection uncertainties have typically been addressed by analysis of a few scenarios, chosen based on availability or to capture the extreme cases among available projections. However, by focusing on more common projections rather than the most extreme projections (using a new resampling method), new insights into current projections emerge: (1) uncertainties associated with future greenhouse-gas emissions are comparable with the differences among climate models, so that neither source of uncertainties should be neglected or underrepresented; (2) twenty-first century temperature projections spread more, overall, than do precipitation scenarios; (3) projections of extremely wet futures for California are true outliers among current projections; and (4) current projections that are warmest tend, overall, to yield a moderately drier California, while the cooler projections yield a somewhat wetter future. The resampling approach applied in this paper also provides a natural opportunity to objectively incorporate measures of model skill and the likelihoods of various emission scenarios into future assessments.

Scenario planning.

PubMed

Enzmann, Dieter R; Beauchamp, Norman J; Norbash, Alexander

2011-03-01

In facing future developments in health care, scenario planning offers a complementary approach to traditional strategic planning. Whereas traditional strategic planning typically consists of predicting the future at a single point on a chosen time horizon and mapping the preferred plans to address such a future, scenario planning creates stories about multiple likely potential futures on a given time horizon and maps the preferred plans to address the multiple described potential futures. Each scenario is purposefully different and specifically not a consensus worst-case, average, or best-case forecast; nor is scenario planning a process in probabilistic prediction. Scenario planning focuses on high-impact, uncertain driving forces that in the authors' example affect the field of radiology. Uncertainty is the key concept as these forces are mapped onto axes of uncertainty, the poles of which have opposed effects on radiology. One chosen axis was "market focus," with poles of centralized health care (government control) vs a decentralized private market. Another axis was "radiology's business model," with one pole being a unified, single specialty vs a splintered, disaggregated subspecialty. The third axis was "technology and science," with one pole representing technology enabling to radiology vs technology threatening to radiology. Selected poles of these axes were then combined to create 3 scenarios. One scenario, termed "entrepreneurialism," consisted of a decentralized private market, a disaggregated business model, and threatening technology and science. A second scenario, termed "socialized medicine," had a centralized market focus, a unified specialty business model, and enabling technology and science. A third scenario, termed "freefall," had a centralized market focus, a disaggregated business model, and threatening technology and science. These scenarios provide a range of futures that ultimately allow the identification of defined "signposts" that can suggest which basic features among the "possible futures" are playing out. Scenario planning provides for the implementation of appropriate constructed strategic responses. Scenarios allow for a pre-prepared game plan available for ready use as the future unfolds. They allow a deliberative response rather than a hastily constructed, urgent response. Copyright © 2011 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Remote-sensing based approach to forecast habitat quality under climate change scenarios.

PubMed

Requena-Mullor, Juan M; López, Enrique; Castro, Antonio J; Alcaraz-Segura, Domingo; Castro, Hermelindo; Reyes, Andrés; Cabello, Javier

2017-01-01

As climate change is expected to have a significant impact on species distributions, there is an urgent challenge to provide reliable information to guide conservation biodiversity policies. In addressing this challenge, we propose a remote sensing-based approach to forecast the future habitat quality for European badger, a species not abundant and at risk of local extinction in the arid environments of southeastern Spain, by incorporating environmental variables related with the ecosystem functioning and correlated with climate and land use. Using ensemble prediction methods, we designed global spatial distribution models for the distribution range of badger using presence-only data and climate variables. Then, we constructed regional models for an arid region in the southeast Spain using EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) derived variables and weighting the pseudo-absences with the global model projections applied to this region. Finally, we forecast the badger potential spatial distribution in the time period 2071-2099 based on IPCC scenarios incorporating the uncertainty derived from the predicted values of EVI-derived variables. By including remotely sensed descriptors of the temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of ecosystem functioning into spatial distribution models, results suggest that future forecast is less favorable for European badgers than not including them. In addition, change in spatial pattern of habitat suitability may become higher than when forecasts are based just on climate variables. Since the validity of future forecast only based on climate variables is currently questioned, conservation policies supported by such information could have a biased vision and overestimate or underestimate the potential changes in species distribution derived from climate change. The incorporation of ecosystem functional attributes derived from remote sensing in the modeling of future forecast may contribute to the improvement of the detection of ecological responses under climate change scenarios.

Remote-sensing based approach to forecast habitat quality under climate change scenarios

PubMed Central

Requena-Mullor, Juan M.; López, Enrique; Castro, Antonio J.; Alcaraz-Segura, Domingo; Castro, Hermelindo; Reyes, Andrés; Cabello, Javier

2017-01-01

As climate change is expected to have a significant impact on species distributions, there is an urgent challenge to provide reliable information to guide conservation biodiversity policies. In addressing this challenge, we propose a remote sensing-based approach to forecast the future habitat quality for European badger, a species not abundant and at risk of local extinction in the arid environments of southeastern Spain, by incorporating environmental variables related with the ecosystem functioning and correlated with climate and land use. Using ensemble prediction methods, we designed global spatial distribution models for the distribution range of badger using presence-only data and climate variables. Then, we constructed regional models for an arid region in the southeast Spain using EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) derived variables and weighting the pseudo-absences with the global model projections applied to this region. Finally, we forecast the badger potential spatial distribution in the time period 2071–2099 based on IPCC scenarios incorporating the uncertainty derived from the predicted values of EVI-derived variables. By including remotely sensed descriptors of the temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of ecosystem functioning into spatial distribution models, results suggest that future forecast is less favorable for European badgers than not including them. In addition, change in spatial pattern of habitat suitability may become higher than when forecasts are based just on climate variables. Since the validity of future forecast only based on climate variables is currently questioned, conservation policies supported by such information could have a biased vision and overestimate or underestimate the potential changes in species distribution derived from climate change. The incorporation of ecosystem functional attributes derived from remote sensing in the modeling of future forecast may contribute to the improvement of the detection of ecological responses under climate change scenarios. PMID:28257501

Projections of Global Mortality and Burden of Disease from 2002 to 2030

PubMed Central

Mathers, Colin D; Loncar, Dejan

2006-01-01

Background Global and regional projections of mortality and burden of disease by cause for the years 2000, 2010, and 2030 were published by Murray and Lopez in 1996 as part of the Global Burden of Disease project. These projections, which are based on 1990 data, continue to be widely quoted, although they are substantially outdated; in particular, they substantially underestimated the spread of HIV/AIDS. To address the widespread demand for information on likely future trends in global health, and thereby to support international health policy and priority setting, we have prepared new projections of mortality and burden of disease to 2030 starting from World Health Organization estimates of mortality and burden of disease for 2002. This paper describes the methods, assumptions, input data, and results. Methods and Findings Relatively simple models were used to project future health trends under three scenarios—baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic—based largely on projections of economic and social development, and using the historically observed relationships of these with cause-specific mortality rates. Data inputs have been updated to take account of the greater availability of death registration data and the latest available projections for HIV/AIDS, income, human capital, tobacco smoking, body mass index, and other inputs. In all three scenarios there is a dramatic shift in the distribution of deaths from younger to older ages and from communicable, maternal, perinatal, and nutritional causes to noncommunicable disease causes. The risk of death for children younger than 5 y is projected to fall by nearly 50% in the baseline scenario between 2002 and 2030. The proportion of deaths due to noncommunicable disease is projected to rise from 59% in 2002 to 69% in 2030. Global HIV/AIDS deaths are projected to rise from 2.8 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2030 under the baseline scenario, which assumes coverage with antiretroviral drugs reaches 80% by 2012. Under the optimistic scenario, which also assumes increased prevention activity, HIV/AIDS deaths are projected to drop to 3.7 million in 2030. Total tobacco-attributable deaths are projected to rise from 5.4 million in 2005 to 6.4 million in 2015 and 8.3 million in 2030 under our baseline scenario. Tobacco is projected to kill 50% more people in 2015 than HIV/AIDS, and to be responsible for 10% of all deaths globally. The three leading causes of burden of disease in 2030 are projected to include HIV/AIDS, unipolar depressive disorders, and ischaemic heart disease in the baseline and pessimistic scenarios. Road traffic accidents are the fourth leading cause in the baseline scenario, and the third leading cause ahead of ischaemic heart disease in the optimistic scenario. Under the baseline scenario, HIV/AIDS becomes the leading cause of burden of disease in middle- and low-income countries by 2015. Conclusions These projections represent a set of three visions of the future for population health, based on certain explicit assumptions. Despite the wide uncertainty ranges around future projections, they enable us to appreciate better the implications for health and health policy of currently observed trends, and the likely impact of fairly certain future trends, such as the ageing of the population, the continued spread of HIV/AIDS in many regions, and the continuation of the epidemiological transition in developing countries. The results depend strongly on the assumption that future mortality trends in poor countries will have a relationship to economic and social development similar to those that have occurred in the higher-income countries. PMID:17132052

Scenario-based stakeholder engagement: incorporating stakeholders preferences into coastal planning for climate change.

PubMed

Tompkins, Emma L; Few, Roger; Brown, Katrina

2008-09-01

Climate change poses many challenges for ecosystem and resource management. In particular, coastal planners are struggling to find ways to prepare for the potential impacts of future climate change while dealing with immediate pressures. Decisions on how to respond to future risks are complicated by the long time horizons and the uncertainty associated with the distribution of impacts. Existing coastal zone management approaches in the UK either do not adequately incorporate changing stakeholder preferences, or effectively ensure that stakeholders are aware of the trade-offs inherent in any coastal management decision. Using a novel method, scenario-based stakeholder engagement, which brings together stakeholder analysis, climate change management scenarios and deliberative techniques, the necessary trade-offs associated with long term coastal planning are explored. The method is applied to two case studies of coastal planning in Christchurch Bay on the south coast of England and the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. A range of conflicting preferences exist on the ideal governance structure to manage the coast under different climate change scenarios. In addition, the results show that public understanding of the trade-offs that have to be made is critical in gaining some degree of public support for long term coastal decision-making. We conclude that scenario-based stakeholder engagement is a useful tool to facilitate coastal management planning that takes into account the complexities and challenges of climate change, and could be used in conjunction with existing approaches such as the Shoreline Management Planning process.

What Could Be Future Scenarios?—Lessons from the History of Public Health Surveillance for the Future

PubMed Central

Choi, Bernard C.K.

2015-01-01

This article provides insights into the future based on a review of the past and present of public health surveillance—the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of health data for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health action. Public health surveillance dates back to the first recorded epidemic in 3180 BC in Egypt. A number of lessons and items of interest are summarised from a review of historical perspectives in the past 5,000 years and the current practice of surveillance. Some future scenarios are presented: exploring new frontiers; enhancing computer technology; improving epidemic investigations; improving data collection, analysis, dissemination and use; building on lessons from the past; building capacity; and enhancing global surveillance. It is concluded that learning from the past, reflecting on the present, and planning for the future can further enhance public health surveillance. PMID:29546093

Combined and synergistic effects of climate change and urbanization on water quality in the Wolf Bay watershed, southern Alabama.

PubMed

Wang, Ruoyu; Kalin, Latif

2018-02-01

This study investigated potential changes in flow, total suspended solid (TSS) and nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorous) loadings under future climate change, land use/cover (LULC) change and combined change scenarios in the Wolf Bay watershed, southern Alabama, USA. Four Global Circulation Models (GCMs) under three Special Report Emission Scenarios (SRES) of greenhouse gas were used to assess the future climate change (2016-2040). Three projected LULC maps (2030) were employed to reflect different extents of urbanization in future. The individual, combined and synergistic impacts of LULC and climate change on water quantity/quality were analyzed by the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Under the "climate change only" scenario, monthly distribution and projected variation of TSS are expected to follow a pattern similar to streamflow. Nutrients are influenced both by flow and management practices. The variation of Total Nitrogen (TN) and Total Phosphorous (TP) generally follow the flow trend as well. No evident difference in the N:P ratio was projected. Under the "LULC change only" scenario, TN was projected to decrease, mainly due to the shrinkage of croplands. TP will increase in fall and winter. The N:P ratio shows a strong decreasing potential. Under the "combined change" scenario, LULC and climate change effect were considered simultaneously. Results indicate that if future loadings are expected to increase/decrease under any individual scenario, then the combined change will intensify that trend. Conversely, if their effects are in opposite directions, an offsetting effect occurs. Science-based management practices are needed to reduce nutrient loadings to the Bay. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Scenario-based fitted Q-iteration for adaptive control of water reservoir systems under uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bertoni, Federica; Giuliani, Matteo; Castelletti, Andrea

2017-04-01

Over recent years, mathematical models have largely been used to support planning and management of water resources systems. Yet, the increasing uncertainties in their inputs - due to increased variability in the hydrological regimes - are a major challenge to the optimal operations of these systems. Such uncertainty, boosted by projected changing climate, violates the stationarity principle generally used for describing hydro-meteorological processes, which assumes time persisting statistical characteristics of a given variable as inferred by historical data. As this principle is unlikely to be valid in the future, the probability density function used for modeling stochastic disturbances (e.g., inflows) becomes an additional uncertain parameter of the problem, which can be described in a deterministic and set-membership based fashion. This study contributes a novel method for designing optimal, adaptive policies for controlling water reservoir systems under climate-related uncertainty. The proposed method, called scenario-based Fitted Q-Iteration (sFQI), extends the original Fitted Q-Iteration algorithm by enlarging the state space to include the space of the uncertain system's parameters (i.e., the uncertain climate scenarios). As a result, sFQI embeds the set-membership uncertainty of the future inflow scenarios in the action-value function and is able to approximate, with a single learning process, the optimal control policy associated to any scenario included in the uncertainty set. The method is demonstrated on a synthetic water system, consisting of a regulated lake operated for ensuring reliable water supply to downstream users. Numerical results show that the sFQI algorithm successfully identifies adaptive solutions to operate the system under different inflow scenarios, which outperform the control policy designed under historical conditions. Moreover, the sFQI policy generalizes over inflow scenarios not directly experienced during the policy design, thus alleviating the risk of mis-adaptation, namely the design of a solution fully adapted to a scenario that is different from the one that will actually realize.

Insights into future air quality: Analysis of future emissions scenarios using the MARKAL model

EPA Science Inventory

This presentation will provide an update on the development and evaluation of four Air Quality Futures (AQF) scenarios. These scenarios represent widely different assumptions regarding the evolution of the U.S. energy system over the next 40 years. The primary differences between...

Statistical downscaling and future scenario generation of temperatures for Pakistan Region

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kazmi, Dildar Hussain; Li, Jianping; Rasul, Ghulam; Tong, Jiang; Ali, Gohar; Cheema, Sohail Babar; Liu, Luliu; Gemmer, Marco; Fischer, Thomas

2015-04-01

Finer climate change information on spatial scale is required for impact studies than that presently provided by global or regional climate models. It is especially true for regions like South Asia with complex topography, coastal or island locations, and the areas of highly heterogeneous land-cover. To deal with the situation, an inexpensive method (statistical downscaling) has been adopted. Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM) employed for downscaling of daily minimum and maximum temperature data of 44 national stations for base time (1961-1990) and then the future scenarios generated up to 2099. Observed as well as Predictors (product of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) data were calibrated and tested on individual/multiple basis through linear regression. Future scenario was generated based on HadCM3 daily data for A2 and B2 story lines. The downscaled data has been tested, and it has shown a relatively strong relationship with the observed in comparison to ECHAM5 data. Generally, the southern half of the country is considered vulnerable in terms of increasing temperatures, but the results of this study projects that in future, the northern belt in particular would have a possible threat of increasing tendency in air temperature. Especially, the northern areas (hosting the third largest ice reserves after the Polar Regions), an important feeding source for Indus River, are projected to be vulnerable in terms of increasing temperatures. Consequently, not only the hydro-agricultural sector but also the environmental conditions in the area may be at risk, in future.

Assessment of 21st century drought conditions at Shasta Dam based on dynamically projected water supply conditions by a regional climate model coupled with a physically-based hydrology model.

PubMed

Trinh, T; Ishida, K; Kavvas, M L; Ercan, A; Carr, K

2017-05-15

Along with socioeconomic developments, and population increase, natural disasters around the world have recently increased the awareness of harmful impacts they cause. Among natural disasters, drought is of great interest to scientists due to the extraordinary diversity of their severity and duration. Motivated by the development of a potential approach to investigate future possible droughts in a probabilistic framework based on climate change projections, a methodology to consider thirteen future climate projections based on four emission scenarios to characterize droughts is presented. The proposed approach uses a regional climate model coupled with a physically-based hydrology model (Watershed Environmental Hydrology Hydro-Climate Model; WEHY-HCM) to generate thirteen equally likely future water supply projections. The water supply projections were compared to the current water demand for the detection of drought events and estimation of drought properties. The procedure was applied to Shasta Dam watershed to analyze drought conditions at the watershed outlet, Shasta Dam. The results suggest an increasing water scarcity at Shasta Dam with more severe and longer future drought events in some future scenarios. An important advantage of the proposed approach to the probabilistic analysis of future droughts is that it provides the drought properties of the 100-year and 200-year return periods without resorting to any extrapolation of the frequency curve. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Future of Clinical Education: Using Futuristic Scenarios to Explore Allied Health Deans' Perspectives on Clinical Education.

PubMed

Romig, Barbara D; Tucker, Ann W; Hewitt, Anne M; O'Sullivan Maillet, Julie

2017-01-01

There is limited information and consensus on the future of clinical education. The Delphi technique was selected to identify agreement among Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions' (ASAHP) allied health deans on the future (2018-2023) of allied health (AH) clinical education. Sixty-one AH deans, 54.9% (61 of 111) of the ASAHP membership, expressed opinions about clinical education through a three-round Delphi study. In conjunction with a conceptual model, four futuristic scenarios were used to encourage deans' feedback on the key factors impacting the future of clinical education. The responses to the four scenarios showed ways the external environment influences which activities the deans recommend. The results presented, by individual scenario and in totality, provide relevant and timely information on the importance and transformation of AH clinical education and its future. Futuristic scenarios, in combination with the Delphi technique, generated information where little exists specific to AH deans' perspectives on AH clinical education. The results offer deans opportunities for future strategic improvements. The use of the futuristic scenarios was suitable for guiding deans' responses and reaching agreement on the future of AH clinical education. These contributions reflect the imminent conditions and healthcare environment identified in the various scenarios and provide additional insight on key factors impacting the future for AH clinical education.

Role of future scenarios in understanding deep uncertainty in long-term air quality management.

PubMed

Gamas, Julia; Dodder, Rebecca; Loughlin, Dan; Gage, Cynthia

2015-11-01

The environment and its interactions with human systems, whether economic, social, or political, are complex. Relevant drivers may disrupt system dynamics in unforeseen ways, making it difficult to predict future conditions. This kind of "deep uncertainty" presents a challenge to organizations faced with making decisions about the future, including those involved in air quality management. Scenario Planning is a structured process that involves the development of narratives describing alternative future states of the world, designed to differ with respect to the most critical and uncertain drivers. The resulting scenarios are then used to understand the consequences of those futures and to prepare for them with robust management strategies. We demonstrate a novel air quality management application of Scenario Planning. Through a series of workshops, important air quality drivers were identified. The most critical and uncertain drivers were found to be "technological development" and "change in societal paradigms." These drivers were used as a basis to develop four distinct scenario storylines. The energy and emissions implications of each storyline were then modeled using the MARKAL energy system model. NOx emissions were found to decrease for all scenarios, largely a response to existing air quality regulations, whereas SO2 emissions ranged from 12% greater to 7% lower than 2015 emissions levels. Future-year emissions differed considerably from one scenario to another, however, with key differentiating factors being transition to cleaner fuels and energy demand reductions. Application of scenarios in air quality management provides a structured means of sifting through and understanding the dynamics of the many complex driving forces affecting future air quality. Further, scenarios provide a means to identify opportunities and challenges for future air quality management, as well as a platform for testing the efficacy and robustness of particular management options across wide-ranging conditions.

Imagining wilderness

Treesearch

Daniel Dustin; Jeff Rose; Adrienne Cachelin; Wynn Shooter; Scott Schumann

2012-01-01

The future of wilderness is open for discussion and debate. In this paper we invite readers to consider four wilderness scenarios, any one of which, or combination of which, seems possible based on current demographic, social, and cultural trends. The purpose of the paper is not so much to try to predict the future as it is to prod readers into pondering the future—a...

Modelling climate change effects on Atlantic salmon: Implications for mitigation in regulated rivers.

PubMed

Sundt-Hansen, L E; Hedger, R D; Ugedal, O; Diserud, O H; Finstad, A G; Sauterleute, J F; Tøfte, L; Alfredsen, K; Forseth, T

2018-08-01

Climate change is expected to alter future temperature and discharge regimes of rivers. These regimes have a strong influence on the life history of most aquatic river species, and are key variables controlling the growth and survival of Atlantic salmon. This study explores how the future abundance of Atlantic salmon may be influenced by climate-induced changes in water temperature and discharge in a regulated river, and investigates how negative impacts in the future can be mitigated by applying different regulated discharge regimes during critical periods for salmon survival. A spatially explicit individual-based model was used to predict juvenile Atlantic salmon population abundance in a regulated river under a range of future water temperature and discharge scenarios (derived from climate data predicted by the Hadley Centre's Global Climate Model (GCM) HadAm3H and the Max Plank Institute's GCM ECHAM4), which were then compared with populations predicted under control scenarios representing past conditions. Parr abundance decreased in all future scenarios compared to the control scenarios due to reduced wetted areas (with the effect depending on climate scenario, GCM, and GCM spatial domain). To examine the potential for mitigation of climate change-induced reductions in wetted area, simulations were run with specific minimum discharge regimes. An increase in abundance of both parr and smolt occurred with an increase in the limit of minimum permitted discharge for three of the four GCM/GCM spatial domains examined. This study shows that, in regulated rivers with upstream storage capacity, negative effects of climate change on Atlantic salmon populations can potentially be mitigated by release of water from reservoirs during critical periods for juvenile salmon. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Future Water-Supply Scenarios, Cape May County, New Jersey, 2003-2050

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lacombe, Pierre J.; Carleton, Glen B.; Pope, Daryll A.; Rice, Donald E.

2009-01-01

Stewards of the water supply in New Jersey are interested in developing a plan to supply potable and non-potable water to residents and businesses of Cape May County until at least 2050. The ideal plan would meet projected demands and minimize adverse effects on currently used sources of potable, non-potable, and ecological water supplies. This report documents past and projected potable, non-potable, and ecological water-supply demands. Past and ongoing adverse effects to production and domestic wells caused by withdrawals include saltwater intrusion and water-level declines in the freshwater aquifers. Adverse effects on the ecological water supplies caused by groundwater withdrawals include premature drying of seasonal wetlands, delayed recovery of water levels in the water-table aquifer, and reduced streamflow. To predict the effects of future actions on the water supplies, three baseline and six future scenarios were created and simulated. Baseline Scenarios 1, 2, and 3 represent withdrawals using existing wells projected until 2050. Baseline Scenario 1 represents average 1998-2003 withdrawals, and Scenario 2 represents New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) full allocation withdrawals. These withdrawals do not meet projected future water demands. Baseline Scenario 3 represents the estimated full build-out water demands. Results of simulations of the three baseline scenarios indicate that saltwater would intrude into the Cohansey aquifer as much as 7,100 feet (ft) to adversely affect production wells used by Lower Township and the Wildwoods, as well as some other near-shore domestic wells; water-level altitudes in the Atlantic City 800-foot sand would decline to -156 ft; base flow in streams would be depleted by 0 to 26 percent; and water levels in the water-table aquifer would decline as much as 0.7ft. [Specific water-level altitudes, land-surface altitudes, and present sea level when used in this report are referenced to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88).] Future scenarios 4 to 9 represent withdrawals and the effects on the water supply while using estimated full build-out water demands. In most townships, existing wells would be used for withdrawals in the simulation. However, in Lower and Middle Townships, the Wildwoods, and the Cape Mays, withdrawals from some wells would be terminated, reduced, or increased. Depending on the scenario, proposed production wells would be installed in locations far from the saltwater fronts, in deep freshwater aquifers, in deeper saltwater aquifers, or proposed injection wells would be installed to inject reused water to create a freshwater barrier to saltwater intrusion. Simulations indicate that future Scenarios 4 to 9 would reduce many of the adverse effects of Scenarios 1, 2, and 3. No future scenario will minimize all adverse impacts. In Scenario 4, Lower Township would drill two production wells in the Cohansey aquifer farther from the Delaware shoreline than existing wells and reduce withdrawals from wells near the shoreline. Wildwood Water Utility (WWU) would reduce withdrawals from existing wells in the Cohansey aquifer and increase withdrawals from wells in the Rio Grande water-bearing zone. Results of the simulation indicate that saltwater intrusion and ecological-water supply problems would be reduced but not as much as in Scenarios 5, 7, 8, and 9. In Scenario 5, the Wildwoods and Lower Township each would install a desalination plant and drill two wells to withdraw saltwater from the Atlantic City 800-foot sand. Saltwater intrusion problems would be reduced to the greatest extent with this scenario. Ecological water supplies remain constant or decline from 2003 baseline values. Water-level altitudes would decline to -193 ft in the Atlantic City 800-foot sand, the deepest potentiometric level for all scenarios. In Scenario 6, Lower Township would build a tertiary treatment system and drill three wells open to the Cohanse

Co-benefits of air quality and climate change policies on air quality of the Mediterranean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pozzoli, Luca; Mert Gokturk, Ozan; Unal, Alper; Kindap, Tayfun; Janssens-Maenhout, Greet

2015-04-01

The Mediterranean basin is one of the regions of the world where significant impacts due to climate changes are predicted to occur in the future. Observations and model simulations are used to provide to the policy makers scientifically based estimates of the necessity to adjust national emission reductions needed to achieve air quality objectives in the context of a changing climate, which is not only driven by GHGs, but also by short lived climate pollutants, such as tropospheric ozone and aerosols. There is an increasing interest and need to design cost-benefit emission reduction strategies, which could improve both regional air quality and global climate change. In this study we used the WRF-CMAQ air quality modelling system to quantify the contribution of anthropogenic emissions to ozone and particulate matter concentrations in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean and to understand how this contribution could change in different future scenarios. We have investigated four different future scenarios for year 2050 defined during the European Project CIRCE: a "business as usual" scenario (BAU) where no or just actual measures are taken into account; an "air quality" scenario (BAP) which implements the National Emission Ceiling directive 2001/81/EC member states of the European Union (EU-27); a "climate change" scenario (CC) which implements global climate policies decoupled from air pollution policies; and an "integrated air quality and climate policy" scenario (CAP) which explores the co-benefit of global climate and EU-27 air pollution policies. The BAP scenario largely decreases summer ozone concentrations over almost the entire continent, while the CC and CAP scenarios similarly determine lower decreases in summer ozone but extending all over the Mediterranean, the Middle East countries and Russia. Similar patterns are found for winter PM concentrations; BAP scenario improves pollution levels only in the Western EU countries, and the CAP scenario determines the largest PM reductions over the entire continent and the Mediterranean basin.

Applying the global RCP-SSP-SPA scenario framework at sub-national scale: A multi-scale and participatory scenario approach.

PubMed

Kebede, Abiy S; Nicholls, Robert J; Allan, Andrew; Arto, Iñaki; Cazcarro, Ignacio; Fernandes, Jose A; Hill, Chris T; Hutton, Craig W; Kay, Susan; Lázár, Attila N; Macadam, Ian; Palmer, Matthew; Suckall, Natalie; Tompkins, Emma L; Vincent, Katharine; Whitehead, Paul W

2018-09-01

To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, diverse information about the future is required, including climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation. To address this need, a global RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways), SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathways), and SPA (Shared climate Policy Assumptions) (RCP-SSP-SPA) scenario framework has been developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR5). Application of this full global framework at sub-national scales introduces two key challenges: added complexity in capturing the multiple dimensions of change, and issues of scale. Perhaps for this reason, there are few such applications of this new framework. Here, we present an integrated multi-scale hybrid scenario approach that combines both expert-based and participatory methods. The framework has been developed and applied within the DECCMA 1 project with the purpose of exploring migration and adaptation in three deltas across West Africa and South Asia: (i) the Volta delta (Ghana), (ii) the Mahanadi delta (India), and (iii) the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta (Bangladesh/India). Using a climate scenario that encompasses a wide range of impacts (RCP8.5) combined with three SSP-based socio-economic scenarios (SSP2, SSP3, SSP5), we generate highly divergent and challenging scenario contexts across multiple scales against which robustness of the human and natural systems within the deltas are tested. In addition, we consider four distinct adaptation policy trajectories: Minimum intervention, Economic capacity expansion, System efficiency enhancement, and System restructuring, which describe alternative future bundles of adaptation actions/measures under different socio-economic trajectories. The paper highlights the importance of multi-scale (combined top-down and bottom-up) and participatory (joint expert-stakeholder) scenario methods for addressing uncertainty in adaptation decision-making. The framework facilitates improved integrated assessments of the potential impacts and plausible adaptation policy choices (including migration) under uncertain future changing conditions. The concept, methods, and processes presented are transferable to other sub-national socio-ecological settings with multi-scale challenges. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Scenario analysis and path selection of low-carbon transformation in China based on a modified IPAT model.

PubMed

Chen, Liang; Yang, Zhifeng; Chen, Bin

2013-01-01

This paper presents a forecast and analysis of population, economic development, energy consumption and CO2 emissions variation in China in the short- and long-term steps before 2020 with 2007 as the base year. The widely applied IPAT model, which is the basis for calculations, projections, and scenarios of greenhouse gases (GHGs) reformulated as the Kaya equation, is extended to analyze and predict the relations between human activities and the environment. Four scenarios of CO2 emissions are used including business as usual (BAU), energy efficiency improvement scenario (EEI), low carbon scenario (LC) and enhanced low carbon scenario (ELC). The results show that carbon intensity will be reduced by 40-45% as scheduled and economic growth rate will be 6% in China under LC scenario by 2020. The LC scenario, as the most appropriate and the most feasible scheme for China's low-carbon development in the future, can maximize the harmonious development of economy, society, energy and environmental systems. Assuming China's development follows the LC scenario, the paper further gives four paths of low-carbon transformation in China: technological innovation, industrial structure optimization, energy structure optimization and policy guidance.

Scenario Analysis and Path Selection of Low-Carbon Transformation in China Based on a Modified IPAT Model

PubMed Central

Chen, Liang; Yang, Zhifeng; Chen, Bin

2013-01-01

This paper presents a forecast and analysis of population, economic development, energy consumption and CO2 emissions variation in China in the short- and long-term steps before 2020 with 2007 as the base year. The widely applied IPAT model, which is the basis for calculations, projections, and scenarios of greenhouse gases (GHGs) reformulated as the Kaya equation, is extended to analyze and predict the relations between human activities and the environment. Four scenarios of CO2 emissions are used including business as usual (BAU), energy efficiency improvement scenario (EEI), low carbon scenario (LC) and enhanced low carbon scenario (ELC). The results show that carbon intensity will be reduced by 40–45% as scheduled and economic growth rate will be 6% in China under LC scenario by 2020. The LC scenario, as the most appropriate and the most feasible scheme for China’s low-carbon development in the future, can maximize the harmonious development of economy, society, energy and environmental systems. Assuming China's development follows the LC scenario, the paper further gives four paths of low-carbon transformation in China: technological innovation, industrial structure optimization, energy structure optimization and policy guidance. PMID:24204922

SCENARIO ANALYSIS FOR THE SAN PEDRO RIVER, ANALYZING HYDROLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES FOR A FUTURE ENVIRONMENT

EPA Science Inventory

Studies of future management and policy options based on different assumptions provide a mechanism to examine possible outcomes and especially their likely benefits and consequences. The San Pedro River in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico is an area that has undergone rapid changes in ...

Towards More Comprehensive Projections of Urban Heat-Related Mortality: Estimates for New York City Under Multiple Population, Adaptation, and Climate Scenarios

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Petkova, Elisaveta P.; Vink, Jan K.; Horton, Radley M.; Gasparrini, Antonio; Bader, Daniel A.; Francis, Joe D.; Kinney, Patrick L.

2016-01-01

High temperatures have substantial impacts on mortality and, with growing concerns about climate change, numerous studies have developed projections of future heat-related deaths around the world. Projections of temperature-related mortality are often limited by insufficient information necessary to formulate hypotheses about population sensitivity to high temperatures and future demographics. This study has derived projections of temperature-related mortality in New York City by taking into account future patterns of adaptation or demographic change, both of which can have profound influences on future health burdens. We adopt a novel approach to modeling heat adaptation by incorporating an analysis of the observed population response to heat in New York City over the course of eight decades. This approach projects heat-related mortality until the end of the 21st century based on observed trends in adaptation over a substantial portion of the 20th century. In addition, we incorporate a range of new scenarios for population change until the end of the 21st century. We then estimate future heat-related deaths in New York City by combining the changing temperature-mortality relationship and population scenarios with downscaled temperature projections from the 33 global climate models (GCMs) and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).The median number of projected annual heat-related deaths across the 33 GCMs varied greatly by RCP and adaptation and population change scenario, ranging from 167 to 3331 in the 2080s compared to 638 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2006.These findings provide a more complete picture of the range of potential future heat-related mortality risks across the 21st century in New York, and highlight the importance of both demographic change and adaptation responses in modifying future risks.

The effect of future outdoor air pollution on human health and the contribution of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silva, R.; West, J. J.; Lamarque, J.; Shindell, D.; Collins, W.; Dalsoren, S. B.; Faluvegi, G. S.; Folberth, G.; Horowitz, L. W.; Nagashima, T.; Naik, V.; Rumbold, S.; Skeie, R.; Sudo, K.; Takemura, T.; Bergmann, D. J.; Cameron-Smith, P. J.; Cionni, I.; Doherty, R. M.; Eyring, V.; Josse, B.; MacKenzie, I. A.; Plummer, D.; Righi, M.; Stevenson, D. S.; Strode, S. A.; Szopa, S.; Zeng, G.

2013-12-01

At present, exposure to outdoor air pollution from ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) causes over 2 million deaths per year, due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer. Future ambient concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 will be affected by both air pollutant emissions and climate change. Here we estimate the potential impact of future outdoor air pollution on premature human mortality, and isolate the contribution of future climate change due to its effect on air quality. We use modeled present-day (2000) and future global ozone and PM2.5 concentrations from simulations with an ensemble of chemistry-climate models from the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ACCMIP). Future air pollution was modeled for global greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions in the four IPCC AR5 Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, for 2030, 2050 and 2100. All model outputs are regridded to a common 0.5°x0.5° horizontal resolution. Future premature mortality is estimated for each RCP scenario and year based on changes in concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 relative to 2000. Using a health impact function, changes in concentrations for each RCP scenario are combined with future population and cause-specific baseline mortality rates as projected by a single independent scenario in which the global incidence of cardiopulmonary diseases is expected to increase. The effect of climate change is isolated by considering the difference between air pollutant concentrations from simulations with 2000 emissions and a future year climate and simulations with 2000 emissions and climate. Uncertainties in the results reflect the uncertainty in the concentration-response function and that associated with variability among models. Few previous studies have quantified the effects of future climate change on global human health via changes in air quality, and this is the first such study to use an ensemble of global models.

Advancing flood risk analysis by integrating adaptive behaviour in large-scale flood risk assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haer, T.; Botzen, W.; Aerts, J.

2016-12-01

In the last four decades the global population living in the 1/100 year-flood zone has doubled from approximately 500 million to a little less than 1 billion people. Urbanization in low lying -flood prone- cities further increases the exposed assets, such as buildings and infrastructure. Moreover, climate change will further exacerbate flood risk in the future. Accurate flood risk assessments are important to inform policy-makers and society on current- and future flood risk levels. However, these assessment suffer from a major flaw in the way they estimate flood vulnerability and adaptive behaviour of individuals and governments. Current flood risk projections commonly assume that either vulnerability remains constant, or try to mimic vulnerability through incorporating an external scenario. Such a static approach leads to a misrepresentation of future flood risk, as humans respond adaptively to flood events, flood risk communication, and incentives to reduce risk. In our study, we integrate adaptive behaviour in a large-scale European flood risk framework through an agent-based modelling approach. This allows for the inclusion of heterogeneous agents, which dynamically respond to each other and a changing environment. We integrate state-of-the-art flood risk maps based on climate scenarios (RCP's), and socio-economic scenarios (SSP's), with government and household agents, which behave autonomously based on (micro-)economic behaviour rules. We show for the first time that excluding adaptive behaviour leads to a major misrepresentation of future flood risk. The methodology is applied to flood risk, but has similar implications for other research in the field of natural hazards. While more research is needed, this multi-disciplinary study advances our understanding of how future flood risk will develop.

An approach for the anticipatory and participatory management of current and future flood risks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luther, J.

2012-04-01

Despite the fact that many measures to attenuate flood hazards and reduce vulnerabilities are being implemented, adverse effects of floods are ever-increasing in most parts of the world. On the one hand this holds true for economically and/or demographically growing regions. On the other hand this applies also to areas that face population shrinkage and economic problems. Such flood risks occur in human-environment systems and are subject to dynamics caused by a number of drivers such as climate change, land-use changes, and others. Many drivers evolve slowly over time or show time-lag effects and long return periods. Moreover, certain decisions may determine the control actions of the following decades. At present, current flood risks are mostly determined based on historic developments and the ex post analysis of flood events. Approaches that look at the future dynamics of both hazards and vulnerable elements ex ante in an integrated manner are rare. Instead, future hazard scenarios are often just overlaid with current socio-economic data, which poses a strong inconsistency. Usually the focus lies on rather short-term, specific or local problems. But many developments and measures show their effects only after long time periods and when considering the whole catchment area. This calls for a holistic and long-term view into the future and implies the challenge of dealing with many uncertainties due to the system's complexity. In order to anticipate and react to these developments, this contribution suggests developing a flexible, yet holistic approach to design, analyse and evaluate alternative futures of such human-environment systems. These futures follow a scenario understanding that considers both specific (current) factor constellations as well as consistent assumptions on autonomous developments (so-called development frameworks) and potentials for control (strategic alternatives) of the interacting entities that influence flood risk. Different scenario concepts and the application of respective techniques are thus reviewed and incorporated with regard to their suitability for an integrated management of current and future flood risks. In particular, "hybrid scenarios" with qualitative and quantitative components represented by nested models as well as assumptions across different spatiotemporal scales, respectively, are suggested for dealing with the uncertainties when assessing flood risks throughout a system's possible evolution. The (initially top-down developed) approach and its components will be briefly presented. These "scenario products" could later serve as a stimulus for discussions that bring together different actors and enhance - and eventually legitimise - the scenarios further in a "scenario process": (1) A first step is the conceptualisation of a flood risk system following the SPRC-model. Its physical geographical and anthropogenic factors may either be subject to autonomous trends, target-oriented control, or facultative system behaviour (e.g. dike breaches). With this concept, the integration of different processes and scales is aspired. (2) Secondly, it is conceptually shown how the risk cascade for present and future states of the flood risk system can be calculated based on coupled models ranging from climate change projections to a damage simulation models. (3) Thirdly, ways to develop socioeconomic storylines for the development frameworks and guiding principles for the strategic alternatives are presented and the futures are combined. This involves making plausible and consistent assumptions for many system factors and their drivers and finding ways to harmonise existing data for the same areas and time steps. (4) Fourthly, selected futures can be analysed and evaluated ex ante applying the coupled models of the second step to derive the emerging flood risks. The evaluation addresses, amongst other aspects, the identification of (i) the sensitivity of all scenarios against the current strategic alternative; (ii) the resulting risks when applying different strategic alternatives against one selected scenario; (iii) the efficiency (as cost-effectiveness) and robustness of one selected strategic alternative against the different scenarios; and (iv) the model uncertainty, for example caused by different climate downscaling methods. It is of growing importance to place any scenario/simulation results in a societal or even individual context and confront them with the perspectives of the people potentially affected. Only this yields a holistic picture and may lead to sustainable, comprehensible decisions. The approach is partly exemplified with research conducted in Saxony (Germany) and the Elbe River catchment in Central Europe and concentrates on river or plain floods, neglecting water quality issues.

Current status and future trends of SO2 and NOx pollution during the 12th FYP period in Guiyang city of China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tian, Hezhong; Qiu, Peipei; Cheng, Ke; Gao, Jiajia; Lu, Long; Liu, Kaiyun; Liu, Xingang

2013-04-01

In order to investigate the future trends of SO2 and NOx pollution in Guiyang city of China, the MM5/CALMET/CALPUFF modeling system is applied to assess the effects of air pollution improvement that would result from reduction targets for SO2 and NOx emissions during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). Three scenarios are established for the objective year 2015 based on the reference emissions in base year 2010. Scenario analysis and modeling results show that emissions are projected to increase by 26.5% for SO2 and 138.0% for NOx in 2015 Business-As-Usual (BAU) relative to base year 2010, respectively, which will lead to a substantial worsening tendency of SO2 and NOx pollution. In comparison, both the 2015 Policy Reduction (PR) and 2015 Intensive Policy Reduction (IPR) scenarios would contribute to improve the urban air quality. Under 2015 PR scenario, the maximum annual average concentration of SO2 and NOx will reduce by 54.9% and 31.7%, respectively, relative to the year 2010, with only 2.1% of all individual gridded receptors exceed the national air quality standard limits; while the maximum annual average concentrations of SO2 and NOx can reduce further under 2015 IPR scenario and comply well with standards limits. In view of the technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness, the emission reduction targets set in the 2015 PR scenario are regarded as more reasonable in order to further improve the air quality in Guiyang during the 12th FYP period and a series of comprehensive countermeasures should be effectively implemented.

Future climate change scenarios in Central America at high spatial resolution.

PubMed

Imbach, Pablo; Chou, Sin Chan; Lyra, André; Rodrigues, Daniela; Rodriguez, Daniel; Latinovic, Dragan; Siqueira, Gracielle; Silva, Adan; Garofolo, Lucas; Georgiou, Selena

2018-01-01

The objective of this work is to assess the downscaling projections of climate change over Central America at 8-km resolution using the Eta Regional Climate Model, driven by the HadGEM2-ES simulations of RCP4.5 emission scenario. The narrow characteristic of continent supports the use of numerical simulations at very high-horizontal resolution. Prior to assessing climate change, the 30-year baseline period 1961-1990 is evaluated against different sources of observations of precipitation and temperature. The mean seasonal precipitation and temperature distribution show reasonable agreement with observations. Spatial correlation of the Eta, 8-km resolution, simulations against observations show clear advantage over the driver coarse global model simulations. Seasonal cycle of precipitation confirms the added value of the Eta at 8-km over coarser resolution simulations. The Eta simulations show a systematic cold bias in the region. Climate features of the Mid-Summer Drought and the Caribbean Low-Level Jet are well simulated by the Eta model at 8-km resolution. The assessment of the future climate change is based on the 30-year period 2021-2050, under RCP4.5 scenario. Precipitation is generally reduced, in particular during the JJA and SON, the rainy season. Warming is expected over the region, but stronger in the northern portion of the continent. The Mid-Summer Drought may develop in regions that do not occur during the baseline period, and where it occurs the strength may increase in the future scenario. The Caribbean Low-Level Jet shows little change in the future. Extreme temperatures have positive trend within the period 2021-2050, whereas extreme precipitation, measured by R50mm and R90p, shows positive trend in the eastern coast, around Costa Rica, and negative trends in the northern part of the continent. Negative trend in the duration of dry spell, which is an estimate based on evapotranspiration, is projected in most part of the continent. Annual mean water excess has negative trends in most part of the continent, which suggests decreasing water availability in the future scenario.

Future climate change scenarios in Central America at high spatial resolution

PubMed Central

Imbach, Pablo; Chou, Sin Chan; Rodrigues, Daniela; Rodriguez, Daniel; Latinovic, Dragan; Siqueira, Gracielle; Silva, Adan; Garofolo, Lucas; Georgiou, Selena

2018-01-01

The objective of this work is to assess the downscaling projections of climate change over Central America at 8-km resolution using the Eta Regional Climate Model, driven by the HadGEM2-ES simulations of RCP4.5 emission scenario. The narrow characteristic of continent supports the use of numerical simulations at very high-horizontal resolution. Prior to assessing climate change, the 30-year baseline period 1961–1990 is evaluated against different sources of observations of precipitation and temperature. The mean seasonal precipitation and temperature distribution show reasonable agreement with observations. Spatial correlation of the Eta, 8-km resolution, simulations against observations show clear advantage over the driver coarse global model simulations. Seasonal cycle of precipitation confirms the added value of the Eta at 8-km over coarser resolution simulations. The Eta simulations show a systematic cold bias in the region. Climate features of the Mid-Summer Drought and the Caribbean Low-Level Jet are well simulated by the Eta model at 8-km resolution. The assessment of the future climate change is based on the 30-year period 2021–2050, under RCP4.5 scenario. Precipitation is generally reduced, in particular during the JJA and SON, the rainy season. Warming is expected over the region, but stronger in the northern portion of the continent. The Mid-Summer Drought may develop in regions that do not occur during the baseline period, and where it occurs the strength may increase in the future scenario. The Caribbean Low-Level Jet shows little change in the future. Extreme temperatures have positive trend within the period 2021–2050, whereas extreme precipitation, measured by R50mm and R90p, shows positive trend in the eastern coast, around Costa Rica, and negative trends in the northern part of the continent. Negative trend in the duration of dry spell, which is an estimate based on evapotranspiration, is projected in most part of the continent. Annual mean water excess has negative trends in most part of the continent, which suggests decreasing water availability in the future scenario. PMID:29694355

Climate change impact assessment on flow regime by incorporating spatial correlation and scenario uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vallam, P.; Qin, X. S.

2017-07-01

Flooding risk is increasing in many parts of the world and may worsen under climate change conditions. The accuracy of predicting flooding risk relies on reasonable projection of meteorological data (especially rainfall) at the local scale. The current statistical downscaling approaches face the difficulty of projecting multi-site climate information for future conditions while conserving spatial information. This study presents a combined Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) stochastic weather generator and multi-site rainfall simulator RainSim (CLWRS) approach to investigate flow regimes under future conditions in the Kootenay Watershed, Canada. To understand the uncertainty effect stemming from different scenarios, the climate output is fed into a hydrologic model. The results showed different variation trends of annual peak flows (in 2080-2099) based on different climate change scenarios and demonstrated that the hydrological impact would be driven by the interaction between snowmelt and peak flows. The proposed CLWRS approach is useful where there is a need for projection of potential climate change scenarios.

Optimized ISRU Propellants for Propulsion and Power Needs for Future Mars Colonization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rice, Eric E.; Gustafson, Robert J.; Gramer, Daniel J.; Chiaverini, Martin J.; Teeter, Ronald R.; White, Brant C.

2003-01-01

In recent studies (Rice, 2000, 2002) conducted by ORBITEC for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), we conceptualized systems and an evolving optimized architecture for producing and utilizing Mars-based in-situ space resources utilization (ISRU) propellant combinations for future Mars colonization. The propellants are to be used to support the propulsion and power systems for ground and flight vehicles. The key aspect of the study was to show the benefits of ISRU, develop an analysis methodology, as well as provide guidance to propellant system choices in the future based upon what is known today about Mars. The study time frame included an early unmanned and manned exploration period (through 2040) and two colonization scenarios that are postulated to occur from 2040 to 2090. As part of this feasibility study, ORBITEC developed two different Mars colonization scenarios: a low case that ends with a 100-person colony (an Antarctica analogy) and a high case that ends with a 10,000-person colony (a Mars terraforming scenario). A population growth model, mission traffic model, and infrastructure model were developed for each scenario to better understand the requirements of future Mars colonies. Additionally, propellant and propulsion systems design concepts were developed. Cost models were also developed to allow comparison of the different ISRU propellant approaches. This paper summarizes the overall results of the study. ISRU proved to be a key enabler for these colonization missions. Carbon monoxide and oxygen, proved to be the most cost-effective ISRU propellant combination. The entire final reports Phase I and II) and all the details can be found at the NIAC website www.niac.usra.edu.

Scenario-based projections of future urban inundation within a coupled hydrodynamic model framework: A case study in Dongguan City, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Xushu; Wang, Zhaoli; Guo, Shenglian; Liao, Weilin; Zeng, Zhaoyang; Chen, Xiaohong

2017-04-01

One major threat to cities at present is the increased inundation hazards owing to changes in climate and accelerated human activity. Future evolution of urban inundation is still an unsolved issue, given large uncertainties in future environmental conditions within urbanized areas. Developing model techniques and urban inundation projections are essential for inundation management. In this paper, we proposed a 2D hydrodynamic inundation model by coupling SWMM and LISFLOOD-FP models, and revealed how future urban inundation would evolve for different storms, sea level rise and subsidence scenarios based on the developed model. The Shiqiao Creek District (SCD) in Dongguan City was used as the case study. The model ability was validated against the June 13th, 2008 inundation event, which occurred in SCD, and proved capable of simulating dynamic urban inundation. Scenario analyses revealed a high degree of consistency in the inundation patterns among different storms, with larger magnitudes corresponding to greater return periods. Inundations across SCD generally vary as a function of storm intensity, but for lowlands or regions without drainage facilities inundations tend to aggravate over time. In riverfronts, inundations would exacerbate with sea level rise or subsidence; however, the inland inundations are seemingly insensitive to both factors. For the combined scenario of 100-yr storm, 0.5 m subsidence and 0.7 m sea level rise, the riverside inundations would occur much in advance, whilst catastrophic inundations sweep across SCD. Furthermore, the optimal low-impact development found for this case study includes 0.2 km2 of permeable pavements, 0.1 km2 of rain barrels and 0.7 km2 of green roofs.

Scenarios of land use change for agriculture: the role of Land Evaluation in improving model simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mereu, V.; Santini, M.; Dettori, G.; Muresu, P.; Spano, D.; Duce, P.

2009-12-01

Integrated scenarios of future climate and land use represent a useful input for impact studies about global changes. In particular, improving future land use simulations is essential for the agricultural sector, which is influenced by both biogeophysical constraints and human needs. Often land use change models are mainly based on statistical relationships between known land use distribution and biophysical or socio-economic factors, neglecting the necessary consideration of physical constraints that interact in making lands more or less capable for agriculture and suitable for supporting specific crops. In this study, a well developed land use change model (CLUE@CMCC) was suited for the Mediterranean basin case study, focusing on croplands. Several climate scenarios and future demands for croplands were combined to drive the model, while the same climate scenarios were used to more reliably allocate crops in the most suitable areas on the basis of Land Evaluation techniques. The probability for each map unit to sustain a specific crop, usually related to location characteristics, elasticity to conversion and competition among land use types, now includes specific crop-favoring location characteristics. Results, besides improving the consistency of the land use change model to allocate land for the future, can have the main feedback to suggest feasibility or reasonable thresholds to adjust land use demands during dynamic simulations.

Climate Change and Hydrology of a Snow-fed Watershed in Western Nepal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pandey, V. P.; Bharati, L.; Dhaubanjar, S.

2017-12-01

Many river basins across the globe are experiencing varying degrees of impacts from climate change. Snow-fed watersheds are expected to be affected even more. Chamelia, a tributary of Mahakali river basin, is a snow-fed river in the western Nepal with catchment area of 1,603 km2above the confluence with Mahakali River. Forest cover (40%) and rainfed agriculture (28%) covers more than two-third of the watershed. Topography varies from 505 to 7,090 m. According to the data from Department of Electricity Development (DoED) this watershed contains 14 licensed hydropower projects of varying capacities. Climate change may affect various aspects of the hydropower project, all of which are hinged around hydrology. This study simulated hydrological response of Chamelia watershed using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) as an input for a hydro-economic model to analyze the water-energy-food nexus. The model was calibrated for the period of 2001-2007 and validated for 2008-2013 and then used to examine the streamflow response to climate change. Future climates for near-future (2020-2045), mid-future (2046-2070) and far-future (2071-2095) were considered based on CSIRO-CCAM Regional Circulation Model (RCM), derived from ACCESS1, downloaded from South Asia Cordex for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios and then bias corrected using linear scaling method. Results, based on climate date at Station-103 showed that maximum temperature under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5) scenario for near-, mid-, and far-futures are projected to increase by 1.2°C (1.4°C), 1.5°C (2.8°C), and 2.3°C (2.6°C), respectively, from the baseline. Minimum temperature for the same scenarios and future periods, in the same order, are projected to increase by 1.1°C (1.5°C), 2.1°C (3.6°C), and 2.5°C (4.7°C), respectively, from the baseline. Precipitation in the other hand under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5) scenario for near-, mid-, and far-futures are projected to increase by 10.2% (10.4%), 7.6% (13.6%), and 3.1% (12.2%), respectively, from the baseline. As a result of the projected changes, streamflow is expected to alter at varying rates for the three future periods of time and two scenarios. The ultimate results of this nexus study are useful for water infrastructure planning to ensure long-term sustainability in the changing context.

Resource management and operations in southwest South Dakota: Climate change scenario planning workshop summary January 20-21, 2016, Rapid City, SD

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fisichelli, Nicholas A.; Schuurman, Gregor W.; Symstad, Amy J.; Ray, Andrea; Miller, Brian; Cross, Molly; Rowland, Erika

2016-01-01

The Scaling Climate Change Adaptation in the Northern Great Plains through Regional Climate Summaries and Local Qualitative-Quantitative Scenario Planning Workshops project synthesizes climate data into 3-5 distinct but plausible climate summaries for the northern Great Plains region; crafts quantitative summaries of these climate futures for two focal areas; and applies these local summaries by developing climate-resource-management scenarios through participatory workshops and, where possible, simulation models. The two focal areas are central North Dakota and southwest South Dakota (Figure 1). The primary objective of this project is to help resource managers and scientists in a focal area use scenario planning to make management and planning decisions based on assessments of critical future uncertainties.This report summarizes project work for public and tribal lands in the southwest South Dakota grasslands focal area, with an emphasis on Badlands National Park and Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The report explains scenario planning as an adaptation tool in general, then describes how it was applied to the focal area in three phases. Priority resource management and climate uncertainties were identified in the orientation phase. Local climate summaries for relevant, divergent, and challenging climate scenarios were developed in the second phase. In the final phase, a two-day scenario planning workshop held January 20-21, 2016 in Rapid City, South Dakota, featured scenario development and implications, testing management decisions, and methods for operationalizing scenario planning outcomes.

Towards a global water scarcity risk assessment framework: using scenarios and risk distributions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Veldkamp, Ted; Wada, Yoshihide; Aerts, Jeroen; Ward, Philip

2016-04-01

Over the past decades, changing hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions have led to increased water scarcity problems. A large number of studies have shown that these water scarcity conditions will worsen in the near future. Despite numerous calls for risk-based assessments of water scarcity, a framework that includes UNISDR's definition of risk does not yet exist at the global scale. This study provides a first step towards such a risk-based assessment, applying a Gamma distribution to estimate water scarcity conditions at the global scale under historic and future conditions, using multiple climate change projections and socioeconomic scenarios. Our study highlights that water scarcity risk increases given all future scenarios, up to >56.2% of the global population in 2080. Looking at the drivers of risk, we find that population growth outweigh the impacts of climate change at global and regional scales. Using a risk-based method to assess water scarcity in terms of Expected Annual Exposed Population, we show the results to be less sensitive than traditional water scarcity assessments to the use of fixed threshold to represent different levels of water scarcity. This becomes especially important when moving from global to local scales, whereby deviations increase up to 50% of estimated risk levels. Covering hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, risk-based methods are well-suited to assess water scarcity adaptation. Completing the presented risk framework therefore offers water managers a promising perspective to increase water security in a well-informed and adaptive manner.

Back to the future: using historical climate variation to project near-term shifts in habitat suitable for coast redwood.

PubMed

Fernández, Miguel; Hamilton, Healy H; Kueppers, Lara M

2015-11-01

Studies that model the effect of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems often use climate projections from downscaled global climate models (GCMs). These simulations are generally too coarse to capture patterns of fine-scale climate variation, such as the sharp coastal energy and moisture gradients associated with wind-driven upwelling of cold water. Coastal upwelling may limit future increases in coastal temperatures, compromising GCMs' ability to provide realistic scenarios of future climate in these coastal ecosystems. Taking advantage of naturally occurring variability in the high-resolution historic climatic record, we developed multiple fine-scale scenarios of California climate that maintain coherent relationships between regional climate and coastal upwelling. We compared these scenarios against coarse resolution GCM projections at a regional scale to evaluate their temporal equivalency. We used these historically based scenarios to estimate potential suitable habitat for coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens D. Don) under 'normal' combinations of temperature and precipitation, and under anomalous combinations representative of potential future climates. We found that a scenario of warmer temperature with historically normal precipitation is equivalent to climate projected by GCMs for California by 2020-2030 and that under these conditions, climatically suitable habitat for coast redwood significantly contracts at the southern end of its current range. Our results suggest that historical climate data provide a high-resolution alternative to downscaled GCM outputs for near-term ecological forecasts. This method may be particularly useful in other regions where local climate is strongly influenced by ocean-atmosphere dynamics that are not represented by coarse-scale GCMs. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Assessing habitat risk from human activities to inform coastal and marine spatial planning: a demonstration in Belize

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arkema, Katie K.; Verutes, Gregory; Bernhardt, Joanna R.; Clarke, Chantalle; Rosado, Samir; Canto, Maritza; Wood, Spencer A.; Ruckelshaus, Mary; Rosenthal, Amy; McField, Melanie; de Zegher, Joann

2014-11-01

Integrated coastal and ocean management requires transparent and accessible approaches for understanding the influence of human activities on marine environments. Here we introduce a model for assessing the combined risk to habitats from multiple ocean uses. We apply the model to coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass beds in Belize to inform the design of the country’s first Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Plan. Based on extensive stakeholder engagement, review of existing legislation and data collected from diverse sources, we map the current distribution of coastal and ocean activities and develop three scenarios for zoning these activities in the future. We then estimate ecosystem risk under the current and three future scenarios. Current levels of risk vary spatially among the nine coastal planning regions in Belize. Empirical tests of the model are strong—three-quarters of the measured data for coral reef health lie within the 95% confidence interval of interpolated model data and 79% of the predicted mangrove occurrences are associated with observed responses. The future scenario that harmonizes conservation and development goals results in a 20% reduction in the area of high-risk habitat compared to the current scenario, while increasing the extent of several ocean uses. Our results are a component of the ICZM Plan for Belize that will undergo review by the national legislature in 2015. This application of our model to marine spatial planning in Belize illustrates an approach that can be used broadly by coastal and ocean planners to assess risk to habitats under current and future management scenarios.

Scenario Planning Provides a Framework for Climate Change Adaptation in the National Park Service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Welling, L. A.

2012-12-01

Resource management decisions must be based on future expectations. Abundant evidence suggests climate change will have highly consequential effects on the Nation's natural and cultural resources, but specific impacts are difficult to accurately predict. This situation of too much information but not enough specificity can often lead to either paralysis or denial for decision makers. Scenario planning is an emerging tool for climate change adaptation that provides a structured framework for identifying and exploring critical drivers of change and their uncertain outcomes. Since 2007, the National Park Service (NPS) has been working with its partners to develop and apply a scenario-based approach for adaptation planning that integrates quantitative, model-driven, climate change projections with qualitative, participatory exercises to explore management and policy options under a range of future conditions. Major outcomes of this work are (1) increased understanding of key scientific results and uncertainties, (2) incorporation of alternative perspectives into park and landscape level planning, (3) identification of "no brainer" and "no gainer" actions, (4) strengthening of regional science-management partnerships, and (5) overall improved capacity for flexible decision making. The basic approach employed by NPS for scenario planning follows a typical adaptive management process: define the focal question, assess the relevant science, explore plausible futures, identify effective strategies, prioritize and implement actions, and monitor results. Many science and management partners contributed to the process, including NOAA Regional Integrated Science and Assessment teams (RISAs) and Regional Climate Centers (RCCs), USGS Research Centers, and other university and government scientists. The Global Business Network, an internationally recognized leader in scenario development, provided expert facilitation and training techniques. Climate science input is provided through global and regional circulation models and downscaling to arrive at climate driver information that is relevant for parks and the landscapes within which they are found. Considerable effort is necessary to synthesize the information and to effectively communicate uncertainties about both values and trend (e.g. scientists have higher confidence in the trend of temperature over a given time period than the value). Drivers that are determined to be highly consequential and uncertain are used to create management-relevant scenarios using various techniques, including a structured 2X2 matrix approach, a succession of rapid combinations using multiple variables, and the development of a base, "least change" scenario from which alternatives are then constructed. Socio-economic factors are also considered as essential factors that define the full decision environment within which management and policy decisions are made. Resulting scenarios incorporate information about impacts to natural and cultural resources as well as facilities and visitor experience. The NPS conducted prototypes for scenario planning in each of seven regions and has begun to incorporate elements of the process into all planning requirements. A significant outcome of this work is managers and scientists alike understand climate and ecosystem models provide tools for exploring the future rather than predicting it.

Effects of future sulfate and nitrate deposition scenarios on Linville Gorge and Shining Rock Wildernesses

Treesearch

Katherine J. Elliott; James M. Vose; William A. Jackson

2013-01-01

We used the Nutrient Cycling Model (NuCM) to simulate the effects of various sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) deposition scenarios on wilderness areas in Western North Carolina. Linville Gorge Wilderness (LGW) and Shining Rock Wilderness (SRW) were chosen because they are high elevation acidic cove forests and are located on geologic parent material known to be low in base...

Rethinking impact evaluation and carbon reduction analysis on electric bus vehicles in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Zhenyu; Li, Chao; Liao, Kai; Yin, Zhifang

2018-02-01

New energy bus vehicles (NEBVs) are expanding in China, but they have some problems such as technology, high cost and safety etc., thus NEBVs should be comprehensively evaluated from costs, technologies, environment, and based on the evaluation results, some changes should be improved. This paper firstly analyses the current status of both vehicle development and existing policies, identifies the main characteristics and the main problems in term of the economic, standard, policy, etc., by scenario analysis, forecasts the future growth from now to 2030 and calculates the emission reduction in low level scenario and high level scenario. In 2020 and 2030, 6 million and 24 million ton of CO2 emission will be reduced respectively. Finally, the paper makes a conclusion of Chinese experiences and gives some measures for the future development.

Role of future scenarios in understanding deep uncertainty in ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The environment and its interactions with human systems, whether economic, social or political, are complex. Relevant drivers may disrupt system dynamics in unforeseen ways, making it difficult to predict future conditions. This kind of deep uncertainty presents a challenge to organizations faced with making decisions about the future, including those involved in air quality management. Scenario Planning is a structured process that involves the development of narratives describing alternative future states of the world, designed to differ with respect to the most critical and uncertain drivers. The resulting scenarios are then used to understand the consequences of those futures and to prepare for them with robust management strategies. We demonstrate a novel air quality management application of Scenario Planning. Through a series of workshops, important air quality drivers were identified. The most critical and uncertain drivers were found to be “technological development” and “change in societal paradigms.” These drivers were used as a basis to develop four distinct scenario storylines. The energy and emission implications of each storyline were then modeled using the MARKAL energy system model. NOX and SO2 emissions were found to decrease for all scenarios, largely a response to existing air quality regulations. Future-year emissions differed considerably from one scenario to another, however, with key differentiating factors being transition

Scenario planning: a tool for academic health sciences libraries.

PubMed

Ludwig, Logan; Giesecke, Joan; Walton, Linda

2010-03-01

Review the International Campaign to Revitalise Academic Medicine (ICRAM) Future Scenarios as a potential starting point for developing scenarios to envisage plausible futures for health sciences libraries. At an educational workshop, 15 groups, each composed of four to seven Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) directors and AAHSL/NLM Fellows, created plausible stories using the five ICRAM scenarios. Participants created 15 plausible stories regarding roles played by health sciences librarians, how libraries are used and their physical properties in response to technology, scholarly communication, learning environments and health care economic changes. Libraries are affected by many forces, including economic pressures, curriculum and changes in technology, health care delivery and scholarly communications business models. The future is likely to contain ICRAM scenario elements, although not all, and each, if they come to pass, will impact health sciences libraries. The AAHSL groups identified common features in their scenarios to learn lessons for now. The hope is that other groups find the scenarios useful in thinking about academic health science library futures.

Climate change and growth scenarios for California wildfire

Treesearch

A.L. Westerling; B.P. Bryant; H.K. Preisler; T.P. Holmes; H.G. Hildalgo; T. Das; S.R. Shrestha

2011-01-01

Large wildfire occurrence and burned area are modeled using hydroclimate and landsurface characteristics under a range of future climate and development scenarios. The range of uncertainty for future wildfire regimes is analyzed over two emissions pathways (the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios [SRES] A2 and B1 scenarios); three global climate models (Centre...

Flow regime alterations under changing climate in two river basins: Implications for freshwater ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gibson, C.A.; Meyer, J.L.; Poff, N.L.; Hay, L.E.; Georgakakos, A.

2005-01-01

We examined impacts of future climate scenarios on flow regimes and how predicted changes might affect river ecosystems. We examined two case studies: Cle Elum River, Washington, and Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River Basin, Georgia and Florida. These rivers had available downscaled global circulation model (GCM) data and allowed us to analyse the effects of future climate scenarios on rivers with (1) different hydrographs, (2) high future water demands, and (3) a river-floodplain system. We compared observed flow regimes to those predicted under future climate scenarios to describe the extent and type of changes predicted to occur. Daily stream flow under future climate scenarios was created by either statistically downscaling GCMs (Cle Elum) or creating a regression model between climatological parameters predicted from GCMs and stream flow (Chattahoochee-Apalachicola). Flow regimes were examined for changes from current conditions with respect to ecologically relevant features including the magnitude and timing of minimum and maximum flows. The Cle Elum's hydrograph under future climate scenarios showed a dramatic shift in the timing of peak flows and lower low flow of a longer duration. These changes could mean higher summer water temperatures, lower summer dissolved oxygen, and reduced survival of larval fishes. The Chattahoochee-Apalachicola basin is heavily impacted by dams and water withdrawals for human consumption; therefore, we made comparisons between pre-large dam conditions, current conditions, current conditions with future demand, and future climate scenarios with future demand to separate climate change effects and other anthropogenic impacts. Dam construction, future climate, and future demand decreased the flow variability of the river. In addition, minimum flows were lower under future climate scenarios. These changes could decrease the connectivity of the channel and the floodplain, decrease habitat availability, and potentially lower the ability of the river to assimilate wastewater treatment plant effluent. Our study illustrates the types of changes that river ecosystems might experience under future climates. Copyright ?? 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Potential of satellite-derived ecosystem functional attributes to anticipate species range shifts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alcaraz-Segura, Domingo; Lomba, Angela; Sousa-Silva, Rita; Nieto-Lugilde, Diego; Alves, Paulo; Georges, Damien; Vicente, Joana R.; Honrado, João P.

2017-05-01

In a world facing rapid environmental changes, anticipating their impacts on biodiversity is of utmost relevance. Remotely-sensed Ecosystem Functional Attributes (EFAs) are promising predictors for Species Distribution Models (SDMs) by offering an early and integrative response of vegetation performance to environmental drivers. Species of high conservation concern would benefit the most from a better ability to anticipate changes in habitat suitability. Here we illustrate how yearly projections from SDMs based on EFAs could reveal short-term changes in potential habitat suitability, anticipating mid-term shifts predicted by climate-change-scenario models. We fitted two sets of SDMs for 41 plant species of conservation concern in the Iberian Peninsula: one calibrated with climate variables for baseline conditions and projected under two climate-change-scenarios (future conditions); and the other calibrated with EFAs for 2001 and projected annually from 2001 to 2013. Range shifts predicted by climate-based models for future conditions were compared to the 2001-2013 trends from EFAs-based models. Projections of EFAs-based models estimated changes (mostly contractions) in habitat suitability that anticipated, for the majority (up to 64%) of species, the mid-term shifts projected by traditional climate-change-scenario forecasting, and showed greater agreement with the business-as-usual scenario than with the sustainable-development one. This study shows how satellite-derived EFAs can be used as meaningful essential biodiversity variables in SDMs to provide early-warnings of range shifts and predictions of short-term fluctuations in suitable conditions for multiple species.

The use of scenarios for long-range planning by investor-owned electric utilities in the Pacific Northwest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lyons, John V.

Scenario planning is a method of organizing and understanding large amounts of quantitative and qualitative data for leaders to make better strategic decisions. There is a lack of academic research about scenario planning with a subsequent shortage of definitions and theories. This study utilized a case study methodology to analyze scenario planning by investor-owned electric utilities in the Pacific Northwest in their integrated resource planning (IRP) process. The cases include Avista Corporation, Idaho Power, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric, and Puget Sound Energy. This study sought to determine how scenario planning was used, what scenario approach was used, the scenario outcomes, and the similarities and differences in the scenario planning processes. The literature review of this study covered the development of scenario planning, common definitions and theories, approaches to scenario development, and scenario outcomes. A research methodology was developed to classify the scenario development approach into intuitive, hybrid, or quantitative approaches; and scenario outcomes of changed thinking, stories of plausible futures, improved decision making, and enhanced organizational learning. The study found all three forms of scenario planning in the IRPs. All of the cases used a similar approach to IRP development. All of the cases had at least improved decision making as an outcome of scenario planning. Only one case demonstrated all four scenario outcomes. A critical finding was a correlation between the use of the intuitive approach and the use of all scenario outcomes. Another major finding was the unique use of predetermined elements, which are normally consistent across scenarios, but became critical uncertainties in some of the scenarios in the cases for this study. This finding will need to be confirmed by future research as unique to the industry or an aberration. An unusually high number of scenarios were found for cases using the hybrid approach, which was unexpected based on the literature. This work expanded the methods for studying scenario planning, enhanced the body of scholarly works on scenario planning, and provided a starting point for additional research concerning the use of scenario planning by electric utilities.

The Future Role of Publishing Services in University Libraries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walters, Tyler

2012-01-01

This study explores possible futures for university-based library publishing services (LPS) and uses scenario planning as its research method. The study posits that the major force in developing LPS is the level of funding from the host university, with the most uncertain factor being whether faculty will adopt LPS. The study participants…

FUTURE WATER ALLOCATION AND IN-STREAM VALUES IN THE WILLAMETTE RIVER BASIN: A BASIN-WIDE ANALYSIS

EPA Science Inventory

Our research investigated the impact on surface water resources of three different scenarios for the future development of the Willamette River Basin in Oregon (USA). Water rights in the basin, and in the western United States in general, are based on a system of law that binds ...

Flood projections within the Niger River Basin under future land use and climate change.

PubMed

Aich, Valentin; Liersch, Stefan; Vetter, Tobias; Fournet, Samuel; Andersson, Jafet C M; Calmanti, Sandro; van Weert, Frank H A; Hattermann, Fred F; Paton, Eva N

2016-08-15

This study assesses future flood risk in the Niger River Basin (NRB), for the first time considering the simultaneous effects of both projected climate change and land use changes. For this purpose, an ecohydrological process-based model (SWIM) was set up and validated for past climate and land use dynamics of the entire NRB. Model runs for future flood risks were conducted with an ensemble of 18 climate models, 13 of them dynamically downscaled from the CORDEX Africa project and five statistically downscaled Earth System Models. Two climate and two land use change scenarios were used to cover a broad range of potential developments in the region. Two flood indicators (annual 90th percentile and the 20-year return flood) were used to assess the future flood risk for the Upper, Middle and Lower Niger as well as the Benue. The modeling results generally show increases of flood magnitudes when comparing a scenario period in the near future (2021-2050) with a base period (1976-2005). Land use effects are more uncertain, but trends and relative changes for the different catchments of the NRB seem robust. The dry areas of the Sahelian and Sudanian regions of the basin show a particularly high sensitivity to climatic and land use changes, with an alarming increase of flood magnitudes in parts. A scenario with continuing transformation of natural vegetation into agricultural land and urbanization intensifies the flood risk in all parts of the NRB, while a "regreening" scenario can reduce flood magnitudes to some extent. Yet, land use change effects were smaller when compared to the effects of climate change. In the face of an already existing adaptation deficit to catastrophic flooding in the region, the authors argue for a mix of adaptation and mitigation efforts in order to reduce the flood risk in the NRB. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Optimizing Decision Preparedness by Adapting Scenario Complexity and Automating Scenario Generation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dunne, Rob; Schatz, Sae; Flore, Stephen M.; Nicholson, Denise

2011-01-01

Klein's recognition-primed decision (RPD) framework proposes that experts make decisions by recognizing similarities between current decision situations and previous decision experiences. Unfortunately, military personnel arQ often presented with situations that they have not experienced before. Scenario-based training (S8T) can help mitigate this gap. However, SBT remains a challenging and inefficient training approach. To address these limitations, the authors present an innovative formulation of scenario complexity that contributes to the larger research goal of developing an automated scenario generation system. This system will enable trainees to effectively advance through a variety of increasingly complex decision situations and experiences. By adapting scenario complexities and automating generation, trainees will be provided with a greater variety of appropriately calibrated training events, thus broadening their repositories of experience. Preliminary results from empirical testing (N=24) of the proof-of-concept formula are presented, and future avenues of scenario complexity research are also discussed.

A new framework for quantifying uncertainties in modelling studies for future climates - how more certain are CMIP5 precipitation and temperature simulations compared to CMIP3?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharma, A.; Woldemeskel, F. M.; Sivakumar, B.; Mehrotra, R.

2014-12-01

We outline a new framework for assessing uncertainties in model simulations, be they hydro-ecological simulations for known scenarios, or climate simulations for assumed scenarios representing the future. This framework is illustrated here using GCM projections for future climates for hydrologically relevant variables (precipitation and temperature), with the uncertainty segregated into three dominant components - model uncertainty, scenario uncertainty (representing greenhouse gas emission scenarios), and ensemble uncertainty (representing uncertain initial conditions and states). A novel uncertainty metric, the Square Root Error Variance (SREV), is used to quantify the uncertainties involved. The SREV requires: (1) Interpolating raw and corrected GCM outputs to a common grid; (2) Converting these to percentiles; (3) Estimating SREV for model, scenario, initial condition and total uncertainty at each percentile; and (4) Transforming SREV to a time series. The outcome is a spatially varying series of SREVs associated with each model that can be used to assess how uncertain the system is at each simulated point or time. This framework, while illustrated in a climate change context, is completely applicable for assessment of uncertainties any modelling framework may be subject to. The proposed method is applied to monthly precipitation and temperature from 6 CMIP3 and 13 CMIP5 GCMs across the world. For CMIP3, B1, A1B and A2 scenarios whereas for CMIP5, RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 representing low, medium and high emissions are considered. For both CMIP3 and CMIP5, model structure is the largest source of uncertainty, which reduces significantly after correcting for biases. Scenario uncertainly increases, especially for temperature, in future due to divergence of the three emission scenarios analysed. While CMIP5 precipitation simulations exhibit a small reduction in total uncertainty over CMIP3, there is almost no reduction observed for temperature projections. Estimation of uncertainty in both space and time sheds lights on the spatial and temporal patterns of uncertainties in GCM outputs, providing an effective platform for risk-based assessments of any alternate plans or decisions that may be formulated using GCM simulations.

Projection of global terrestrial nitrous oxide emission using future scenarios of climate and land-use management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Inatomi, M. I.; Ito, A.

2016-12-01

Nitrous oxide (N2O), with a centennial mean residence time in the atmosphere, is one of the most remarkable greenhouse gases. Because natural and anthropogenic emissions make comparable contributions, we need to take account of different sources of N2O such as natural soils and fertilizer in croplands to predict the future emission change and to discuss its mitigation. In this study, we conduct a series of simulations of future change in nitrous oxide emission from terrestrial ecosystems using a process-based model, VISIT. We assume a couple of scenarios of future climate change, atmospheric nitrogen deposition, fertilizer input, and land-use change. In particular, we develop a new scenario of cropland fertilizer input on the basis of changes in crop productivity and fertilizer production cost. Expansion of biofuel crop production is considered but in a simplified manner (e.g., a specific fraction of pasture conversion to biofuel cultivation). Regional and temporal aspects of N2O emission are investigated and compared with previous studies. Finally, we make discussions, on the basis of simulated results, about the high-end of N2O emission, mitigation options, and impact of fertilizer input.

Predicting the Distribution of Commercially Important Invertebrate Stocks under Future Climate

PubMed Central

Russell, Bayden D.; Connell, Sean D.; Mellin, Camille; Brook, Barry W.; Burnell, Owen W.; Fordham, Damien A.

2012-01-01

The future management of commercially exploited species is challenging because techniques used to predict the future distribution of stocks under climate change are currently inadequate. We projected the future distribution and abundance of two commercially harvested abalone species (blacklip abalone, Haliotis rubra and greenlip abalone, H. laevigata) inhabiting coastal South Australia, using multiple species distribution models (SDM) and for decadal time slices through to 2100. Projections are based on two contrasting global greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The SDMs identified August (winter) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) as the best descriptor of abundance and forecast that warming of winter temperatures under both scenarios may be beneficial to both species by allowing increased abundance and expansion into previously uninhabited coasts. This range expansion is unlikely to be realised, however, as projected warming of March SST is projected to exceed temperatures which cause up to 10-fold increases in juvenile mortality. By linking fine-resolution forecasts of sea surface temperature under different climate change scenarios to SDMs and physiological experiments, we provide a practical first approximation of the potential impact of climate-induced change on two species of marine invertebrates in the same fishery. PMID:23251326

[Spatiotemporal variations of natural wetland CH4 emissions over China under future climate change].

PubMed

Liu, Jian-gong; Zhu, Qiu-an; Shen, Yan; Yang, Yan-zheng; Luo, Yun-peng; Peng, Chang-hui

2015-11-01

Based on a new process-based model, TRIPLEX-GHG, this paper analyzed the spatio-temporal variations of natural wetland CH4 emissions over China under different future climate change scenarios. When natural wetland distributions were fixed, the amount of CH4 emissions from natural wetland ecosystem over China would increase by 32.0%, 55.3% and 90.8% by the end of 21st century under three representative concentration pathways (RCPs) scenarios, RCP2. 6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively, compared with the current level. Southern China would have higher CH4 emissions compared to that from central and northern China. Besides, there would be relatively low emission fluxes in western China while relatively high emission fluxes in eastern China. Spatially, the areas with relatively high CH4 emission fluxes would be concentrated in the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Northeast and the coasts of the Pearl River. In the future, most natural wetlands would emit more CH4 for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 than that of 2005. However, under RCP2.6 scenario, the increasing trend would be curbed and CH4 emissions (especially from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau) begin to decrease in the late 21st century.

Assessment on the rates and potentials of soil organic carbon sequestration in agricultural lands in Japan using a process-based model and spatially explicit land-use change inventories - Part 2: Future potentials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yagasaki, Y.; Shirato, Y.

2014-08-01

Future potentials of the sequestration of soil organic carbon (SOC) in agricultural lands in Japan were estimated using a simulation system we recently developed to simulate SOC stock change at country-scale under varying land-use change, climate, soil, and agricultural practices, in a spatially explicit manner. Simulation was run from 1970 to 2006 with historical inventories, and subsequently to 2020 with future scenarios of agricultural activity comprised of various agricultural policy targets advocated by the Japanese government. Furthermore, the simulation was run subsequently until 2100 while forcing no temporal changes in land-use and agricultural activity to investigate duration and course of SOC stock change at country scale. A scenario with an increased rate of organic carbon input to agricultural fields by intensified crop rotation in combination with the suppression of conversion of agricultural lands to other land-use types was found to have a greater reduction of CO2 emission by enhanced soil carbon sequestration, but only under a circumstance in which the converted agricultural lands will become settlements that were considered to have a relatively lower rate of organic carbon input. The size of relative reduction of CO2 emission in this scenario was comparable to that in another contrasting scenario (business-as-usual scenario of agricultural activity) in which a relatively lower rate of organic matter input to agricultural fields was assumed in combination with an increased rate of conversion of the agricultural fields to unmanaged grasslands through abandonment. Our simulation experiment clearly demonstrated that net-net-based accounting on SOC stock change, defined as the differences between the emissions and removals during the commitment period and the emissions and removals during a previous period (base year or base period of Kyoto Protocol), can be largely influenced by variations in future climate. Whereas baseline-based accounting, defined as differences between the net emissions in the accounting period and the ex ante estimation of net business-as-usual emissions for the same period, has robustness over variations in future climate and effectiveness to factor out some of the direct human-induced effects such as changing land-use and agricultural activity. Factors affecting uncertainties in the estimation of the country-scale potential of SOC sequestration were discussed, especially those related to estimation of the rate of organic carbon input to soils under different land-use types. Our study suggested that, in order to assist decision making of policy on agriculture, land management, and mitigation of global climate change, it is also important to take account of duration and time course of SOC sequestration, supposition on land-use change pattern in future, as well as feasibility of agricultural policy planning.

Seeking potential contributions to future carbon budget in conterminous US forests considering disturbances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Fangmin; Pan, Yude; Birdsey, Richard A.; Chen, Jing M.; Dugan, Alexa

2017-11-01

Currently, US forests constitute a large carbon sink, comprising about 9 % of the global terrestrial carbon sink. Wildfire is the most significant disturbance influencing carbon dynamics in US forests. Our objective is to estimate impacts of climate change, CO2 concentration, and nitrogen deposition on the future net biome productivity (NBP) of US forests until the end of twenty-first century under a range of disturbance conditions. We designate three forest disturbance scenarios under one future climate scenario to evaluate factor impacts for the future period (2011-2100): (1) no wildfires occur but forests continue to age (Saging), (2) no wildfires occur and forest ages are fixed in 2010 (Sfixed_nodis), and (3) wildfires occur according to a historical pattern, consequently changing forest age (Sdis_age_change). Results indicate that US forests remain a large carbon sink in the late twenty-first century under the Sfixed_nodis scenario; however, they become a carbon source under the Saging and Sdis_age_change scenarios. During the period of 2011 to 2100, climate is projected to have a small direct effect on NBP, while atmospheric CO2 concentration and nitrogen deposition have large positive effects on NBP regardless of the future climate and disturbance scenarios. Meanwhile, responses to past disturbances under the Sfixed_nodis scenario increase NBP regardless of the future climate scenarios. Although disturbance effects on NBP under the Saging and Sdis_age_change scenarios decrease with time, both scenarios experience an increase in NBP prior to the 2050s and then a decrease in NBP until the end of the twenty-first century. This study indicates that there is potential to increase or at least maintain the carbon sink of conterminous US forests at the current level if future wildfires are reduced and age structures are maintained at a productive mix. The effects of CO2 on the future carbon sink may overwhelm effects of other factors at the end of the twenty-first century. Although our model in conjunction with multiple disturbance scenarios may not reflect the true conditions of future forests, it provides a range of potential conditions as well as a useful guide to both current and future forest carbon management.

Predicting Plant Diversity Patterns in Madagascar: Understanding the Effects of Climate and Land Cover Change in a Biodiversity Hotspot

PubMed Central

Brown, Kerry A.; Parks, Katherine E.; Bethell, Colin A.; Johnson, Steig E.; Mulligan, Mark

2015-01-01

Climate and land cover change are driving a major reorganization of terrestrial biotic communities in tropical ecosystems. In an effort to understand how biodiversity patterns in the tropics will respond to individual and combined effects of these two drivers of environmental change, we use species distribution models (SDMs) calibrated for recent climate and land cover variables and projected to future scenarios to predict changes in diversity patterns in Madagascar. We collected occurrence records for 828 plant genera and 2186 plant species. We developed three scenarios, (i.e., climate only, land cover only and combined climate-land cover) based on recent and future climate and land cover variables. We used this modelling framework to investigate how the impacts of changes to climate and land cover influenced biodiversity across ecoregions and elevation bands. There were large-scale climate- and land cover-driven changes in plant biodiversity across Madagascar, including both losses and gains in diversity. The sharpest declines in biodiversity were projected for the eastern escarpment and high elevation ecosystems. Sharp declines in diversity were driven by the combined climate-land cover scenarios; however, there were subtle, region-specific differences in model outputs for each scenario, where certain regions experienced relatively higher species loss under climate or land cover only models. We strongly caution that predicted future gains in plant diversity will depend on the development and maintenance of dispersal pathways that connect current and future suitable habitats. The forecast for Madagascar’s plant diversity in the face of future environmental change is worrying: regional diversity will continue to decrease in response to the combined effects of climate and land cover change, with habitats such as ericoid thickets and eastern lowland and sub-humid forests particularly vulnerable into the future. PMID:25856241

Predicting plant diversity patterns in Madagascar: understanding the effects of climate and land cover change in a biodiversity hotspot.

PubMed

Brown, Kerry A; Parks, Katherine E; Bethell, Colin A; Johnson, Steig E; Mulligan, Mark

2015-01-01

Climate and land cover change are driving a major reorganization of terrestrial biotic communities in tropical ecosystems. In an effort to understand how biodiversity patterns in the tropics will respond to individual and combined effects of these two drivers of environmental change, we use species distribution models (SDMs) calibrated for recent climate and land cover variables and projected to future scenarios to predict changes in diversity patterns in Madagascar. We collected occurrence records for 828 plant genera and 2186 plant species. We developed three scenarios, (i.e., climate only, land cover only and combined climate-land cover) based on recent and future climate and land cover variables. We used this modelling framework to investigate how the impacts of changes to climate and land cover influenced biodiversity across ecoregions and elevation bands. There were large-scale climate- and land cover-driven changes in plant biodiversity across Madagascar, including both losses and gains in diversity. The sharpest declines in biodiversity were projected for the eastern escarpment and high elevation ecosystems. Sharp declines in diversity were driven by the combined climate-land cover scenarios; however, there were subtle, region-specific differences in model outputs for each scenario, where certain regions experienced relatively higher species loss under climate or land cover only models. We strongly caution that predicted future gains in plant diversity will depend on the development and maintenance of dispersal pathways that connect current and future suitable habitats. The forecast for Madagascar's plant diversity in the face of future environmental change is worrying: regional diversity will continue to decrease in response to the combined effects of climate and land cover change, with habitats such as ericoid thickets and eastern lowland and sub-humid forests particularly vulnerable into the future.

Forecasting sagebrush ecosystem components and greater sage-grouse habitat for 2050: learning from past climate patterns and Landsat imagery to predict the future

USGS Publications Warehouse

Homer, Collin G.; Xian, George Z.; Aldridge, Cameron L.; Meyer, Debra K.; Loveland, Thomas R.; O'Donnell, Michael S.

2015-01-01

Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems constitute the largest single North American shrub ecosystem and provide vital ecological, hydrological, biological, agricultural, and recreational ecosystem services. Disturbances have altered and reduced this ecosystem historically, but climate change may ultimately represent the greatest future risk. Improved ways to quantify, monitor, and predict climate-driven gradual change in this ecosystem is vital to its future management. We examined the annual change of Daymet precipitation (daily gridded climate data) and five remote sensing ecosystem sagebrush vegetation and soil components (bare ground, herbaceous, litter, sagebrush, and shrub) from 1984 to 2011 in southwestern Wyoming. Bare ground displayed an increasing trend in abundance over time, and herbaceous, litter, shrub, and sagebrush showed a decreasing trend. Total precipitation amounts show a downward trend during the same period. We established statistically significant correlations between each sagebrush component and historical precipitation records using a simple least squares linear regression. Using the historical relationship between sagebrush component abundance and precipitation in a linear model, we forecasted the abundance of the sagebrush components in 2050 using Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) precipitation scenarios A1B and A2. Bare ground was the only component that increased under both future scenarios, with a net increase of 48.98 km2 (1.1%) across the study area under the A1B scenario and 41.15 km2 (0.9%) under the A2 scenario. The remaining components decreased under both future scenarios: litter had the highest net reductions with 49.82 km2 (4.1%) under A1B and 50.8 km2 (4.2%) under A2, and herbaceous had the smallest net reductions with 39.95 km2 (3.8%) under A1B and 40.59 km2 (3.3%) under A2. We applied the 2050 forecast sagebrush component values to contemporary (circa 2006) greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) habitat models to evaluate the effects of potential climate-induced habitat change. Under the 2050 IPCC A1B scenario, 11.6% of currently identified nesting habitat was lost, and 0.002% of new potential habitat was gained, with 4% of summer habitat lost and 0.039% gained. Our results demonstrate the successful ability of remote sensing based sagebrush components, when coupled with precipitation, to forecast future component response using IPCC precipitation scenarios. Our approach also enables future quantification of greater sage-grouse habitat under different precipitation scenarios, and provides additional capability to identify regional precipitation influence on sagebrush component response.

Air-quality in the mid-21st century for the city of Paris under two climate scenarios; from regional to local scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markakis, K.; Valari, M.; Colette, A.; Sanchez, O.; Perrussel, O.; Honore, C.; Vautard, R.; Klimont, Z.; Rao, S.

2014-01-01

Ozone and PM2.5 concentrations over the city of Paris are modeled with the CHIMERE air-quality model at 4 km × 4 km horizontal resolution for two future emission scenarios. High-resolution (1 km × 1 km) emission projection until 2020 for the greater Paris region is developed by local experts (AIRPARIF) and is further extended to year 2050 based on regional scale emission projections developed by the Global Energy Assessment. Model evaluation is performed based on a 10 yr control simulation. Ozone is in very good agreement with measurements while PM2.5 is underestimated by 20% over the urban area mainly due to a large wet bias in wintertime precipitation. A significant increase of maximum ozone relative to present time levels over Paris is modeled under the "business as usual" scenario (+7 ppb) while a more optimistic mitigation scenario leads to moderate ozone decrease (-3.5 ppb) in year 2050. These results are substantially different to previous regional scale projections where 2050 ozone is found to decrease under both future scenarios. A sensitivity analysis showed that this difference is due to the fact that ozone formation over Paris at the current, urban scale study, is driven by VOC-limited chemistry, whereas at the regional scale ozone formation occurs under NOx-sensitive conditions. This explains why the sharp NOx reductions implemented in the future scenarios have a different effect on ozone projections at different scales. In rural areas projections at both scales yield similar results showing that the longer time-scale processes of emission transport and ozone formation are less sensitive to model resolution. PM2.5 concentrations decrease by 78% and 89% under "business as usual" and "mitigation" scenarios respectively compared to present time period. The reduction is much more prominent over the urban part of the domain due to the effective reductions of road transport and residential emissions resulting in the smoothing of the large urban increment modelled in the control simulation.

Air quality in the mid-21st century for the city of Paris under two climate scenarios; from the regional to local scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markakis, K.; Valari, M.; Colette, A.; Sanchez, O.; Perrussel, O.; Honore, C.; Vautard, R.; Klimont, Z.; Rao, S.

2014-07-01

Ozone and PM2.5 concentrations over the city of Paris are modeled with the CHIMERE air-quality model at 4 km × 4 km horizontal resolution for two future emission scenarios. A high-resolution (1 km × 1 km) emission projection until 2020 for the greater Paris region is developed by local experts (AIRPARIF) and is further extended to year 2050 based on regional-scale emission projections developed by the Global Energy Assessment. Model evaluation is performed based on a 10-year control simulation. Ozone is in very good agreement with measurements while PM2.5 is underestimated by 20% over the urban area mainly due to a large wet bias in wintertime precipitation. A significant increase of maximum ozone relative to present-day levels over Paris is modeled under the "business-as-usual" scenario (+7 ppb) while a more optimistic "mitigation" scenario leads to a moderate ozone decrease (-3.5 ppb) in year 2050. These results are substantially different to previous regional-scale projections where 2050 ozone is found to decrease under both future scenarios. A sensitivity analysis showed that this difference is due to the fact that ozone formation over Paris at the current urban-scale study is driven by volatile organic compound (VOC)-limited chemistry, whereas at the regional-scale ozone formation occurs under NOx-sensitive conditions. This explains why the sharp NOx reductions implemented in the future scenarios have a different effect on ozone projections at different scales. In rural areas, projections at both scales yield similar results showing that the longer timescale processes of emission transport and ozone formation are less sensitive to model resolution. PM2.5 concentrations decrease by 78% and 89% under business-as-usual and mitigation scenarios, respectively, compared to the present-day period. The reduction is much more prominent over the urban part of the domain due to the effective reductions of road transport and residential emissions resulting in the smoothing of the large urban increment modeled in the control simulation.

Status Report on Image Information Systems and Image Data Base Technology

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-12-01

PowerHouse, StarGate , StarNet. Significant Recent Developments: Acceptance major teaching Universities (Australia), U.S.A.F. Major Corporations. Future...scenario, all computers must be VAX). STARBASE StarBase StarNet, (Network server), StarBase StarGate , (SQL gateway). SYBASE Sybase is an inherently

Evaluating United States and world consumption of neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and praseodymium in final products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hart, Matthew

This paper develops scenarios of future rare-earth-magnet metal (neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and praseodymium) consumption in the permanent magnets used in wind turbines and hybrid electric vehicles. The scenarios start with naive base-case scenarios for growth in wind-turbine and hybrid-electric-vehicle sales over the period 2011 to 2020, using historical data for each good. These naive scenarios assume that future growth follows time trends in historical data and does not depend on any exogenous variable. Specifically, growth of each technological market follows historical time trends, and the amount of rare earths used per unit of technology remains fixed. The chosen reference year is 2010. Implied consumptions of the rare earth magnet metals are calculated from these scenarios. Assumptions are made for the material composition of permanent magnets, the market share of permanent-magnet wind turbines and vehicles, and magnet weight per unit of technology. Different scenarios estimate how changes in factors like the material composition of magnets, growth of the economy, and the price of a substitute could affect future consumption. Each scenario presents a different method for reducing rare earth consumption and could be interpreted as potential policy choices. In 2010, the consumption (metric tons, rare-earth-oxide equivalent) of each rare-earth-magnet metal was as follows. Total neodymium consumption in the world for both technologies was 995 tons; dysprosium consumption was 133 tons; terbium consumption was 50 tons; praseodymium consumption was zero tons. The base scenario for wind turbines shows there could be strong, exponential growth in the global wind turbine market. New U.S. sales of hybrid vehicles would decline (in line with the current economic recession) while non-U.S. sales increase through 2020. There would be an overall increase in the total amount of magnetic rare earths consumed in the world. Total consumption of each rare earth in the short-term (2015) and mid-term (2020) scenarios could be between: 1,984 to 6,475 tons (2015) and 3,487 to 13,763 tons (2020) of neodymium; 331 to 864 tons (2015) and 587 to 1,834 tons (2020) of dysprosium; 123 to 325 tons (2015) and 219 to 687 tons (2020) of terbium; finally, zero to 871 tons (2015) and zero to 1,493 tons (2020) of praseodymium. Hybrid vehicle sales in non-U.S. countries could account for a large portion of magnetic rare earth consumption. Wind turbine and related rare earth consumption growth will also be driven by non-U.S. countries, especially developing nations like China. Despite wind turbines using bigger magnets, the sheer volume of hybrids sold and non-U.S. consumers could account for most future consumption of permanent magnets and their rare earths.

The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario: from Publication to Implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, S.; Jones, L.; Miller, K.; Wilson, R. I.; Burkett, E. R.; Bwarie, J.; Campbell, N. M.; Johnson, L. A.; Long, K.; Lynett, P. J.; Perry, S. C.; Plumlee, G. S.; Porter, K.; Real, C. R.; Ritchie, L. A.; Wein, A. M.; Whitmore, P.; Wood, N. J.

2014-12-01

The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario modeled a hypothetical but plausible tsunami, created by an Mw9.1 earthquake occurring offshore from the Alaskan peninsula, and its impacts on the California coast. We presented the likely inundation areas, current velocities in key ports and harbors, physical damage and repair costs, economic consequences, environmental impacts, social vulnerability, emergency management, and policy implications for California associated with the scenario tsunami. The intended users were those responsible for making mitigation decisions before and those who need to make rapid decisions during future tsunamis. The Tsunami Scenario process is being evaluated by the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Center; this is the first time that a USGS scenario of this scale has been formally and systematically evaluated by an external party. The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario was publicly introduced in September, 2013, through a series of regional workshops in California that brought together emergency managers, maritime authorities, first responders, elected officials and staffers, the business sector, state agencies, local media, scientific partners, and special districts such as utilities (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2013/1170/). In March, 2014, NOAA's annual tsunami warning exercise, PACIFEX, was based on the SAFRR Tsunami Scenario. Many groups conducted exercises associated with PACIFEX including the State of Washington and several counties in California. San Francisco had the most comprehensive exercise with a 3-day functional exercise based on the SAFRR Tsunami Scenario. In addition, the National Institutes of Health ran an exercise at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in April, 2014, building on the Tsunami Scenario, focusing on the recovery phase and adding a refinery fire. The benefits and lessons learned include: 1) stimulating dialogue among practitioners to solve problems; 2) seeing groups add extra components to their exercises that best address their specific concerns; 3) providing groups with information packaged specifically for them; 4) recognizing the value of having scenario developers personally present the scenario to user groups and 5) having the SAFRR work applied to support ongoing activities by and future directions of the California state tsunami program.

Resource management and operations in central North Dakota: Climate change scenario planning workshop summary November 12-13, 2015, Bismarck, ND

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fisichelli, Nicholas A.; Schuurman, Gregor; Symstad, Amy J.; Ray, Andrea; Friedman, Jonathan M.; Miller, Brian; Rowland, Erika

2016-01-01

The Scaling Climate Change Adaptation in the Northern Great Plains through Regional Climate Summaries and Local Qualitative-Quantitative Scenario Planning Workshops project synthesizes climate data into 3-5 distinct but plausible climate summaries for the northern Great Plains region; crafts quantitative summaries of these climate futures for two focal areas; and applies these local summaries by developing climate-resource-management scenarios through participatory workshops and, where possible, simulation models. The two focal areas are central North Dakota and southwest South Dakota (Figure 1). The primary objective of this project is to help resource managers and scientists in a focal area use scenario planning to make management and planning decisions based on assessments of critical future uncertainties.This report summarizes project work for public and tribal lands in the central North Dakota focal area, with an emphasis on Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. The report explainsscenario planning as an adaptation tool in general, then describes how it was applied to the central North Dakota focal area in three phases. Priority resource management and climate uncertainties were identified in the orientation phase. Local climate summaries for relevant, divergent, and challenging climate scenarios were developed in the second phase. In the final phase, a two-day scenario planning workshop held November 12-13, 2015 in Bismarck, ND, featured scenario development and implications, testing management decisions, and methods for operationalizing scenario planning outcomes.

Generating local scale land use/cover change scenarios: case studies of high-risk mountain areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malek, Žiga; Glade, Thomas; Boerboom, Luc

2014-05-01

The relationship between land use/cover changes and consequences to human well-being is well acknowledged and has led to higher interest of both researchers and decision makers in driving forces and consequences of such changes. For example, removal of natural vegetation cover or urban expansion resulting in new elements at risk can increase hydro-meteorological risk. This is why it is necessary to study how the land use/cover could evolve in the future. Emphasis should especially be given to areas experiencing, or expecting, high rates of socio-economic change. A suitable approach to address these changes is scenario development; it offers exploring possible futures and the corresponding environmental consequences, and aids decision-making, as it enables to analyse possible options. Scenarios provide a creative methodology to depict possible futures, resulting from existing decisions, based on different assumptions of future socio-economic development. They have been used in various disciplines and on various scales, such as flood risk and soil erosion. Several studies have simulated future scenarios of land use/cover changes at a very high success rate, however usually these approaches are tailor made for specific case study areas and fit to available data. This study presents a multi-step scenario generation framework, which can be transferable to other local scale case study areas, taking into account the case study specific consequences of land use/cover changes. Through the use of experts' and decision-makers' knowledge, we aimed to develop a framework with the following characteristics: (1) it enables development of scenarios that are plausible, (2) it can overcome data inaccessibility, (3) it can address intangible and external driving forces of land use/cover change, and (4) it ensures transferability to other local scale case study areas with different land use/cover change processes and consequences. To achieve this, a set of different methods is applied including: qualitative methods such as interviews, group discussions and fuzzy cognitive mapping to identify land use/cover change processes, their driving forces and possible consequences, and final scenario generation; and geospatial methods such as GIS, geostatistics and environmental modeling in an environment for geoprocessing objects (Dinamica EGO) for spatial allocation of these scenarios. The methods were applied in the Italian Alps and the Romanian Carpathians. Both are mountainous areas, however they differ in terms of past and most likely future socio-economic development, and therefore consequent land use/cover changes. Whereas we focused on urban expansion due to tourism development in the Alps, we focused on possible deforestation trajectories in the Carpathians. In both areas, the recognized most significant driving forces were either not covered by accessible data, or were characterized as intangible. With the proposed framework we were able to generate futures scenarios despite these shortcomings, and enabling the transferability of the method.

Assessing future reactive nitrogen inputs into global croplands based on the shared socioeconomic pathways

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mogollón, J. M.; Lassaletta, L.; Beusen, A. H. W.; van Grinsven, H. J. M.; Westhoek, H.; Bouwman, A. F.

2018-04-01

Reactive nitrogen (N) inputs in agriculture strongly outpace the outputs at the global scale due to inefficiencies in cropland N use. While improvement in agricultural practices and environmental legislation in developed regions such as Western Europe have led to a remarkable increase in the N use efficiency since 1985, this lower requirement for reactive N inputs via synthetic fertilizers has yet to occur in many developing and transition regions. Here, we explore future N input requirements and N use efficiency in agriculture for the five shared socioeconomic pathways. Results show that under the most optimistic sustainability scenario, the global synthetic fertilizer use in croplands stabilizes and even shrinks (85 Tg N yr‑1 in 2050) regardless of the increase in crop production required to feed the larger estimated population. This scenario is highly dependent on projected increases in N use efficiency, particularly in South and East Asia. In our most pessimistic scenario, synthetic fertilization application rates are expected to increase almost threefold by 2050 (260 Tg N yr‑1). Excepting the sustainability scenario, all other projected scenarios reveal that the areal N surpluses will exceed acceptable limits in most of the developing regions.

MEGASTAR: The Meaning of Energy Growth: An Assessment of Systems, Technologies, and Requirements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1974-01-01

A methodology for the display and analysis of postulated energy futures for the United States is presented. A systems approach that includes the methodology of technology assessment is used to examine three energy scenarios--the Westinghouse Nuclear Electric Economy, the Ford Technical Fix Base Case and a MEGASTAR generated Alternate to the Ford Technical Fix Base Case. The three scenarios represent different paths of energy consumption for the present to the year 2000. Associated with these paths are various mixes of fuels, conversion, distribution, conservation and end-use technologies. MEGASTAR presents the estimated times and unit requirements to supply the fuels, conversion and distribution systems for the postulated end uses for the three scenarios and then estimates the aggregate manpower, materials, and capital requirements needed to develop the energy system described by the particular scenario. The total requirements and the energy subsystems for each scenario are assessed for their primary impacts in the areas of society, the environment, technology and the economy.

Changes in Urban Climate due to Future Land-Use Changes based on Population Changes in the Nagoya Region

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adachi, S. A.; Hara, M.; Takahashi, H. G.; Ma, X.; Yoshikane, T.; Kimura, F.

2013-12-01

Severe hot weather in summer season becomes a big social problem in metropolitan areas, including the Nagoya region in Japan. Surface air temperature warming is projected in the future. Therefore, the reduction of surface air temperature is an urgent issue in the urban area. Although there are several studies dealing with the effects of global climate change and urbanization to the local climate in the future, these studies tend to ignore the future population changes. This study estimates future land-use scenarios associated with the multi-projections of future population and investigates the impacts of these scenarios on the surface temperature change. The Weather Research and Forecast model ver. 3.3.1 (hereafter, WRF) was used in this study. The horizontal resolutions were 20km, 4km, and 2km, for outer, middle, and inner domains, respectively. The results from the inner domain, covering the Nagoya region, were used for the analysis. The Noah land surface model and the single-layer urban canopy model were applied to calculate the land surface processes and urban surface processes, respectively. The initial and boundary conditions were given from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data in August 2010. The urban area ratio used in the WRF model was calculated from the future land-use data provided by the S8 project. The land-use data was created as follows. (1) Three scenarios of population, namely, with high-fertility assumption and low-mortality assumption (POP-high), with medium-fertility assumption and medium-mortality assumption (POP-med), and with low-fertility assumption and high-mortality assumption (POP-low), are estimated using the method proposed by Ariga and Matsuhashi (2012). These scenarios are based on the future projections provided by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. (2) The future changes in urban area ratio were assumed to be proportional to the population change (Hanasaki et al., 2012). The averaged urban area ratio in the Nagoya region was 0.37 in 2010. The area ratios were projected to reach a peak in 2010 to 2020, and then to decrease in the future in all of scenarios. The urban heat island intensity in the Nagoya region is about 1.5°C in 2010. In contrast, the differences of surface temperature is -0.17°C, -0.21°C, and -0.30°C in POP-high, POP-med, and POP-low, from the current situation in 2010. These impacts correspond to the 10% to 20% of current urban heat island intensity. However, the changes in the efficiency of energy consumption were not considered. Considering that the future surface temperature change is projected to be about 1.2°C to 4°C in 2070, it is required to quantitatively evaluate future urban scenarios including the mitigation strategies for urban heat island such as the improvement of energy consumption, greening, and so on. Acknowledgments. This study was supported by the Research Program on Climate Change Adaptation (RECCA) Fund by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and the Global Environment Research Fund (S-8) of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.

Protocol Architecture Model Report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dhas, Chris

2000-01-01

NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) defines and develops advanced technology for high priority national needs in communications technologies for application to aeronautics and space. GRC tasked Computer Networks and Software Inc. (CNS) to examine protocols and architectures for an In-Space Internet Node. CNS has developed a methodology for network reference models to support NASA's four mission areas: Earth Science, Space Science, Human Exploration and Development of Space (REDS), Aerospace Technology. This report applies the methodology to three space Internet-based communications scenarios for future missions. CNS has conceptualized, designed, and developed space Internet-based communications protocols and architectures for each of the independent scenarios. The scenarios are: Scenario 1: Unicast communications between a Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) spacecraft inspace Internet node and a ground terminal Internet node via a Tracking and Data Rela Satellite (TDRS) transfer; Scenario 2: Unicast communications between a Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) International Space Station and a ground terminal Internet node via a TDRS transfer; Scenario 3: Multicast Communications (or "Multicasting"), 1 Spacecraft to N Ground Receivers, N Ground Transmitters to 1 Ground Receiver via a Spacecraft.

Tsunami evacuation plans for future megathrust earthquakes in Padang, Indonesia, considering stochastic earthquake scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muhammad, Ario; Goda, Katsuichiro; Alexander, Nicholas A.; Kongko, Widjo; Muhari, Abdul

2017-12-01

This study develops tsunami evacuation plans in Padang, Indonesia, using a stochastic tsunami simulation method. The stochastic results are based on multiple earthquake scenarios for different magnitudes (Mw 8.5, 8.75, and 9.0) that reflect asperity characteristics of the 1797 historical event in the same region. The generation of the earthquake scenarios involves probabilistic models of earthquake source parameters and stochastic synthesis of earthquake slip distributions. In total, 300 source models are generated to produce comprehensive tsunami evacuation plans in Padang. The tsunami hazard assessment results show that Padang may face significant tsunamis causing the maximum tsunami inundation height and depth of 15 and 10 m, respectively. A comprehensive tsunami evacuation plan - including horizontal evacuation area maps, assessment of temporary shelters considering the impact due to ground shaking and tsunami, and integrated horizontal-vertical evacuation time maps - has been developed based on the stochastic tsunami simulation results. The developed evacuation plans highlight that comprehensive mitigation policies can be produced from the stochastic tsunami simulation for future tsunamigenic events.

What Could Be Future Scenarios?-Lessons from the History of Public Health Surveillance for the Future: --A keynote address presented at the 8th World Alliance for Risk Factor Surveillance (WARFS) Global Conference on October 30, 2013, Beijing, China.

PubMed

Choi, Bernard C K

2015-01-01

This article provides insights into the future based on a review of the past and present of public health surveillance-the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of health data for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health action. Public health surveillance dates back to the first recorded epidemic in 3180 BC in Egypt. A number of lessons and items of interest are summarised from a review of historical perspectives in the past 5,000 years and the current practice of surveillance. Some future scenarios are presented: exploring new frontiers; enhancing computer technology; improving epidemic investigations; improving data collection, analysis, dissemination and use; building on lessons from the past; building capacity; and enhancing global surveillance. It is concluded that learning from the past, reflecting on the present, and planning for the future can further enhance public health surveillance.

Towards More Comprehensive Projections of Urban Heat-Related Mortality: Estimates for New York City under Multiple Population, Adaptation, and Climate Scenarios

PubMed Central

Petkova, Elisaveta P.; Vink, Jan K.; Horton, Radley M.; Gasparrini, Antonio; Bader, Daniel A.; Francis, Joe D.; Kinney, Patrick L.

2016-01-01

Background: High temperatures have substantial impacts on mortality and, with growing concerns about climate change, numerous studies have developed projections of future heat-related deaths around the world. Projections of temperature-related mortality are often limited by insufficient information to formulate hypotheses about population sensitivity to high temperatures and future demographics. Objectives: The present study derived projections of temperature-related mortality in New York City by taking into account future patterns of adaptation or demographic change, both of which can have profound influences on future health burdens. Methods: We adopted a novel approach to modeling heat adaptation by incorporating an analysis of the observed population response to heat in New York City over the course of eight decades. This approach projected heat-related mortality until the end of the 21st century based on observed trends in adaptation over a substantial portion of the 20th century. In addition, we incorporated a range of new scenarios for population change until the end of the 21st century. We then estimated future heat-related deaths in New York City by combining the changing temperature–mortality relationship and population scenarios with downscaled temperature projections from the 33 global climate models (GCMs) and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Results: The median number of projected annual heat-related deaths across the 33 GCMs varied greatly by RCP and adaptation and population change scenario, ranging from 167 to 3,331 in the 2080s compared with 638 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2006. Conclusions: These findings provide a more complete picture of the range of potential future heat-related mortality risks across the 21st century in New York City, and they highlight the importance of both demographic change and adaptation responses in modifying future risks. Citation: Petkova EP, Vink JK, Horton RM, Gasparrini A, Bader DA, Francis JD, Kinney PL. 2017. Towards more comprehensive projections of urban heat-related mortality: estimates for New York City under multiple population, adaptation, and climate scenarios. Environ Health Perspect 125:47–55; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP166 PMID:27337737

Towards More Comprehensive Projections of Urban Heat-Related Mortality: Estimates for New York City under Multiple Population, Adaptation, and Climate Scenarios.

PubMed

Petkova, Elisaveta P; Vink, Jan K; Horton, Radley M; Gasparrini, Antonio; Bader, Daniel A; Francis, Joe D; Kinney, Patrick L

2017-01-01

High temperatures have substantial impacts on mortality and, with growing concerns about climate change, numerous studies have developed projections of future heat-related deaths around the world. Projections of temperature-related mortality are often limited by insufficient information to formulate hypotheses about population sensitivity to high temperatures and future demographics. The present study derived projections of temperature-related mortality in New York City by taking into account future patterns of adaptation or demographic change, both of which can have profound influences on future health burdens. We adopted a novel approach to modeling heat adaptation by incorporating an analysis of the observed population response to heat in New York City over the course of eight decades. This approach projected heat-related mortality until the end of the 21st century based on observed trends in adaptation over a substantial portion of the 20th century. In addition, we incorporated a range of new scenarios for population change until the end of the 21st century. We then estimated future heat-related deaths in New York City by combining the changing temperature-mortality relationship and population scenarios with downscaled temperature projections from the 33 global climate models (GCMs) and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The median number of projected annual heat-related deaths across the 33 GCMs varied greatly by RCP and adaptation and population change scenario, ranging from 167 to 3,331 in the 2080s compared with 638 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2006. These findings provide a more complete picture of the range of potential future heat-related mortality risks across the 21st century in New York City, and they highlight the importance of both demographic change and adaptation responses in modifying future risks. Citation: Petkova EP, Vink JK, Horton RM, Gasparrini A, Bader DA, Francis JD, Kinney PL. 2017. Towards more comprehensive projections of urban heat-related mortality: estimates for New York City under multiple population, adaptation, and climate scenarios. Environ Health Perspect 125:47-55; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP166.

SMARTe 2008

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools - electronic (SMARTe), is an open-source, web-based, decision support system for developing and evaluating future reuse scenarios for potentially contaminated land. SMARTe contains resources and analysis tools for all asp...

SMARTe 2011

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools - electronic (SMARTe), is an open-source, web-based, decisions support system for developing and evaluating future reuse scenarios for potentially contaminated land. SMARTe contains resources and analysis tools for all a...

SMARTE 2007

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools-electronic (SMARTe), is an open-source, web-based, decision support system for developing and evaluating future reuse scenarios for potentially contaminated land. SMARTe contains guidance and analysis tools for all aspect...

Projecting county-level populations under three future scenarios: a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA Assessment

Treesearch

Stanley J. Zarnoch; H. Ken Cordell; Carter J. Betz

2010-01-01

County-level population projections from 2010 to 2060 are developed under three national population growth scenarios for reporting in the 2010 Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment. These population growth scenarios are tied to global futures scenarios defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a program within the United Nations...

Scenario studies as a synthetic and integrative research activity for Long-Term Ecological Research

Treesearch

Jonathan R. Thompson; Arnim Wiek; Frederick J. Swanson; Stephen R. Carpenter; Nancy Fresco; Teresa Hollingsworth; Thomas A. Spies; David R. Foster

2012-01-01

Scenario studies have emerged as a powerful approach for synthesizing diverse forms of research and for articulating and evaluating alternative socioecological futures. Unlike predictive modeling, scenarios do not attempt to forecast the precise or probable state of any variable at a given point in the future. Instead, comparisons among a set of contrasting scenarios...

GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE FUTURE SCENARIOS

EPA Science Inventory

One way to examine possible future outcomes for environmental protection is through the development and analysis of alternative future scenarios. This type of assessment postulates two or more different paths that social and environmental development might take, using correspond...

Development of a Prototype Automation Simulation Scenario Generator for Air Traffic Management Software Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Khambatta, Cyrus F.

2007-01-01

A technique for automated development of scenarios for use in the Multi-Center Traffic Management Advisor (McTMA) software simulations is described. The resulting software is designed and implemented to automate the generation of simulation scenarios with the intent of reducing the time it currently takes using an observational approach. The software program is effective in achieving this goal. The scenarios created for use in the McTMA simulations are based on data taken from data files from the McTMA system, and were manually edited before incorporation into the simulations to ensure accuracy. Despite the software s overall favorable performance, several key software issues are identified. Proposed solutions to these issues are discussed. Future enhancements to the scenario generator software may address the limitations identified in this paper.

Suggestions for Forest Conservation Policy under Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choe, H.; Thorne, J. H.; Lee, D. K.; Seo, C.

2015-12-01

Climate change and the destruction of natural habitats by land-use change are two main factors in decreasing terrestrial biodiversity. Studying land-use and climate change and their impact under different scenarios can help suggest policy directions for future events. This study explores the spatial results of different land use and climate models on the extent of species rich areas in South Korea. We built land use models of forest conversion and created four 2050 scenarios: (1) a loss trend following current levels, resulting in 15.5% lost; (2) similar loss, but with forest conservation in areas with suitable future climates; (3) a reduction of forest loss by 50%; and (4) a combination of preservation of forest climate refugia and overall reduction of loss by 50%. Forest climate refugia were identified through the use of species distribution models run on 1,031 forest plant species to project current and 2050 distributions. We calculated change in species richness under four climate projections, permitting an assessment of forest refugia zones. We then crossed the four land use models with the climate-driven change in species richness. Forest areas predominantly convert to agricultural areas, while climate-suitable extents for forest plants decline and move northward, especially to higher elevations. Scenario 2, that has the higher level of deforestation but protects future species rich areas, conserves nearly as much future biodiversity as scenario 3, which reduced deforestation rates by 50%. This points to the importance of including biogeographic climate dynamics in forest policy. Scenario 4 was the most effective at conserving forest biodiversity. We suggest conserving forest areas with suitable climates for biodiversity conservation and the establishment of monoculture plantations targeted to areas where species richness will decline based on our results.

Estimating the effects of potential climate and land use changes on hydrologic processes of a large agriculture dominated watershed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neupane, Ram P.; Kumar, Sandeep

2015-10-01

Land use and climate are two major components that directly influence catchment hydrologic processes, and therefore better understanding of their effects is crucial for future land use planning and water resources management. We applied Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to assess the effects of potential land use change and climate variability on hydrologic processes of large agriculture dominated Big Sioux River (BSR) watershed located in North Central region of USA. Future climate change scenarios were simulated using average output of temperature and precipitation data derived from Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) (B1, A1B, and A2) for end-21st century. Land use change was modeled spatially based on historic long-term pattern of agricultural transformation in the basin, and included the expansion of corn (Zea mays L.) cultivation by 2, 5, and 10%. We estimated higher surface runoff in all land use scenarios with maximum increase of 4% while expanding 10% corn cultivation in the basin. Annual stream discharge was estimated higher with maximum increase of 72% in SRES-B1 attributed from higher groundwater contribution of 152% in the same scenario. We assessed increased precipitation during spring season but the summer precipitation decreased substantially in all climate change scenarios. Similar to decreased summer precipitation, discharge of the BSR also decreased potentially affecting agricultural production due to reduced future water availability during crop growing season in the basin. However, combined effects of potential land use change with climate variability enhanced for higher annual discharge of the BSR. Therefore, these estimations can be crucial for implications of future land use planning and water resources management of the basin.

Future Sulfur Dioxide Emissions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smith, Steven J.; Pitcher, Hugh M.; Wigley, Tom M.

2005-12-01

The importance of sulfur dioxide emissions for climate change is now established, although substantial uncertainties remain. This paper presents projections for future sulfur dioxide emissions using the MiniCAM integrated assessment model. A new income-based parameterization for future sulfur dioxide emissions controls is developed based on purchasing power parity (PPP) income estimates and historical trends related to the implementation of sulfur emissions limitations. This parameterization is then used to produce sulfur dioxide emissions trajectories for the set of scenarios developed for the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). We use the SRES methodology to produce harmonized SRES scenarios using the latestmore » version of the MiniCAM model. The implications, and requirements, for IA modeling of sulfur dioxide emissions are discussed. We find that sulfur emissions eventually decline over the next century under a wide set of assumptions. These emission reductions result from a combination of emission controls, the adoption of advanced electric technologies, and a shift away from the direct end use of coal with increasing income levels. Only under a scenario where incomes in developing regions increase slowly do global emission levels remain at close to present levels over the next century. Under a climate policy that limits emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide emissions fall in a relatively narrow range. In all cases, the relative climatic effect of sulfur dioxide emissions decreases dramatically to a point where sulfur dioxide is only a minor component of climate forcing by the end of the century. Ecological effects of sulfur dioxide, however, could be significant in some developing regions for many decades to come.« less

MEGASTAR: The meaning of growth. An assessment of systems, technologies, and requirements. [methodology for display and analysis of energy production and consumption

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1974-01-01

A methodology for the display and analysis of postulated energy futures for the United States is presented. A systems approach methodology including the methodology of technology assessment is used to examine three energy scenarios--the Westinghouse Nuclear Electric Economy, the Ford Technical Fix Base Case and a MEGASTAR generated Alternate to the Ford Technical Fix Base Case. The three scenarios represent different paths of energy consumption from the present to the year 2000. Associated with these paths are various mixes of fuels, conversion, distribution, conservation and end-use technologies. MEGASTAR presents the estimated times and unit requirements to supply the fuels, conversion and distribution systems for the postulated end uses for the three scenarios and then estimates the aggregate manpower, materials, and capital requirements needed to develop the energy system described by the particular scenario.

A simple scaling approach to produce climate scenarios of local precipitation extremes for the Netherlands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lenderink, Geert; Attema, Jisk

2015-08-01

Scenarios of future changes in small scale precipitation extremes for the Netherlands are presented. These scenarios are based on a new approach whereby changes in precipitation extremes are set proportional to the change in water vapor amount near the surface as measured by the 2m dew point temperature. This simple scaling framework allows the integration of information derived from: (i) observations, (ii) a new unprecedentedly large 16 member ensemble of simulations with the regional climate model RACMO2 driven by EC-Earth, and (iii) short term integrations with a non-hydrostatic model Harmonie. Scaling constants are based on subjective weighting (expert judgement) of the three different information sources taking also into account previously published work. In all scenarios local precipitation extremes increase with warming, yet with broad uncertainty ranges expressing incomplete knowledge of how convective clouds and the atmospheric mesoscale circulation will react to climate change.

Designing a Methodology for Future Air Travel Scenarios

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wuebbles, Donald J.; Baughcum, Steven L.; Gerstle, John H.; Edmonds, Jae; Kinnison, Douglas E.; Krull, Nick; Metwally, Munir; Mortlock, Alan; Prather, Michael J.

1992-01-01

The growing demand on air travel throughout the world has prompted several proposals for the development of commercial aircraft capable of transporting a large number of passengers at supersonic speeds. Emissions from a projected fleet of such aircraft, referred to as high-speed civil transports (HSCT's), are being studied because of their possible effects on the chemistry and physics of the global atmosphere, in particular, on stratospheric ozone. At the same time, there is growing concern about the effects on ozone from the emissions of current (primarily subsonic) aircraft emissions. Evaluating the potential atmospheric impact of aircraft emissions from HSCT's requires a scientifically sound understanding of where the aircraft fly and under what conditions the aircraft effluents are injected into the atmosphere. A preliminary set of emissions scenarios are presented. These scenarios will be used to understand the sensitivity of environment effects to a range of fleet operations, flight conditions, and aircraft specifications. The baseline specifications for the scenarios are provided: the criteria to be used for developing the scenarios are defined, the required data base for initiating the development of the scenarios is established, and the state of the art for those scenarios that have already been developed is discussed. An important aspect of the assessment will be the evaluation of realistic projections of emissions as a function of both geographical distribution and altitude from an economically viable commercial HSCT fleet. With an assumed introduction date of around the year 2005, it is anticipated that there will be no HSCT aircraft in the global fleet at that time. However, projections show that, by 2015, the HSCT fleet could reach significant size. We assume these projections of HSCT and subsonic fleets for about 2015 can the be used as input to global atmospheric chemistry models to evaluate the impact of the HSCT fleets, relative to an all-subsonic future fleet. The methodology, procedures, and recommendations for the development of future HSCT and the subsonic fleet scenarios used for this evaluation are discussed.

Scenario drafting to anticipate future developments in technology assessment.

PubMed

Retèl, Valesca P; Joore, Manuela A; Linn, Sabine C; Rutgers, Emiel J T; van Harten, Wim H

2012-08-16

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) information, and in particular cost-effectiveness data is needed to guide decisions, preferably already in early stages of technological development. However, at that moment there is usually a high degree of uncertainty, because evidence is limited and different development paths are still possible. We developed a multi-parameter framework to assess dynamic aspects of a technology -still in development-, by means of scenario drafting to determine the effects, costs and cost-effectiveness of possible future diffusion patterns. Secondly, we explored the value of this method on the case of the clinical implementation of the 70-gene signature for breast cancer, a gene expression profile for selecting patients who will benefit most from chemotherapy. To incorporate process-uncertainty, ten possible scenarios regarding the introduction of the 70-gene signature were drafted with European experts. Out of 5 most likely scenarios, 3 drivers of diffusion (non-compliance, technical failure, and uptake) were quantitatively integrated in a decision-analytical model. For these scenarios, the cost-effectiveness of the 70-gene signature expressed in Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratios (ICERs) was compared to clinical guidelines, calculated from the past (2005) until the future (2020). In 2005 the ICER was €1,9 million/quality-adjusted-life-year (QALY), meaning that the 70-gene signature was not yet cost-effective compared to the current clinical guideline. The ICER for the 70-gene signature improved over time with a range of €1,9 million to €26,145 in 2010 and €1,9 million to €11,123/QALY in 2020 depending on the separate scenario used. From 2010, the 70-gene signature should be cost-effective, based on the combined scenario. The uptake-scenario had strongest influence on the cost-effectiveness. When optimal diffusion of a technology is sought, incorporating process-uncertainty by means of scenario drafting into a decision model may reveal unanticipated developments and can demonstrate a range of possible cost-effectiveness outcomes. The effect of scenarios give additional information on the speed with cost effectiveness might be reached and thus provide a more realistic picture for policy makers, opinion leaders and manufacturers.

Scenario drafting to anticipate future developments in technology assessment

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Health Technology Assessment (HTA) information, and in particular cost-effectiveness data is needed to guide decisions, preferably already in early stages of technological development. However, at that moment there is usually a high degree of uncertainty, because evidence is limited and different development paths are still possible. We developed a multi-parameter framework to assess dynamic aspects of a technology -still in development-, by means of scenario drafting to determine the effects, costs and cost-effectiveness of possible future diffusion patterns. Secondly, we explored the value of this method on the case of the clinical implementation of the 70-gene signature for breast cancer, a gene expression profile for selecting patients who will benefit most from chemotherapy. Methods To incorporate process-uncertainty, ten possible scenarios regarding the introduction of the 70-gene signature were drafted with European experts. Out of 5 most likely scenarios, 3 drivers of diffusion (non-compliance, technical failure, and uptake) were quantitatively integrated in a decision-analytical model. For these scenarios, the cost-effectiveness of the 70-gene signature expressed in Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratios (ICERs) was compared to clinical guidelines, calculated from the past (2005) until the future (2020). Results In 2005 the ICER was €1,9 million/quality-adjusted-life-year (QALY), meaning that the 70-gene signature was not yet cost-effective compared to the current clinical guideline. The ICER for the 70-gene signature improved over time with a range of €1,9 million to €26,145 in 2010 and €1,9 million to €11,123/QALY in 2020 depending on the separate scenario used. From 2010, the 70-gene signature should be cost-effective, based on the combined scenario. The uptake-scenario had strongest influence on the cost-effectiveness. Conclusions When optimal diffusion of a technology is sought, incorporating process-uncertainty by means of scenario drafting into a decision model may reveal unanticipated developments and can demonstrate a range of possible cost-effectiveness outcomes. The effect of scenarios give additional information on the speed with cost effectiveness might be reached and thus provide a more realistic picture for policy makers, opinion leaders and manufacturers. PMID:22894140

Internet Technology for Future Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hennessy, Joseph F. (Technical Monitor); Rash, James; Casasanta, Ralph; Hogie, Keith

2002-01-01

Ongoing work at National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC), seeks to apply standard Internet applications and protocols to meet the technology challenge of future satellite missions. Internet protocols and technologies are under study as a future means to provide seamless dynamic communication among heterogeneous instruments, spacecraft, ground stations, constellations of spacecraft, and science investigators. The primary objective is to design and demonstrate in the laboratory the automated end-to-end transport of files in a simulated dynamic space environment using off-the-shelf, low-cost, commodity-level standard applications and protocols. The demonstrated functions and capabilities will become increasingly significant in the years to come as both earth and space science missions fly more sensors and the present labor-intensive, mission-specific techniques for processing and routing data become prohibitively. This paper describes how an IP-based communication architecture can support all existing operations concepts and how it will enable some new and complex communication and science concepts. The authors identify specific end-to-end data flows from the instruments to the control centers and scientists, and then describe how each data flow can be supported using standard Internet protocols and applications. The scenarios include normal data downlink and command uplink as well as recovery scenarios for both onboard and ground failures. The scenarios are based on an Earth orbiting spacecraft with downlink data rates from 300 Kbps to 4 Mbps. Included examples are based on designs currently being investigated for potential use by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.

Evolution of the US energy system and related emissions under varying social and technological development paradigms: Plausible scenarios for use in robust decision making.

PubMed

Brown, Kristen E; Hottle, Troy Alan; Bandyopadhyay, Rubenka; Babaee, Samaneh; Dodder, Rebecca Susanne; Kaplan, Pervin Ozge; Lenox, Carol; Loughlin, Dan

2018-06-21

The energy system is the primary source of air pollution. Thus, evolution of the energy system into the future will affect society's ability to maintain air quality. Anticipating this evolution is difficult because of inherent uncertainty in predicting future energy demand, fuel use, and technology adoption. We apply Scenario Planning to address this uncertainty, developing four very different visions of the future. Stakeholder engagement suggested technological progress and social attitudes toward the environment are critical and uncertain factors for determining future emissions. Combining transformative and static assumptions about these factors yields a matrix of four scenarios that encompass a wide range of outcomes. We implement these scenarios in the U.S. EPA MARKAL model. Results suggest that both shifting attitudes and technology transformation may lead to emission reductions relative to present, even without additional policies. Emission caps, such as the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, are most effective at protecting against future emission increases. An important outcome of this work is the scenario implementation approach, which uses technology-specific discount rates to encourage scenario-specific technology and fuel choices. End-use energy demands are modified to approximate societal changes. This implementation allows the model to respond to perturbations in manners consistent with each scenario.

Projected changes in distributions of Australian tropical savanna birds under climate change using three dispersal scenarios

PubMed Central

Reside, April E; VanDerWal, Jeremy; Kutt, Alex S

2012-01-01

Identifying the species most vulnerable to extinction as a result of climate change is a necessary first step in mitigating biodiversity decline. Species distribution modeling (SDM) is a commonly used tool to assess potential climate change impacts on distributions of species. We use SDMs to predict geographic ranges for 243 birds of Australian tropical savannas, and to project changes in species richness and ranges under a future climate scenario between 1990 and 2080. Realistic predictions require recognition of the variability in species capacity to track climatically suitable environments. Here we assess the effect of dispersal on model results by using three approaches: full dispersal, no dispersal and a partial-dispersal scenario permitting species to track climate change at a rate of 30 km per decade. As expected, the projected distributions and richness patterns are highly sensitive to the dispersal scenario. Projected future range sizes decreased for 66% of species if full dispersal was assumed, but for 89% of species when no dispersal was assumed. However, realistic future predictions should not assume a single dispersal scenario for all species and as such, we assigned each species to the most appropriate dispersal category based on individual mobility and habitat specificity; this permitted the best estimates of where species will be in the future. Under this “realistic” dispersal scenario, projected ranges sizes decreased for 67% of species but showed that migratory and tropical-endemic birds are predicted to benefit from climate change with increasing distributional area. Richness hotspots of tropical savanna birds are expected to move, increasing in southern savannas and southward along the east coast of Australia, but decreasing in the arid zone. Understanding the complexity of effects of climate change on species’ range sizes by incorporating dispersal capacities is a crucial step toward developing adaptation policies for the conservation of vulnerable species. PMID:22837819

Projected Flood Risks in China based on CMIP5

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Ying

2016-04-01

Based on the simulations from 22 CMIP5 models and in combination with data on population, GDP, arable land, and terrain elevation, the spatial distributions of the flood risk levels are calculated and analyzed under RCP8.5 for the baseline period (1986-2005), the near term future period (2016-2035), the middle term future period (2046-2065), and the long term future period (2080-2099). (1) Areas with higher flood hazard risk levels in the future are concentrated in southeastern China, and the areas with the risk level III continue to expand. The major changes in flood hazard risks will occur in the middle and long term future. (2) In future, the areas of high vulnerability to flood hazards will be located in China's eastern region. In the middle and late 21st century, the extent of the high vulnerability area will expand eastward and its intensity will gradually increase. The highest vulnerability values are found in the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and in parts of the Pearl River Delta. Furthermore, the major cities in northeast China, as well as Wuhan, Changsha and Nanchang are highly vulnerable. (3) The regions with high flood risk levels will be located in eastern China, in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River and stretching northward to Beijing and Tianjin. High-risk flood areas are also occurring in major cities in Northeast China, in some parts of Shaanxi and Shanxi, and in some coastal areas in Southeast China. (4) Compared to the baseline period, the high flood risks will increase on a regional level towards the end of the 21st century, although the areas of flood hazards show little variation. In this paper, the projected future flood risks for different periods were analyzed under the RCP8.5 emission scenarios. By comparing the results with the simulations under the RCP 2.6 and RCP 4.5 scenarios, both scenarios show no differences in the spatial distribution, but in the intensity of flood hazard risks, which are weaker than for the RCP8.5 scenarios. By using the simulations from climate model ensembles to project future flood risks, uncertainty exists for various factors, such as the coarse resolution of global climate models, different approaches to flood assessments, the selection of the weighting coefficients, as well as the used greenhouse gas emission scheme, and the estimations of future population, GDP, and arable land. Therefore, further analysis is needed to reduce the uncertainties of future flood risks.

Modeling the potential persistence of various ecological systems under CMIP5 future climate and land use scenarios throughout California, USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, B.; Ferschweiler, K.; Bachelet, D. M.; Sleeter, B. M.

2016-12-01

California's geographic location, topographic complexity and latitudinal climatic gradient give rise to great biological and ecological diversity. However, increased land use pressure, altered seasonal weather patterns, and changes in temperature and precipitation regimes are having pronounced effects on ecosystems and the multitude of services they provide for an increasing population. As a result, natural resource managers are faced with formidable challenges to maintain these critical services. The goals of this project were to better understand how projected 21st century climate and land-use change scenarios may alter ecosystem dynamics, the spatial distribution of various vegetation types and land-use patterns, and to provide a coarse scale "triage map" of where land managers may want to concentrate efforts to reduce ecological stress in order to mitigate the potential impacts of a changing climate. We used the MC2 dynamic global vegetation model and the LUCAS state-and-transition simulation model to simulate the potential effects of future climate and land-use change on ecological processes for the state of California. Historical climate data were obtained from the PRISM dataset and nine CMIP5 climate models were run for the RCP 8.5 scenario. Climate projections were combined with a business-as-usual land-use scenario based on local-scale land use histories. For ease of discussion, results from five simulation runs (historic, hot-dry, hot-wet, warm-dry, and warm-wet) are presented. Results showed large changes in the extent of urban and agricultural lands. In addition, several simulated potential vegetation types persisted in situ under all four future scenarios, although alterations in total area, total ecosystem carbon, and forest vigor (NPP/LAI) were noted. As might be expected, the majority of the forested types that persisted occurred on public lands. However, more than 78% of the simulated subtropical mixed forest and 26% of temperate evergreen needleleaf forest types persisted on private lands under all four future scenarios. Result suggest that building collaborations across management borders could be valuable tool to guide natural resource management actions into the future.

Impacts and responses to sea-level rise: a global analysis of the SRES scenarios over the twenty-first century.

PubMed

Nicholls, Robert J; Tol, Richard S J

2006-04-15

Taking the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) climate and socio-economic scenarios (A1FI, A2, B1 and B2 'future worlds'), the potential impacts of sea-level rise through the twenty-first century are explored using complementary impact and economic analysis methods at the global scale. These methods have never been explored together previously. In all scenarios, the exposure and hence the impact potential due to increased flooding by sea-level rise increases significantly compared to the base year (1990). While mitigation reduces impacts, due to the lagged response of sea-level rise to atmospheric temperature rise, impacts cannot be avoided during the twenty-first century by this response alone. Cost-benefit analyses suggest that widespread protection will be an economically rational response to land loss due to sea-level rise in the four SRES futures that are considered. The most vulnerable future worlds to sea-level rise appear to be the A2 and B2 scenarios, which primarily reflects differences in the socio-economic situation (coastal population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP/capita), rather than the magnitude of sea-level rise. Small islands and deltaic settings stand out as being more vulnerable as shown in many earlier analyses. Collectively, these results suggest that human societies will have more choice in how they respond to sea-level rise than is often assumed. However, this conclusion needs to be tempered by recognition that we still do not understand these choices and significant impacts remain possible. Future worlds which experience larger rises in sea-level than considered here (above 35 cm), more extreme events, a reactive rather than proactive approach to adaptation, and where GDP growth is slower or more unequal than in the SRES futures remain a concern. There is considerable scope for further research to better understand these diverse issues.

Simulation of deep ventilation in Crater Lake, Oregon, 1951–2099

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wood, Tamara M.; Wherry, Susan A.; Piccolroaz, Sebastiano; Girdner, Scott F

2016-05-04

The frequency of deep ventilation events in Crater Lake, a caldera lake in the Oregon Cascade Mountains, was simulated in six future climate scenarios, using a 1-dimensional deep ventilation model (1DDV) that was developed to simulate the ventilation of deep water initiated by reverse stratification and subsequent thermobaric instability. The model was calibrated and validated with lake temperature data collected from 1994 to 2011. Wind and air temperature data from three general circulation models and two representative concentration pathways were used to simulate the change in lake temperature and the frequency of deep ventilation events in possible future climates. The lumped model air2water was used to project lake surface temperature, a required boundary condition for the lake model, based on air temperature in the future climates.The 1DDV model was used to simulate daily water temperature profiles through 2099. All future climate scenarios projected increased water temperature throughout the water column and a substantive reduction in the frequency of deep ventilation events. The least extreme scenario projected the frequency of deep ventilation events to decrease from about 1 in 2 years in current conditions to about 1 in 3 years by 2100. The most extreme scenario considered projected the frequency of deep ventilation events to be about 1 in 7.7 years by 2100. All scenarios predicted that the temperature of the entire water column will be greater than 4 °C for increasing lengths of time in the future and that the conditions required for thermobaric instability induced mixing will become rare or non-existent.The disruption of deep ventilation by itself does not provide a complete picture of the potential ecological and water quality consequences of warming climate to Crater Lake. Estimating the effect of warming climate on deep water oxygen depletion and water clarity will require careful modeling studies to combine the physical mixing processes affected by the atmosphere with the multitude of factors affecting the growth of algae and corresponding water clarity.

Partitioning uncertainty in streamflow projections under nonstationary model conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chawla, Ila; Mujumdar, P. P.

2018-02-01

Assessing the impacts of Land Use (LU) and climate change on future streamflow projections is necessary for efficient management of water resources. However, model projections are burdened with significant uncertainty arising from various sources. Most of the previous studies have considered climate models and scenarios as major sources of uncertainty, but uncertainties introduced by land use change and hydrologic model assumptions are rarely investigated. In this paper an attempt is made to segregate the contribution from (i) general circulation models (GCMs), (ii) emission scenarios, (iii) land use scenarios, (iv) stationarity assumption of the hydrologic model, and (v) internal variability of the processes, to overall uncertainty in streamflow projections using analysis of variance (ANOVA) approach. Generally, most of the impact assessment studies are carried out with unchanging hydrologic model parameters in future. It is, however, necessary to address the nonstationarity in model parameters with changing land use and climate. In this paper, a regression based methodology is presented to obtain the hydrologic model parameters with changing land use and climate scenarios in future. The Upper Ganga Basin (UGB) in India is used as a case study to demonstrate the methodology. The semi-distributed Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is set-up over the basin, under nonstationary conditions. Results indicate that model parameters vary with time, thereby invalidating the often-used assumption of model stationarity. The streamflow in UGB under the nonstationary model condition is found to reduce in future. The flows are also found to be sensitive to changes in land use. Segregation results suggest that model stationarity assumption and GCMs along with their interactions with emission scenarios, act as dominant sources of uncertainty. This paper provides a generalized framework for hydrologists to examine stationarity assumption of models before considering them for future streamflow projections and segregate the contribution of various sources to the uncertainty.

Complexity associated with the optimisation of capability options in military operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pincombe, A.; Bender, A.; Allen, G.

2005-12-01

In the context of a military operation, even if the intended actions, the geographic location, and the capabilities of the opposition are known, there are still some critical uncertainties that could have a major impact on the effectiveness of a given set of capabilities. These uncertainties include unpredictable events and the response alternatives that are available to the command and control elements of the capability set. They greatly complicate any a priori mathematical description. In a forecasting approach, the most likely future might be chosen and a solution sought that is optimal for that case. With scenario analysis, futures are proposed on the basis of critical uncertainties and the option that is most robust is chosen. We use scenario analysis but our approach is different in that we focus on the complexity and use the coupling between scenarios and options to create information on ideal options. The approach makes use of both soft and hard operations research methods, with subject matter expertise being used to define plausible responses to scenarios. In each scenario, uncertainty affects only a subset of the system-inherent variables and the variables that describe system-environment interactions. It is this scenario-specific reduction of variables that makes the problem mathematically tractable. The process we define is significantly different to existing scenario analysis processes, so we have named it adversarial scenario analysis. It can be used in conjunction with other methods, including recent improvements to the scenario analysis process. To illustrate the approach, we undertake a tactical level scenario analysis for a logistics problem that is defined by a network, expected throughputs to end users, the transport capacity available, the infrastructure at the nodes and the capacities of roads, stocks etc. The throughput capacity, e.g. the effectiveness, of the system relies on all of these variables and on the couplings between them. The system is initially in equilibrium for a given level of demand. However, different, and simpler, solutions emerge as the balance of couplings and the importance of variables change. The scenarios describe such changes in conditions. For each scenario it was possible to define measures that describe the differences between options. As with agent-based distillations, the solution is essentially qualitative and exploratory, bringing awareness of possible future difficulties and of the capabilities that are necessary if we are to deal successfully with those difficulties.

Using scenarios to assess possible future impacts of invasive species in the Laurentian Great Lakes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lauber, T. Bruce; Stedman, Richard C.; Connelly, Nancy A; Rudstam, Lars G.; Ready, Richard C; Poe, Gregory L; Bunnell, David B.; Hook, Tomas O.; Koops, Marten A.; Ludsin, Stuart A.; Rutherford, Edward S; Wittmann, Marion E.

2016-01-01

The expected impacts of invasive species are key considerations in selecting policy responses to potential invasions. But predicting the impacts of invasive species is daunting, particularly in large systems threatened by multiple invasive species, such as North America’s Laurentian Great Lakes. We developed and evaluated a scenario-building process that relied on an expert panel to assess possible future impacts of aquatic invasive species on recreational fishing in the Great Lakes. To maximize its usefulness to policy makers, this process was designed to be implemented relatively rapidly and consider a range of species. The expert panel developed plausible, internally-consistent invasion scenarios for 5 aquatic invasive species, along with subjective probabilities of those scenarios. We describe these scenarios and evaluate this approach for assessing future invasive species impacts. The panel held diverse opinions about the likelihood of the scenarios, and only one scenario with impacts on sportfish species was considered likely by most of the experts. These outcomes are consistent with the literature on scenario building, which advocates for developing a range of plausible scenarios in decision making because the uncertainty of future conditions makes the likelihood of any particular scenario low. We believe that this scenario-building approach could contribute to policy decisions about whether and how to address the possible impacts of invasive species. In this case, scenarios could allow policy makers to narrow the range of possible impacts on Great Lakes fisheries they consider and help set a research agenda for further refining invasive species predictions.

The Economic Impact of Adaptive Responses to Future Scenarios of Socio-Economic and Ecological Change in the Tonle Sap Ecosystem, Cambodia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teh, L.; Bond, N.; KC, K. B.; Fraser, E. D. G.; Seng, R.; Sumaila, R.

2016-12-01

The livelihoods of people dependent on the Tonle Sap floodplain ecosystem in Cambodia are expected to be affected by future socio-economic, policy, ecological, and climate change. To investigate the economic impact of these changes on fishing dependent communities, we compare the net income from individuals' current livelihoods to that derived from reallocating their livelihood activities under 4 different scenarios depicting future change. Under current conditions, we find that the group of individuals who do not participate in fishing had the lowest net income. In contrast, individuals who participated in fishing only had comparatively higher average net income than those with multiple livelihoods, suggesting that there may be current gains from livelihood specialisation. When presented with scenarios of future ecological and socio-economic change, the majority of respondents chose to retain their current livelihood strategy under all future scenarios. Of those who did change their livelihood allocation, less than 10% actually experienced a gain in economic benefits. Overall, a loss in net income was expected under all future scenarios, with those engaged in single livelihoods being the most vulnerable because they were likely to experience the largest losses (7 - 29% loss vs. 1 - 17% for multi-livelihoods) across all 4 scenarios while having the least capacity to adapt. Respondents' choices generated the best economic outcome under the scenario depicting the status quo, indicating that they were capable of coping with current conditions, but were unlikely to make appropriate decisions when faced with future scenarios that they were unfamiliar with. By quantifying the consequences of low adaptive capacity in terms of income loss, this study provides an economic argument for addressing the social and economic factors that currently inhibit the capacity of Tonle Sap inhabitants to adapt to future change. It also emphasises the need for sustainable management of fish and water resources upon which inhabitants are currently heavily dependent upon.

FutureCoast: "Listen to your futures"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pfirman, S. L.; Eklund, K.; Thacher, S.; Orlove, B. S.; Diane Stovall-Soto, G.; Brunacini, J.; Hernandez, T.

2014-12-01

Two science-arts approaches are emerging as effective means to convey "futurethinking" to learners: systems gaming and experiential futures. FutureCoast exemplifies the latter: by engaging participants with voicemails supposedly leaking from the cloud of possible futures, the storymaking game frames the complexities of climate science in relatable contexts. Because participants make the voicemails themselves, FutureCoast opens up creative ways for people to think about possibly climate-changed futures and personal ways to talk about them. FutureCoast is a project of the PoLAR Partnership with a target audience of informal adult learners primarily reached via mobile devices and online platforms. Scientists increasingly use scenarios and storylines as ways to explore the implications of environmental change and societal choices. Stories help people make connections across experiences and disciplines and link large-scale events to personal consequences. By making the future seem real today, FutureCoast's framework helps people visualize and plan for future climate changes. The voicemails contributed to FutureCoast are spread through the game's intended timeframe (2020 through 2065). Based on initial content analysis of voicemail text, common themes include ecosystems and landscapes, weather, technology, societal issues, governance and policy. Other issues somewhat less frequently discussed include security, food, industry and business, health, energy, infrastructure, water, economy, and migration. Further voicemail analysis is examining: temporal dimensions (salient time frames, short vs. long term issues, intergenerational, etc.), content (adaptation vs. mitigation, challenges vs. opportunities, etc.), and emotion (hopeful, resigned, etc. and overall emotional context). FutureCoast also engaged audiences through facilitated in-person experiences, geocaching events, and social media (Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube). Analysis of the project suggests story-based games such as FutureCoast can serve as effective, accessible tools for engaging diverse audiences in thinking and talking about future "what if?" scenarios related to climate change and its impacts.

Hurricane Matthew (2016) and its Storm Surge Inundation under Global Warming Scenarios: Application of an Interactively Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jisan, M. A.; Bao, S.; Pietrafesa, L.; Pullen, J.

2017-12-01

An interactively coupled atmosphere-ocean model was used to investigate the impacts of future ocean warming, both at the surface and the layers below, on the track and intensity of a hurricane and its associated storm surge and inundation. The category-5 hurricane Matthew (2016), which made landfall on the South Carolina coast of the United States, was used for the case study. Future ocean temperature changes and sea level rise (SLR) were estimated based on the projection of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5. After being validated with the present-day observational data, the model was applied to simulate the changes in track, intensity, storm surge and inundation that Hurricane Matthew would cause under future climate change scenarios. It was found that a significant increase in hurricane intensity, storm surge water level, and inundation area for Hurricane Matthew under future ocean warming and SLR scenarios. For example, under the RCP 8.5 scenario, the maximum wind speed would increase by 17 knots (14.2%), the minimum sea level pressure would decrease by 26 hPa (2.85%), and the inundated area would increase by 401 km2 (123%). By including the effect of SLR for the middle-21st-century scenario, the inundated area will further increase by up to 49.6%. The increase in the hurricane intensity and the inundated area was also found for the RCP 2.6 scenario. The response of sea surface temperature was analyzed to investigate the change in intensity. A comparison was made between the impacts when only the sea surface warming is considered versus when both the sea surface and the underneath layers are considered. These results showed that even without the effect of SLR, the storm surge level and the inundated area would be higher due to the increased hurricane intensity under the influence of the future warmer ocean temperature. The coupled effect of ocean warming and SLR would cause the hurricane-induced storm surge and inundation to be amplified. The relative importance of the ocean warming versus the SLR was evaluated. Keywords: Hurricane Matthew, Global Warming, Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Model, Air-Sea interactions, Storm Surge, Inundation

Urban Growth Scenarios of a Future MEGA City: Case Study Ahmedabad

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lehner, A.; Kraus, V.; Steinnocher, K.

2016-06-01

The study of urban areas and their development focuses on cities, their physical and demographic expansion and the tensions and impacts that go along with urban growth. Especially in developing countries and emerging national economies like India, consistent and up to date information or other planning relevant data all too often is not available. With its Smart Cities Mission, the Indian government places great importance on the future developments of Indian urban areas and pays tribute to the large-scale rural to urban migration. The potentials of urban remote sensing and its contribution to urban planning are discussed and related to the Indian Smart Cities Mission. A case study is presented showing urban remote sensing based information products for the city of Ahmedabad. Resulting urban growth scenarios are presented, hotspots identified and future action alternatives proposed.

ICT and the future of healthcare: Aspects of pervasive health monitoring.

PubMed

Haluza, Daniela; Jungwirth, David

2018-01-01

Along with the digital revolution, information and communication technology applications are currently transforming the delivery of health and social care services. This paper investigates prevailing opinions toward future technology-based healthcare solutions among Austrian healthcare professionals. During a biphasic online Delphi survey, panelists rated expected outcomes of two future scenarios describing pervasive health monitoring applications. Experts perceived that the scenarios were highly innovative, but only moderately desirable, and that their implementation could especially improve patients' knowledge, quality of healthcare, and living standard. Contrarily, monetary aspects, technical prerequisites, and data security were identified as key obstacles. We further compared the impact of professional affiliation. Clearly, opinions toward pervasive healthcare differed between the interest groups, medical professionals, patient advocates, and administrative personnel. These data suggest closer collaborations between stakeholder groups to harmonize differences in expectations regarding pervasive health monitoring.

Water2Invest: Global facility for calculating investments needed to bridge the climate-induced water gap

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Straatsma, Menno; Droogers, Peter; Brandsma, Jairus; Buytaert, Wouter; Karssenberg, Derek; Meijer, Karen; van Aalst, Maaike; van Beek, Rens; Wada, Yoshihide; Bierkens, Marc

2013-04-01

Decision makers responsible for climate change adaptation investments are confronted with large uncertainties regarding future water availability and water demand, as well as the investment cost required to reduce the water gap. Moreover, scientists have worked hard to increase fundamental knowledge on climate change and its impacts (climate services), while practical use of this knowledge is limited due to a lack of tools for decision support under uncertain long term future scenarios (decision services). The Water2Invest project aims are to (i) assess the joint impact of climate change and socioeconomic change on water scarcity, (ii) integrate impact and potential adaptation in one flow, (iii) prioritize adaptation options to counteract water scarcity on their financial, regional socio-economic and environmental implications, and (iv) deliver all this information in an integrated user-friendly web-based service. Global water availability is computed between 2006 and 2100 using the PCR-GLOBWB water resources model at a 6 minute spatial resolution. Climate change scenarios are based on the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) that defines four CO2 emission scenarios as representative concentration pathways. Water demand is computed for agriculture, industry, domestic, and environmental requirements based on socio-economic scenarios of increase in population and gross domestic product. Using a linear programming algorithm, water is allocated on a monthly basis over the four sectors. Based on these assessments, the user can evaluate various technological and infrastructural adaptation measures to assess the investments needed to bridge the future water gap. Regional environmental and socioeconomic effects of these investments are evaluated, such as environmental flows or downstream effects. A scheme is developed to evaluate the strategies on robustness and flexibility under climate change and scenario uncertainty, and each measure is linked to possibilities for investment and financing mechanisms. The tool can be used by consultants, water authorities, non-governmental and commercial investors alike to test investment strategies, but could also be used by companies as a vehicle for advertisement water saving or crop water productivity technologies that can be evaluated on their effectiveness on the spot. We show initial results based on a preliminary study on the Middle East and North African region.

Moon manned missions radiation safety analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tripathi, R. K.; Wilson, J. W.; de Anlelis, G.; Badavi, F. F.

An analysis is performed on the radiation environment found on the surface of the Moon, and applied to different possible lunar base mission scenarios. An optimization technique has been used to obtain mission scenarios minimizing the astronaut radiation exposure and at the same time controlling the effect of shielding, in terms of mass addition and material choice, as a mission cost driver. The optimization process has been realized through minimization of mass along all phases of a mission scenario, in terms of time frame (dates, transfer time length and trajectory, radiation environment), equipment (vehicles, in terms of shape, volume, onboard material choice, size and structure), location (if in space, on the surface, inside or outside a certain habitats), crew characteristics (number, gender, age, tasks) and performance required (spacecraft and habitat volumes), radiation exposure annual and career limit constraint (from NCRP 132), and implementation of the ALARA principle (shelter from the occurrence of Solar Particle Events). On the lunar surface the most important contribution to radiation exposure is given by background Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) particles, mostly protons, alpha particles, and some heavy ions, and by locally induced particles, mostly neutrons, created by the interaction between GCR and surface material and emerging from below the surface due to backscattering processes. In this environment manned habitats are to host future crews involved in the construction and/or in the utilization of moon based infrastructure. Three different kinds of lunar missions are considered in the analysis, Moon Base Construction Phase, during which astronauts are on the surface just to build an outpost for future resident crews, Moon Base Outpost Phase, during which astronaut crews are resident but continuing exploration and installation activities, and Moon Base Routine Phase, with long-term shifting resident crews. In each scenario various kinds of habitats, from very simple shelters to more complex bases, are considered in full detail (e.g., shape, thickness, materials, etc) with considerations of various shielding strategies. In this first analysis all the shape considered are cylindrical or composed of combination of cylinders. Moreover, a radiation safety analysis of more future possible habitats like lava tubes has been also performed.

Vulnerability assessment of the impact of sea-level rise and flooding on the Moroccan coast: The case of the Mediterranean eastern zone

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Snoussi, Maria; Ouchani, Tachfine; Niazi, Saïda

2008-04-01

The eastern part of the Mediterranean coast of Morocco is physically and socio-economically vulnerable to accelerated sea-level rise, due to its low topography and its high ecological and touristic value. Assessment of the potential land loss by inundation has been based on empirical approaches using a minimum inundation level of 2 m and a maximum inundation level of 7 m, where scenarios for future sea-level rise range from 200 to 860 mm, with a 'best estimate' of 490 mm. The socio-economic impacts have been based on two possible alternative futures: (1) a 'worst-case' scenario, obtained by combining the 'economic development first' scenario with the maximum inundation level; and (2) a 'best-case' scenario, by combining the 'sustainability first' scenario with the minimum inundation level. Inundation analysis, based on Geographical Information Systems and a modelling approach to erosion, has identified both locations and the socioeconomic sectors that are most at risk to accelerated sea-level rise. Results indicate that 24% and 59% of the area will be lost by flooding at minimum and maximum inundation levels, respectively. The most severely impacted sectors are expected to be the residential and recreational areas, agricultural land, and the natural ecosystem. Shoreline erosion will affect 50% and 70% of the total area in 2050 and 2100, respectively. Potential strategies to ameliorate the impact of seawater inundation include: wetland preservation; beach nourishment at tourist resorts; and the afforestation of dunes. As this coast is planned to become one of the most developed tourist resorts in Morocco by 2010, measures such as building regulation, urban growth planning and development of an Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plan, are recommended for the region.

Future Diet Scenarios and Their Effect on Regional and Global Biofuel Potential

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gregg, J.; hvid, A.

2012-04-01

Food production has been one of the most significant ways in which humans have changed the surface of the Earth. It is projected that further intensification of agriculture will be necessary to meet a growing population and the increased demand for calories from animal products. This would require substantially more land and resources devoted to animal production. However, globally, the proportion of per capita caloric intake from animal to total caloric intake has remained relatively constant for the last 50 years at slightly above 15%. Nevertheless, there are large discrepancies across regions and through time. For example, northern European countries derive over 30% of calories from animal products, while India is under 10%; between 1961 and 2007, China's per capita consumption of animal calories has increased by over a factor of ten, while in the US, animal calorie consumption has remained constant. In general, per capita consumption of animal products is lower in developing countries than in developed countries, and it is commonly assumed that future animal product consumption will increase as developing countries become wealthier. On the other hand, wealthier countries are remaining constant or even decreasing their proportional consumption of animal calories, and this could be a different way that future diets may evolve. We create different future scenarios for calorie demand from vegetal products, beef, sheep and goat, pork, poultry, and dairy based on historical national trends and estimated income elasticities for these various food products. The extreme scenarios are one in which the world evolves to a highly vegetal calorie diet and, on the other extreme, one in which the world evolves to diets with high meat consumption. Intermediate scenarios include projections of current trends and one in which the world moves to a healthy balanced diet given current recommendations. Using DTU-GCAM, and global integrated assessment model with an included land use module, we explore the effect of these different global and regional diet scenarios on land use and biofuel potential up to the year 2095. The model economically optimizes food production for 14 different regions of the world based on their current and historical land use and land cover, using free market and free trade assumptions.

Future Diet Scenarios and Their Effect on Regional and Global Land Use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gregg, J. S.; Hvid, A.

2011-12-01

Food production has been one of the most significant ways in which humans have changed the surface of the Earth. It is projected that further intensification of agriculture will be necessary to meet a growing population and the increased demand for calories from animal products. This would require substantially more land and resources devoted to animal production. However, globally, the proportion of per capita caloric intake from animal to total caloric intake has remained relatively constant for the last 50 years at slightly above 15%. Nevertheless, there are large discrepancies across regions and through time. For example, northern European countries derive over 30% of calories from animal products, while India is under 10%; between 1961 and 2007, China's per capita consumption of animal calories has increased by over a factor of ten, while in the US, animal calorie consumption has remained constant. In general, per capita consumption of animal products is lower in developing countries than in developed countries, and it is commonly assumed that future animal product consumption will increase as developing countries become wealthier. On the other hand, wealthier countries are remaining constant or even decreasing their proportional consumption of animal calories, and this could be a different way that future diets may evolve. We create different future scenarios for calorie demand from vegetal products, beef, sheep and goat, pork, poultry, and dairy based on historical national trends and estimated income elasticities for these various food products. The extreme scenarios are one in which the world evolves to a highly vegetal calorie diet and, on the other extreme, one in which the world evolves to diets with high meat consumption. Intermediate scenarios include projections of current trends and one in which the world moves to a healthy balanced diet given current recommendations. Using DTU-GCAM, and global integrated assessment model with an included land use module, we explore the effect of these different global and regional diet scenarios on land use up to 2050. The model economically optimizes food production for 14 different regions of the world based on their current and historical land use and land cover, using free market and free trade assumptions.

The increasing importance of a continence nurse specialist to improve outcomes and save costs of urinary incontinence care: an analysis of future policy scenarios.

PubMed

Franken, Margreet G; Corro Ramos, Isaac; Los, Jeanine; Al, Maiwenn J

2018-02-17

In an ageing population, it is inevitable to improve the management of care for community-dwelling elderly with incontinence. A previous study showed that implementation of the Optimum Continence Service Specification (OCSS) for urinary incontinence in community-dwelling elderly with four or more chronic diseases results in a reduction of urinary incontinence, an improved quality of life, and lower healthcare and lower societal costs. The aim of this study was to explore future consequences of the OCSS strategy of various healthcare policy scenarios in an ageing population. We adapted a previously developed decision analytical model in which the OCSS new care strategy was operationalised as the appointment of a continence nurse specialist located within the general practice in The Netherlands. We used a societal perspective including healthcare costs (healthcare providers, treatment costs, insured containment products, insured home care), and societal costs (informal caregiving, containment products paid out-of-pocket, travelling expenses, home care paid out-of-pocket). All outcomes were computed over a three-year time period using two different base years (2014 and 2030). Settings for future policy scenarios were based on desk-research and expert opinion. Our results show that implementation of the OSCC new care strategy for urinary incontinence would yield large health gains in community dwelling elderly (2030: 2592-2618 QALYs gained) and large cost-savings in The Netherlands (2030: health care perspective: €32.4 Million - €72.5 Million; societal perspective: €182.0 Million - €250.6 Million). Savings can be generated in different categories which depends on healthcare policy. The uncertainty analyses and extreme case scenarios showed the robustness of the results. Implementation of the OCSS new care strategy for urinary incontinence results in an improvement in the quality of life of community-dwelling elderly, a reduction of the costs for payers and affected elderly, and a reduction in time invested by carers. Various realistic policy scenarios even forecast larger health gains and cost-savings in the future. More importantly, the longer the implementation is postponed the larger the savings foregone. The future organisation of healthcare affects the category in which the greatest savings will be generated.

BECCS capability of dedicated bioenergy crops under a future land-use scenario targeting net negative carbon emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, E.; Yamagata, Y.

2014-12-01

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a key component of mitigation strategies in future socio-economic scenarios that aim to keep mean global temperature rise below 2°C above pre-industrial, which would require net negative carbon emissions in the end of the 21st century. Because of the additional need for land, developing sustainable low-carbon scenarios requires careful consideration of the land-use implications of deploying large-scale BECCS. We evaluated the feasibility of the large-scale BECCS in RCP2.6, which is a scenario with net negative emissions aiming to keep the 2°C temperature target, with a top-down analysis of required yields and a bottom-up evaluation of BECCS potential using a process-based global crop model. Land-use change carbon emissions related to the land expansion were examined using a global terrestrial biogeochemical cycle model. Our analysis reveals that first-generation bioenergy crops would not meet the required BECCS of the RCP2.6 scenario even with a high fertilizer and irrigation application. Using second-generation bioenergy crops can marginally fulfill the required BECCS only if a technology of full post-process combustion CO2 capture is deployed with a high fertilizer application in the crop production. If such an assumed technological improvement does not occur in the future, more than doubling the area for bioenergy production for BECCS around 2050 assumed in RCP2.6 would be required, however, such scenarios implicitly induce large-scale land-use changes that would cancel half of the assumed CO2 sequestration by BECCS. Otherwise a conflict of land-use with food production is inevitable.

BECCS capability of dedicated bioenergy crops under a future land-use scenario targeting net negative carbon emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Etsushi; Yamagata, Yoshiki

2014-09-01

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a key component of mitigation strategies in future socioeconomic scenarios that aim to keep mean global temperature rise below 2°C above preindustrial, which would require net negative carbon emissions in the end of the 21st century. Because of the additional need for land, developing sustainable low-carbon scenarios requires careful consideration of the land-use implications of deploying large scale BECCS. We evaluated the feasibility of the large-scale BECCS in RCP2.6, which is a scenario with net negative emissions aiming to keep the 2°C temperature target, with a top-down analysis of required yields and a bottom-up evaluation of BECCS potential using a process-based global crop model. Land-use change carbon emissions related to the land expansion were examined using a global terrestrial biogeochemical cycle model. Our analysis reveals that first-generation bioenergy crops would not meet the required BECCS of the RCP2.6 scenario even with a high-fertilizer and irrigation application. Using second-generation bioenergy crops can marginally fulfill the required BECCS only if a technology of full postprocess combustion CO2 capture is deployed with a high-fertilizer application in the crop production. If such an assumed technological improvement does not occur in the future, more than doubling the area for bioenergy production for BECCS around 2050 assumed in RCP2.6 would be required; however, such scenarios implicitly induce large-scale land-use changes that would cancel half of the assumed CO2 sequestration by BECCS. Otherwise, a conflict of land use with food production is inevitable.

The Big and Future Picture(s).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lo Bianco, Joseph

1996-01-01

Examines how "big picture" scenarios of world futures in the new millennium that frame policymakers' views have an impact on language, culture, and education. Some of these scenarios predict homogenization, whereas others foretell conflict. In this changing scenario, the social and political effects of language planning and English as a…

A Dynamic Flood Inundation Model Framework to Assess Coastal Flood Risk in a Changing Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bilskie, M. V.; Hagen, S. C.; Passeri, D. L.; Alizad, K.; Medeiros, S. C.; Irish, J. L.

2015-12-01

Coastal regions around the world are susceptible to a variety of natural disasters causing extreme inundation. It is anticipated that the vulnerability of coastal cities will increase due to the effects of climate change, and in particular sea level rise (SLR). A novel framework was developed to generate a suite of physics-based storm surge models that include projections of coastal floodplain dynamics under climate change scenarios: shoreline erosion/accretion, dune morphology, salt marsh migration, and population dynamics. First, the storm surge inundation model was extensively validated for present day conditions with respect to astronomic tides and hindcasts of Hurricane Ivan (2004), Dennis (2005), Katrina (2005), and Isaac (2012). The model was then modified to characterize the future outlook of the landscape for four climate change scenarios for the year 2100 (B1, B2, A1B, and A2), and each climate change scenario was linked to a sea level rise of 0.2 m, 0.5 m, 1.2 m, and 2.0 m. The adapted model was then used to simulate hurricane storm surge conditions for each climate scenario using a variety of tropical cyclones as the forcing mechanism. The collection of results shows the intensification of inundation area and the vulnerability of the coast to potential future climate conditions. The methodology developed herein to assess coastal flooding under climate change can be performed across any coastal region worldwide, and results provide awareness of regions vulnerable to extreme flooding in the future. Note: The main theme behind this work is to appear in a future Earth's Future publication. Bilskie, M. V., S. C. Hagen, S. C. Medeiros, and D. L. Passeri (2014), Dynamics of sea level rise and coastal flooding on a changing landscape, Geophysical Research Letters, 41(3), 927-934. Parris, A., et al. (2012), Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate AssessmentRep., 37 pp. Passeri, D. L., S. C. Hagen, M. V. Bilskie, and S. C. Medeiros (2014), On the significance of incorporating shoreline changes for evaluating coastal hydrodynamics under sea level rise scenarios, Natural Hazards, 1599-1617. Passeri, D. L., S. C. Hagen, S. C. Medeiros, M. V. Bilskie, K. Alizad, and D. Wang (2015), The dynamic effects of sea level rise on low gradient coastal landscapes: a review, Earth's Future, 3.

Ensemble projection of the sea level rise impact on storm surge and inundation at the coast of Bangladesh

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jisan, Mansur Ali; Bao, Shaowu; Pietrafesa, Leonard J.

2018-01-01

The hydrodynamic model Delft3D is used to study the impact of sea level rise (SLR) on storm surge and inundation in the coastal region of Bangladesh. To study the present-day inundation scenario, the tracks of two known tropical cyclones (TC) were used: Aila (Category 1; 2009) and Sidr (Category 5; 2007). Model results were validated with the available observations. Future inundation scenarios were generated by using the strength of TC Sidr, TC Aila and an ensemble of historical TC tracks but incorporating the effect of SLR. Since future change in storm surge inundation under SLR impact is a probabilistic incident, a probable range of future change in the inundated area was calculated by taking into consideration the uncertainties associated with TC tracks, intensities and landfall timing. The model outputs showed that the inundated area for TC Sidr, which was calculated as 1860 km2, would become 31 % larger than the present-day scenario if a SLR of 0.26 m occurred during the mid-21st-century climate scenario. Similarly to that, an increasing trend was found for the end-21st-century climate scenario. It was found that with a SLR of 0.54 m, the inundated area would become 53 % larger than the present-day case. Along with the inundation area, the impact of SLR was examined for changes in future storm surge level. A significant increase of 14 % was found in storm surge level for the case of TC Sidr at Barisal station if a SLR of 0.26 m occurred in the mid-21st century. Similarly to that, an increase of 29 % was found at storm surge level with a SLR of 0.54 m in this location for the end-21st-century climate scenario. Ensemble projections based on uncertainties of future TC events also showed that, for a change of 0.54 m in SLR, the inundated area would range between 3500 and 3750 km2, whereas for present-day SLR simulations it was found within the range of 1000-1250 km2. These results revealed that even if the future TCs remain at the same strength as at present, the projected changes in SLR will generate more severe threats in terms of surge height and the extent of the inundated area.

Quantifying the influence of CO2 seasonality on future aragonite undersaturation onset

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sasse, T. P.; McNeil, B. I.; Matear, R. J.; Lenton, A.

2015-10-01

Ocean acidification is a predictable consequence of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), and is highly likely to impact the entire marine ecosystem - from plankton at the base of the food chain to fish at the top. Factors which are expected to be impacted include reproductive health, organism growth and species composition and distribution. Predicting when critical threshold values will be reached is crucial for projecting the future health of marine ecosystems and for marine resources planning and management. The impacts of ocean acidification will be first felt at the seasonal scale, however our understanding how seasonal variability will influence rates of future ocean acidification remains poorly constrained due to current model and data limitations. To address this issue, we first quantified the seasonal cycle of aragonite saturation state utilizing new data-based estimates of global ocean-surface dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity. This seasonality was then combined with earth system model projections under different emissions scenarios (representative concentration pathways; RCPs 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5) to provide new insights into future aragonite undersaturation onset. Under a high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5), our results suggest accounting for seasonality will bring forward the initial onset of month-long undersaturation by 17 ± 10 years compared to annual-mean estimates, with differences extending up to 35 ± 16 years in the North Pacific due to strong regional seasonality. This earlier onset will result in large-scale undersaturation once atmospheric CO2 reaches 496 ppm in the North Pacific and 511 ppm in the Southern Ocean, independent of emission scenario. This work suggests accounting for seasonality is critical to projecting the future impacts of ocean acidification on the marine environment.

Predicting Nitrate Transport under Future Climate Scenarios beneath the Nebraska Management Systems Evaluation Area (MSEA) site

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Y.; Akbariyeh, S.; Gomez Peña, C. A.; Bartlet-Hunt, S.

2017-12-01

Understanding the impacts of future climate change on soil hydrological processes and solute transport is crucial to develop appropriate strategies to minimize adverse impacts of agricultural activities on groundwater quality. The goal of this work is to evaluate the direct effects of climate change on the fate and transport of nitrate beneath a center-pivot irrigated corn field in Nebraska Management Systems Evaluation Area (MSEA) site. Future groundwater recharge rate and actual evapotranspiration rate were predicted based on an inverse modeling approach using climate data generated by Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model under the RCP 8.5 scenario, which was downscaled from global CCSM4 model to a resolution of 24 by 24 km2. A groundwater flow model was first calibrated based on historical groundwater table measurement and was then applied to predict future groundwater table in the period 2057-2060. Finally, predicted future groundwater recharge rate, actual evapotranspiration rate, and groundwater level, together with future precipitation data from WRF, were used in a three-dimensional (3D) model, which was validated based on rich historic data set collected from 1993-1996, to predict nitrate concentration in soil and groundwater from the year 2057 to 2060. Future groundwater recharge was found to be decreasing in the study area compared to average groundwater recharge data from the literature. Correspondingly, groundwater elevation was predicted to decrease (1 to 2 ft) over the five years of simulation. Predicted higher transpiration data from climate model resulted in lower infiltration of nitrate concentration in subsurface within the root zone.

Predicting Nitrate Transport under Future Climate Scenarios beneath the Nebraska Management Systems Evaluation Area (MSEA) site

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Y.; Akbariyeh, S.; Gomez Peña, C. A.; Bartlet-Hunt, S.

2016-12-01

Understanding the impacts of future climate change on soil hydrological processes and solute transport is crucial to develop appropriate strategies to minimize adverse impacts of agricultural activities on groundwater quality. The goal of this work is to evaluate the direct effects of climate change on the fate and transport of nitrate beneath a center-pivot irrigated corn field in Nebraska Management Systems Evaluation Area (MSEA) site. Future groundwater recharge rate and actual evapotranspiration rate were predicted based on an inverse modeling approach using climate data generated by Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model under the RCP 8.5 scenario, which was downscaled from global CCSM4 model to a resolution of 24 by 24 km2. A groundwater flow model was first calibrated based on historical groundwater table measurement and was then applied to predict future groundwater table in the period 2057-2060. Finally, predicted future groundwater recharge rate, actual evapotranspiration rate, and groundwater level, together with future precipitation data from WRF, were used in a three-dimensional (3D) model, which was validated based on rich historic data set collected from 1993-1996, to predict nitrate concentration in soil and groundwater from the year 2057 to 2060. Future groundwater recharge was found to be decreasing in the study area compared to average groundwater recharge data from the literature. Correspondingly, groundwater elevation was predicted to decrease (1 to 2 ft) over the five years of simulation. Predicted higher transpiration data from climate model resulted in lower infiltration of nitrate concentration in subsurface within the root zone.

Preliminary identification of potentially disruptive scenarios at the Greater Confinement Disposal Facility, Area 5 of the Nevada Test Site

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Guzowski, R.V.; Newman, G.

1993-12-01

The Greater Confinement Disposal location is being evaluated to determine whether defense-generated transuranic waste buried at this location complies with the Containment Requirements established by the US Environmental Protection Agency. One step in determining compliance is to identify those combinations of events and processes (scenarios) that define possible future states of the disposal system for which performance assessments must be performed. An established scenario-development procedure was used to identify a comprehensive set of mutually exclusive scenarios. To assure completeness, 761 features, events, processes, and other listings (FEPS) were compiled from 11 references. This number was reduced to 205 primarily throughmore » the elimination of duplications. The 205 FEPs were screened based on site-specific, goal-specific, and regulatory criteria. Four events survived screening and were used in preliminary scenario development: (1) exploratory drilling penetrates a GCD borehole, (2) drilling of a withdrawal/injection well penetrates a GCD borehole, (3) subsidence occurs at the RWMS, and (4) irrigation occurs at the RWMS. A logic diagram was used to develop 16 scenarios from the four events. No screening of these scenarios was attempted at this time. Additional screening of the currently retained events and processes will be based on additional data and information from site-characterization activities. When screening of the events and processes is completed, a final set of scenarios will be developed and screened based on consequence and probability of occurrence.« less

Quantifying and valuing potential climate change impacts on coral reefs in the United States: comparison of two scenarios.

PubMed

Lane, Diana R; Ready, Richard C; Buddemeier, Robert W; Martinich, Jeremy A; Shouse, Kate Cardamone; Wobus, Cameron W

2013-01-01

The biological and economic values of coral reefs are highly vulnerable to increasing atmospheric and ocean carbon dioxide concentrations. We applied the COMBO simulation model (COral Mortality and Bleaching Output) to three major U.S. locations for shallow water reefs: South Florida, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. We compared estimates of future coral cover from 2000 to 2100 for a "business as usual" (BAU) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenario with a GHG mitigation policy scenario involving full international participation in reducing GHG emissions. We also calculated the economic value of changes in coral cover using a benefit transfer approach based on published studies of consumers' recreational values for snorkeling and diving on coral reefs as well as existence values for coral reefs. Our results suggest that a reduced emissions scenario would provide a large benefit to shallow water reefs in Hawaii by delaying or avoiding potential future bleaching events. For Hawaii, reducing emissions is projected to result in an estimated "avoided loss" from 2000 to 2100 of approximately $10.6 billion in recreational use values compared to a BAU scenario. However, reducing emissions is projected to provide only a minor economic benefit in Puerto Rico and South Florida, where sea-surface temperatures are already close to bleaching thresholds and coral cover is projected to drop well below 5% cover under both scenarios by 2050, and below 1% cover under both scenarios by 2100.

Quantifying and Valuing Potential Climate Change Impacts on Coral Reefs in the United States: Comparison of Two Scenarios

PubMed Central

Lane, Diana R.; Ready, Richard C.; Buddemeier, Robert W.; Martinich, Jeremy A.; Shouse, Kate Cardamone; Wobus, Cameron W.

2013-01-01

The biological and economic values of coral reefs are highly vulnerable to increasing atmospheric and ocean carbon dioxide concentrations. We applied the COMBO simulation model (COral Mortality and Bleaching Output) to three major U.S. locations for shallow water reefs: South Florida, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. We compared estimates of future coral cover from 2000 to 2100 for a “business as usual” (BAU) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenario with a GHG mitigation policy scenario involving full international participation in reducing GHG emissions. We also calculated the economic value of changes in coral cover using a benefit transfer approach based on published studies of consumers' recreational values for snorkeling and diving on coral reefs as well as existence values for coral reefs. Our results suggest that a reduced emissions scenario would provide a large benefit to shallow water reefs in Hawaii by delaying or avoiding potential future bleaching events. For Hawaii, reducing emissions is projected to result in an estimated “avoided loss” from 2000 to 2100 of approximately $10.6 billion in recreational use values compared to a BAU scenario. However, reducing emissions is projected to provide only a minor economic benefit in Puerto Rico and South Florida, where sea-surface temperatures are already close to bleaching thresholds and coral cover is projected to drop well below 5% cover under both scenarios by 2050, and below 1% cover under both scenarios by 2100. PMID:24391717

Global cost analysis on adaptation to sea level rise based on RCP/SSP scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumano, N.; Tamura, M.; Yotsukuri, M.; Kuwahara, Y.; Yokoki, H.

2017-12-01

Low-lying areas are the most vulnerable to sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change in the future. In order to adapt to SLR, it is necessary to decide whether to retreat from vulnerable areas or to install dykes to protect them from inundation. Therefore, cost- analysis of adaptation using coastal dykes is one of the most essential issues in the context of climate change and its countermeasures. However, few studies have globally evaluated the future costs of adaptation in coastal areas. This study tries to globally analyze the cost of adaptation in coastal areas. First, global distributions of projected inundation impacts induced by SLR including astronomical high tide were assessed. Economic damage was estimated on the basis of the econometric relationship between past hydrological disasters, affected population, and per capita GDP using CRED's EM-DAT database. Second, the cost of adaptation was also determined using the cost database and future scenarios. The authors have built a cost database for installed coastal dykes worldwide and applied it to estimating the future cost of adaptation. The unit costs of dyke construction will increase with socio-economic scenario (SSP) such as per capita GDP. Length of vulnerable coastline is calculated by identifying inundation areas using ETOPO1. Future cost was obtained by multiplying the length of vulnerable coastline and the unit cost of dyke construction. Third, the effectiveness of dyke construction was estimated by comparing cases with and without adaptation.As a result, it was found that incremental adaptation cost is lower than economic damage in the cases of SSP1 and SSP3 under RCP scenario, while the cost of adaptation depends on the durability of the coastal dykes.

Using Climate Change Information in Large Scale Coastal Planning: Louisiana's 2017 Coastal Master Plan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reed, D.

2017-12-01

The Louisiana coast has suffered severe land loss in recent decades as human activities have exacerbated the effects of natural stressors leading to catastrophic land loss and increased flood threats to coastal communities. Planning for the future requires a recognition of climate change but also leads to the challenge of understanding how different plausible future conditions influence the outcomes of restoration and protection actions. In coastal Louisiana, the $50 billion Coastal master Plan is legislatively required to be revisited every 5 years in order to ensure that plans for the future continue to be based on the best available, but constantly evolving, scientific information. For the 2017 iteration of the Coastal Master Plan, identification of the environmental scenarios to be explored began in 2014 and included both professional judgment regarding the most important drivers of future change, as well as climate change information derived during the National Climate Assessment. The number of scenarios to be explored was limited by both available resources and the need to make the findings accessible to stakeholders and policy makers. Plausible ranges were identified for key drivers of coastal landscape change, including climatic factors such as eustatic sea-level, precipitation and evapotranspiration. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to explore how the coastal landscape changed in response to combinations of values, allowed agency personnel to select three scenarios against which to test the effectiveness of different restoration and protection actions. The 2017 Coastal Master Plan was then developed by exploring the response of different actions to the scenarios, and how project costs also varied depending on future conditions. Such consideration of climate change in coastal planning at the state scale is facilitated by the availability of scientifically valid information on climate change, that has already been reviewed and sourced.

Projecting Future Heat-Related Mortality under Climate Change Scenarios: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Barnett, Adrian Gerard; Wang, Xiaoming; Vaneckova, Pavla; FitzGerald, Gerard; Tong, Shilu

2011-01-01

Background: Heat-related mortality is a matter of great public health concern, especially in the light of climate change. Although many studies have found associations between high temperatures and mortality, more research is needed to project the future impacts of climate change on heat-related mortality. Objectives: We conducted a systematic review of research and methods for projecting future heat-related mortality under climate change scenarios. Data sources and extraction: A literature search was conducted in August 2010, using the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, and Web of Science. The search was limited to peer-reviewed journal articles published in English from January 1980 through July 2010. Data synthesis: Fourteen studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Most projections showed that climate change would result in a substantial increase in heat-related mortality. Projecting heat-related mortality requires understanding historical temperature–mortality relationships and considering the future changes in climate, population, and acclimatization. Further research is needed to provide a stronger theoretical framework for projections, including a better understanding of socioeconomic development, adaptation strategies, land-use patterns, air pollution, and mortality displacement. Conclusions: Scenario-based projection research will meaningfully contribute to assessing and managing the potential impacts of climate change on heat-related mortality. PMID:21816703

Effects of Potential Future Warming on Runoff in the Yakima River Basin, Washington

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mastin, Mark C.

2008-01-01

The Bureau of Reclamation has implemented a long-term planning study of potential water-storage alternatives in the Yakima River Basin, which includes planning for climate change effects on available water resources in the basin. Previously constructed watershed models for the Yakima River Basin were used to simulate changes in unregulated streamflow under two warmer climate scenarios, one representing a 1 degree C increase in the annual air temperature over current conditions (plus one scenario) and one representing a 2 degree C increase in the annual air temperature over current conditions (plus two scenario). Simulations were done for water years 1981 through 2005 and the results were compared to simulated unregulated runoff for the same period using recorded daily precipitation, and minimum and maximum air temperatures (base conditions). Precipitation was not altered for the two warmer climate change scenarios. Simulated annual runoff for the plus one and plus two scenarios decreased modestly from the base conditions, but the seasonal distribution and the general pattern of runoff proved to be highly sensitive to temperature changes throughout the basin. Seasonally increased runoff was simulated during the late autumn and winter months for both the plus one and plus two scenarios compared to base conditions. Comparisons at six principal regulatory locations in the basin showed that the maximum percentage increases in runoff over the base conditions during December to March varied from 24 to 48 percent for the plus one scenario and 59 to 94 percent for the plus two scenario. During late spring and summer months, significantly decreased runoff was simulated at these sites for both scenarios compared to base conditions. Simulated maximum decreases in runoff occurred during June and July, and the changes ranged from -22 to -51 percent for the plus one scenario and -44 to -76 percent for the plus two scenario. Differences in total annual runoff at these sites ranged from -1.4 to -3.9 percent for the plus one scenario and from -2.5 to -8.2 percent for the plus two scenario. The percent change of the monthly mean runoff for both scenarios from the base conditions at many points in the basin will be used in a water-management model developed by the Bureau of Reclamation to assess various storage alternatives.

Future Scenarios and Environmental Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kopnina, Helen

2014-01-01

This article explores a number of questions about visions of the future and their implications for environmental education (EE). If the future were known, what kind of actions would be needed to maintain the positive aspects and reverse the negative ones? How could these actions be translated into the aims of EE? Three future scenarios are…

Accelerator Physics Working Group Summary

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, D.; Uesugi, T.; Wildnerc, E.

2010-03-01

The Accelerator Physics Working Group addressed the worldwide R&D activities performed in support of future neutrino facilities. These studies cover R&D activities for Super Beam, Beta Beam and muon-based Neutrino Factory facilities. Beta Beam activities reported the important progress made, together with the research activity planned for the coming years. Discussion sessions were also organized jointly with other working groups in order to define common ground for the optimization of a future neutrino facility. Lessons learned from already operating neutrino facilities provide key information for the design of any future neutrino facility, and were also discussed in this meeting. Radiation damage, remote handling for equipment maintenance and exchange, and primary proton beam stability and monitoring were among the important subjects presented and discussed. Status reports for each of the facility subsystems were presented: proton drivers, targets, capture systems, and muon cooling and acceleration systems. The preferred scenario for each type of possible future facility was presented, together with the challenges and remaining issues. The baseline specification for the muon-based Neutrino Factory was reviewed and updated where required. This report will emphasize new results and ideas and discuss possible changes in the baseline scenarios of the facilities. A list of possible future steps is proposed that should be followed up at NuFact10.

Analysis of Future Streamflow Regimes under Global Change Scenarios in Central Chile for Ecosystem Sustainability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henriquez Dole, L. E.; Gironas, J. A.; Vicuna, S.

2015-12-01

Given the critical role of the streamflow regime for ecosystem sustainability, modeling long term effects of climate change and land use change on streamflow is important to predict possible impacts in stream ecosystems. Because flow duration curves are largely used to characterize the streamflow regime and define indices of ecosystem health, they were used to represent and analyze in this study the stream regime in the Maipo River Basin in Central Chile. Water and Environmental Assessment and Planning (WEAP) model and the Plant Growth Model (PGM) were used to simulate water distribution, consumption in rural areas and stream flows on a weekly basis. Historical data (1990-2014), future land use scenarios (2030/2050) and climate change scenarios were included in the process. Historical data show a declining trend in flows mainly by unprecedented climatic conditions, increasing interest among users on future streamflow scenarios. In the future, under an expected decline in water availability coupled with changes in crop water demand, water users will be forced to adapt by changing water allocation rules. Such adaptation actions would in turns affect the streamflow regime. Future scenarios for streamflow regime show dramatic changes in water availability and temporal distribution. Annual weekly mean flows can reduce in 19% in the worst scenario and increase in 3.3% in the best of them, and variability in streamflow increases nearly 90% in all scenarios under evaluation. The occurrence of maximum and minimum monthly flows changes, as June instead of July becomes the driest month, and December instead of January becomes the month with maximum flows. Overall, results show that under future scenarios streamflow is affected and altered by water allocation rules to satisfy water demands, and thus decisions will need to consider the streamflow regime (and habitat) in order to be sustainable.

Estimates of future water demand for selected water-service areas in the Upper Duck River basin, central Tennessee; with a section on Methodology used to develop population forecasts for Bedford, Marshall, and Maury counties, Tennessee, from 1993 through 2050

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hutson, S.S.; Schwarz, G.E.

1996-01-01

Estimates of future water demand were determined for selected water-service areas in the upper Duck River basin in central Tennessee through the year 2050. The Duck River is the principal source of publicly-supplied water in the study area providing a total of 15.6 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) in 1993 to the cities of Columbia, Lewisburg, Shelbyville, part of southern Williamson County, and several smaller communities. Municipal water use increased 19 percent from 1980 to 1993 (from 14.5 to 17.2 Mgal/d). Based on certain assumptions about socioeconomic conditions and future development in the basin, water demand should continue to increase through 2050. Projections of municipal water demand for the study area from 1993 to 2015 were made using econometric and single- coefficient (unit-use) requirement models of the per capita type. The models are part of the Institute for Water Resources-Municipal and Industrial Needs System, IWR-MAIN. Socioeconomic data for 1993 were utilized to calibrate the models. Projections of water demand in the study area from 2015 to 2050 were made using a single- coefficient requirement model. A gross per capita use value (unit-requirement) was estimated for each water-service area based on the results generated by IWR-MAIN for year 2015. The gross per capita estimate for 2015 was applied to population projections for year 2050 to calculate water demand. Population was projected using the log-linear form of the Box-Cox regression model. Water demand was simulated for two scenarios. The scenarios were suggested by various planning agencies associated with the study area. The first scenario reflects a steady growth pattern based on present demographic and socioeconomic conditions in the Bedford, Marshall, and Maury/southern Williamson water-service areas. The second scenario considers steady growth in the Bedford and Marshall water-service areas and additional industrial and residential development in the Maury/southern Williamson water-service area beginning in 2000. For the study area, water demand for scenario one shows an increase of 121 percent (from 17.2 to 38 Mgal/d) from 1993 to 2050. In scenario two, simulated water demand increases 150 percent (17.2 to 43 Mgal/d) from 1993 to 2050.

Pediatrics in the year 2020 and beyond: preparing for plausible futures.

PubMed

Starmer, Amy J; Duby, John C; Slaw, Kenneth M; Edwards, Anne; Leslie, Laurel K

2010-11-01

Although the future of pediatrics is uncertain, the organizations that lead pediatrics, and the professionals who practice within it, have embraced the notion that the pediatric community must anticipate and lead change to ultimately improve the health of children and adolescents. In an attempt to proactively prepare for a variety of conceivable futures, the board of directors of the American Academy of Pediatrics established the Vision of Pediatrics 2020 Task Force in 2008. This group was charged to think broadly about the future of pediatrics, to gather input on key trends that are influencing the future, to create likely scenarios of the future, and to recommend strategies to best prepare pediatric clinicians and pediatric organizations for a range of potential futures. The work of this task force led to the development of 8 "megatrends" that were identified as highly likely to have a profound influence on the future of pediatrics. A separate list of "wild-card" scenarios was created of trends with the potential to have a substantial influence but are less likely to occur. The process of scenario-planning was used to consider the effects of the 8 megatrends on pediatrics in the year 2020 and beyond. Consideration of these possible scenarios affords the opportunity to determine potential future pediatric needs, to identify potential solutions to address those needs, and, ultimately, to proactively prepare the profession to thrive if these or other future scenarios become realities.

Alternative Futures Analysis Of Farmington Bay Wetlands In The Great Salt Lake Ecosystem

EPA Science Inventory

An Alternative Futures Analysis (AFA) was conducted to evaluate tradeoffs between landscape design scenarios and ecological services for Farmington Bay, Great Salt Lake (GSL), wetlands. Model scenarios included both plan trend and conservation "futures" projected to 2030. Scena...

The impact of past and future climate change on global human mortality due to ozone and PM2.5 outdoor air pollution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silva, R.; West, J.; Anenberg, S.; Lamarque, J.; Shindell, D. T.; Bergmann, D. J.; Berntsen, T.; Cameron-Smith, P. J.; Collins, B.; Ghan, S. J.; Josse, B.; Nagashima, T.; Naik, V.; Plummer, D.; Rodriguez, J. M.; Szopa, S.; Zeng, G.

2012-12-01

Climate change can adversely affect air quality, through changes in meteorology, atmospheric chemistry, and emissions. Future changes in air pollutant emissions will also profoundly influence air quality. These changes in air quality can affect human health, as exposure to ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been associated with premature human mortality. Here we will quantify the global mortality impacts of past and future climate change, considering the effects of climate change on air quality isolated from emission changes. The Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ACCMIP) has simulated the past and future surface concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 from each of several GCMs, for emissions from 1850 ("preindustrial") to 2000 ("present-day"), and for the IPCC AR5 Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios to 2100. We will use ozone and PM2.5 concentrations from simulations from five or more global models of atmospheric dynamics and chemistry, for a base year (present-day), pre-industrial conditions, and future scenarios, considering changes in climate and emissions. We will assess the mortality impacts of past climate change by using one simulation ensemble with present emissions and climate and one with present emissions but 1850 climate. We will similarly quantify the potential impacts of future climate change under the four RCP scenarios in 2030, 2050 and 2100. All model outputs will be regridded to the same resolution to estimate multi-model medians and range in each grid cell. Resulting premature deaths will be calculated using these medians along with epidemiologically-derived concentration-response functions, and present-day or future projections of population and baseline mortality rates, considering aging and transitioning disease rates over time. The spatial distributions of current and future global premature mortalities due to ozone and PM2.5 outdoor air pollution will be presented separately. These results will strengthen our understanding of the impacts of climate change today, and in future years considering different plausible scenarios.

Future habitat loss and extinctions driven by land-use change in biodiversity hotspots under four scenarios of climate-change mitigation.

PubMed

Jantz, Samuel M; Barker, Brian; Brooks, Thomas M; Chini, Louise P; Huang, Qiongyu; Moore, Rachel M; Noel, Jacob; Hurtt, George C

2015-08-01

Numerous species have been pushed into extinction as an increasing portion of Earth's land surface has been appropriated for human enterprise. In the future, global biodiversity will be affected by both climate change and land-use change, the latter of which is currently the primary driver of species extinctions. How societies address climate change will critically affect biodiversity because climate-change mitigation policies will reduce direct climate-change impacts; however, these policies will influence land-use decisions, which could have negative impacts on habitat for a substantial number of species. We assessed the potential impact future climate policy could have on the loss of habitable area in biodiversity hotspots due to associated land-use changes. We estimated past extinctions from historical land-use changes (1500-2005) based on the global gridded land-use data used for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report and habitat extent and species data for each hotspot. We then estimated potential extinctions due to future land-use changes under alternative climate-change scenarios (2005-2100). Future land-use changes are projected to reduce natural vegetative cover by 26-58% in the hotspots. As a consequence, the number of additional species extinctions, relative to those already incurred between 1500 and 2005, due to land-use change by 2100 across all hotspots ranged from about 220 to 21000 (0.2% to 16%), depending on the climate-change mitigation scenario and biological factors such as the slope of the species-area relationship and the contribution of wood harvest to extinctions. These estimates of potential future extinctions were driven by land-use change only and likely would have been higher if the direct effects of climate change had been considered. Future extinctions could potentially be reduced by incorporating habitat preservation into scenario development to reduce projected future land-use changes in hotspots or by lessening the impact of future land-use activities on biodiversity within hotspots. © 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.

Climate change impact assessment on hydrology of a small watershed using semi-distributed model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pandey, Brij Kishor; Gosain, A. K.; Paul, George; Khare, Deepak

2017-07-01

This study is an attempt to quantify the impact of climate change on the hydrology of Armur watershed in Godavari river basin, India. A GIS-based semi-distributed hydrological model, soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) has been employed to estimate the water balance components on the basis of unique combinations of slope, soil and land cover classes for the base line (1961-1990) and future climate scenarios (2071-2100). Sensitivity analysis of the model has been performed to identify the most critical parameters of the watershed. Average monthly calibration (1987-1994) and validation (1995-2000) have been performed using the observed discharge data. Coefficient of determination (R2), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (ENS) and root mean square error (RMSE) were used to evaluate the model performance. Calibrated SWAT setup has been used to evaluate the changes in water balance components of future projection over the study area. HadRM3, a regional climatic data, have been used as input of the hydrological model for climate change impact studies. In results, it was found that changes in average annual temperature (+3.25 °C), average annual rainfall (+28 %), evapotranspiration (28 %) and water yield (49 %) increased for GHG scenarios with respect to the base line scenario.

Protecting Future Biodiversity via Re-allocation of Future Land-use Change Patterns

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chini, L. P.; Hurtt, G. C.; Jantz, S.; Brooks, T.; Leon, C.; Waldhoff, S.; Edmonds, J.

2013-12-01

Future scenarios, such as the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), are typically designed to meet a radiative forcing target while also producing enough food and energy for a growing population. In the assessment process, impacts of these scenarios for other important variables such as biodiversity loss are considered 'downstream', after the future climate has been simulated within Earth System Models. However, the direct land-use impacts associated with future scenarios often have as much impact on these issues as the changing climate; in addition, many different patterns of land-use can result in the same radiative forcing target. In the case of biodiversity loss, one of the greatest contributors to species extinction is the loss of habitat such as primary forest, which is a direct result of land-use change decisions. By considering issues such as the preservation of future biodiversity 'up-front' in the scenario process, we can design a scenario that not only meets a radiative forcing target and feeds a growing planet, but also preserves as much habitat as possible through careful spatial allocation of future land-use change. Our Global Land-use Model (GLM) is used to provide 'harmonized' land-use data for the RCP process. GLM preserves as much information as possible from the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) while spatially allocating regional IAM land-use change data, ensuring a continuous transition from historical to future land-use states, and producing annual, gridded (0.5°×0.5°), fractional land-use states and all associated transitions. In this presentation we will present results from new GLM simulations in which land-use change decisions are constrained to meet the mutual goals of protecting important eco-regions (e.g. biodiversity hotspots) from future land-use change, providing enough food and fiber for a growing planet, and remaining consistent with the radiative forcing targets of the future scenarios. Trade-offs between agricultural demand and biodiversity protection were needed in some scenarios, but by constraining the land-use decisions to protect future biodiversity, an estimated 10-25% of species could be saved from loss between 2005 and 2100 (Jantz et al. 2013, in prep).

Benzo[a]pyrene exposure under future ocean acidification scenarios weakens the immune responses of blood clam, Tegillarca granosa.

PubMed

Su, Wenhao; Zha, Shanjie; Wang, Yichen; Shi, Wei; Xiao, Guoqiang; Chai, Xueliang; Wu, Hongxi; Liu, Guangxu

2017-04-01

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are known to converge into the ocean and accumulate in the sediment, posing great threats to marine organisms such as the sessile bottom burrowing bivalves. However, the immune toxicity of POPs, such as B[a]P, under future ocean acidification scenarios remains poorly understood to date. Therefore, in the present study, the impacts of B[a]P exposure on the immune responses of a bivalve species, Tegillarca granosa, under present and future ocean acidification scenarios were investigated. Results obtained revealed an increased immune toxicity of B[a]P under future ocean acidification scenarios in terms of reduced THC, altered haemocyte composition, and hampered phagocytosis, which may attribute to the synergetic effects of B[a]P and ocean acidification. In addition, the gene expressions of pathogen pattern recognition receptors (TLR1, TLR2, TLR4, TLR6), pathway mediators (TRAF6, TAK1, TAB2, IKKα and Myd88), and effectors (NF-ĸB) of the important immune related pathways were significantly down-regulated upon exposure to B[a]P under future ocean acidification scenarios. Results of the present study suggested an increased immune toxicity of B[a]P under future ocean acidification scenarios, which will significantly hamper the immune responses of T. granosa and subsequently render individuals more susceptible to pathogens challenges. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Towards a Global Water Scarcity Risk Assessment Framework: Incorporation of Probability Distributions and Hydro-Climatic Variability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Veldkamp, T. I. E.; Wada, Y.; Aerts, J. C. J. H.; Ward, P. J.

2016-01-01

Changing hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions increasingly put pressure on fresh water resources and are expected to aggravate water scarcity conditions towards the future. Despite numerous calls for risk-based water scarcity assessments, a global-scale framework that includes UNISDR's definition of risk does not yet exist. This study provides a first step towards such a risk based assessment, applying a Gamma distribution to estimate water scarcity conditions at the global scale under historic and future conditions, using multiple climate change and population growth scenarios. Our study highlights that water scarcity risk, expressed in terms of expected annual exposed population, increases given all future scenarios, up to greater than 56.2% of the global population in 2080. Looking at the drivers of risk, we find that population growth outweigh the impacts of climate change at global and regional scales. Using a risk-based method to assess water scarcity, we show the results to be less sensitive than traditional water scarcity assessments to the use of fixed threshold to represent different levels of water scarcity. This becomes especially important when moving from global to local scales, whereby deviations increase up to 50% of estimated risk levels.

GET SMARTE: DECISION TOOLS TO REVITALIZE BROWNFIELDS

EPA Science Inventory

SMARTe (Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools-electronic) is an open-source, web-based, decision-support system for developing and evaluating future use scenarios for potentially contaminated sites (i.e., brownfields). It contains resources and analysis tools...

Water footprint scenarios for 2050: a global analysis.

PubMed

Ercin, A Ertug; Hoekstra, Arjen Y

2014-03-01

This study develops water footprint scenarios for 2050 based on a number of drivers of change: population growth, economic growth, production/trade pattern, consumption pattern (dietary change, bioenergy use) and technological development. The objective the study is to understand the changes in the water footprint (WF) of production and consumption for possible futures by region and to elaborate the main drivers of this change. In addition, we assess virtual water flows between the regions of the world to show dependencies of regions on water resources in other regions under different possible futures. We constructed four scenarios, along two axes, representing two key dimensions of uncertainty: globalization versus regional selfsufficiency, and economy-driven development versus development driven by social and environmental objectives. The study shows how different drivers will change the level of water consumption and pollution globally in 2050. The presented scenarios can form a basis for a further assessment of how humanity can mitigate future freshwater scarcity. We showed with this study that reducing humanity's water footprint to sustainable levels is possible even with increasing populations, provided that consumption patterns change. This study can help to guide corrective policies at both national and international levels, and to set priorities for the years ahead in order to achieve sustainable and equitable use of the world's fresh water resources. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Prediction based active ramp metering control strategy with mobility and safety assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fang, Jie; Tu, Lili

2018-04-01

Ramp metering is one of the most direct and efficient motorway traffic flow management measures so as to improve traffic conditions. However, owing to short of traffic conditions prediction, in earlier studies, the impact on traffic flow dynamics of the applied RM control was not quantitatively evaluated. In this study, a RM control algorithm adopting Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework to predict and assess future traffic conditions, which taking both the current traffic conditions and the RM-controlled future traffic states into consideration, was presented. The designed RM control algorithm targets at optimizing the network mobility and safety performance. The designed algorithm is evaluated in a field-data-based simulation. Through comparing the presented algorithm controlled scenario with the uncontrolled scenario, it was proved that the proposed RM control algorithm can effectively relieve the congestion of traffic network with no significant compromises in safety aspect.

Evaluation of alternative future energy scenarios for Brazil using an energy mix model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coelho, Maysa Joppert

The purpose of this study is to model and assess the performance and the emissions impacts of electric energy technologies in Brazil, based on selected economic scenarios, for a time frame of 40 years, taking the year of 1995 as a base year. A Base scenario has been developed, for each of three economic development projections, based upon a sectoral analysis. Data regarding the characteristics of over 300 end-use technologies and 400 energy conversion technologies have been collected. The stand-alone MARKAL technology-based energy-mix model, first developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory, was applied to a base case study and five alternative case studies, for each economic scenario. The alternative case studies are: (1) minimum increase in the thermoelectric contribution to the power production system of 20 percent after 2010; (2) extreme values for crude oil price; (3) minimum increase in the renewable technologies contribution to the power production system of 20 percent after 2010; (4) uncertainty on the cost of future renewable conversion technologies; and (5) model is forced to use the natural gas plants committed to be built in the country. Results such as the distribution of fuel used for power generation, electricity demand across economy sectors, total CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels for power generation, shadow price (marginal cost) of technologies, and others, are evaluated and compared to the Base scenarios previous established. Among some key findings regarding the Brazilian energy system it may be inferred that: (1) diesel technologies are estimated to be the most cost-effective thermal technology in the country; (2) wind technology is estimated to be the most cost-effective technology to be used when a minimum share of renewables is imposed to the system; and (3) hydroelectric technologies present the highest cost/benefit relation among all conversion technologies considered. These results are subject to the limitations of key input assumptions and key assumptions of modeling framework, and are used as the basis for recommendations regarding energy development priorities for Brazil.

Microbial habitability of Europa sustained by radioactive sources.

PubMed

Altair, Thiago; de Avellar, Marcio G B; Rodrigues, Fabio; Galante, Douglas

2018-01-10

There is an increasing interest in the icy moons of the Solar System due to their potential habitability and as targets for future exploratory missions, which include astrobiological goals. Several studies have reported new results describing the details of these moons' geological settings; however, there is still a lack of information regarding the deep subsurface environment of the moons. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the microbial habitability of Europa constrained by terrestrial analogue environments and sustained by radioactive energy provided by natural unstable isotopes. The geological scenarios are based on known deep environments on Earth, and the bacterial ecosystem is based on a sulfate-reducing bacterial ecosystem found 2.8 km below the surface in a basin in South Africa. The results show the possibility of maintaining the modeled ecosystem based on the proposed scenarios and provides directions for future models and exploration missions for a more complete evaluation of the habitability of Europa and of icy moons in general.

Future Scenarios in Communications. Teacher's Guide. Preparing for Tomorrow's World.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iozzi, Louis A.; And Others

"Future Scenarios in Communications" is one of the "Preparing for Tomorrow's World" (PTW) program modules. PTW is an interdisciplinary, future-oriented program incorporating information from the sciences and social sciences and addressing societal concerns which interface science/technology/society. The program promotes…

Climate and human intervention effects on future fire activity and consequences for air pollution across the 21st century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Val Martin, M.; Pierce, J. R.; Heald, C. L.; Li, F.; Lawrence, D. M.; Wiedinmyer, C.; Tilmes, S.; Vitt, F.

2016-12-01

Emissions of aerosols and gases from fires have been shown to adversely affect air quality across the world. Fire activity is strongly related to climate and anthropogenic activities. Current fire projections for the 21st century seem very uncertain, ranging from increasing to declining depending on the climate, land cover change and population growth scenarios used. Here we present an analysis of the changes in future wildfire activity and consequences on air quality, with focus on PM2.5 and surface O3 over regions vulnerable to fire. We use the global Community Earth System Model (CESM) with a process-based fire model to simulate emissions from agriculture, peatland, deforestation and landscape fires for present-day and throughout the current century. We consider two future Representative Concentration Pathways climate scenarios combined with population density changes predicted from Shared Socio-economic Pathways to project climate and demographic effects on fire activity and further consequences for future air quality.

A formal framework for scenario development in support of environmental decision-making

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mahmoud, M.; Liu, Yajing; Hartmann, H.; Stewart, S.; Wagener, T.; Semmens, D.; Stewart, R.; Gupta, H.; Dominguez, D.; Dominguez, F.; Hulse, D.; Letcher, R.; Rashleigh, Brenda; Smith, C.; Street, R.; Ticehurst, J.; Twery, M.; van, Delden H.; Waldick, R.; White, D.; Winter, L.

2009-01-01

Scenarios are possible future states of the world that represent alternative plausible conditions under different assumptions. Often, scenarios are developed in a context relevant to stakeholders involved in their applications since the evaluation of scenario outcomes and implications can enhance decision-making activities. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of scenario development and proposes a formal approach to scenario development in environmental decision-making. The discussion of current issues in scenario studies includes advantages and obstacles in utilizing a formal scenario development framework, and the different forms of uncertainty inherent in scenario development, as well as how they should be treated. An appendix for common scenario terminology has been attached for clarity. Major recommendations for future research in this area include proper consideration of uncertainty in scenario studies in particular in relation to stakeholder relevant information, construction of scenarios that are more diverse in nature, and sharing of information and resources among the scenario development research community. ?? 2008 Elsevier Ltd.

Preliminary Analysis of Aircraft Loss of Control Accidents: Worst Case Precursor Combinations and Temporal Sequencing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Belcastro, Christine M.; Groff, Loren; Newman, Richard L.; Foster, John V.; Crider, Dennis H.; Klyde, David H.; Huston, A. McCall

2014-01-01

Aircraft loss of control (LOC) is a leading cause of fatal accidents across all transport airplane and operational classes, and can result from a wide spectrum of hazards, often occurring in combination. Technologies developed for LOC prevention and recovery must therefore be effective under a wide variety of conditions and uncertainties, including multiple hazards, and their validation must provide a means of assessing system effectiveness and coverage of these hazards. This requires the definition of a comprehensive set of LOC test scenarios based on accident and incident data as well as future risks. This paper defines a comprehensive set of accidents and incidents over a recent 15 year period, and presents preliminary analysis results to identify worst-case combinations of causal and contributing factors (i.e., accident precursors) and how they sequence in time. Such analyses can provide insight in developing effective solutions for LOC, and form the basis for developing test scenarios that can be used in evaluating them. Preliminary findings based on the results of this paper indicate that system failures or malfunctions, crew actions or inactions, vehicle impairment conditions, and vehicle upsets contributed the most to accidents and fatalities, followed by inclement weather or atmospheric disturbances and poor visibility. Follow-on research will include finalizing the analysis through a team consensus process, defining future risks, and developing a comprehensive set of test scenarios with correlation to the accidents, incidents, and future risks. Since enhanced engineering simulations are required for batch and piloted evaluations under realistic LOC precursor conditions, these test scenarios can also serve as a high-level requirement for defining the engineering simulation enhancements needed for generating them.

Future Scenarios as a Research Tool: Investigating Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation Options and Outcomes for the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

PubMed

Evans, Louisa S; Hicks, Christina C; Fidelman, Pedro; Tobin, Renae C; Perry, Allison L

2013-01-01

Climate change is a significant future driver of change in coastal social-ecological systems. Our knowledge of impacts, adaptation options, and possible outcomes for marine environments and coastal industries is expanding, but remains limited and uncertain. Alternative scenarios are a way to explore potential futures under a range of conditions. We developed four alternative future scenarios for the Great Barrier Reef and its fishing and tourism industries positing moderate and more extreme (2-3 °C above pre-industrial temperatures) warming for 2050 and contrasting 'limited' and 'ideal' ecological and social adaptation. We presented these scenarios to representatives of key stakeholder groups to assess the perceived viability of different social adaptation options to deliver desirable outcomes under varied contexts.

The effects of country-level population policy for enhancing adaptation to climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gunasekara, N. K.; Kazama, S.; Yamazaki, D.; Oki, T.

2013-11-01

The effectiveness of population policy in reducing the combined impacts of population change and climate change on water resources is explored. One no-policy scenario and two scenarios with population policy assumptions are employed in combination with water availability under the SRES scenarios A1b, B1 and A2 for the impact analysis. The population data used are from the World Bank. The river discharges per grid of horizontal resolution 0.5° are obtained from the Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (TRIP) of the University of Tokyo, Japan. Unlike the population scenarios utilized in the SRES emission scenarios and the newest representative concentration pathways, the scenarios employed in this research are based, even after 2050, on country-level rather than regional-level growth assumptions. Our analysis implies that the heterogeneous pattern of population changes across the world is the dominant driver of water stress, irrespective of future greenhouse gas emissions, with highest impacts occurring in the already water-stressed low latitudes. In 2100, Africa, Middle East and parts of Asia are under extreme water stress under all scenarios. The sensitivity analysis reveals that a small reduction in populations over the region could relieve a large number of people from high water stress, while a further increase in population from the assumed levels (SC1) might not increase the number of people under high water stress considerably. Most of the population increase towards 2100 occurs in the already water-stressed lower latitudes. Therefore, population reduction policies are recommended for this region as a method of adaptation to the future water stress conditions. Population reduction policies will facilitate more control over their future development pathways, even if these countries were not able to contribute significantly to greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cuts due to economic constraints. However, for the European region, the population living in water-stressed regions is almost 20 times lower than that in the lower latitudes. For countries with high population momentum, the population policy scenario with fertility-reduction assumptions gained a maximum of 6.1 times the water availability in Niger and 5.3 times that in Uganda compared with the no-policy scenario. Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. These countries represent 24.5% of the global population in the no-policy scenario, and the scenario with fertility-reduction assumptions reduces it to 8.7% by 2100. This scenario is also effective in reducing the area under extreme water stress in these countries. However, the policy scenario with assumptions of population stabilization at the replacement fertility rate increases the water stress in high-latitude countries. Nevertheless, the impact is low due to the high per capita water availability in the region. This research is expected to widen the understanding of the combined impacts of climate change in the future and of the strategies needed to enhance the space for adaptation.

Limitations and information needs for engineered nanomaterial-specific exposure estimation and scenarios: recommendations for improved reporting practices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clark, Katherine; van Tongeren, Martie; Christensen, Frans M.; Brouwer, Derk; Nowack, Bernd; Gottschalk, Fadri; Micheletti, Christian; Schmid, Kaspar; Gerritsen, Rianda; Aitken, Rob; Vaquero, Celina; Gkanis, Vasileios; Housiadas, Christos; de Ipiña, Jesús María López; Riediker, Michael

2012-09-01

The aim of this paper is to describe the process and challenges in building exposure scenarios for engineered nanomaterials (ENM), using an exposure scenario format similar to that used for the European Chemicals regulation (REACH). Over 60 exposure scenarios were developed based on information from publicly available sources (literature, books, and reports), publicly available exposure estimation models, occupational sampling campaign data from partnering institutions, and industrial partners regarding their own facilities. The primary focus was on carbon-based nanomaterials, nano-silver (nano-Ag) and nano-titanium dioxide (nano-TiO2), and included occupational and consumer uses of these materials with consideration of the associated environmental release. The process of building exposure scenarios illustrated the availability and limitations of existing information and exposure assessment tools for characterizing exposure to ENM, particularly as it relates to risk assessment. This article describes the gaps in the information reviewed, recommends future areas of ENM exposure research, and proposes types of information that should, at a minimum, be included when reporting the results of such research, so that the information is useful in a wider context.

Using global sensitivity analysis to evaluate the uncertainties of future shoreline changes under the Bruun rule assumption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Le Cozannet, Gonéri; Oliveros, Carlos; Castelle, Bruno; Garcin, Manuel; Idier, Déborah; Pedreros, Rodrigo; Rohmer, Jeremy

2016-04-01

Future sandy shoreline changes are often assed by summing the contributions of longshore and cross-shore effects. In such approaches, a contribution of sea-level rise can be incorporated by adding a supplementary term based on the Bruun rule. Here, our objective is to identify where and when the use of the Bruun rule can be (in)validated, in the case of wave-exposed beaches with gentle slopes. We first provide shoreline change scenarios that account for all uncertain hydrosedimentary processes affecting the idealized low- and high-energy coasts described by Stive (2004)[Stive, M. J. F. 2004, How important is global warming for coastal erosion? an editorial comment, Climatic Change, vol. 64, n 12, doi:10.1023/B:CLIM.0000024785.91858. ISSN 0165-0009]. Then, we generate shoreline change scenarios based on probabilistic sea-level rise projections based on IPCC. For scenario RCP 6.0 and 8.5 and in the absence of coastal defenses, the model predicts an observable shift toward generalized beach erosion by the middle of the 21st century. On the contrary, the model predictions are unlikely to differ from the current situation in case of scenario RCP 2.6. To get insight into the relative importance of each source of uncertainties, we quantify each contributions to the variance of the model outcome using a global sensitivity analysis. This analysis shows that by the end of the 21st century, a large part of shoreline change uncertainties are due to the climate change scenario if all anthropogenic greenhousegas emission scenarios are considered equiprobable. To conclude, the analysis shows that under the assumptions above, (in)validating the Bruun rule should be straightforward during the second half of the 21st century and for the RCP 8.5 scenario. Conversely, for RCP 2.6, the noise in shoreline change evolution should continue dominating the signal due to the Bruun effect. This last conclusion can be interpreted as an important potential benefit of climate change mitigation.

Trends in future health financing and coverage: future health spending and universal health coverage in 188 countries, 2016-40.

PubMed

2018-05-05

Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) requires health financing systems that provide prepaid pooled resources for key health services without placing undue financial stress on households. Understanding current and future trajectories of health financing is vital for progress towards UHC. We used historical health financing data for 188 countries from 1995 to 2015 to estimate future scenarios of health spending and pooled health spending through to 2040. We extracted historical data on gross domestic product (GDP) and health spending for 188 countries from 1995 to 2015, and projected annual GDP, development assistance for health, and government, out-of-pocket, and prepaid private health spending from 2015 through to 2040 as a reference scenario. These estimates were generated using an ensemble of models that varied key demographic and socioeconomic determinants. We generated better and worse alternative future scenarios based on the global distribution of historic health spending growth rates. Last, we used stochastic frontier analysis to investigate the association between pooled health resources and UHC index, a measure of a country's UHC service coverage. Finally, we estimated future UHC performance and the number of people covered under the three future scenarios. In the reference scenario, global health spending was projected to increase from US$10 trillion (95% uncertainty interval 10 trillion to 10 trillion) in 2015 to $20 trillion (18 trillion to 22 trillion) in 2040. Per capita health spending was projected to increase fastest in upper-middle-income countries, at 4·2% (3·4-5·1) per year, followed by lower-middle-income countries (4·0%, 3·6-4·5) and low-income countries (2·2%, 1·7-2·8). Despite global growth, per capita health spending was projected to range from only $40 (24-65) to $413 (263-668) in 2040 in low-income countries, and from $140 (90-200) to $1699 (711-3423) in lower-middle-income countries. Globally, the share of health spending covered by pooled resources would range widely, from 19·8% (10·3-38·6) in Nigeria to 97·9% (96·4-98·5) in Seychelles. Historical performance on the UHC index was significantly associated with pooled resources per capita. Across the alternative scenarios, we estimate UHC reaching between 5·1 billion (4·9 billion to 5·3 billion) and 5·6 billion (5·3 billion to 5·8 billion) lives in 2030. We chart future scenarios for health spending and its relationship with UHC. Ensuring that all countries have sustainable pooled health resources is crucial to the achievement of UHC. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The effect of future ambient air pollution on human premature mortality to 2100 using output from the ACCMIP model ensemble

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silva, Raquel A.; West, J. Jason; Lamarque, Jean-François; Shindell, Drew T.; Collins, William J.; Dalsoren, Stig; Faluvegi, Greg; Folberth, Gerd; Horowitz, Larry W.; Nagashima, Tatsuya; Naik, Vaishali; Rumbold, Steven T.; Sudo, Kengo; Takemura, Toshihiko; Bergmann, Daniel; Cameron-Smith, Philip; Cionni, Irene; Doherty, Ruth M.; Eyring, Veronika; Josse, Beatrice; MacKenzie, Ian A.; Plummer, David; Righi, Mattia; Stevenson, David S.; Strode, Sarah; Szopa, Sophie; Zengast, Guang

2016-08-01

Ambient air pollution from ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is associated with premature mortality. Future concentrations of these air pollutants will be driven by natural and anthropogenic emissions and by climate change. Using anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions projected in the four Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCPs), the ACCMIP ensemble of chemistry-climate models simulated future concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 at selected decades between 2000 and 2100. We use output from the ACCMIP ensemble, together with projections of future population and baseline mortality rates, to quantify the human premature mortality impacts of future ambient air pollution. Future air-pollution-related premature mortality in 2030, 2050 and 2100 is estimated for each scenario and for each model using a health impact function based on changes in concentrations of ozone and PM2.5 relative to 2000 and projected future population and baseline mortality rates. Additionally, the global mortality burden of ozone and PM2.5 in 2000 and each future period is estimated relative to 1850 concentrations, using present-day and future population and baseline mortality rates. The change in future ozone concentrations relative to 2000 is associated with excess global premature mortality in some scenarios/periods, particularly in RCP8.5 in 2100 (316 thousand deaths year-1), likely driven by the large increase in methane emissions and by the net effect of climate change projected in this scenario, but it leads to considerable avoided premature mortality for the three other RCPs. However, the global mortality burden of ozone markedly increases from 382 000 (121 000 to 728 000) deaths year-1 in 2000 to between 1.09 and 2.36 million deaths year-1 in 2100, across RCPs, mostly due to the effect of increases in population and baseline mortality rates. PM2.5 concentrations decrease relative to 2000 in all scenarios, due to projected reductions in emissions, and are associated with avoided premature mortality, particularly in 2100: between -2.39 and -1.31 million deaths year-1 for the four RCPs. The global mortality burden of PM2.5 is estimated to decrease from 1.70 (1.30 to 2.10) million deaths year-1 in 2000 to between 0.95 and 1.55 million deaths year-1 in 2100 for the four RCPs due to the combined effect of decreases in PM2.5 concentrations and changes in population and baseline mortality rates. Trends in future air-pollution-related mortality vary regionally across scenarios, reflecting assumptions for economic growth and air pollution control specific to each RCP and region. Mortality estimates differ among chemistry-climate models due to differences in simulated pollutant concentrations, which is the greatest contributor to overall mortality uncertainty for most cases assessed here, supporting the use of model ensembles to characterize uncertainty. Increases in exposed population and baseline mortality rates of respiratory diseases magnify the impact on premature mortality of changes in future air pollutant concentrations and explain why the future global mortality burden of air pollution can exceed the current burden, even where air pollutant concentrations decrease.

The effect of future ambient air pollution on human premature mortality to 2100 using output from the ACCMIP model ensemble.

PubMed

Silva, Raquel A; West, J Jason; Lamarque, Jean-François; Shindell, Drew T; Collins, William J; Dalsoren, Stig; Faluvegi, Greg; Folberth, Gerd; Horowitz, Larry W; Nagashima, Tatsuya; Naik, Vaishali; Rumbold, Steven T; Sudo, Kengo; Takemura, Toshihiko; Bergmann, Daniel; Cameron-Smith, Philip; Cionni, Irene; Doherty, Ruth M; Eyring, Veronika; Josse, Beatrice; MacKenzie, I A; Plummer, David; Righi, Mattia; Stevenson, David S; Strode, Sarah; Szopa, Sophie; Zeng, Guang

2016-01-01

Ambient air pollution from ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) is associated with premature mortality. Future concentrations of these air pollutants will be driven by natural and anthropogenic emissions and by climate change. Using anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions projected in the four Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCPs), the ACCMIP ensemble of chemistry-climate models simulated future concentrations of ozone and PM 2.5 at selected decades between 2000 and 2100. We use output from the ACCMIP ensemble, together with projections of future population and baseline mortality rates, to quantify the human premature mortality impacts of future ambient air pollution. Future air pollution-related premature mortality in 2030, 2050 and 2100 is estimated for each scenario and for each model using a health impact function based on changes in concentrations of ozone and PM 2.5 relative to 2000 and projected future population and baseline mortality rates. Additionally, the global mortality burden of ozone and PM 2.5 in 2000 and each future period is estimated relative to 1850 concentrations, using present-day and future population and baseline mortality rates. The change in future ozone concentrations relative to 2000 is associated with excess global premature mortality in some scenarios/periods, particularly in RCP8.5 in 2100 (316 thousand deaths/year), likely driven by the large increase in methane emissions and by the net effect of climate change projected in this scenario, but it leads to considerable avoided premature mortality for the three other RCPs. However, the global mortality burden of ozone markedly increases from 382,000 (121,000 to 728,000) deaths/year in 2000 to between 1.09 and 2.36 million deaths/year in 2100, across RCPs, mostly due to the effect of increases in population and baseline mortality rates. PM 2.5 concentrations decrease relative to 2000 in all scenarios, due to projected reductions in emissions, and are associated with avoided premature mortality, particularly in 2100: between -2.39 and -1.31 million deaths/year for the four RCPs. The global mortality burden of PM 2.5 is estimated to decrease from 1.70 (1.30 to 2.10) million deaths/year in 2000 to between 0.95 and 1.55 million deaths/year in 2100 for the four RCPs, due to the combined effect of decreases in PM 2.5 concentrations and changes in population and baseline mortality rates. Trends in future air pollution-related mortality vary regionally across scenarios, reflecting assumptions for economic growth and air pollution control specific to each RCP and region. Mortality estimates differ among chemistry-climate models due to differences in simulated pollutant concentrations, which is the greatest contributor to overall mortality uncertainty for most cases assessed here, supporting the use of model ensembles to characterize uncertainty. Increases in exposed population and baseline mortality rates of respiratory diseases magnify the impact on premature mortality of changes in future air pollutant concentrations and explain why the future global mortality burden of air pollution can exceed the current burden, even where air pollutant concentrations decrease.

Workforce skill mix: modelling the potential for dental therapists in state-funded primary dental care.

PubMed

Gallagher, Jennifer E; Lim, Zhenlui; Harper, Paul R

2013-04-01

South Central Strategic Health Authority [SHA], with a population of four million, is one of 10 regions of England with responsibility for workforce planning. To explore future scenarios for the use of the skill mix within the dental team to inform the commissioning of dental therapy training. Data on population demography, oral health needs and demands, dental workforce, activity and dental utilisation were used to create demand (needs-informed) and supply models. Population trends and changing oral health needs and dental service uptake were included in the demand model. Linear programming was used to obtain the optimal make-up of the dental team. Based on the optimal scenario, workforce volumes and costs were examined across a range of scenarios up to 2013. Baseline levels of dental therapists were low and estimated as only achieving 10-20% of the current potential job competency. The optimal exploratory scenario in terms of costs and volume of staff was based on dental therapists working full time and providing 70% of routine care that is within their current job competency; this scenario required 483 therapists by 2013, a figure that appeared achievable. Increasing the level of job competency provided by therapists revealed potentially higher benefits in terms of reduced cost and requiring fewer dentists. The findings suggest that dental therapists can play a more significant role in the provision of primary dental care, both currently and in future; they also highlight the need for health services to routinely collect data that can inform workforce analysis and planning. © 2013 FDI World Dental Federation.

Simulation and Particle-Tracking Analysis of Selected Ground-Water Pumping Scenarios at Vogtle Electric Generation Plant, Burke County, Georgia

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cherry, Gregory S.; Clarke, John S.

2007-01-01

The source of ground water to production wells at Vogtle Electric Generation Plant (VEGP), a nuclear power plant in Burke County, Georgia, was simulated under existing (2002) and potential future pumping conditions using an existing U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) MODFLOW ground-water flow model of a 4,455-square-mile area in the Coastal Plain of Georgia and South Carolina. Simulation results for three steady-state pumping scenarios were compared to each other and to a 2002 Base Case condition. The pumping scenarios focused on pumping increases at VEGP resulting from projected future demands and the addition of two electrical-generating reactor units. Scenarios simulated pumping increases at VEGP ranging from 1.09 to 3.42 million gallons per day (Mgal/d), with one of the scenarios simulating the elimination of 5.3 Mgal/d of pumping at the Savannah River Site (SRS), a U.S. Department of Energy facility located across the Savannah River from VEGP. The largest simulated water-level changes at VEGP were for the scenario whereby pumping at the facility was more than tripled, resulting in drawdown exceeding 4-8 feet (ft) in the aquifers screened in the production wells. For the scenario that eliminated pumping at SRS, water-level rises of as much as 4-8 ft were simulated in the same aquifers at SRS. Results of MODFLOW simulations were analyzed using the USGS particle-tracking code MODPATH to determine the source of water and associated time of travel to VEGP production wells. For each of the scenarios, most of the recharge to VEGP wells originated in an upland area near the county line between Burke and Jefferson Counties, Georgia, with none of the recharge originating on SRS or elsewhere in South Carolina. An exception occurs for the scenario whereby pumping at VEGP was more than tripled. For this scenario, some of the recharge originates in an upland area in eastern Barnwell County, South Carolina. Simulated mean time of travel from recharge areas to VEGP wells for the Base Case and the three other pumping scenarios was between about 2,700 and 3,800 years, with some variation related to changes in head gradients because of pumping changes.

UNDERSTANDING THE PAST, MANAGING THE FUTURE - Remotely sensed analysis of the urban sprawl of Istanbul for supporting decision making for a sustainable future

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Altan, O.; Kemper, G.

2012-07-01

The GIS based analysis of the land use change of Istanbul delivers a huge and comprehensive database that can be used for further analysis. Trend analysis and scenarios enable a view to the future that highlights the needs for a proper planning. Also the understanding via comparison to other cities assists in order not to copy errors from other cities. GIS in combination with ancillary data open a wide field for managing the future of Istanbul.

Future Climate Change Impact Assessment of River Flows at Two Watersheds of Peninsular Malaysia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ercan, A.; Ishida, K.; Kavvas, M. L.; Chen, Z. R.; Jang, S.; Amin, M. Z. M.; Shaaban, A. J.

2016-12-01

Impacts of climate change on the river flows under future climate change conditions were assessed over Muda and Dungun watersheds of Peninsular Malaysia by means of a coupled regional climate model and a physically-based hydrology model utilizing an ensemble of 15 different future climate realizations. Coarse resolution GCMs' future projections covering a wide range of emission scenarios were dynamically downscaled to 6 km resolution over the study area. Hydrologic simulations of the two selected watersheds were carried out at hillslope-scale and at hourly increments.

Advanced space system concepts and their orbital support needs (1980 - 2000). Volume 4: Detailed data. Part 2: Program plans and common support needs (a study of the commonality of space vehicle applications to future national needs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bekey, I.; Mayer, H. L.; Wolfe, M. G.

1976-01-01

The methodology of alternate world future scenarios is utilized for selecting a plausible, though not advocated, set of future scenarios each of which results in a program plan appropriate for the respective environment. Each such program plan gives rise to different building block and technology requirements, which are analyzed for common need between the NASA and the DoD for each of the alternate world scenarios. An essentially invariant set of system, building block, and technology development plans is presented at the conclusion, intended to allow protection of most of the options for system concepts regardless of what the actual future world environment turns out to be. Thus, building block and technology needs are derived which support: (1) each specific world scenario; (2) all the world scenarios identified in this study; or (3) generalized scenarios applicable to almost any future environment. The output included in this volume consists of the building blocks, i.e.: transportation vehicles, orbital support vehicles, and orbital support facilities; the technology required to support the program plans; identification of their features which could support the DoD and NASA in common; and a complete discussion of the planning methodology.

Future Forest Cover Change Scenarios with Implications for Landslide Risk: An Example from Buzau Subcarpathians, Romania

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malek, Žiga; Boerboom, Luc; Glade, Thomas

2015-11-01

This study focuses on future forest cover change in Buzau Subcarpathians, a landslide prone region in Romania. Past and current trends suggest that the area might expect a future increase in deforestation. We developed spatially explicit scenarios until 2040 to analyze the spatial pattern of future forest cover change and potential changes to landslide risk. First, we generated transition probability maps using the weights of evidence method, followed by a cellular automata allocation model. We performed expert interviews, to develop two future forest management scenarios. The Alternative scenario (ALT) was defined by 67 % more deforestation than the Business as Usual scenario (BAU). We integrated the simulated scenarios with a landslide susceptibility map. In both scenarios, most of deforestation was projected in areas where landslides are less likely to occur. Still, 483 (ALT) and 276 (BAU) ha of deforestation were projected on areas with a high-landslide occurrence likelihood. Thus, deforestation could lead to a local-scale increase in landslide risk, in particular near or adjacent to forestry roads. The parallel process of near 10 % forest expansion until 2040 was projected to occur mostly on areas with high-landslide susceptibility. On a regional scale, forest expansion could so result in improved slope stability. We modeled two additional scenarios with an implemented landslide risk policy, excluding high-risk zones. The reduction of deforestation on high-risk areas was achieved without a drastic decrease in the accessibility of the areas. Together with forest expansion, it could therefore be used as a risk reduction strategy.

Future Forest Cover Change Scenarios with Implications for Landslide Risk: An Example from Buzau Subcarpathians, Romania.

PubMed

Malek, Žiga; Boerboom, Luc; Glade, Thomas

2015-11-01

This study focuses on future forest cover change in Buzau Subcarpathians, a landslide prone region in Romania. Past and current trends suggest that the area might expect a future increase in deforestation. We developed spatially explicit scenarios until 2040 to analyze the spatial pattern of future forest cover change and potential changes to landslide risk. First, we generated transition probability maps using the weights of evidence method, followed by a cellular automata allocation model. We performed expert interviews, to develop two future forest management scenarios. The Alternative scenario (ALT) was defined by 67% more deforestation than the Business as Usual scenario (BAU). We integrated the simulated scenarios with a landslide susceptibility map. In both scenarios, most of deforestation was projected in areas where landslides are less likely to occur. Still, 483 (ALT) and 276 (BAU) ha of deforestation were projected on areas with a high-landslide occurrence likelihood. Thus, deforestation could lead to a local-scale increase in landslide risk, in particular near or adjacent to forestry roads. The parallel process of near 10% forest expansion until 2040 was projected to occur mostly on areas with high-landslide susceptibility. On a regional scale, forest expansion could so result in improved slope stability. We modeled two additional scenarios with an implemented landslide risk policy, excluding high-risk zones. The reduction of deforestation on high-risk areas was achieved without a drastic decrease in the accessibility of the areas. Together with forest expansion, it could therefore be used as a risk reduction strategy.

Identification and Analysis of National Airspace System Resource Constraints

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Jeremy C.; Marien, Ty V.; Viken, Jeffery K.; Neitzke, Kurt W.; Kwa, Tech-Seng; Dollyhigh, Samuel M.; Fenbert, James W.; Hinze, Nicolas K.

2015-01-01

This analysis is the deliverable for the Airspace Systems Program, Systems Analysis Integration and Evaluation Project Milestone for the Systems and Portfolio Analysis (SPA) focus area SPA.4.06 Identification and Analysis of National Airspace System (NAS) Resource Constraints and Mitigation Strategies. "Identify choke points in the current and future NAS. Choke points refer to any areas in the en route, terminal, oceanic, airport, and surface operations that constrain actual demand in current and projected future operations. Use the Common Scenarios based on Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) projections of future demand developed under SPA.4.04 Tools, Methods and Scenarios Development. Analyze causes, including operational and physical constraints." The NASA analysis is complementary to a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) "Development of Tools and Analysis to Evaluate Choke Points in the National Airspace System" Contract # NNA3AB95C awarded to Logistics Management Institute, Sept 2013.

Impact of climate change and seasonal trends on the fate of Arctic oil spills.

PubMed

Nordam, Tor; Dunnebier, Dorien A E; Beegle-Krause, C J; Reed, Mark; Slagstad, Dag

2017-12-01

We investigated the effects of a warmer climate, and seasonal trends, on the fate of oil spilled in the Arctic. Three well blowout scenarios, two shipping accidents and a pipeline rupture were considered. We used ensembles of numerical simulations, using the OSCAR oil spill model, with environmental data for the periods 2009-2012 and 2050-2053 (representing a warmer future) as inputs to the model. Future atmospheric forcing was based on the IPCC's A1B scenario, with the ocean data generated by the hydrodynamic model SINMOD. We found differences in "typical" outcome of a spill in a warmer future compared to the present, mainly due to a longer season of open water. We have demonstrated that ice cover is extremely important for predicting the fate of an Arctic oil spill, and find that oil spills in a warming climate will in some cases result in greater areal coverage and shoreline exposure.

Future Scenarios for Mobile Science Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burden, Kevin; Kearney, Matthew

2016-01-01

This paper adopts scenario planning as a methodological approach and tool to help science educators reconceptualise their use of mobile technologies across various different futures. These "futures" are set out neither as predictions nor prognoses but rather as stimuli to encourage greater discussion and reflection around the use of…

Carbon emission limits required to satisfy future representative concentration pathways of greenhouse gases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arora, V. K.; Scinocca, J. F.; Boer, G. J.; Christian, J. R.; Denman, K. L.; Flato, G. M.; Kharin, V. V.; Lee, W. G.; Merryfield, W. J.

2011-03-01

The response of the second-generation Canadian earth system model (CanESM2) to historical (1850-2005) and future (2006-2100) natural and anthropogenic forcing is assessed using the newly-developed representative concentration pathways (RCPs) of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols. Allowable emissions required to achieve the future atmospheric CO2 concentration pathways, are reported for the RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. For the historical 1850-2005 period, cumulative land plus ocean carbon uptake and, consequently, cumulative diagnosed emissions compare well with observation-based estimates. The simulated historical carbon uptake is somewhat weaker for the ocean and stronger for the land relative to their observation-based estimates. The simulated historical warming of 0.9°C compares well with the observation-based estimate of 0.76 ± 0.19°C. The RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios respectively yield warmings of 1.4, 2.3, and 4.9°C and cumulative diagnosed fossil fuel emissions of 182, 643 and 1617 Pg C over the 2006-2100 period. The simulated warming of 2.3°C over the 1850-2100 period in the RCP 2.6 scenario, with the lowest concentration of GHGs, is slightly larger than the 2°C warming target set to avoid dangerous climate change by the 2009 UN Copenhagen Accord. The results of this study suggest that limiting warming to roughly 2°C by the end of this century is unlikely since it requires an immediate ramp down of emissions followed by ongoing carbon sequestration in the second half of this century.

Future Urban Climate Projection in A Tropical Megacity Based on Global and Regional Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Darmanto, N. S.; Varquez, A. C. G.; Kanda, M.

2017-12-01

Cities in Asian developing countries experience rapid transformation in urban morphology and energy consumption, which correspondingly affects urban climate. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model coupled with improved single-layer urban canopy model incorporating realistic distribution of urban parameters and anthropogenic heat emission (AHE) in the tropic Jakarta Greater Area was conducted. Simulation was conducted during the dry months from 2006 to 2015 and agreed well with point and satellite observation. The same technology coupled with pseudo global warming (PGW) method based on representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenario 2.6 and 8.5 was conducted to produce futuristic climate condition in 2050. Projected urban morphology and AHE in 2050s were constructed using regional urban growing model with shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) among its inputs. Compact future urban configuration, based on SSP1, was coupled to RCP2.6. Unrestrained future urban configuration, based on SSP3, was coupled to RCP8.5. Results show that background warming from RCP 2.6 and 8.5 will increase background temperature by 0.55°C and 1.2°C throughout the region, respectively. Future projection of urban sprawl results to an additional 0.3°C and 0.5°C increase on average, with maximum increase of 1.1°C and 1.3°C due to urban effect for RCP2.6/compact and RCP8.5/unrestrained, respectively. Higher moisture content in urban area is indicated in the future due to higher evaporation. Change in urban roughness is likely affect slower wind velocity in urban area and sea breeze front inland penetration the future compare with current condition. Acknowledgement: This research was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-14) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

Of possible cheminformatics futures.

PubMed

Oprea, Tudor I; Taboureau, Olivier; Bologa, Cristian G

2012-01-01

For over a decade, cheminformatics has contributed to a wide array of scientific tasks from analytical chemistry and biochemistry to pharmacology and drug discovery; and although its contributions to decision making are recognized, the challenge is how it would contribute to faster development of novel, better products. Here we address the future of cheminformatics with primary focus on innovation. Cheminformatics developers often need to choose between "mainstream" (i.e., accepted, expected) and novel, leading-edge tools, with an increasing trend for open science. Possible futures for cheminformatics include the worst case scenario (lack of funding, no creative usage), as well as the best case scenario (complete integration, from systems biology to virtual physiology). As "-omics" technologies advance, and computer hardware improves, compounds will no longer be profiled at the molecular level, but also in terms of genetic and clinical effects. Among potentially novel tools, we anticipate machine learning models based on free text processing, an increased performance in environmental cheminformatics, significant decision-making support, as well as the emergence of robot scientists conducting automated drug discovery research. Furthermore, cheminformatics is anticipated to expand the frontiers of knowledge and evolve in an open-ended, extensible manner, allowing us to explore multiple research scenarios in order to avoid epistemological "local information minimum trap".

Viewing the Future of University Research Libraries through the Perspectives of Scenarios

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cawthorne, Jon Edward

2013-01-01

This research highlights the scenarios that might serve as a strategic vision to describe a future beyond the current library, one which both guides provosts and creates a map for the transformation of human resources and technology in the university research libraries. The scenarios offer managerial leaders an opportunity to envision new roles…

Nuclear Security Futures Scenarios.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Keller, Elizabeth James Kistin; Warren, Drake Edward; Hayden, Nancy Kay

This report provides an overview of the scenarios used in strategic futures workshops conducted at Sandia on September 21 and 29, 2016. The workshops, designed and facilitated by analysts in Center 100, used scenarios to enable thought leaders to think collectively about the changing aspects of global nuclear security and the potential implications for the US Government and Sandia National Laboratories.

Water within the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways: Constraints and the Impact on Future Global Change Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Graham, N. T.; Hejazi, M. I.; Davies, E. G.; Calvin, K. V.; Kim, S. H.; Miralles-Wilhelm, F.

2017-12-01

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) represent the next generation of future global change scenarios and their inclusion in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) scenarios reinforces the importance of a complete understanding of the SSPs. This study uses the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) to investigate the effects of limited water supplies on future withdrawals at regional and water basin scales across all SSPs in combination with various climate mitigation scenarios. Water supply is calculated using a global hydrologic model and water data from five ISI-MIP models across the four RCP scenarios. When water constraints are incorporated, our results show that water withdrawals are reduced by as much as 40% across all SSP scenarios without climate policies. As climate policies are imposed and become more stringent, water withdrawals increase in regions already affected by water stress in order to allow for greater biomass production. The results of this research show the importance of including water resource constraints within the SSP scenarios for establishing water withdrawal scenarios under a wide range of scenarios including different climate policies. The results will also provide data products - such as gridded land use and water demand estimates - of potential interest to the impact, adaptation, and vulnerability community following the SSP scenarios.

Projecting the past and future impacts of hurricanes on the carbon balance of eastern U.S. forests (1851-2100)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fisk, J.; Hurtt, G. C.; Chambers, J. Q.; Zeng, H.

2009-12-01

In U.S. Atlantic coastal areas, hurricanes are a principal agent of catastrophic wind damage, with dramatic impacts on the structure and functioning of forests. Estimates of the carbon emissions resulting from single storms range as high as ~100 Tg C, an amount equivalent to the annual U.S. carbon sink in forest trees. Recent studies have estimated the historic regional carbon emissions from hurricane activity using an empirically based approach. Here, we use a mechanistic ecosystem model, the Ecosystem Demography (ED) model, driven by maps of mortality and damage based on historic hurricane tracks and future scenarios to predict the past and future impacts of hurricanes on the carbon balance of eastern U.S. forests. Model estimates compare well to previous empirically based estimates, with mean annual biomass loss of 26 Tg C yr-1 (range 0 to ~225 Tg C yr-1) resulting from hurricanes during the period 1851-2000. Using the mechanistic model, we are able to include the effects of both disturbance and recovery on the net carbon flux. We find a regional carbon sink throughout much of the 20th century resulting from forest recovery following a peak in hurricane activity during the late 19th century exceeding biomass loss. Recent increased hurricane activity has resulted in the region becoming a net carbon source. For the future, several recent studies have linked increased sea surface temperatures expected with climate change to increased hurricane activity. Based on these relationships, we investigate a range of scenarios of future hurricane activity and find the potential for substantial increases in emissions from hurricane mortality and reductions in regional carbon stocks. In our scenario with the largest increase in hurricane activity, we find a 35% increase in area disturbed by 2100, but due to the reduction of standing biomass, only a 20% increase in biomass loss per year. Developing this kind of predictive modeling capability that tracks disturbance events and recovery is key to our understanding and ability to predict the carbon balance of forests of the eastern U.S.

National Economic Value Assessment of Plug-in Electric Vehicles: Volume I

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Melaina, Marc; Bush, Brian; Eichman, Joshua

The adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) can reduce household fuel expenditures by substituting electricity for gasoline while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum imports. A scenario approach is employed to provide insights into the long-term economic value of increased PEV market growth across the United States. The analytic methods estimate fundamental costs and benefits associated with an economic allocation of PEVs across households based upon household driving patterns, projected vehicle cost and performance attributes, and simulations of a future electricity grid. To explore the full technological potential of PEVs and resulting demands on the electricity grid, very high PEVmore » market growth projections from previous studies are relied upon to develop multiple future scenarios.« less

SMARTE: HELPING COMMUNITIES OVERCOME OBSTACLES TO REVITALIZATION (04/23/07)

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools - electronic (SMARTe), is an open-source, web-based, decision support system for developing and evaluating future reuse scenarios for potentially contaminated land. SMARTe contains information and analysis tools for all a...

GET SMARTE: DECISION TOOLS TO REVITALIZE COMMUNITIES (MAY 2006)

EPA Science Inventory

SMARTe (Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools-electronic) is an open-source, web-based, decision-support system for developing and evaluating future use scenarios for potentially contaminated sites (i.e., brownfields). It contains resources and analysis tools...

Protected Area Tourism in a Changing Climate: Will Visitation at US National Parks Warm Up or Overheat?

PubMed

Fisichelli, Nicholas A; Schuurman, Gregor W; Monahan, William B; Ziesler, Pamela S

2015-01-01

Climate change will affect not only natural and cultural resources within protected areas but also tourism and visitation patterns. The U.S. National Park Service systematically collects data regarding its 270+ million annual recreation visits, and therefore provides an opportunity to examine how human visitation may respond to climate change from the tropics to the polar regions. To assess the relationship between climate and park visitation, we evaluated historical monthly mean air temperature and visitation data (1979-2013) at 340 parks and projected potential future visitation (2041-2060) based on two warming-climate scenarios and two visitation-growth scenarios. For the entire park system a third-order polynomial temperature model explained 69% of the variation in historical visitation trends. Visitation generally increased with increasing average monthly temperature, but decreased strongly with temperatures > 25°C. Linear to polynomial monthly temperature models also explained historical visitation at individual parks (R2 0.12-0.99, mean = 0.79, median = 0.87). Future visitation at almost all parks (95%) may change based on historical temperature, historical visitation, and future temperature projections. Warming-mediated increases in potential visitation are projected for most months in most parks (67-77% of months; range across future scenarios), resulting in future increases in total annual visits across the park system (8-23%) and expansion of the visitation season at individual parks (13-31 days). Although very warm months at some parks may see decreases in future visitation, this potential change represents a relatively small proportion of visitation across the national park system. A changing climate is likely to have cascading and complex effects on protected area visitation, management, and local economies. Results suggest that protected areas and neighboring communities that develop adaptation strategies for these changes may be able to both capitalize on opportunities and minimize detriment related to changing visitation.

Protected Area Tourism in a Changing Climate: Will Visitation at US National Parks Warm Up or Overheat?

PubMed Central

Fisichelli, Nicholas A.; Schuurman, Gregor W.; Monahan, William B.; Ziesler, Pamela S.

2015-01-01

Climate change will affect not only natural and cultural resources within protected areas but also tourism and visitation patterns. The U.S. National Park Service systematically collects data regarding its 270+ million annual recreation visits, and therefore provides an opportunity to examine how human visitation may respond to climate change from the tropics to the polar regions. To assess the relationship between climate and park visitation, we evaluated historical monthly mean air temperature and visitation data (1979–2013) at 340 parks and projected potential future visitation (2041–2060) based on two warming-climate scenarios and two visitation-growth scenarios. For the entire park system a third-order polynomial temperature model explained 69% of the variation in historical visitation trends. Visitation generally increased with increasing average monthly temperature, but decreased strongly with temperatures > 25°C. Linear to polynomial monthly temperature models also explained historical visitation at individual parks (R2 0.12-0.99, mean = 0.79, median = 0.87). Future visitation at almost all parks (95%) may change based on historical temperature, historical visitation, and future temperature projections. Warming-mediated increases in potential visitation are projected for most months in most parks (67–77% of months; range across future scenarios), resulting in future increases in total annual visits across the park system (8–23%) and expansion of the visitation season at individual parks (13–31 days). Although very warm months at some parks may see decreases in future visitation, this potential change represents a relatively small proportion of visitation across the national park system. A changing climate is likely to have cascading and complex effects on protected area visitation, management, and local economies. Results suggest that protected areas and neighboring communities that develop adaptation strategies for these changes may be able to both capitalize on opportunities and minimize detriment related to changing visitation. PMID:26083361

Heat and health in Antwerp under climate change: Projected impacts and implications for prevention.

PubMed

Martinez, Gerardo Sanchez; Diaz, Julio; Hooyberghs, Hans; Lauwaet, Dirk; De Ridder, Koen; Linares, Cristina; Carmona, Rocio; Ortiz, Cristina; Kendrovski, Vladimir; Aerts, Raf; Van Nieuwenhuyse, An; Dunbar, Maria Bekker-Nielsen

2018-02-01

Excessive summer heat is a serious environmental health problem in several European cities. Heat-related mortality and morbidity is likely to increase under climate change scenarios without adequate prevention based on locally relevant evidence. We modelled the urban climate of Antwerp for the summer season during the period 1986-2015, and projected summer daily temperatures for two periods, one in the near (2026-2045) and one in the far future (2081-2100), under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5. We then analysed the relationship between temperature and mortality, as well as with hospital admissions for the period 2009-2013, and estimated the projected mortality in the near future and far future periods under changing climate and population, assuming alternatively no acclimatization and acclimatization based on a constant threshold percentile temperature. During the sample period 2009-2013 we observed an increase in daily mortality from a maximum daily temperature of 26°C, or the 89th percentile of the maximum daily temperature series. The annual average heat-related mortality in this period was 13.4 persons (95% CI: 3.8-23.4). No effect of heat was observed in the case of hospital admissions due to cardiorespiratory causes. Under a no acclimatization scenario, annual average heat-related mortality is multiplied by a factor of 1.7 in the near future (24.1deaths/year CI 95%: 6.78-41.94) and by a factor of 4.5 in the far future (60.38deaths/year CI 95%: 17.00-105.11). Under a heat acclimatization scenario, mortality does not increase significantly in the near or in the far future. These results highlight the importance of a long-term perspective in the public health prevention of heat exposure, particularly in the context of a changing climate, and the calibration of existing prevention activities in light of locally relevant evidence. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Application of Temperature Index Model to Assess the Future Hydrological Regime of the Glacierized Catchments in Nepal.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kayastha, R.; Kayastha, R. B.

2017-12-01

Unavailability of hydro meteorological data in the Himalayan regions is challenging on understanding the flow regimes. Temperature index model is simple yet the powerful glacio-hydrological model to simulate the discharge in the glacierized basin. Modified Positive Degree Day (MPDD) Model Version 2.0 is a grid-ded based semi distributed model with baseflow module is a robust melt modelling tools to estimate the discharge. MPDD model uses temperature and precipitation as a forcing datasets to simulate the discharge and also to obtain the snowmelt, icemelt, rain and baseflow contribution on total discharge. In this study two glacierized, Marsyangdi and Langtang catchment were investigated for the future hydrological regimes. Marsyangdi encompasses an area of 4026.19 sq. km with 20% glaciated area, whereas Langtang catchment with area of 354.64 sq. km with 36% glaciated area is studied to examine for the future climatic scenarios. The model simulates discharge well for the observed period; (1992-1998) in Marsyangdi and from (2007-2013) in Langtang catchment. The Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) for the both catchment were above 0.75 with the volume difference less than - 8 %. The snow and ice melts contribution in Marsyangdi were 4.7% and 10.2% whereas in Langtang the contribution is 15.3% and 23.4%, respectively. Rain contribution ( 40%) is higher than the baseflow contribution in total discharge in both basins. The future river discharge is also predicted using the future climate data from the regional climate models (RCMs) of CORDEX South Asia experiments for the medium stabilization scenario RCP4.5 and very high radiative forcing scenario RCP8.5 after bias correction. The projected future discharge of both catchment shows slightly increase in both scenarios with increase of snow and ice melt contribution on discharge. The result generated from the model can be utilized to understand the future hydrological regimes of the glacierized catchment also the impact of climate change on the snow and ice contribution on discharge. The future discharge projection is also helpful for the water resource management and also for the strategic planners.

Event-based knowledge elicitation of operating room management decision-making using scenarios adapted from information systems data

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background No systematic process has previously been described for a needs assessment that identifies the operating room (OR) management decisions made by the anesthesiologists and nurse managers at a facility that do not maximize the efficiency of use of OR time. We evaluated whether event-based knowledge elicitation can be used practically for rapid assessment of OR management decision-making at facilities, whether scenarios can be adapted automatically from information systems data, and the usefulness of the approach. Methods A process of event-based knowledge elicitation was developed to assess OR management decision-making that may reduce the efficiency of use of OR time. Hypothetical scenarios addressing every OR management decision influencing OR efficiency were created from published examples. Scenarios are adapted, so that cues about conditions are accurate and appropriate for each facility (e.g., if OR 1 is used as an example in a scenario, the listed procedure is a type of procedure performed at the facility in OR 1). Adaptation is performed automatically using the facility's OR information system or anesthesia information management system (AIMS) data for most scenarios (43 of 45). Performing the needs assessment takes approximately 1 hour of local managers' time while they decide if their decisions are consistent with the described scenarios. A table of contents of the indexed scenarios is created automatically, providing a simple version of problem solving using case-based reasoning. For example, a new OR manager wanting to know the best way to decide whether to move a case can look in the chapter on "Moving Cases on the Day of Surgery" to find a scenario that describes the situation being encountered. Results Scenarios have been adapted and used at 22 hospitals. Few changes in decisions were needed to increase the efficiency of use of OR time. The few changes were heterogeneous among hospitals, showing the usefulness of individualized assessments. Conclusions Our technical advance is the development and use of automated event-based knowledge elicitation to identify suboptimal OR management decisions that decrease the efficiency of use of OR time. The adapted scenarios can be used in future decision-making. PMID:21214905

Event-based knowledge elicitation of operating room management decision-making using scenarios adapted from information systems data.

PubMed

Dexter, Franklin; Wachtel, Ruth E; Epstein, Richard H

2011-01-07

No systematic process has previously been described for a needs assessment that identifies the operating room (OR) management decisions made by the anesthesiologists and nurse managers at a facility that do not maximize the efficiency of use of OR time. We evaluated whether event-based knowledge elicitation can be used practically for rapid assessment of OR management decision-making at facilities, whether scenarios can be adapted automatically from information systems data, and the usefulness of the approach. A process of event-based knowledge elicitation was developed to assess OR management decision-making that may reduce the efficiency of use of OR time. Hypothetical scenarios addressing every OR management decision influencing OR efficiency were created from published examples. Scenarios are adapted, so that cues about conditions are accurate and appropriate for each facility (e.g., if OR 1 is used as an example in a scenario, the listed procedure is a type of procedure performed at the facility in OR 1). Adaptation is performed automatically using the facility's OR information system or anesthesia information management system (AIMS) data for most scenarios (43 of 45). Performing the needs assessment takes approximately 1 hour of local managers' time while they decide if their decisions are consistent with the described scenarios. A table of contents of the indexed scenarios is created automatically, providing a simple version of problem solving using case-based reasoning. For example, a new OR manager wanting to know the best way to decide whether to move a case can look in the chapter on "Moving Cases on the Day of Surgery" to find a scenario that describes the situation being encountered. Scenarios have been adapted and used at 22 hospitals. Few changes in decisions were needed to increase the efficiency of use of OR time. The few changes were heterogeneous among hospitals, showing the usefulness of individualized assessments. Our technical advance is the development and use of automated event-based knowledge elicitation to identify suboptimal OR management decisions that decrease the efficiency of use of OR time. The adapted scenarios can be used in future decision-making.

RiskChanges Spatial Decision Support system for the analysis of changing multi-hazard risk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Westen, Cees; Zhang, Kaixi; Bakker, Wim; Andrejchenko, Vera; Berlin, Julian; Olyazadeh, Roya; Cristal, Irina

2015-04-01

Within the framework of the EU FP7 Marie Curie Project CHANGES and the EU FP7 Copernicus project INCREO a spatial decision support system was developed with the aim to analyse the effect of risk reduction planning alternatives on reducing the risk now and in the future, and support decision makers in selecting the best alternatives. Central to the SDSS are the stakeholders. The envisaged users of the system are organizations involved in planning of risk reduction measures, and that have staff capable of visualizing and analyzing spatial data at a municipal scale. The SDSS should be able to function in different countries with different legal frameworks and with organizations with different mandates. These could be subdivided into Civil protection organization with the mandate to design disaster response plans, Expert organizations with the mandate to design structural risk reduction measures (e.g. dams, dikes, check-dams etc), and planning organizations with the mandate to make land development plans. The SDSS can be used in different ways: analyzing the current level of risk, analyzing the best alternatives for risk reduction, the evaluation of the consequences of possible future scenarios to the risk levels, and the evaluation how different risk reduction alternatives will lead to risk reduction under different future scenarios. The SDSS is developed based on open source software and following open standards, for code as well as for data formats and service interfaces. Code development was based upon open source software as well. The architecture of the system is modular. The various parts of the system are loosely coupled, extensible, using standards for interoperability, flexible and web-based. The Spatial Decision Support System is composed of a number of integrated components. The Risk Assessment component allows to carry out spatial risk analysis, with different degrees of complexity, ranging from simple exposure (overlay of hazard and assets maps) to quantitative analysis (using different hazard types, temporal scenarios and vulnerability curves) resulting into risk curves. The platform does not include a component to calculate hazard maps, and existing hazard maps are used as input data for the risk component. The second component of the SDSS is a risk reduction planning component, which forms the core of the platform. This component includes the definition of risk reduction alternatives (related to disaster response planning, risk reduction measures and spatial planning) and links back to the risk assessment module to calculate the new level of risk if the measure is implemented, and a cost-benefit (or cost-effectiveness/ Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation) component to compare the alternatives and make decision on the optimal one. The third component of the SDSS is a temporal scenario component, which allows to define future scenarios in terms of climate change, land use change and population change, and the time periods for which these scenarios will be made. The component doesn't generate these scenarios but uses input maps for the effect of the scenarios on the hazard and assets maps. The last component is a communication and visualization component, which can compare scenarios and alternatives, not only in the form of maps, but also in other forms (risk curves, tables, graphs)

Smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0: Conceptual framework, scenarios, and future perspectives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Pai; wang, Honghui; Sang, Zhiqian; Zhong, Ray Y.; Liu, Yongkui; Liu, Chao; Mubarok, Khamdi; Yu, Shiqiang; Xu, Xun

2018-06-01

Information and communication technology is undergoing rapid development, and many disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, have emerged. These technologies are permeating the manufacturing industry and enable the fusion of physical and virtual worlds through cyber-physical systems (CPS), which mark the advent of the fourth stage of industrial production (i.e., Industry 4.0). The widespread application of CPS in manufacturing environments renders manufacturing systems increasingly smart. To advance research on the implementation of Industry 4.0, this study examines smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0. First, a conceptual framework of smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 is presented. Second, demonstrative scenarios that pertain to smart design, smart machining, smart control, smart monitoring, and smart scheduling, are presented. Key technologies and their possible applications to Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing systems are reviewed based on these demonstrative scenarios. Finally, challenges and future perspectives are identified and discussed.

Human Factors Integration Requirements for Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs). Part 1: Guidance on Addressing the Human System Integration (HSI) Content of Statements of Operational Requirements (SORs)

DTIC Science & Technology

1999-12-01

based on a systematic analysis of future systems, within the context of future scenarios and operational/support concepts . It is recognized, however...INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION CONCEPTS 2 6 IDENTIFY GAPS IN EXISTING KNOWLEDGE 2 7 DEVEWP FUTURE R&D PROGRAM ····· . 1 1 ...... 2 . . 2...stems Incorporated Annex B. Soldier’s Day Concept Page I ... mounted soldier performance can therefore be improved, and mounted/ dismounted

Scenario based optimization of a container vessel with respect to its projected operating conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagner, Jonas; Binkowski, Eva; Bronsart, Robert

2014-06-01

In this paper the scenario based optimization of the bulbous bow of the KRISO Container Ship (KCS) is presented. The optimization of the parametrically modeled vessel is based on a statistically developed operational profile generated from noon-to-noon reports of a comparable 3600 TEU container vessel and specific development functions representing the growth of global economy during the vessels service time. In order to consider uncertainties, statistical fluctuations are added. An analysis of these data lead to a number of most probable upcoming operating conditions (OC) the vessel will stay in the future. According to their respective likeliness an objective function for the evaluation of the optimal design variant of the vessel is derived and implemented within the parametrical optimization workbench FRIENDSHIP Framework. In the following this evaluation is done with respect to vessel's calculated effective power based on the usage of potential flow code. The evaluation shows, that the usage of scenarios within the optimization process has a strong influence on the hull form.

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview

DOE PAGES

Riahi, Keywan; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Kriegler, Elmar; ...

2017-09-09

This study presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development,more » regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 400–1200 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO 2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO 2 to more than 120 GtCO 2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: (1) the policy assumptions, (2) the socio-economic narrative, and (3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m 2 that is consistent with a temperature change limit of 2 °C, differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP marker scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectoral extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6).« less

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Riahi, Keywan; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Kriegler, Elmar

This study presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development,more » regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 400–1200 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO 2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO 2 to more than 120 GtCO 2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: (1) the policy assumptions, (2) the socio-economic narrative, and (3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m 2 that is consistent with a temperature change limit of 2 °C, differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP marker scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectoral extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6).« less

Assessing the potential impact of increased participation in higher education on mortality: evidence from 21 European populations.

PubMed

Kulhánová, Ivana; Hoffmann, Rasmus; Judge, Ken; Looman, Caspar W N; Eikemo, Terje A; Bopp, Matthias; Deboosere, Patrick; Leinsalu, Mall; Martikainen, Pekka; Rychtaříková, Jitka; Wojtyniak, Bogdan; Menvielle, Gwenn; Mackenbach, Johan P

2014-09-01

Although higher education has been associated with lower mortality rates in many studies, the effect of potential improvements in educational distribution on future mortality levels is unknown. We therefore estimated the impact of projected increases in higher education on mortality in European populations. We used mortality and population data according to educational level from 21 European populations and developed counterfactual scenarios. The first scenario represented the improvement in the future distribution of educational attainment as expected on the basis of an assumption of cohort replacement. We estimated the effect of this counterfactual scenario on mortality with a 10-15-year time horizon among men and women aged 30-79 years using a specially developed tool based on population attributable fractions (PAF). We compared this with a second, upward levelling scenario in which everyone has obtained tertiary education. The reduction of mortality in the cohort replacement scenario ranged from 1.9 to 10.1% for men and from 1.7 to 9.0% for women. The reduction of mortality in the upward levelling scenario ranged from 22.0 to 57.0% for men and from 9.6 to 50.0% for women. The cohort replacement scenario was estimated to achieve only part (4-25% (men) and 10-31% (women)) of the potential mortality decrease seen in the upward levelling scenario. We concluded that the effect of on-going improvements in educational attainment on average mortality in the population differs across Europe, and can be substantial. Further investments in education may have important positive side-effects on population health. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scenario-Led Habitat Modelling of Land Use Change Impacts on Key Species

PubMed Central

Geary, Matthew; Fielding, Alan H.; McGowan, Philip J. K.; Marsden, Stuart J.

2015-01-01

Accurate predictions of the impacts of future land use change on species of conservation concern can help to inform policy-makers and improve conservation measures. If predictions are spatially explicit, predicted consequences of likely land use changes could be accessible to land managers at a scale relevant to their working landscape. We introduce a method, based on open source software, which integrates habitat suitability modelling with scenario-building, and illustrate its use by investigating the effects of alternative land use change scenarios on landscape suitability for black grouse Tetrao tetrix. Expert opinion was used to construct five near-future (twenty years) scenarios for the 800 km2 study site in upland Scotland. For each scenario, the cover of different land use types was altered by 5–30% from 20 random starting locations and changes in habitat suitability assessed by projecting a MaxEnt suitability model onto each simulated landscape. A scenario converting grazed land to moorland and open forestry was the most beneficial for black grouse, and ‘increased grazing’ (the opposite conversion) the most detrimental. Positioning of new landscape blocks was shown to be important in some situations. Increasing the area of open-canopy forestry caused a proportional decrease in suitability, but suitability gains for the ‘reduced grazing’ scenario were nonlinear. ‘Scenario-led’ landscape simulation models can be applied in assessments of the impacts of land use change both on individual species and also on diversity and community measures, or ecosystem services. A next step would be to include landscape configuration more explicitly in the simulation models, both to make them more realistic, and to examine the effects of habitat placement more thoroughly. In this example, the recommended policy would be incentives on grazing reduction to benefit black grouse. PMID:26569604

Environmental consequences of future biogas technologies based on separated slurry.

PubMed

Hamelin, Lorie; Wesnæs, Marianne; Wenzel, Henrik; Petersen, Bjørn M

2011-07-01

This consequential life cycle assessment study highlights the key environmental aspects of producing biogas from separated pig and cow slurry, a relatively new but probable scenario for future biogas production, as it avoids the reliance on constrained carbon cosubstrates. Three scenarios involving different slurry separation technologies have been assessed and compared to a business-as-usual reference slurry management scenario. The results show that the environmental benefits of such biogas production are highly dependent upon the efficiency of the separation technology used to concentrate the volatile solids in the solid fraction. The biogas scenario involving the most efficient separation technology resulted in a dry matter separation efficiency of 87% and allowed a net reduction of the global warming potential of 40%, compared to the reference slurry management. This figure comprises the whole slurry life cycle, including the flows bypassing the biogas plant. This study includes soil carbon balances and a method for quantifying the changes in yield resulting from increased nitrogen availability as well as for quantifying mineral fertilizers displacement. Soil carbon balances showed that between 13 and 50% less carbon ends up in the soil pool with the different biogas alternatives, as opposed to the reference slurry management.

General circulation model response to production-limited fossil fuel emission estimates.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bowman, K. W.; Rutledge, D.; Miller, C.

2008-12-01

The differences in emissions scenarios used to drive IPCC climate projections are the largest sources of uncertainty in future temperature predictions. These estimates are critically dependent on oil, gas, and coal production where the extremal variations in fossil fuel production used in these scenarios is roughly 10:1 after 2100. The development of emission scenarios based on production-limited fossil fuel estimates, i.e., total fossil fuel reserves can be reliably predicted from cumulative production, offers the opportunity to significantly reduce this uncertainty. We present preliminary results of the response of the NASA GISS atmospheric general circulation model to input forcings constrained by production-limited cumulative future fossil-fuel CO2 emissions estimates that reach roughly 500 GtC by 2100, which is significantly lower than any of the IPCC emission scenarios. For climate projections performed from 1958 through 2400 and a climate sensitivity of 5C/2xCO2, the change in globally averaged annual mean temperature relative to fixed CO2 does not exceed 3C with most changes occurring at high latitudes. We find that from 2100-2400 other input forcings such as increased in N2O play an important role in maintaining increase surface temperatures.

Comparing supply and demand models for future photovoltaic power generation in the USA

DOE PAGES

Basore, Paul A.; Cole, Wesley J.

2018-02-22

We explore the plausible range of future deployment of photovoltaic generation capacity in the USA using a supply-focused model based on supply-chain growth constraints and a demand-focused model based on minimizing the overall cost of the electricity system. Both approaches require assumptions based on previous experience and anticipated trends. For each of the models, we assign plausible ranges for the key assumptions and then compare the resulting PV deployment over time. Each model was applied to 2 different future scenarios: one in which PV market penetration is ultimately constrained by the uncontrolled variability of solar power and one in whichmore » low-cost energy storage or some equivalent measure largely alleviates this constraint. The supply-focused and demand-focused models are in substantial agreement, not just in the long term, where deployment is largely determined by the assumed market penetration constraints, but also in the interim years. For the future scenario without low-cost energy storage or equivalent measures, the 2 models give an average plausible range of PV generation capacity in the USA of 150 to 530 GWdc in 2030 and 260 to 810 GWdc in 2040. With low-cost energy storage or equivalent measures, the corresponding ranges are 160 to 630 GWdc in 2030 and 280 to 1200 GWdc in 2040. The latter range is enough to supply 10% to 40% of US electricity demand in 2040, based on current demand growth.« less

Comparing supply and demand models for future photovoltaic power generation in the USA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Basore, Paul A.; Cole, Wesley J.

We explore the plausible range of future deployment of photovoltaic generation capacity in the USA using a supply-focused model based on supply-chain growth constraints and a demand-focused model based on minimizing the overall cost of the electricity system. Both approaches require assumptions based on previous experience and anticipated trends. For each of the models, we assign plausible ranges for the key assumptions and then compare the resulting PV deployment over time. Each model was applied to 2 different future scenarios: one in which PV market penetration is ultimately constrained by the uncontrolled variability of solar power and one in whichmore » low-cost energy storage or some equivalent measure largely alleviates this constraint. The supply-focused and demand-focused models are in substantial agreement, not just in the long term, where deployment is largely determined by the assumed market penetration constraints, but also in the interim years. For the future scenario without low-cost energy storage or equivalent measures, the 2 models give an average plausible range of PV generation capacity in the USA of 150 to 530 GWdc in 2030 and 260 to 810 GWdc in 2040. With low-cost energy storage or equivalent measures, the corresponding ranges are 160 to 630 GWdc in 2030 and 280 to 1200 GWdc in 2040. The latter range is enough to supply 10% to 40% of US electricity demand in 2040, based on current demand growth.« less

Coordinated Development and Deployment of Scenarios for Sustained Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lipschultz, F.; Weaver, C. P.; Leidner, A. K.; Delgado, A.; Grambsch, A.

2017-12-01

There has been a clear need for a more coordinated Federal government approach for authoritative, climate-relevant scenarios to support growing demands by decision-makers, to meet stakeholder needs for consistent approaches and guidance, and to better address the needs of the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability community. To begin to satisfy these decision-support needs, in early 2015 the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) began coordinated production of scenario information for use across a suite of USGCRP activities. These have been implemented in the 4th National Climate Assessment (NCA4), the Climate Science Special Report and the Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT), all of which are intended to help better organize, summarize, and communicate science to decision-makers as they think about our future. First, USGCRP introduced and implemented an explicit risk-framing approach across the entire scenario enterprise to encourage exploration of tail risks. A suite of scenario products was developed framed around three simplified storylines: `Lower', `Higher', and `Upper Bound' departures from current baselines. Second, USGCRP developed future climate information for the U.S. using Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 and RCP 4.5, including a weighted mean of Global Climate Models and adoption of an improved statistical downscaling approach across USGCRP products. Additional variables were derived from the downscaled parameters for use across USGCRP reports and in the CRT's Climate Explorer tool. Third, and given the need to address other tightly-coupled global changes in a more integrated way, a set of population, housing density, and impervious surface projections were developed based on global scenarios. In addition, USGCRP and the National Ocean Council developed scenarios of future sea-level rise and coastal-flood hazard for the U.S. and integrated them into existing Federal capabilities to support preparedness planning. To better convey these scenario components, next steps include capability for dynamic interaction between NCA4 products and CRT to permit users to explore and customize relevant information for their decision at spatial scales that matter to them, as well as links to more in-depth CRT content.

Integrated climate/land use/hydrological change scenarios for assessing threats to ecosystem services on California rangelands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Byrd, K. B.; Flint, L. E.; Casey, C. F.; Alvarez, P.; Sleeter, B. M.; Sohl, T.

2013-12-01

In California there are over 18 million acres of rangelands in the Central Valley and the interior Coast Range, most of which are privately owned and managed for livestock production. Ranches provide extensive wildlife habitat and generate multiple ecosystem services that carry considerable market and non-market values. These rangelands are under pressure from urbanization and conversion to intensive agriculture, as well as from climate change that can alter the flow of these services. To understand the coupled and isolated impacts of land use and climate change on rangeland ecosystem services, we developed six spatially explicit (250 m) coupled climate/land use/hydrological change scenarios for the Central Valley and oak woodland regions of California consistent with three IPCC emission scenarios - A2, A1B and B1. Three land use land cover (LULC) change scenarios were each integrated with two downscaled global climate models (GCMs) (a warm, wet future and a hot, dry future) and related hydrologic data. We used these scenarios to quantify wildlife habitat, water supply (recharge potential and streamflow) and carbon sequestration on rangelands and to conduct an economic analysis associated with changes in these benefits. The USGS FOREcasting SCEnarios of land-use change model (FORE-SCE), which runs dynamically with downscaled GCM outputs, was used to generate maps of yearly LULC change for each scenario from 2006 to 2100. We used the USGS Basin Characterization Model (BCM), a regional water balance model, to generate change in runoff, recharge, and stream discharge based on land use change and climate change. Metrics derived from model outputs were generated at the landscape scale and for six case-study watersheds. At the landscape scale, over a quarter of the million acres set aside for conservation in the B1 scenario would otherwise be converted to agriculture in the A2 scenario, where temperatures increase by up to 4.5 °C compared to 1.3 °C in the B1 scenario. A comparison of two watersheds - Alameda Creek, an urbanized watershed, and Upper Stony Creek, impacted by intensified agriculture, demonstrates the relative contribution of urbanization and climate change to water supply. In Upper Stony Creek, where 24% of grassland is converted to agriculture in the A1B scenario, a hotter, dryer 4-year time period could lead to a 40% reduction in streamflow compared to present day. In Alameda Creek, for the same scenario, 47% of grassland is converted to urbanized lands and streamflow may increase by 11%, resulting in a recharge:runoff ratio of 0.26; though if urbanization does not take place, streamflow could decrease by 64% and the recharge:runoff ratio would be 1.2. Model outputs quantify the impact of urbanization on water supply and show the importance of soil storage capacity. Scenarios have applications for climate-smart conservation and land use planning by identifying outcomes associated with coupled future land use scenarios and more variable and extreme potential future climates.

Application of scenario-neutral methods to quantify impacts of climate change on water resources in East Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ascott, M.; Macdonald, D.; Lapworth, D.; Tindimugaya, C.

2017-12-01

Quantification of the impact of climate change on water resources is essential for future resource planning. Unfortunately, climate change impact studies in African regions are often hindered by the extent in variability in future rainfall predictions, which also diverge from current drying trends. To overcome this limitation, "scenario-neutral" methods have been developed which stress a hydrological system using a wide range of climate futures to build a "climate response surface". We developed a hydrological model and scenario-neutral framework to quantify climate change impacts on river flows in the Katonga catchment, Uganda. Using the lumped catchment model GR4J, an acceptable calibration to historic daily flows (1966 - 2010, NSE = 0.69) was achieved. Using a delta change approach, we then systematically changed rainfall and PET inputs to develop response surfaces for key metrics, developed with Ugandan water resources planners (e.g. Q5, Q95). Scenarios from the CMIP5 models for 2030s and 2050s were then overlain on the response surface. The CMIP5 scenarios show consistent increases in temperature but large variability in rainfall increases, which results in substantial variability in increases in river flows. The developed response surface covers a wide range of climate futures beyond the CMIP5 projections, and can help water resources planners understand the sensitivity of water resource systems to future changes. When future climate scenarios are available, these can be directly overlain on the response surface without the need to re-run the hydrological model. Further work will consider using scenario-neutral approaches in more complex, semi-distributed models (e.g. SWAT), and will consider land use and socioeconomic change.

Countering MANPADS: study of new concepts and applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maltese, Dominique; Robineau, Jacques; Audren, Jean-Thierry; Aragones, Julien; Sailliot, Christophe

2006-05-01

The latest events of ground-to-air Man Portable Air Defense (MANPAD) attacks against aircraft have revealed a new threat both for military and civilian aircraft. Consequently, the implementation of Protecting systems (i.e. Directed InfraRed Counter Measure - DIRCM) in order to face IR guided missiles turns out to be now inevitable. In a near future, aircraft will have to possess detection, tracking, targeting and jamming capabilities to face single and multiple MANPAD threats fired in short-range scenarios from various environments (urban sites, landscape...). In this paper, a practical example of a DIRCM system under study at SAGEM DEFENSE & SECURITY company is presented. The self-protection solution includes built-in and automatic locking-on, tracking, identification and laser jamming capabilities, including defeat assessment. Target Designations are provided by a Missile Warning System. Multiple Target scenarios have been considered to design the system architecture. The article deals with current and future threats (IR seekers of different generations...), scenarios and platforms for system definition. Plus, it stresses on self-protection solutions based on laser jamming capability. Different strategies including target identification, multi band laser, active imagery are described. The self-protection system under study at SAGEM DEFENSE & SECURITY company is also a part of this chapter. Eventually, results of self-protection scenarios are provided for different MANPAD scenarios. Data have been obtained from a simulation software. The results highlight how the system reacts to incoming IR-guided missiles in short time scenarios.

GET SMARTE: A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM TO REVITALIZE COMMUNITIES - CABERNET 2007

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools - electronic (SMARTe), is an open-source, web-based, decision support system for developing and evaluating future reuse scenarios for potentially contaminated land. SMARTe contains information and analysis tools for all a...

Modeling the effects of climatic and land use changes on phytoplankton and water quality of the largest Turkish freshwater lake: Lake Beyşehir.

PubMed

Bucak, Tuba; Trolle, Dennis; Tavşanoğlu, Ü Nihan; Çakıroğlu, A İdil; Özen, Arda; Jeppesen, Erik; Beklioğlu, Meryem

2018-04-15

Climate change and intense land use practices are the main threats to ecosystem structure and services of Mediterranean lakes. Therefore, it is essential to predict the future changes and develop mitigation measures to combat such pressures. In this study, Lake Beyşehir, the largest freshwater lake in the Mediterranean basin, was selected to study the impacts of climate change and various land use scenarios on the ecosystem dynamics of Mediterranean freshwater ecosystems and the services that they provide. For this purpose, we linked catchment model outputs to the two different processed-based lake models: PCLake and GLM-AED, and tested the scenarios of five General Circulation Models, two Representation Concentration Pathways and three different land use scenarios, which enable us to consider the various sources of uncertainty. Climate change and land use scenarios generally predicted strong future decreases in hydraulic and nutrient loads from the catchment to the lake. These changes in loads translated into alterations in water level as well as minor changes in chlorophyll a (Chl-a) concentrations. We also observed an increased abundance of cyanobacteria in both lake models. Total phosphorus, temperature and hydraulic loading were found to be the most important variables determining cyanobacteria biomass. As the future scenarios revealed only minor changes in Chl-a due to the significant decrease in nutrient loads, our results highlight that reduced nutrient loading in a warming world may play a crucial role in offsetting the effects of temperature on phytoplankton growth. However, our results also showed increased abundance of cyanobacteria in the future may threaten ecosystem integrity and may limit drinking water ecosystem services. In addition, extended periods of decreased hydraulic loads from the catchment and increased evaporation may lead to water level reductions and may diminish the ecosystem services of the lake as a water supply for irrigation and drinking water. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A few scenarios still do not fit all

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schweizer, Vanessa

2018-05-01

For integrated climate change research, the Scenario Matrix Architecture provides a tractable menu of possible emissions trajectories, socio-economic futures and policy environments. However, the future of decision support may lie in searchable databases.

Analysis of Present Day and Future OH and Methane Lifetime in the ACCMIP Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Voulgarakis, A.; Naik, V.; Lamarque, J. -F.; Shindell, D. T.; Young, P. J.; Prather, M. J.; Wild, O.; Field, R. D.; Bergmann, D.; Cameron-Smith P.;

Nonstationary decision model for flood risk decision scaling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spence, Caitlin M.; Brown, Casey M.

2016-11-01

Hydroclimatic stationarity is increasingly questioned as a default assumption in flood risk management (FRM), but successor methods are not yet established. Some potential successors depend on estimates of future flood quantiles, but methods for estimating future design storms are subject to high levels of uncertainty. Here we apply a Nonstationary Decision Model (NDM) to flood risk planning within the decision scaling framework. The NDM combines a nonstationary probability distribution of annual peak flow with optimal selection of flood management alternatives using robustness measures. The NDM incorporates structural and nonstructural FRM interventions and valuation of flows supporting ecosystem services to calculate expected cost of a given FRM strategy. A search for the minimum-cost strategy under incrementally varied representative scenarios extending across the plausible range of flood trend and value of the natural flow regime discovers candidate FRM strategies that are evaluated and compared through a decision scaling analysis (DSA). The DSA selects a management strategy that is optimal or close to optimal across the broadest range of scenarios or across the set of scenarios deemed most likely to occur according to estimates of future flood hazard. We illustrate the decision framework using a stylized example flood management decision based on the Iowa City flood management system, which has experienced recent unprecedented high flow episodes. The DSA indicates a preference for combining infrastructural and nonstructural adaptation measures to manage flood risk and makes clear that options-based approaches cannot be assumed to be "no" or "low regret."

The Use of Regulatory Air Quality Models to Develop Successful Ozone Attainment Strategies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Canty, T. P.; Salawitch, R. J.; Dickerson, R. R.; Ring, A.; Goldberg, D. L.; He, H.; Anderson, D. C.; Vinciguerra, T.

2015-12-01

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed lowering the 8-hr ozone standard to between 65-70 ppb. Not all regions of the U.S. are in attainment of the current 75 ppb standard and it is expected that many regions currently in attainment will not meet the future, lower surface ozone standard. Ozone production is a nonlinear function of emissions, biological processes, and weather. Federal and state agencies rely on regulatory air quality models such as the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model and Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) to test ozone precursor emission reduction strategies that will bring states into compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). We will describe various model scenarios that simulate how future limits on emission of ozone precursors (i.e. NOx and VOCs) from sources such as power plants and vehicles will affect air quality. These scenarios are currently being developed by states required to submit a State Implementation Plan to the EPA. Projections from these future case scenarios suggest that strategies intended to control local ozone may also bring upwind states into attainment of the new NAAQS. Ground based, aircraft, and satellite observations are used to ensure that air quality models accurately represent photochemical processes within the troposphere. We will highlight some of the improvements made to the CMAQ and CAMx model framework based on our analysis of NASA observations obtained by the OMI instrument on the Aura satellite and by the DISCOVER-AQ field campaign.

Characterization of Metering, Merging and Spacing Requirements for Future Trajectory-Based Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Sally

2017-01-01

Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) is one of the essential paradigm shifts in the NextGen transformation of the National Airspace System. Under TBO, aircraft are managed by 4-dimensional trajectories, and airborne and ground-based metering, merging, and spacing operations are key to managing those trajectories. This paper presents the results of a study of potential metering, merging, and spacing operations within a future TBO environment. A number of operational scenarios for tactical and strategic uses of metering, merging, and spacing are described, and interdependencies between concurrent tactical and strategic operations are identified.

Mental simulation of future scenarios in transient global amnesia.

PubMed

Juskenaite, Aurelija; Quinette, Peggy; Desgranges, Béatrice; de La Sayette, Vincent; Viader, Fausto; Eustache, Francis

2014-10-01

Researchers exploring mental time travel into the future have emphasized the role played by episodic memory and its cerebral substrates. Recently, owing to controversial findings in amnesic patients, this role has become a matter of intense debate. In order to understand whether episodic memory is indeed crucial to future thinking, we assessed this ability in 11 patients during an episode of transient global amnesia (TGA), a unique and severe amnesic syndrome that primarily affects episodic memory. In the first of two experiments, TGA patients were asked to recall personal past events as well as to imagine personal future events, without any guidance regarding content. Under this condition, compared with controls, they provided fewer past and fewer future events, and the latter were less closely related to their personal goals. Furthermore, TGA patients׳ descriptions of past and future events were scant, containing fewer descriptive elements in total and fewer internal details. In order to assess whether TGA patients might have been basing their future event narratives on their general knowledge about how these events usually unfold, in our second experiment, we asked them to imagine future events in response to short descriptions of common scenarios. Under this condition, inherently eliciting less detailed descriptions, not only were all the TGA patients able to describe common events as happening in the future, but their narratives contained comparable amounts of internal detail to those of controls, despite being less detailed overall. Taken together, our results indicate that severe amnesia interferes with TGA patients׳ ability to envisage their personal past and future on a general level as well as in detail, but less severely affects their ability to imagine common scenarios, which are not related to their personal goals, probably owing to their preserved semantic memory, logical reasoning and ability to create vivid mental images. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fluctuating seawater pH/pCO2 regimes are more energetically expensive than static pH/pCO2 levels in the mussel Mytilus edulis.

PubMed

Mangan, Stephanie; Urbina, Mauricio A; Findlay, Helen S; Wilson, Rod W; Lewis, Ceri

2017-10-25

Ocean acidification (OA) studies typically use stable open-ocean pH or CO 2 values. However, species living within dynamic coastal environments can naturally experience wide fluctuations in abiotic factors, suggesting their responses to stable pH conditions may not be reflective of either present or near-future conditions. Here we investigate the physiological responses of the mussel Mytilus edulis to variable seawater pH conditions over short- (6 h) and medium-term (2 weeks) exposures under both current and near-future OA scenarios. Mussel haemolymph pH closely mirrored that of seawater pH over short-term changes of 1 pH unit with acidosis or recovery accordingly, highlighting a limited capacity for acid-base regulation. After 2 weeks, mussels under variable pH conditions had significantly higher metabolic rates, antioxidant enzyme activities and lipid peroxidation than those exposed to static pH under both current and near-future OA scenarios. Static near-future pH conditions induced significant acid-base disturbances and lipid peroxidation compared with the static present-day conditions but did not affect the metabolic rate. These results clearly demonstrate that living in naturally variable environments is energetically more expensive than living in static seawater conditions, which has consequences for how we extrapolate future OA responses in coastal species. © 2017 The Authors.

Modeling Future Fire danger over North America in a Changing Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jain, P.; Paimazumder, D.; Done, J.; Flannigan, M.

2016-12-01

Fire danger ratings are used to determine wildfire potential due to weather and climate factors. The Fire Weather Index (FWI), part of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS), incorporates temperature, relative humidity, windspeed and precipitation to give a daily fire danger rating that is used by wildfire management agencies in an operational context. Studies using GCM output have shown that future wildfire danger will increase in a warming climate. However, these studies are somewhat limited by the coarse spatial resolution (typically 100-400km) and temporal resolution (typically 6-hourly to monthly) of the model output. Future wildfire potential over North America based on FWI is calculated using output from the Weather, Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, which is used to downscale future climate scenarios from the bias-corrected Community Climate System Model (CCSM) under RCP8.5 scenarios at a spatial resolution of 36km. We consider five eleven year time slices: 1990-2000, 2020-2030, 2030-2040, 2050-2060 and 2080-2090. The dynamically downscaled simulation improves determination of future extreme weather by improving both spatial and temporal resolution over most GCM models. To characterize extreme fire weather we calculate annual numbers of spread days (days for which FWI > 19) and annual 99th percentile of FWI. Additionally, an extreme value analysis based on the peaks-over-threshold method allows us to calculate the return values for extreme FWI values.

Air traffic control resource management strategies and the small aircraft transportation system: A system dynamics perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Galvin, James J., Jr.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is leading a research effort to develop a Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) that will expand air transportation capabilities to hundreds of underutilized airports in the United States. Most of the research effort addresses the technological development of the small aircraft as well as the systems to manage airspace usage and surface activities at airports. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will also play a major role in the successful implementation of SATS, however, the administration is reluctant to embrace the unproven concept. The purpose of the research presented in this dissertation is to determine if the FAA can pursue a resource management strategy that will support the current radar-based Air Traffic Control (ATC) system as well as a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS)-based ATC system required by the SATS. The research centered around the use of the System Dynamics modeling methodology to determine the future behavior of the principle components of the ATC system over time. The research included a model of the ATC system consisting of people, facilities, equipment, airports, aircraft, the FAA budget, and the Airport and Airways Trust Fund. The model generated system performance behavior used to evaluate three scenarios. The first scenario depicted the base case behavior of the system if the FAA continued its current resource management practices. The second scenario depicted the behavior of the system if the FAA emphasized development of GPS-based ATC systems. The third scenario depicted a combined resource management strategy that supplemented radar systems with GPS systems. The findings of the research were that the FAA must pursue a resource management strategy that primarily funds a radar-based ATC system and directs lesser funding toward a GPS-based supplemental ATC system. The most significant contribution of this research was the insight and understanding gained of how several resource management strategies and the presence of SATS aircraft may impact the future US Air Traffic Control system.

Scenario and modelling uncertainty in global mean temperature change derived from emission-driven global climate models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Booth, B. B. B.; Bernie, D.; McNeall, D.; Hawkins, E.; Caesar, J.; Boulton, C.; Friedlingstein, P.; Sexton, D. M. H.

2013-04-01

We compare future changes in global mean temperature in response to different future scenarios which, for the first time, arise from emission-driven rather than concentration-driven perturbed parameter ensemble of a global climate model (GCM). These new GCM simulations sample uncertainties in atmospheric feedbacks, land carbon cycle, ocean physics and aerosol sulphur cycle processes. We find broader ranges of projected temperature responses arising when considering emission rather than concentration-driven simulations (with 10-90th percentile ranges of 1.7 K for the aggressive mitigation scenario, up to 3.9 K for the high-end, business as usual scenario). A small minority of simulations resulting from combinations of strong atmospheric feedbacks and carbon cycle responses show temperature increases in excess of 9 K (RCP8.5) and even under aggressive mitigation (RCP2.6) temperatures in excess of 4 K. While the simulations point to much larger temperature ranges for emission-driven experiments, they do not change existing expectations (based on previous concentration-driven experiments) on the timescales over which different sources of uncertainty are important. The new simulations sample a range of future atmospheric concentrations for each emission scenario. Both in the case of SRES A1B and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), the concentration scenarios used to drive GCM ensembles, lies towards the lower end of our simulated distribution. This design decision (a legacy of previous assessments) is likely to lead concentration-driven experiments to under-sample strong feedback responses in future projections. Our ensemble of emission-driven simulations span the global temperature response of the CMIP5 emission-driven simulations, except at the low end. Combinations of low climate sensitivity and low carbon cycle feedbacks lead to a number of CMIP5 responses to lie below our ensemble range. The ensemble simulates a number of high-end responses which lie above the CMIP5 carbon cycle range. These high-end simulations can be linked to sampling a number of stronger carbon cycle feedbacks and to sampling climate sensitivities above 4.5 K. This latter aspect highlights the priority in identifying real-world climate-sensitivity constraints which, if achieved, would lead to reductions on the upper bound of projected global mean temperature change. The ensembles of simulations presented here provides a framework to explore relationships between present-day observables and future changes, while the large spread of future-projected changes highlights the ongoing need for such work.

Scoping Future Policy Dynamics in Raw Materials Through Scenarios Testing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Correia, Vitor; Keane, Christopher; Sturm, Flavius; Schimpf, Sven; Bodo, Balazs

2017-04-01

The International Raw Materials Observatory (INTRAW) project is working towards a sustainable future for the European Union in access to raw materials, from an availability, economical, and environmental framework. One of the major exercises for the INTRAW project is the evaluation of potential future scenarios for 2050 to frame economic, research, and environmental policy towards a sustainable raw materials supply. The INTRAW consortium developed three possible future scenarios that encompass defined regimes of political, economic, and technological norms. The first scenario, "Unlimited Trade," reflects a world in which free trade continues to dominate the global political and economic environment, with expectations of a growing demand for raw materials from widely distributed global growth. The "National Walls" scenario reflects a world where nationalism and economic protectionism begins to dominate, leading to stagnating economic growth and uneven dynamics in raw materials supply and demand. The final scenario, "Sustainability Alliance," examines the dynamics of a global political and economic climate that is focused on environmental and economic sustainability, leading towards increasingly towards a circular raw materials economy. These scenarios were reviewed, tested, and provided simulations of impacts with members of the Consortium and a panel of global experts on international raw materials issues which led to expected end conditions for 2050. Given the current uncertainty in global politics, these scenarios are informative to identifying likely opportunities and crises. The details of these simulations and expected responses to the research demand, technology investments, and economic components of raw materials system will be discussed.

From ENSEMBLES to CORDEX: exploring the progress for hydrological impact research for the upper Danube basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stanzel, Philipp; Kling, Harald

2017-04-01

EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Model (RCM) data are available as result of the latest initiative of the climate modelling community to provide ever improved simulations of past and future climate in Europe. The spatial resolution of the climate models increased from 25 x 25 km in the previous coordinated initiative, ENSEMBLES, to 12 x 12 km in the CORDEX EUR-11 simulations. This higher spatial resolution might yield improved representation of the historic climate, especially in complex mountainous terrain, improving applicability in impact studies. CORDEX scenario simulations are based on Representative Concentration Pathways, while ENSEMBLES applied the SRES greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The new emission scenarios might lead to different projections of future climate. In this contribution we explore these two dimensions of development from ENSEMBLES to CORDEX - representation of the past and projections for the future - in the context of a hydrological climate change impact study for the Danube River. We replicated previous hydrological simulations that used ENSEMBLES data of 21 RCM simulations under SRES A1B emission scenario as meteorological input data (Kling et al. 2012), and now applied CORDEX EUR-11 data of 16 RCM simulations under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios. The climate variables precipitation and temperature were used to drive a monthly hydrological model of the upper Danube basin upstream of Vienna (100,000 km2). RCM data was bias corrected and downscaled to the scale of hydrological model units. Results with CORDEX data were compared with results with ENSEMBLES data, analysing both the driving meteorological input and the resulting discharge projections. Results with CORDEX data show no general improvement in the accuracy of representing historic climatic features, despite the increase in spatial model resolution. The tendency of ENSEMBLES scenario projections of increasing precipitation in winter and decreasing precipitation in summer is reproduced with the CORDEX RCMs, albeit with slightly higher precipitation in the CORDEX data. The distinct pattern of future change in discharge seasonality - increasing winter discharge and decreasing summer discharge - is confirmed with the new CORDEX data, with a range of projections very similar to the range projected by the ENSEMBLES RCMs. References: Kling, H., Fuchs, M., Paulin, M. 2012. Runoff conditions in the upper Danube basin under an ensemble of climate change scenarios. Journal of Hydrology 424-425, 264-277.

Future coral reef habitat marginality: Temporal and spatial effects of climate change in the Pacific basin

USGS Publications Warehouse

Guinotte, J.M.; Buddemeier, R.W.; Kleypas, J.A.

2003-01-01

Marginal reef habitats are regarded as regions where coral reefs and coral communities reflect the effects of steady-state or long-term average environmental limitations. We used classifications based on this concept with predicted time-variant conditions of future climate to develop a scenario for the evolution of future marginality. Model results based on a conservative scenario of atmospheric CO2 increase were used to examine changes in sea surface temperature and aragonite saturation state over the Pacific Ocean basin until 2069. Results of the projections indicated that essentially all reef locations are likely to become marginal with respect to aragonite saturation state. Significant areas, including some with the highest biodiversity, are expected to experience high-temperature regimes that may be marginal, and additional areas will enter the borderline high temperature range that have experienced significant ENSO-related bleaching in the recent past. The positive effects of warming in areas that are presently marginal in terms of low temperature were limited. Conditions of the late 21st century do not lie outside the ranges in which present-day marginal reef systems occur. Adaptive and acclimative capabilities of organisms and communities will be critical in determining the future of coral reef ecosystems.

The future water environment--using scenarios to explore the significant water management challenges in England and Wales to 2050.

PubMed

Henriques, C; Garnett, K; Weatherhead, E K; Lickorish, F A; Forrow, D; Delgado, J

2015-04-15

Society gets numerous benefits from the water environment. It is crucial to ensure that water management practices deliver these benefits over the long-term in a sustainable and cost-effective way. Currently, hydromorphological alterations and nutrient enrichment pose the greatest challenges in European water bodies. The rapidly changing climatic and socio-economic boundary conditions pose further challenges to water management decisions and the achievement of policy goals. Scenarios are a strategic tool useful in conducting systematic investigations of future uncertainties pertaining to water management. In this study, the use of scenarios revealed water management challenges for England and Wales to 2050. A set of existing scenarios relevant to river basin management were elaborated through stakeholder workshops and interviews, relying on expert knowledge to identify drivers of change, their interdependencies, and influence on system dynamics. In a set of four plausible alternative futures, the causal chain from driving forces through pressures to states, impacts and responses (DPSIR framework) was explored. The findings suggest that scenarios driven by short-term economic growth and competitiveness undermine current environmental legislative requirements and exacerbate the negative impacts of climate change, producing a general deterioration of water quality and physical habitats, as well as reduced water availability with adverse implications for the environment, society and economy. Conversely, there are substantial environmental improvements under the scenarios characterised by long-term sustainability, though achieving currently desired environmental outcomes still poses challenges. The impacts vary across contrasting generic catchment types that exhibit distinct future water management challenges. The findings suggest the need to address hydromorphological alterations, nutrient enrichment and nitrates in drinking water, which are all likely to be exacerbated in the future. Future-proofing river basin management measures that deal with these challenges is crucial moving forward. The use of scenarios to future-proof strategy, policy and delivery mechanisms is discussed to inform next steps. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hydraulic and Condition Assessment of Existing Sewerage Network: A Case Study of an Educational Institute

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sourabh, Nishant; Timbadiya, P. V.

2018-04-01

The hydraulic simulation of the existing sewerage network provides various information about critical points to assess the deteriorating condition and help in rehabilitation of existing network and future expansion. In the present study, hydraulic and condition assessment of existing network of educational Institute (i.e. Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology-Surat, Gujarat, India), having an area of 100 ha and ground levels in range of 5.0-9.0 m above mean sea level, has been carried out using sewage flow simulation for existing and future scenarios analysis using SewerGEMS v8i. The paper describes the features of 4.79 km long sewerage network of institute followed by network model simulation for aforesaid scenarios and recommendations on improvement of the existing network for future use. The total sewer loads for present and future scenarios are 1.67 million litres per day (MLD) and 3.62 MLD, considering the peak factor of 3 on the basis of population. The hydraulic simulation of the existing scenario indicated depth by diameter (d/D) ratio in the range of 0.02-0.48 and velocity range of 0.08-0.53 m/s for existing network for present scenario. For the future scenario, the existing network is needed to be modified and it was found that total of 11 conduits (length: 464.8 m) should be replaced to the next higher diameter available, i.e., 350 mm for utilization of existing network for future scenario. The present study provides the methodology for condition assessment of existing network and its utilization as per guidelines provided by Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organization, 2013. The methodology presented in this paper can be used by municipal/public health engineer for the assessment of existing sewerage network for its serviceability and improvement in future.

Model and Scenario Variations in Predicted Number of Generations of Spodoptera litura Fab. on Peanut during Future Climate Change Scenario

PubMed Central

Srinivasa Rao, Mathukumalli; Swathi, Pettem; Rama Rao, Chitiprolu Anantha; Rao, K. V.; Raju, B. M. K.; Srinivas, Karlapudi; Manimanjari, Dammu; Maheswari, Mandapaka

2015-01-01

The present study features the estimation of number of generations of tobacco caterpillar, Spodoptera litura. Fab. on peanut crop at six locations in India using MarkSim, which provides General Circulation Model (GCM) of future data on daily maximum (T.max), minimum (T.min) air temperatures from six models viz., BCCR-BCM2.0, CNRM-CM3, CSIRO-Mk3.5, ECHams5, INCM-CM3.0 and MIROC3.2 along with an ensemble of the six from three emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1). This data was used to predict the future pest scenarios following the growing degree days approach in four different climate periods viz., Baseline-1975, Near future (NF) -2020, Distant future (DF)-2050 and Very Distant future (VDF)—2080. It is predicted that more generations would occur during the three future climate periods with significant variation among scenarios and models. Among the seven models, 1–2 additional generations were predicted during DF and VDF due to higher future temperatures in CNRM-CM3, ECHams5 & CSIRO-Mk3.5 models. The temperature projections of these models indicated that the generation time would decrease by 18–22% over baseline. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to partition the variation in the predicted number of generations and generation time of S. litura on peanut during crop season. Geographical location explained 34% of the total variation in number of generations, followed by time period (26%), model (1.74%) and scenario (0.74%). The remaining 14% of the variation was explained by interactions. Increased number of generations and reduction of generation time across the six peanut growing locations of India suggest that the incidence of S. litura may increase due to projected increase in temperatures in future climate change periods. PMID:25671564

Assessment of seismic risk in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic

USGS Publications Warehouse

Erdik, M.; Rashidov, T.; Safak, E.; Turdukulov, A.

2005-01-01

The impact of earthquakes in urban centers prone to disastrous earthquakes necessitates the analysis of associated risk for rational formulation of contingency plans and mitigation strategies. In urban centers the seismic risk is best quantified and portrayed through the preparation of 'Earthquake damage and Loss Scenarios'. The components of such scenarios are the assessment of the hazard, inventories and the vulnerabilities of elements at risk. For the development of earthquake risk scenario in Tashkent-Uzbekistan and Bishkek-Kyrgyzstan an approach based on spectral displacements is utilized. This paper will present the important features of a comprehensive study, highlight the methodology, discuss the results and provide insights to the future developments. ?? 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integrated Modeling and Participatory Scenario Planning for Climate Adaptation: the Maui Groundwater Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Keener, V. W.; Finucane, M.; Brewington, L.

2014-12-01

For the last century, the island of Maui, Hawaii, has been the center of environmental, agricultural, and legal conflict with respect to surface and groundwater allocation. Planning for adequate future freshwater resources requires flexible and adaptive policies that emphasize partnerships and knowledge transfer between scientists and non-scientists. In 2012 the Hawai'i state legislature passed the Climate Change Adaptation Priority Guidelines (Act 286) law requiring county and state policy makers to include island-wide climate change scenarios in their planning processes. This research details the ongoing work by researchers in the NOAA funded Pacific RISA to support the development of Hawaii's first island-wide water use plan under the new climate adaptation directive. This integrated project combines several models with participatory future scenario planning. The dynamically downscaled triply nested Hawaii Regional Climate Model (HRCM) was modified from the WRF community model and calibrated to simulate the many microclimates on the Hawaiian archipelago. For the island of Maui, the HRCM was validated using 20 years of hindcast data, and daily projections were created at a 1 km scale to capture the steep topography and diverse rainfall regimes. Downscaled climate data are input into a USGS hydrological model to quantify groundwater recharge. This model was previously used for groundwater management, and is being expanded utilizing future climate projections, current land use maps and future scenario maps informed by stakeholder input. Participatory scenario planning began in 2012 to bring together a diverse group of over 50 decision-makers in government, conservation, and agriculture to 1) determine the type of information they would find helpful in planning for climate change, and 2) develop a set of scenarios that represent alternative climate/management futures. This is an iterative process, resulting in flexible and transparent narratives at multiple scales. The resulting climate, land use, and groundwater recharge maps give stakeholders a common set of future scenarios that they understand through the participatory scenario process, and identify the vulnerabilities, trade-offs, and adaptive priorities for different groundwater management and land uses in an uncertain future.

Decadal application of WRF/chem for regional air quality and climate modeling over the U.S. under the representative concentration pathways scenarios. Part 2: Current vs. future simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yahya, Khairunnisa; Campbell, Patrick; Zhang, Yang

2017-03-01

Following a comprehensive model evaluation, this Part II paper presents projected changes in future (2046-2055) climate, air quality, and their interactions under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios using the Weather, Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF/Chem). In general, both WRF/Chem RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 simulations predict similar increases on average (∼2 °C) for 2-m temperature (T2) but different spatial distributions of the projected changes in T2, 2-m relative humidity, 10-m wind speed, precipitation, and planetary boundary layer height, due to differences in the spatial distributions of projected emissions, and their feedbacks into climate. Future O3 mixing ratios will decrease for most parts of the U.S. under the RCP4.5 scenario but increase for all areas under the RCP8.5 scenario due to higher projected temperature, greenhouse gas concentrations and biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions, higher O3 values for boundary conditions, and disbenefit of NOx reduction and decreased NO titration over VOC-limited O3 chemistry regions. Future PM2.5 concentrations will decrease for both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios with different trends in projected concentrations of individual PM species. Total cloud amounts decrease under both scenarios in the future due to decreases in PM and cloud droplet number concentration thus increased radiation. Those results illustrate the impacts of carbon policies with different degrees of emission reductions on future climate and air quality. The WRF/Chem and WRF simulations show different spatial patterns for projected changes in T2 for future decade, indicating different impacts of prognostic and prescribed gas/aerosol concentrations, respectively, on climate change.

Current and future groundwater withdrawals: Effects, management and energy policy options for a semi-arid Indian watershed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sishodia, Rajendra P.; Shukla, Sanjay; Graham, Wendy D.; Wani, Suhas P.; Jones, James W.; Heaney, James

2017-12-01

Effects of future expansion/intensification of irrigated agriculture on groundwater and surface water levels and availability in a semi-arid watershed were evaluated using an integrated hydrologic model (MIKE SHE/MIKE 11) in conjunction with biophysical measurements. Improved water use efficiency, water storage, and energy policy options were evaluated for their ability to sustain the future (2035) increased groundwater withdrawals. Three future withdrawal scenarios (low = 20, medium = 30, high = 50 wells/100 km2/year) based on the historical rate of growth of irrigation wells were formulated. While well drying from falling groundwater levels was limited to drought and consecutive below average rainfall years, under the current (2015) withdrawals, significant increases in frequency and duration (17-97 days/year) of well drying along with 13-26% (19-37 mm) reductions in surface flows were predicted under the future withdrawals. Higher (27-108%) energy demands of existing irrigation pumps due to declining groundwater levels and reduced hydroelectric generation due to decreased surface flows would create a vicious water-food-energy nexus in the future. Crop failure, one of the main causes of farmers' emotional distress and death in the region, is predicted to exacerbate under the future withdrawal scenarios. Shift to negative net recharge (-63 mm) and early and prolonged drying of wells under the high scenario will reduce the groundwater availability and negatively affect crop production in more than 60% and 90% of cropped areas in the Rabi (November-February) and summer (March-May) seasons, respectively during a drought year. Individual and combined demand (drip irrigation and reduced farm electricity subsidy) and supply (water storage) management options improved groundwater levels and reduced well drying by 55-97 days/year compared to business-as-usual management under the high scenario. The combined management (50% drip conversion, 50% reduction in subsidy, and enhanced water storage) mitigated well drying even during drought and consecutive below average rainfall years under the high scenario. A conservative economic evaluation for management options under the high scenario showed increases in crop production and per farmer annual profits by 987-1397 during a drought year (average household income = 1520/year). A scale-up of results showed that diverting 50% state power subsidy (6 billion for 3-6 years) can almost entirely fund the conversion to drip irrigation (4.2 billion) and water storage structures (2.9 billion) and help meet the water supply demand of a 50% increase in irrigated area under the high scenario. Converting flood to drip irrigation in 50% of irrigated area under the high scenario can reduce the electric energy consumption (7 × 106Mwh/year) and carbon footprint (6000 Mt/year) of groundwater irrigation by 24% in the state. Management options considered can potentially create a sustainable water-food-energy nexus in the larger semi-arid hard rock region. Reducing the power subsidy will require a strong political will since it has been used as a tool to win the elections in India. Considering future agricultural intensification, timely interventions are needed to ensure the livelihood and well-being of millions of small- and medium-scale farmers that rely on low storage, hard rock aquifers in the semi-arid regions of the world.

WILDLIFE HABITAT

EPA Science Inventory

Habitat change statistics were used to estimate the effects of alternative future scenarios for agriculture on non-fish vertebrate diversity in Iowa farmlands. Study areas were two watersheds in central Iowa of about 50 and 90 square kilometers, respectively. Future scenarios w...

Internet Data Delivery for Future Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rash, James; Hogie, Keith; Casasanta, Ralph; Hennessy, Joseph F. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

This paper presents work being done at NASA/GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) on applying standard Internet applications and protocols to meet the technology challenge of future satellite missions. Internet protocols (IP) can provide seamless dynamic communication among heterogeneous instruments, spacecraft, ground stations, and constellations of spacecraft. A primary component of this work is to design and demonstrate automated end-to-end transport of files in a dynamic space environment using off-the-shelf, low-cost, commodity-level standard applications and protocols. These functions and capabilities will become increasingly significant in the years to come as both Earth and space science missions fly more sensors and the present labor-intensive, mission-specific techniques for processing and routing data become prohibitively expensive. This paper describes how an IP-based communication architecture can support existing operations concepts and how it will enable some new and complex communication and science concepts. The authors identify specific end-to-end file transfers all the way from instruments to control centers and scientists, and then describe how each data flow can be supported using standard Internet protocols and applications. The scenarios include normal data downlink and command uplink as well as recovery scenarios for both onboard and ground failures. The scenarios are based on an Earth orbiting spacecraft with data rates and downlink capabilities from 300 Kbps to 4 Mbps. Many examples are based on designs currently being investigated for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.

Visualizing Alternative Phosphorus Scenarios for Future Food Security

PubMed Central

Neset, Tina-Simone; Cordell, Dana; Mohr, Steve; VanRiper, Froggi; White, Stuart

2016-01-01

The impact of global phosphorus scarcity on food security has increasingly been the focus of scientific studies over the past decade. However, systematic analyses of alternative futures for phosphorus supply and demand throughout the food system are still rare and provide limited inclusion of key stakeholders. Addressing global phosphorus scarcity requires an integrated approach exploring potential demand reduction as well as recycling opportunities. This implies recovering phosphorus from multiple sources, such as food waste, manure, and excreta, as well as exploring novel opportunities to reduce the long-term demand for phosphorus in food production such as changing diets. Presently, there is a lack of stakeholder and scientific consensus around priority measures. To therefore enable exploration of multiple pathways and facilitate a stakeholder dialog on the technical, behavioral, and institutional changes required to meet long-term future phosphorus demand, this paper introduces an interactive web-based tool, designed for visualizing global phosphorus scenarios in real time. The interactive global phosphorus scenario tool builds on several demand and supply side measures that can be selected and manipulated interactively by the user. It provides a platform to facilitate stakeholder dialog to plan for a soft landing and identify a suite of concrete priority options, such as investing in agricultural phosphorus use efficiency, or renewable fertilizers derived from phosphorus recovered from wastewater and food waste, to determine how phosphorus demand to meet future food security could be attained on a global scale in 2040 and 2070. This paper presents four example scenarios, including (1) the potential of full recovery of human excreta, (2) the challenge of a potential increase in non-food phosphorus demand, (3) the potential of decreased animal product consumption, and (4) the potential decrease in phosphorus demand from increased efficiency and yield gains in crop and livestock systems. PMID:27840814

Visualizing Alternative Phosphorus Scenarios for Future Food Security.

PubMed

Neset, Tina-Simone; Cordell, Dana; Mohr, Steve; VanRiper, Froggi; White, Stuart

2016-01-01

The impact of global phosphorus scarcity on food security has increasingly been the focus of scientific studies over the past decade. However, systematic analyses of alternative futures for phosphorus supply and demand throughout the food system are still rare and provide limited inclusion of key stakeholders. Addressing global phosphorus scarcity requires an integrated approach exploring potential demand reduction as well as recycling opportunities. This implies recovering phosphorus from multiple sources, such as food waste, manure, and excreta, as well as exploring novel opportunities to reduce the long-term demand for phosphorus in food production such as changing diets. Presently, there is a lack of stakeholder and scientific consensus around priority measures. To therefore enable exploration of multiple pathways and facilitate a stakeholder dialog on the technical, behavioral, and institutional changes required to meet long-term future phosphorus demand, this paper introduces an interactive web-based tool, designed for visualizing global phosphorus scenarios in real time. The interactive global phosphorus scenario tool builds on several demand and supply side measures that can be selected and manipulated interactively by the user. It provides a platform to facilitate stakeholder dialog to plan for a soft landing and identify a suite of concrete priority options, such as investing in agricultural phosphorus use efficiency, or renewable fertilizers derived from phosphorus recovered from wastewater and food waste, to determine how phosphorus demand to meet future food security could be attained on a global scale in 2040 and 2070. This paper presents four example scenarios, including (1) the potential of full recovery of human excreta, (2) the challenge of a potential increase in non-food phosphorus demand, (3) the potential of decreased animal product consumption, and (4) the potential decrease in phosphorus demand from increased efficiency and yield gains in crop and livestock systems.

Evaluation of mitigation measures to reduce hydropeaking impacts on river ecosystems - a case study from the Swiss Alps.

PubMed

Tonolla, Diego; Bruder, Andreas; Schweizer, Steffen

2017-01-01

New Swiss legislation obligates hydropower plant owners to reduce detrimental impacts on rivers ecosystems caused by hydropeaking. We used a case study in the Swiss Alps (hydropower company Kraftwerke Oberhasli AG) to develop an efficient and successful procedure for the ecological evaluation of such impacts, and to predict the effects of possible mitigation measures. We evaluated the following scenarios using 12 biotic and abiotic indicators: the pre-mitigation scenario (i.e. current state), the future scenario with increased turbine capacity but without mitigation measures, and future scenarios with increased turbine capacity and four alternative mitigation measures. The evaluation was based on representative hydrographs and quantitative or qualitative prediction of the indicators. Despite uncertainties in the ecological responses and the future operation mode of the hydropower plant, the procedure allowed the most appropriate mitigation measure to be identified. This measure combines a basin and a cavern at a total retention volume of 80,000m 3 , allowing for substantial dampening in the flow falling and ramping rates and in turn considerable reduction in stranding risk for juvenile trout and in macroinvertebrate drift. In general, this retention volume had the greatest predicted ecological benefit and can also, to some extent, compensate for possible modifications in the hydropower operation regime in the future, e.g. due to climate change, changes in the energy market, and changes in river morphology. Furthermore, it also allows for more specific seasonal regulations of retention volume during ecologically sensitive periods (e.g. fish spawning seasons). Overall experience gained from our case study is expected to support other hydropeaking mitigation projects. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The evaluation of the climate change effects on maize and fennel cultivation by means of an hydrological physically based model: the case study of an irrigated district of southern Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonfante, A.; Alfieri, M. S.; Basile, A.; De Lorenzi, F.; Fiorentino, N.; Menenti, M.

2012-04-01

The effect of climate change on irrigated agricultural systems will be different from area to area depending on some factors as: (i) water availability, (ii) crop water demand (iii) soil hydrological behavior and (iv) irrigation management strategy. The adaptation of irrigated crop systems to future climate change can be supported by physically based model which simulate the water and heat fluxes in the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effects of climate change on the heat and water balance of a maize-fennel rotation. This was applied to a on-demand irrigation district of Southern Italy ("Destra Sele", Campania Region, 22.645 ha). Two climate scenarios were considered, current climate (1961-1990) and future climate (2021-2050), the latter constructed by applying statistical downscaling to GCMs scenarios. For each climate scenario the soil moisture regime of the selected study area was calculated by means of a simulation model of the soil-water-atmosphere system (SWAP). Synthetic indicators of the soil water regimes (e.g., crop water stress index - CWSI, available water content) have been calculated and impacts evaluated taking into account the yield response functions to water availability of different cultivars. Different irrigation delivering strategies were also simulated. The hydrological model SWAP was applied to the representative soils of the whole area (20 soil units) for which the soil hydraulic properties were derived by means of pedo-transfer function (HYPRES) tested and validated on the typical soils in the study area. Upper boundary conditions were derived from two climate scenarios, i.e. current and future. Unit gradient in soil water potential was set as lower boundary condition. Crop-specific input data and model parameters were derived from field experiments, in the same area, where the SWAP model was calibrated and validated. The results obtained have shown a significant increase of CWSI in the future climate scenario, and some spatial patterns strongly influenced by the soils characteristics. Adaptability of different maize cultivars has been evaluated. The work was carried out within the Italian national project AGROSCENARI funded by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies (MIPAAF, D.M. 8608/7303/2008) Keywords: Plant Adaptative capacity, SWAP, Climate changes, Maize, Fennel

The Impact of Urban Growth and Climate Change on Heat Stress in an Australian City

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chapman, S.; Mcalpine, C. A.; Thatcher, M. J.; Salazar, A.; Watson, J. R.

2017-12-01

Over half of the world's population lives in urban areas. Most people will therefore be exposed to climate change in an urban environment. One of the climate risks facing urban residents is heat stress, which can lead to illness and death. Urban residents are at increased risk of heat stress due to the urban heat island effect. The urban heat island is a modification of the urban environment and increases temperatures on average by 2°C, though the increase can be much higher, up to 8°C when wind speeds and cloud cover are low. The urban heat island is also expected to increase in the future due to urban growth and intensification, further exacerbating urban heat stress. Climate change alters the urban heat island due to changes in weather (wind speed and cloudiness) and evapotranspiration. Future urban heat stress will therefore be affected by urban growth and climate change. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of urban growth and climate change on the urban heat island and heat stress in Brisbane, Australia. We used CCAM, the conformal cubic atmospheric model developed by the CSIRO, to examine temperatures in Brisbane using scenarios of urban growth and climate change. We downscaled the urban climate using CCAM, based on bias corrected Sea Surface Temperatures from the ACCESS1.0 projection of future climate. We used Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 for the periods 1990 - 2000, 2049 - 2060 and 2089 - 2090 with current land use and an urban growth scenario. The present day climatology was verified using weather station data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. We compared the urban heat island of the present day with the urban heat island with climate change to determine if climate change altered the heat island. We also calculated heat stress using wet-bulb globe temperature and apparent temperature for the climate change and base case scenarios. We found the urban growth scenario increased present day temperatures by 0.5°C in the inner city and by 6°C during a period of hot days. The scenarios of future temperature are ongoing and will show how heat stress will change in Brisbane when both urban growth and climate change are considered.

Does reading scenarios of future land use changes affect willingness to participate in land use planning?

Treesearch

Michelle L. Johnson; Kathleen P. Bell; Mario F. Teisl

2016-01-01

Scenarios of future outcomes often provide context for policy decisions and can be a form of science communication, translating complex and uncertain relationships into stories for a broader audience. We conducted a survey experiment (n = 270) to test the effects of reading land use change scenarios on willingness to participate in land use planning activities. In the...

Mapping Oil and Gas Development Potential in the US Intermountain West and Estimating Impacts to Species

PubMed Central

Copeland, Holly E.; Doherty, Kevin E.; Naugle, David E.; Pocewicz, Amy; Kiesecker, Joseph M.

2009-01-01

Background Many studies have quantified the indirect effect of hydrocarbon-based economies on climate change and biodiversity, concluding that a significant proportion of species will be threatened with extinction. However, few studies have measured the direct effect of new energy production infrastructure on species persistence. Methodology/Principal Findings We propose a systematic way to forecast patterns of future energy development and calculate impacts to species using spatially-explicit predictive modeling techniques to estimate oil and gas potential and create development build-out scenarios by seeding the landscape with oil and gas wells based on underlying potential. We illustrate our approach for the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in the western US and translate the build-out scenarios into estimated impacts on sage-grouse. We project that future oil and gas development will cause a 7–19 percent decline from 2007 sage-grouse lek population counts and impact 3.7 million ha of sagebrush shrublands and 1.1 million ha of grasslands in the study area. Conclusions/Significance Maps of where oil and gas development is anticipated in the US Intermountain West can be used by decision-makers intent on minimizing impacts to sage-grouse. This analysis also provides a general framework for using predictive models and build-out scenarios to anticipate impacts to species. These predictive models and build-out scenarios allow tradeoffs to be considered between species conservation and energy development prior to implementation. PMID:19826472

Changes in land-uses and ecosystem services under multi-scenarios simulation.

PubMed

Liu, Jingya; Li, Jing; Qin, Keyu; Zhou, Zixiang; Yang, Xiaonan; Li, Ting

2017-05-15

Social economy of China has been rapidly developing for more than 30years with efficient reforms and policies being issued. Societal developments have resulted in a greater use of many natural resources to the extent that the ecosystem can no longer self-regulate, thus severely damaging the balance of the ecosystem itself. This in turn has led to a deterioration in people's living environments. Our research is based on a combination of climate scenarios presented in the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and policy scenarios, including the one-child policy and carbon tax policy. We adopted Land Change Modeler of IDRISI software to simulate and analyze land-use change under 16 future scenarios in 2050. Carbon sequestration, soil conservation and water yields were quantified, based on those land-use maps and different ecosystem models. We also analyzed trade-offs and synergy among each ecosystem service and discussed why those interactions happened. The results show that: (1) Global climate change has a strong influence on future changes in land-use. (2) Carbon sequestration, water yield and soil conservation have a mutual relationship in the Guanzhong-Tianshui economic region. (3) Climate change and implementation of policy have a conspicuous impact on the changes in ecosystem services in the Guanzhong-Tianshui economic region. This paper can be used as a reference for further related research, and provide a reliable basis for achieving the sustainable development of the ecosystem. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sponge biomass and bioerosion rates increase under ocean warming and acidification.

PubMed

Fang, James K H; Mello-Athayde, Matheus A; Schönberg, Christine H L; Kline, David I; Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove; Dove, Sophie

2013-12-01

The combination of ocean warming and acidification as a result of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is considered to be a significant threat to calcifying organisms and their activities on coral reefs. How these global changes impact the important roles of decalcifying organisms (bioeroders) in the regulation of carbonate budgets, however, is less understood. To address this important question, the effects of a range of past, present and future CO2 emission scenarios (temperature + acidification) on the excavating sponge Cliona orientalis Thiele, 1900 were explored over 12 weeks in early summer on the southern Great Barrier Reef. C. orientalis is a widely distributed bioeroder on many reefs, and hosts symbiotic dinoflagellates of the genus Symbiodinium. Our results showed that biomass production and bioerosion rates of C. orientalis were similar under a pre-industrial scenario and a present day (control) scenario. Symbiodinium population density in the sponge tissue was the highest under the pre-industrial scenario, and decreased towards the two future scenarios with sponge replicates under the 'business-as-usual' CO2 emission scenario exhibiting strong bleaching. Despite these changes, biomass production and the ability of the sponge to erode coral carbonate materials both increased under the future scenarios. Our study suggests that C. orientalis will likely grow faster and have higher bioerosion rates in a high CO2 future than at present, even with significant bleaching. Assuming that our findings hold for excavating sponges in general, increased sponge biomass coupled with accelerated bioerosion may push coral reefs towards net erosion and negative carbonate budgets in the future. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A scenario-planning approach to human resources for health: the case of community pharmacists in Portugal.

PubMed

Gregório, João; Cavaco, Afonso; Velez Lapão, Luís

2014-10-13

Health workforce planning is especially important in a setting of political, social, and economic uncertainty. Portuguese community pharmacists are experiencing such conditions as well as increasing patient empowerment, shortage of primary care physicians, and primary health care reforms. This study aims to design three future scenarios for Portuguese community pharmacists, recognizing the changing environment as an opportunity to develop the role that community pharmacists may play in the Portuguese health system. The community pharmacist scenario design followed a three-stage approach. The first stage comprised thinking of relevant questions to be addressed and definition of the scenarios horizon. The second stage comprised two face-to-face, scenario-building workshops, for which 10 experts from practice and academic settings were invited. Academic and professional experience was the main selection criteria. The first workshop was meant for context analysis and design of draft scenarios, while the second was aimed at scenario analysis and validation. The final scenarios were built merging workshops' information with data collected from scientific literature followed by team consensus. The final stage involved scenario development carried by the authors alone, developing the narratives behind each scenario. Analysis allowed the identification of critical factors expected to have particular influence in 2020 for Portuguese community pharmacists, leading to two critical uncertainties: the "Legislative environment" and "Ability to innovate and develop services". Three final scenarios were built, namely "Pharmacy-Mall", "e-Pharmacist", and "Reorganize or Die". These scenarios provide possible trends for market needs, pharmacist workforce numbers, and expected qualifications to be developed by future professionals. In all scenarios it is clear that the future advance of Portuguese community pharmacists will depend on pharmaceutical services provision beyond medicine dispensing. This innovative professional role will require the acquisition or development of competencies in the fields of management, leadership, marketing, information technologies, teamwork abilities, and behavioural and communication skills. To accomplish a sustainable evolution, legislative changes and adequate financial incentives will be beneficial. The scenario development proves to be valuable as a strategic planning tool, not only for understanding future community pharmacist needs in a complex and uncertain environment, but also for other health care professionals.

Energy: Ford Foundation Study Urges Action on Conservation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hammond, Allen L.

1974-01-01

Announces completion of a final report and summarizes recommendations of the Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project based on analyses of three different scenarios of how America's energy future might develop. The study urges that many conservation measures be planned and implemented. (RH)

A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF MODEL UNCERTAINTY FOR FORECASTING HYDROLOGIC CHANGE

EPA Science Inventory

GIS-based hydrologic modeling offers a convenient means of assessing the impacts associated with land-cover/use change for environmental planning efforts. Alternative future scenarios can be used as input to hydrologic models and compared with existing conditions to evaluate pot...

Quantifying climate change mitigation potential in Great Plains wetlands for three greenhouse gas emission scenarios

USGS Publications Warehouse

Byrd, Kristin B.; Ratliff, Jamie L.; Wein, Anne; Bliss, Norman B.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Sohl, Terry L.; Li, Zhengpeng

2015-01-01

We examined opportunities for avoided loss of wetland carbon stocks in the Great Plains of the United States in the context of future agricultural expansion through analysis of land-use land-cover (LULC) change scenarios, baseline carbon datasets and biogeochemical model outputs. A wetland map that classifies wetlands according to carbon pools was created to describe future patterns of carbon loss and potential carbon savings. Wetland avoided loss scenarios, superimposed upon LULC change scenarios, quantified carbon stocks preserved under criteria of carbon densities or land value plus cropland suitability. Up to 3420 km2 of wetlands may be lost in the region by 2050, mainly due to conversion of herbaceous wetlands in the Temperate Prairies where soil organic carbon (SOC) is highest. SOC loss would be approximately 0.20 ± 0.15 megagrams of carbon per hectare per year (MgC ha−1 yr−1), depending upon tillage practices on converted wetlands, and total ecosystem carbon loss in woody wetlands would be approximately 0.81 ± 0.41 MgC ha−1 yr−1, based on biogeochemical model results. Among wetlands vulnerable to conversion, wetlands in the Northern Glaciated Plains and Lake Agassiz Plains ecoregions exhibit very high mean SOC and on average, relatively low land values, potentially creating economically competitive opportunities for avoided carbon loss. This mitigation scenarios approach may be adapted by managers using their own preferred criteria to select sites that best meet their objectives. Results can help prioritize field-based assessments, where site-level investigations of carbon stocks, land value, and consideration of local priorities for climate change mitigation programs are needed.

The Effect of Future Ambient Air Pollution on Human Premature Mortality to 2100 Using Output from the ACCMIP Model Ensemble

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Silva, Raquel A.; West, J. Jason; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Shindell, Drew T.; Collins, William J.; Dalsoren, Stig; Faluvegi, Greg; Folberth, Gerd; Horowitz, Larry W.; Nagashima, Tatsuya;

Aerosol effect on climate extremes in Europe under different future scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sillmann, J.; Pozzoli, L.; Vignati, E.; Kloster, S.; Feichter, J.

2013-05-01

This study investigates changes in extreme temperature and precipitation events under different future scenarios of anthropogenic aerosol emissions (i.e., SO2 and black and organic carbon) simulated with an aerosol-climate model (ECHAM5-HAM) with focus on Europe. The simulations include a maximum feasible aerosol reduction (MFR) scenario and a current legislation emission (CLEmod) scenario where Europe implements the MFR scenario, but the rest of the world follows the current legislation scenario and a greenhouse gas scenario. The strongest changes relative to the year 2000 are projected for the MFR scenario, in which the global aerosol reduction greatly enforces the general warming effect due to greenhouse gases and results in significant increases of temperature and precipitation extremes in Europe. Regional warming effects can also be identified from aerosol reductions under the CLEmodscenario. This becomes most obvious in the increase of the hottest summer daytime temperatures in Northern Europe.

Climate Change and Crop Exposure to Adverse Weather: Changes to Frost Risk and Grapevine Flowering Conditions.

PubMed

Mosedale, Jonathan R; Wilson, Robert J; Maclean, Ilya M D

2015-01-01

The cultivation of grapevines in the UK and many other cool climate regions is expected to benefit from the higher growing season temperatures predicted under future climate scenarios. Yet the effects of climate change on the risk of adverse weather conditions or events at key stages of crop development are not always captured by aggregated measures of seasonal or yearly climates, or by downscaling techniques that assume climate variability will remain unchanged under future scenarios. Using fine resolution projections of future climate scenarios for south-west England and grapevine phenology models we explore how risks to cool-climate vineyard harvests vary under future climate conditions. Results indicate that the risk of adverse conditions during flowering declines under all future climate scenarios. In contrast, the risk of late spring frosts increases under many future climate projections due to advancement in the timing of budbreak. Estimates of frost risk, however, were highly sensitive to the choice of phenology model, and future frost exposure declined when budbreak was calculated using models that included a winter chill requirement for dormancy break. The lack of robust phenological models is a major source of uncertainty concerning the impacts of future climate change on the development of cool-climate viticulture in historically marginal climatic regions.

Climate Change and Crop Exposure to Adverse Weather: Changes to Frost Risk and Grapevine Flowering Conditions

PubMed Central

Mosedale, Jonathan R.; Wilson, Robert J.; Maclean, Ilya M. D.

2015-01-01

The cultivation of grapevines in the UK and many other cool climate regions is expected to benefit from the higher growing season temperatures predicted under future climate scenarios. Yet the effects of climate change on the risk of adverse weather conditions or events at key stages of crop development are not always captured by aggregated measures of seasonal or yearly climates, or by downscaling techniques that assume climate variability will remain unchanged under future scenarios. Using fine resolution projections of future climate scenarios for south-west England and grapevine phenology models we explore how risks to cool-climate vineyard harvests vary under future climate conditions. Results indicate that the risk of adverse conditions during flowering declines under all future climate scenarios. In contrast, the risk of late spring frosts increases under many future climate projections due to advancement in the timing of budbreak. Estimates of frost risk, however, were highly sensitive to the choice of phenology model, and future frost exposure declined when budbreak was calculated using models that included a winter chill requirement for dormancy break. The lack of robust phenological models is a major source of uncertainty concerning the impacts of future climate change on the development of cool-climate viticulture in historically marginal climatic regions. PMID:26496127

Construction of Gridded Daily Weather Data and its Use in Central-European Agroclimatic Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dubrovsky, M.; Trnka, M.; Skalak, P.

2013-12-01

The regional-scale simulations of weather-sensitive processes (e.g. hydrology, agriculture and forestry) for the present and/or future climate often require high resolution meteorological inputs in terms of the time series of selected surface weather characteristics (typically temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, humidity, wind) for a set of stations or on a regular grid. As even the latest Global and Regional Climate Models (GCMs and RCMs) do not provide realistic representation of statistical structure of the surface weather, the model outputs must be postprocessed (downscaled) to achieve the desired statistical structure of the weather data before being used as an input to the follow-up simulation models. One of the downscaling approaches, which is employed also here, is based on a weather generator (WG), which is calibrated using the observed weather series, interpolated, and then modified according to the GCM- or RCM-based climate change scenarios. The present contribution, in which the parametric daily weather generator M&Rfi is linked to the high-resolution RCM output (ALADIN-Climate/CZ model) and GCM-based climate change scenarios, consists of two parts: The first part focuses on a methodology. Firstly, the gridded WG representing the baseline climate is created by merging information from observations and high resolution RCM outputs. In this procedure, WG is calibrated with RCM-simulated multi-variate weather series, and the grid specific WG parameters are then de-biased by spatially interpolated correction factors based on comparison of WG parameters calibrated with RCM-simulated weather series vs. spatially scarcer observations. To represent the future climate, the WG parameters are modified according to the 'WG-friendly' climate change scenarios. These scenarios are defined in terms of changes in WG parameters and include - apart from changes in the means - changes in WG parameters, which represent the additional characteristics of the weather series (e.g. probability of wet day occurrence and lag-1 autocorrelation of daily mean temperature). The WG-friendly scenarios for the present experiment are based on comparison of future vs baseline surface weather series simulated by GCMs from a CMIP3 database. The second part will present results of climate change impact study based on an above methodology applied to Central Europe. The changes in selected climatic (focusing on the extreme precipitation and temperature characteristics) and agroclimatic (including number of days during vegetation season with heat and drought stresses) characteristics will be analysed. In discussing the results, the emphasis will be put on 'added value' of various aspects of above methodology (e.g. inclusion of changes in 'advanced' WG parameters into the climate change scenarios). Acknowledgements: The present experiment is made within the frame of projects WG4VALUE (project LD12029 sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR), ALARO-Climate (project P209/11/2405 sponsored by the Czech Science Foundation), and VALUE (COST ES 1102 action).

Assessment of soil organic carbon stocks under future climate and land cover changes in Europe.

PubMed

Yigini, Yusuf; Panagos, Panos

2016-07-01

Soil organic carbon plays an important role in the carbon cycling of terrestrial ecosystems, variations in soil organic carbon stocks are very important for the ecosystem. In this study, a geostatistical model was used for predicting current and future soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in Europe. The first phase of the study predicts current soil organic carbon content by using stepwise multiple linear regression and ordinary kriging and the second phase of the study projects the soil organic carbon to the near future (2050) by using a set of environmental predictors. We demonstrate here an approach to predict present and future soil organic carbon stocks by using climate, land cover, terrain and soil data and their projections. The covariates were selected for their role in the carbon cycle and their availability for the future model. The regression-kriging as a base model is predicting current SOC stocks in Europe by using a set of covariates and dense SOC measurements coming from LUCAS Soil Database. The base model delivers coefficients for each of the covariates to the future model. The overall model produced soil organic carbon maps which reflect the present and the future predictions (2050) based on climate and land cover projections. The data of the present climate conditions (long-term average (1950-2000)) and the future projections for 2050 were obtained from WorldClim data portal. The future climate projections are the recent climate projections mentioned in the Fifth Assessment IPCC report. These projections were extracted from the global climate models (GCMs) for four representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The results suggest an overall increase in SOC stocks by 2050 in Europe (EU26) under all climate and land cover scenarios, but the extent of the increase varies between the climate model and emissions scenarios. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Potential of OFDM for next generation optical access

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fritzsche, Daniel; Weis, Erik; Breuer, Dirk

2011-01-01

This paper shows the requirements for next generation optical access (NGOA) networks and analyzes the potential of OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) for the use in such network scenarios. First, we show the motivation for NGOA systems based on the future requirements on FTTH access systems and list the advantages of OFDM in such scenarios. In the next part, the basics of OFDM and different methods to generate and detect optical OFDM signals are explained and analyzed. At the transmitter side the options include intensity modulation and the more advanced field modulation of the optical OFDM signal. At the receiver there is the choice between direct detection and coherent detection. As the result of this discussion we show our vision of the future use of OFDM in optical access networks.

ESP v2.0: Enhanced method for exploring emission impacts of future scenarios in the United States – addressing spatial allocation

EPA Science Inventory

The Emission Scenario Projection (ESP) method produces future-year air pollutant emissions for mesoscale air quality modeling applications. We present ESP v2.0, which expands upon ESP v1.0 by spatially allocating future-year emissions to account for projected population and land ...

Transportation Energy Futures Series: Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Expansion: Costs, Resources, Production Capacity, and Retail Availability for Low-Carbon Scenarios

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Melaina, W.; Heath, Garvin; Sandor, Debra

2013-04-01

The petroleum-based transportation fuel system is complex and highly developed, in contrast to the nascent low-petroleum, low-carbon alternative fuel system. This report examines how expansion of the low-carbon transportation fuel infrastructure could contribute to deep reductions in petroleum use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the U.S. transportation sector. Three low-carbon scenarios, each using a different combination of low-carbon fuels, were developed to explore infrastructure expansion trends consistent with a study goal of reducing transportation sector GHG emissions to 80% less than 2005 levels by 2050.These scenarios were compared to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario and were evaluated with respect tomore » four criteria: fuel cost estimates, resource availability, fuel production capacity expansion, and retail infrastructure expansion.« less

Estimating Biofuel Feedstock Water Footprints Using System Dynamics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Inman, Daniel; Warner, Ethan; Stright, Dana

Increased biofuel production has prompted concerns about the environmental tradeoffs of biofuels compared to petroleum-based fuels. Biofuel production in general, and feedstock production in particular, is under increased scrutiny. Water footprinting (measuring direct and indirect water use) has been proposed as one measure to evaluate water use in the context of concerns about depleting rural water supplies through activities such as irrigation for large-scale agriculture. Water footprinting literature has often been limited in one or more key aspects: complete assessment across multiple water stocks (e.g., vadose zone, surface, and ground water stocks), geographical resolution of data, consistent representation of manymore » feedstocks, and flexibility to perform scenario analysis. We developed a model called BioSpatial H2O using a system dynamics modeling and database framework. BioSpatial H2O could be used to consistently evaluate the complete water footprints of multiple biomass feedstocks at high geospatial resolutions. BioSpatial H2O has the flexibility to perform simultaneous scenario analysis of current and potential future crops under alternative yield and climate conditions. In this proof-of-concept paper, we modeled corn grain (Zea mays L.) and soybeans (Glycine max) under current conditions as illustrative results. BioSpatial H2O links to a unique database that houses annual spatially explicit climate, soil, and plant physiological data. Parameters from the database are used as inputs to our system dynamics model for estimating annual crop water requirements using daily time steps. Based on our review of the literature, estimated green water footprints are comparable to other modeled results, suggesting that BioSpatial H2O is computationally sound for future scenario analysis. Our modeling framework builds on previous water use analyses to provide a platform for scenario-based assessment. BioSpatial H2O's system dynamics is a flexible and user-friendly interface for on-demand, spatially explicit, water use scenario analysis for many US agricultural crops. Built-in controls permit users to quickly make modifications to the model assumptions, such as those affecting yield, and to see the implications of those results in real time. BioSpatial H2O's dynamic capabilities and adjustable climate data allow for analyses of water use and management scenarios to inform current and potential future bioenergy policies. The model could also be adapted for scenario analysis of alternative climatic conditions and comparison of multiple crops. The results of such an analysis would help identify risks associated with water use competition among feedstocks in certain regions. Results could also inform research and development efforts that seek to reduce water-related risks of biofuel pathways.« less

Future climate change enhances rainfall seasonality in a regional model of western Maritime Continent

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Suchul; Im, Eun-Soon; Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.

2018-03-01

In this study, future changes in rainfall due to global climate change are investigated over the western Maritime Continent based on dynamically downscaled climate projections using the MIT Regional Climate Model (MRCM) with 12 km horizontal resolution. A total of nine 30-year regional climate projections driven by multi-GCMs projections (CCSM4, MPI-ESM-MR and ACCESS1.0) under multi-scenarios of greenhouse gases emissions (Historical: 1976-2005, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5: 2071-2100) from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5) are analyzed. Focusing on dynamically downscaled rainfall fields, the associated systematic biases originating from GCM and MRCM are removed based on observations using Parametric Quantile Mapping method in order to enhance the reliability of future projections. The MRCM simulations with bias correction capture the spatial patterns of seasonal rainfall as well as the frequency distribution of daily rainfall. Based on projected rainfall changes under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, the ensemble of MRCM simulations project a significant decrease in rainfall over the western Maritime Continent during the inter-monsoon periods while the change in rainfall is not relevant during wet season. The main mechanism behind the simulated decrease in rainfall is rooted in asymmetries of the projected changes in seasonal dynamics of the meridional circulation along different latitudes. The sinking motion, which is marginally positioned in the reference simulation, is enhanced and expanded under global climate change, particularly in RCP8.5 scenario during boreal fall season. The projected enhancement of rainfall seasonality over the western Maritime Continent suggests increased risk of water stress for natural ecosystems as well as man-made water resources reservoirs.

Climate-Smart Seedlot Selection Tool: Reforestation and Restoration for the 21st Century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stevenson-Molnar, N.; Howe, G.; St Clair, B.; Bachelet, D. M.; Ward, B. C.

2017-12-01

Local populations of trees are generally adapted to their local climates. Historically, this has meant that local seed zones based on geography and elevation have been used to guide restoration and reforestation. In the face of climate change, seeds from local sources will likely be subjected to climates significantly different from those to which they are currently adapted. The Seedlot Selection Tool (SST) offers a new approach for matching seed sources with planting sites based on future climate scenarios. The SST is a mapping program designed for forest managers and researchers. Users can use the tool to to find seedlots for a given planting site, or to find potential planting sites for a given seedlot. Users select a location (seedlot or planting site), climate scenarios (a climate to which seeds are adapted, and a current or future climate scenario), climate variables, and transfer limits (the maximum climatic distance that is considered a suitable match). Transfer limits are provided by the user, or derived from the range of values within a geographically defined seed zone. The tool calculates scores across the landscape based on an area's similarity, in a multivariate climate space, to the input. Users can explore results on an interactive map, and export PDF and PowerPoint reports, including a map of the results along with the inputs used. Planned future improvements include support for non-forest use cases and ability to download results as GeoTIFF data. The Seedlot Selection Tool and its source code are available online at https://seedlotselectiontool.org. It is co-developed by the United States Forest Service, Oregon State University, and the Conservation Biology Institute.

Internet Data Delivery for Future Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rash, James; Casasanta, Ralph; Hogie, Keith; Hennessy, Joseph F. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Ongoing work at National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC), seeks to apply standard Internet applications and protocols to meet the technology challenge of future satellite missions. Internet protocols and technologies are under study as a future means to provide seamless dynamic communication among heterogeneous instruments, spacecraft, ground stations, constellations of spacecraft, and science investigators. The primary objective is to design and demonstrate in the laboratory the automated end-to-end transport of files in a simulated dynamic space environment using off-the-shelf, low-cost, commodity-level standard applications and protocols. The demonstrated functions and capabilities will become increasingly significant in the years to come as both earth and space science missions fly more sensors and as the need increases for more network-oriented mission operations. Another element of increasing significance will be the increased cost effectiveness of designing, building, integrating, and operating instruments and spacecraft that will come to the fore as more missions take up the approach of using commodity-level standard communications technologies. This paper describes how an IP (Internet Protocol)-based communication architecture can support all existing operations concepts and how it will enable some new and complex communication and science concepts. The authors identify specific end-to-end data flows from the instruments to the control centers and scientists, and then describe how each data flow can be supported using standard Internet protocols and applications. The scenarios include normal data downlink and command uplink as well as recovery scenarios for both onboard and ground failures. The scenarios are based on an Earth orbiting spacecraft with downlink data rates from 300 Kbps to 4 Mbps. Included examples are based on designs currently being investigated for potential use by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.

Impact of a nitrogen emission control area (NECA) for ship traffic on the future air quality in the Baltic Sea region

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Karl, Matthias; Geyer, Beate; Bieser, Johannes; Matthias, Volker; Quante, Markus; Jalkanen, Jukka-Pekka; Johansson, Lasse; Fridell, Erik

2017-04-01

Deposition of nitrogen compounds originating from shipping activities contribute to eutrophication of the Baltic Sea and coastal areas in the Baltic Sea region. Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from shipping on the Baltic Sea are comparable to the combined land-based emissions of NOx from Finland and Sweden and have been relatively stable over the last decade. However, expected future growth of maritime transport will result in higher fuel consumption and, if not compensated by increased transport efficiency or other measures, lead to higher total emissions of NOx from shipping. For the Baltic Sea a nitrogen emission control area (NECA) will become effective in 2021 - permitting only new built ships that are compliant with stringent Tier III emission limits - with the target of reducing NOx-emissions. In order to study the effect of implementing a Baltic Sea NECA-2021 on air quality and nitrogen deposition two future scenarios were designed; one with implementation of a NECA for the Baltic Sea starting in 2021 and another with no NECA implemented. The same increase of ship traffic was assumed for both future scenarios. Since complete fleet renewal with low NOx-emitting engines is not expected until 20-30 years after the NECA entry date, year 2040 was chosen as future scenario year. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model was used to simulate the current and future air quality situation. The nested simulation runs with CMAQ were performed on a horizontal resolution of 4 km × 4 km for the entire Baltic Sea region. The meteorological year 2012 was chosen for the simulation of the current and future air quality situation since the 2m-temperature and precipitation anomalies of 2012 are closely aligned to the 2004-2014 decadal average over Baltic Proper. High-resolution meteorology obtained from COSMO-CLM was used for the regional simulations. Ship emissions were generated with the Ship Traffic Emission Assessment Model (STEAM) by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) network data to allocate ship positions. Gridded land-based emissions were taken from the SMOKE-EU model which is based on the official EMEP data. Future land-based emissions were reduced in accordance with current legislation. Model simulations for the current situation show that shipping emissions are the main contributor to ambient NO2 concentrations over the Baltic Sea. Shipping emissions are responsible for 40-70 % of the particulate nitrate concentrations during the summer months. Relative contribution of shipping emissions to monthly total nitrogen deposition, as a sum of oxidized and reduced nitrogen compounds, was highest in summer, with up to 60 % in the northern part of the Baltic Proper, while it was on average 10 % for other parts of the Baltic Sea. With the NECA in the Baltic Sea in effect from 2021, the reduction of reactive nitrogen concentrations and deposition in the Baltic Sea region compared to a scenario without Tier III regulations is significant.

Testing the robustness of management decisions to uncertainty: Everglades restoration scenarios.

PubMed

Fuller, Michael M; Gross, Louis J; Duke-Sylvester, Scott M; Palmer, Mark

2008-04-01

To effectively manage large natural reserves, resource managers must prepare for future contingencies while balancing the often conflicting priorities of different stakeholders. To deal with these issues, managers routinely employ models to project the response of ecosystems to different scenarios that represent alternative management plans or environmental forecasts. Scenario analysis is often used to rank such alternatives to aid the decision making process. However, model projections are subject to uncertainty in assumptions about model structure, parameter values, environmental inputs, and subcomponent interactions. We introduce an approach for testing the robustness of model-based management decisions to the uncertainty inherent in complex ecological models and their inputs. We use relative assessment to quantify the relative impacts of uncertainty on scenario ranking. To illustrate our approach we consider uncertainty in parameter values and uncertainty in input data, with specific examples drawn from the Florida Everglades restoration project. Our examples focus on two alternative 30-year hydrologic management plans that were ranked according to their overall impacts on wildlife habitat potential. We tested the assumption that varying the parameter settings and inputs of habitat index models does not change the rank order of the hydrologic plans. We compared the average projected index of habitat potential for four endemic species and two wading-bird guilds to rank the plans, accounting for variations in parameter settings and water level inputs associated with hypothetical future climates. Indices of habitat potential were based on projections from spatially explicit models that are closely tied to hydrology. For the American alligator, the rank order of the hydrologic plans was unaffected by substantial variation in model parameters. By contrast, simulated major shifts in water levels led to reversals in the ranks of the hydrologic plans in 24.1-30.6% of the projections for the wading bird guilds and several individual species. By exposing the differential effects of uncertainty, relative assessment can help resource managers assess the robustness of scenario choice in model-based policy decisions.

Perspectives on the future of the electric utility industry

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tonn, B.; Schaffhauser, A.

1994-04-01

This report offers perspectives on the future of the electric utility industry. These perspectives will be used in further research to assess the prospects for Integrated Resource Planning (IRP). The perspectives are developed first by examining economic, political and regulatory, societal, technological, and environmental trends that are (1) national and global in scope and (2) directly related to the electric utility industry. Major national and global trends include increasing global economic competition, increasing political and ethnic strife, rapidly changing technologies, and increasing worldwide concern about the environment. Major trends in the utility industry include increasing competition in generation; changing patternsmore » of electricity demand; increasing use of information technology to control power systems; and increasing implementation of environmental controls. Ways in which the national and global trends may directly affect the utility industry are also explored. The trends are used to construct three global and national scenarios- ``business as usual,`` ``technotopia future,`` and ``fortress state`` -and three electric utility scenarios- ``frozen in headlights,`` ``megaelectric,`` and ``discomania.`` The scenarios are designed to be thought provoking descriptions of potential futures, not predictions of the future, although three key variables are identified that will have significant impacts on which future evolves-global climate change, utility technologies, and competition. While emphasis needs to be placed on understanding the electric utility scenarios, the interactions between the two sets of scenarios is also of interest.« less

Projecting Drivers of Human Vulnerability under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways.

PubMed

Rohat, Guillaume

2018-03-19

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) are the new set of alternative futures of societal development that inform global and regional climate change research. They have the potential to foster the integration of socioeconomic scenarios within assessments of future climate-related health impacts. To date, such assessments have primarily superimposed climate scenarios on current socioeconomic conditions only. Until now, the few assessments of future health risks that employed the SSPs have focused on future human exposure-i.e., mainly future population patterns-, neglecting future human vulnerability. This paper first explores the research gaps-mainly linked to the paucity of available projections-that explain such a lack of consideration of human vulnerability under the SSPs. It then highlights the need for projections of socioeconomic variables covering the wide range of determinants of human vulnerability, available at relevant spatial and temporal scales, and accounting for local specificities through sectoral and regional extended versions of the global SSPs. Finally, this paper presents two innovative methods of obtaining and computing such socioeconomic projections under the SSPs-namely the scenario matching approach and an approach based on experts' elicitation and correlation analyses-and applies them to the case of Europe. They offer a variety of possibilities for practical application, producing projections at sub-national level of various drivers of human vulnerability such as demographic and social characteristics, urbanization, state of the environment, infrastructure, health status, and living arrangements. Both the innovative approaches presented in this paper and existing methods-such as the spatial disaggregation of existing projections and the use of sectoral models-show great potential to enhance the availability of relevant projections of determinants of human vulnerability. Assessments of future climate-related health impacts should thus rely on these methods to account for future human vulnerability-under varying levels of socioeconomic development-and to explore its influence on future health risks under different degrees of climate change.

Projecting Drivers of Human Vulnerability under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) are the new set of alternative futures of societal development that inform global and regional climate change research. They have the potential to foster the integration of socioeconomic scenarios within assessments of future climate-related health impacts. To date, such assessments have primarily superimposed climate scenarios on current socioeconomic conditions only. Until now, the few assessments of future health risks that employed the SSPs have focused on future human exposure—i.e., mainly future population patterns—, neglecting future human vulnerability. This paper first explores the research gaps—mainly linked to the paucity of available projections—that explain such a lack of consideration of human vulnerability under the SSPs. It then highlights the need for projections of socioeconomic variables covering the wide range of determinants of human vulnerability, available at relevant spatial and temporal scales, and accounting for local specificities through sectoral and regional extended versions of the global SSPs. Finally, this paper presents two innovative methods of obtaining and computing such socioeconomic projections under the SSPs—namely the scenario matching approach and an approach based on experts’ elicitation and correlation analyses—and applies them to the case of Europe. They offer a variety of possibilities for practical application, producing projections at sub-national level of various drivers of human vulnerability such as demographic and social characteristics, urbanization, state of the environment, infrastructure, health status, and living arrangements. Both the innovative approaches presented in this paper and existing methods—such as the spatial disaggregation of existing projections and the use of sectoral models—show great potential to enhance the availability of relevant projections of determinants of human vulnerability. Assessments of future climate-related health impacts should thus rely on these methods to account for future human vulnerability—under varying levels of socioeconomic development—and to explore its influence on future health risks under different degrees of climate change. PMID:29562727

Projection of seasonal summer precipitation over Indian sub-continent with a high-resolution AGCM based on the RCP scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woo, Sumin; Singh, Gyan Prakash; Oh, Jai-Ho; Lee, Kyoung-Min

2018-05-01

Seasonal changes in precipitation characteristics over India were projected using a high-resolution (40-km) atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) during the near- (2010-2039), mid- (2040-2069), and far- (2070-2099) futures. For the model evaluation, we simulated an Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project-type present-day climate using AGCM with observed sea-surface temperature and sea-ice concentration. Based on this simulation, we have simulated the current climate from 1979 to 2009 and subsequently the future climate projection until 2100 using a CMCC-CM model from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 models based on RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Using various observed precipitation data, the validation of the simulated precipitation indicates that the AGCM well-captured the high and low rain belts and also onset and withdrawal of monsoon in the present-day climate simulation. Future projections were performed for the above-mentioned time slices (near-, mid-, and far futures). The model projected an increase in summer precipitation from 7 to 18% under RCP4.5 and from 14 to 18% under RCP8.5 from the mid- to far futures. Projected summer precipitation from different time slices depicts an increase over northwest (NWI) and west-south peninsular India (SPI) and a reduction over northeast and north-central India. The model projected an eastward shift of monsoon trough around 2° longitude and expansion and intensification of Mascarene High and Tibetan High seems to be associated with projected precipitation. The model projected extreme precipitation events show an increase (20-50%) in rainy days over NWI and SPI. While a significant increase of about 20-50% is noticed in heavy rain events over SPI during the far future.

How much can we save? Impact of different emission scenarios on future snow cover in the Alps

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marty, Christoph; Schlögl, Sebastian; Bavay, Mathias; Lehning, Michael

2017-02-01

This study focuses on an assessment of the future snow depth for two larger Alpine catchments. Automatic weather station data from two diverse regions in the Swiss Alps have been used as input for the Alpine3D surface process model to compute the snow cover at a 200 m horizontal resolution for the reference period (1999-2012). Future temperature and precipitation changes have been computed from 20 downscaled GCM-RCM chains for three different emission scenarios, including one intervention scenario (2 °C target) and for three future time periods (2020-2049, 2045-2074, 2070-2099). By applying simple daily change values to measured time series of temperature and precipitation, small-scale climate scenarios have been calculated for the median estimate and extreme changes. The projections reveal a decrease in snow depth for all elevations, time periods and emission scenarios. The non-intervention scenarios demonstrate a decrease of about 50 % even for elevations above 3000 m. The most affected elevation zone for climate change is located below 1200 m, where the simulations show almost no snow towards the end of the century. Depending on the emission scenario and elevation zone the winter season starts half a month to 1 month later and ends 1 to 3 months earlier in this last scenario period. The resulting snow cover changes may be roughly equivalent to an elevation shift of 500-800 or 700-1000 m for the two non-intervention emission scenarios. At the end of the century the number of snow days may be more than halved at an elevation of around 1500 m and only 0-2 snow days are predicted in the lowlands. The results for the intervention scenario reveal no differences for the first scenario period but clearly demonstrate a stabilization thereafter, comprising much lower snow cover reductions towards the end of the century (ca. 30 % instead of 70 %).

Quantifying the biophysical climate change mitigation potential of Canada's forest sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smyth, C. E.; Stinson, G.; Neilson, E.; Lemprière, T. C.; Hafer, M.; Rampley, G. J.; Kurz, W. A.

2014-01-01

The potential of forests and the forest sector to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is widely recognized, but challenging to quantify at a national scale. Forests and their carbon (C) sequestration potential are affected by management practices, where wood harvesting transfers C out of the forest into products, and subsequent regrowth allows further C sequestration. Here we determine the mitigation potential of the 2.3 × 106 km2 of Canada's managed forests from 2015 to 2050 using the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3), a harvested wood products model that estimates emissions based on product half-life decay times, and an account of emission substitution benefits from the use of wood products and bioenergy. We examine several mitigation scenarios with different assumptions about forest management activity levels relative to a base-case scenario, including improved growth from silvicultural activities, increased harvest and residue management for bioenergy, and reduced harvest for conservation. We combine forest management options with two mitigation scenarios for harvested wood product use involving an increase in either long-lived products or bioenergy uses. Results demonstrate large differences among alternative scenarios, and we identify potential mitigation scenarios with increasing benefits to the atmosphere for many decades into the future, as well as scenarios with no net benefit over many decades. The greatest mitigation impact was achieved through a mix of strategies that varied across the country and had cumulative mitigation of 254 Tg CO2e in 2030, and 1180 Tg CO2e in 2050. We conclude that (i) national-scale forest sector mitigation options need to be assessed rigorously from a systems perspective to avoid the development of policies that deliver no net benefits to the atmosphere, (ii) a mix of strategies implemented across the country achieves the greatest mitigation impact, and (iii) because of the time delays in achieving carbon benefits for many forest-based mitigation activities, future contributions of the forest sector to climate mitigation can be maximized if implemented soon.

Downscaled rainfall projections in south Florida using self-organizing maps.

PubMed

Sinha, Palash; Mann, Michael E; Fuentes, Jose D; Mejia, Alfonso; Ning, Liang; Sun, Weiyi; He, Tao; Obeysekera, Jayantha

2018-04-20

We make future projections of seasonal precipitation characteristics in southern Florida using a statistical downscaling approach based on Self Organized Maps. Our approach is applied separately to each three-month season: September-November; December-February; March-May; and June-August. We make use of 19 different simulations from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project, phase 5 (CMIP5) and generate an ensemble of 1500 independent daily precipitation surrogates for each model simulation, yielding a grand ensemble of 28,500 total realizations for each season. The center and moments (25%ile and 75%ile) of this distribution are used to characterize most likely scenarios and their associated uncertainties. This approach is applied to 30-year windows of daily mean precipitation for both the CMIP5 historical simulations (1976-2005) and the CMIP5 future (RCP 4.5) projections. For the latter case, we examine both the "near future" (2021-2050) and "far future" (2071-2100) periods for three scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5). Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The response of vegetation distribution, ecosystem productivity, and fire in California to future climate scenarios simulated by the MC1 dynamic vegetation dynamic.

Treesearch

James M. Lenihan; Dominique Bachelet; Raymond Drapek; Ronald P. Neilson

2006-01-01

The objective of this study was to dynamically simulate the response of vegetation distribution, carbon, and fire to three scenarios of future climate change for California using the MAPSS-CENTURY (MCI) dynamic general vegetation model. Under all three scenarios, Alpine/Subalpine Forest cover declined with increased growing season length and warmth, and increases in...

Modelling regional cropping patterns under scenarios of climate and socio-economic change in Hungary.

PubMed

Li, Sen; Juhász-Horváth, Linda; Pintér, László; Rounsevell, Mark D A; Harrison, Paula A

2018-05-01

Impacts of socio-economic, political and climatic change on agricultural land systems are inherently uncertain. The role of regional and local-level actors is critical in developing effective policy responses that accommodate such uncertainty in a flexible and informed way across governance levels. This study identified potential regional challenges in arable land use systems, which may arise from climate and socio-economic change for two counties in western Hungary: Veszprém and Tolna. An empirically-grounded, agent-based model was developed from an extensive farmer household survey about local land use practices. The model was used to project future patterns of arable land use under four localised, stakeholder-driven scenarios of plausible future socio-economic and climate change. The results show strong differences in farmers' behaviour and current agricultural land use patterns between the two regions, highlighting the need to implement focused policy at the regional level. For instance, policy that encourages local food security may need to support improvements in the capacity of farmers to adapt to physical constraints in Veszprém and farmer access to social capital and environmental awareness in Tolna. It is further suggested that the two regions will experience different challenges to adaptation under possible future conditions (up to 2100). For example, Veszprém was projected to have increased fallow land under a scenario with high inequality, ineffective institutions and higher-end climate change, implying risks of land abandonment. By contrast, Tolna was projected to have a considerable decline in major cereals under a scenario assuming a de-globalising future with moderate climate change, inferring challenges to local food self-sufficiency. The study provides insight into how socio-economic and physical factors influence the selection of crop rotation plans by farmers in western Hungary and how farmer behaviour may affect future risks to agricultural land systems under environmental change. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Modeling Impact and Cost-Effectiveness of Increased Efforts to Attract Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Clients Ages 20-29 in Zimbabwe.

PubMed

Kripke, Katharine; Hatzold, Karin; Mugurungi, Owen; Ncube, Gertrude; Xaba, Sinokuthemba; Gold, Elizabeth; Ahanda, Kim Seifert; Kruse-Levy, Natalie; Njeuhmeli, Emmanuel

2016-01-01

Zimbabwe aims to increase circumcision coverage to 80% among 13- to 29-year-olds. However, implementation data suggest that high coverage among men ages 20 and older may not be achievable without efforts specifically targeted to these men, incurring additional costs per circumcision. Scale-up scenarios were created based on trends in implementation data in Zimbabwe, and the cost-effectiveness of increasing efforts to recruit clients ages 20-29 was examined. Zimbabwe voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) program data were used to project trends in male circumcision coverage by age into the future. The projection informed a base scenario in which, by 2018, the country achieves 80% circumcision coverage among males ages 10-19 and lower levels of coverage among men above age 20. The Zimbabwe DMPPT 2.0 model was used to project costs and impacts, assuming a US$109 VMMC unit cost in the base scenario and a 3% discount rate. Two other scenarios assumed that the program could increase coverage among clients ages 20-29 with a corresponding increase in unit cost for these age groups. When circumcision coverage among men ages 20-29 is increased compared with a base scenario reflecting current implementation trends, fewer VMMCs are required to avert one infection. If more than 50% additional effort (reflected as multiplying the unit cost by >1.5) is required to double the increase in coverage among this age group compared with the base scenario, the cost per HIV infection averted is higher than in the base scenario. Although increased investment in recruiting VMMC clients ages 20-29 may lead to greater overall impact if recruitment efforts are successful, it may also lead to lower cost-effectiveness, depending on the cost of increasing recruitment. Programs should measure the relationship between increased effort and increased ability to attract this age group.

Assessing future changes in the occurrence of rainfall-induced landslides at a regional scale.

PubMed

Gariano, S L; Rianna, G; Petrucci, O; Guzzetti, F

2017-10-15

According to the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase in the frequency and the intensity of extreme rainfall is expected in the Mediterranean area. Among different impacts, this increase might result in a variation in the frequency and the spatial distribution of rainfall-induced landslides, and in an increase in the size of the population exposed to landslide risk. We propose a method for the regional-scale evaluation of future variations in the occurrence of rainfall-induced landslides, in response to changes in rainfall regimes. We exploit information on the occurrence of 603 rainfall-induced landslides in Calabria, southern Italy, in the period 1981-2010, and daily rainfall data recorded in the same period in the region. Furthermore, we use high-resolution climate projections based on RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. In particular, we consider the mean variations between a 30-year future period (2036-2065) and the reference period 1981-2010 in three variables assumed as proxy for landslide activity: annual rainfall, seasonal cumulated rainfall, and annual maxima of daily rainfall. Based on reliable correlations between landslide occurrence and weather variables estimated in the reference period, we assess future variations in rainfall-induced landslide occurrence for all the municipalities of Calabria. A +45.7% and +21.2% average regional variation in rainfall-induced landslide occurrence is expected in the region for the period 2036-2065, under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. We also investigate the future variations in the impact of rainfall-induced landslides on the population of Calabria. We find a +80.2% and +54.5% increase in the impact on the population for the period 2036-2065, under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. The proposed method is quantitative and reproducible, thus it can be applied in similar regions, where adequate landslide and rainfall information is available. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Climate influences on the cost-effectiveness of vector-based interventions against malaria in elimination scenarios

PubMed Central

Parham, Paul E.; Hughes, Dyfrig A.

2015-01-01

Despite the dependence of mosquito population dynamics on environmental conditions, the associated impact of climate and climate change on present and future malaria remains an area of ongoing debate and uncertainty. Here, we develop a novel integration of mosquito, transmission and economic modelling to assess whether the cost-effectiveness of indoor residual spraying (IRS) and long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) against Plasmodium falciparum transmission by Anopheles gambiae s.s. mosquitoes depends on climatic conditions in low endemicity scenarios. We find that although temperature and rainfall affect the cost-effectiveness of IRS and/or LLIN scale-up, whether this is sufficient to influence policy depends on local endemicity, existing interventions, host immune response to infection and the emergence rate of insecticide resistance. For the scenarios considered, IRS is found to be more cost-effective than LLINs for the same level of scale-up, and both are more cost-effective at lower mean precipitation and higher variability in precipitation and temperature. We also find that the dependence of peak transmission on mean temperature translates into optimal temperatures for vector-based intervention cost-effectiveness. Further cost-effectiveness analysis that accounts for country-specific epidemiological and environmental heterogeneities is required to assess optimal intervention scale-up for elimination and better understand future transmission trends under climate change. PMID:25688017

Fossil-fueled development (SSP5): An energy and resource intensive scenario for the 21st century

DOE PAGES

Kriegler, Elmar; Bauer, Nico; Popp, Alexander; ...

2016-08-18

Here, this paper presents a set of energy and resource intensive scenarios based on the concept of Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs). The scenario family is characterized by rapid and fossil-fueled development with high socio-economic challenges to mitigation and low socio-economic challenges to adaptation (SSP5). A special focus is placed on the SSP5 marker scenario developed by the REMIND-MAgPIE integrated assessment modeling framework. The SSP5 scenarios exhibit very high levels of fossil fuel use, up to a doubling of global food demand, and up to a tripling of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the century, markingmore » the upper end of the scenario literature in several dimensions. The SSP5 marker scenario results in a radiative forcing pathway close to the highest Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5), and represents currently the only socio-economic scenario family that can be combined with climate model projections based on RCP8.5. This paper further investigates the direct impact of mitigation policies on the energy, land and emissions dynamics confirming high socio-economic challenges to mitigation in SSP5. Nonetheless, mitigation policies reaching climate forcing levels as low as in the lowest Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP2.6) are accessible in SSP5. Finally, the SSP5 scenarios presented in this paper aim to provide useful reference points for future climate change, climate impact, adaption and mitigation analysis, and broader questions of sustainable development.« less

Fossil-fueled development (SSP5): An energy and resource intensive scenario for the 21st century

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kriegler, Elmar; Bauer, Nico; Popp, Alexander

Here, this paper presents a set of energy and resource intensive scenarios based on the concept of Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs). The scenario family is characterized by rapid and fossil-fueled development with high socio-economic challenges to mitigation and low socio-economic challenges to adaptation (SSP5). A special focus is placed on the SSP5 marker scenario developed by the REMIND-MAgPIE integrated assessment modeling framework. The SSP5 scenarios exhibit very high levels of fossil fuel use, up to a doubling of global food demand, and up to a tripling of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the century, markingmore » the upper end of the scenario literature in several dimensions. The SSP5 marker scenario results in a radiative forcing pathway close to the highest Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5), and represents currently the only socio-economic scenario family that can be combined with climate model projections based on RCP8.5. This paper further investigates the direct impact of mitigation policies on the energy, land and emissions dynamics confirming high socio-economic challenges to mitigation in SSP5. Nonetheless, mitigation policies reaching climate forcing levels as low as in the lowest Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP2.6) are accessible in SSP5. Finally, the SSP5 scenarios presented in this paper aim to provide useful reference points for future climate change, climate impact, adaption and mitigation analysis, and broader questions of sustainable development.« less

Scenarios for future biodiversity loss due to multiple drivers reveal conflict between mitigating climate change and preserving biodiversity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Powell, Thomas W. R.; Lenton, Timothy M.

2013-06-01

We assess the potential for future biodiversity loss due to three interacting factors: energy withdrawal from ecosystems due to biomass harvest, habitat loss due to land-use change, and climate change. We develop four scenarios to 2050 with different combinations of high or low agricultural efficiency and high or low meat diets, and use species-energy and species-area relationships to estimate their effects on biodiversity. In our scenarios, natural ecosystems are protected except when additional land is necessary to fulfil the increasing dietary demands of the global population. Biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is used as a means of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere (and offsetting fossil fuel emissions). BECCS is based on waste biomass, with the addition of bio-energy crops only when already managed land is no longer needed for food production. Forecast biodiversity loss from natural biomes increases by more than a factor of five in going from high to low agricultural efficiency scenarios, due to destruction of productive habitats by the expansion of pasture. Biodiversity loss from energy withdrawal on managed land varies by a factor of two across the scenarios. Biodiversity loss due to climate change varies only modestly across the scenarios. Climate change is lowest in the ‘low meat high efficiency’ scenario, in which by 2050 around 660 million hectares of pasture are converted to biomass plantation that is used for BECCS. However, the resulting withdrawal of energy from managed ecosystems has a large negative impact on biodiversity. Although the effects of energy withdrawal and climate change on biodiversity cannot be directly compared, this suggests that using bio-energy to tackle climate change in order to limit biodiversity loss could instead have the opposite effect.

Extreme storm surge and wind wave climate scenario simulations at the Venetian littoral

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lionello, P.; Galati, M. B.; Elvini, E.

Scenario climate projections for extreme marine storms producing storm surges and wind waves are very important for the northern flat coast of the Adriatic Sea, where the area at risk includes a unique cultural and environmental heritage, and important economic activities. This study uses a shallow water model and a spectral wave model for computing the storm surge and the wind wave field, respectively, from the sea level pressure and wind fields that have been computed by the RegCM regional climate model. Simulations cover the period 1961-1990 for the present climate (control simulations) and the period 2071-2100 for the A2 and B2 scenarios. Generalized Extreme Value analysis is used for estimating values for the 10 and 100 year return times. The adequacy of these modeling tools for a reliable estimation of the climate change signal, without needing further downscaling is shown. However, this study has mainly a methodological value, because issues such as interdecadal variability and intermodel variability cannot be addressed, since the analysis is based on single model 30-year long simulations. The control simulation looks reasonably accurate for extreme value analysis, though it overestimates/underestimates the frequency of high/low surge and wind wave events with respect to observations. Scenario simulations suggest higher frequency of intense storms for the B2 scenario, but not for the A2. Likely, these differences are not the effect of climate change, but of climate multidecadal variability. Extreme storms are stronger in future scenarios, but differences are not statistically significant. Therefore this study does not provide convincing evidence for more stormy conditions in future scenarios.

Effects of future climate and land use scenarios on riverine source water quality.

PubMed

Delpla, Ianis; Rodriguez, Manuel J

2014-09-15

Surface water quality is particularly sensitive to land use practices and climatic events that affect its catchment. The relative influence of a set of watershed characteristics (climate, land use, morphology and pedology) and climatic variables on two key water quality parameters (turbidity and fecal coliforms (FC)) was examined in 24 eastern Canadian catchments at various spatial scales (1 km, 5 km, 10 km and the entire catchment). A regression analysis revealed that the entire catchment was a better predictor of water quality. Based on this information, linear mixed effect models for predicting turbidity and FC levels were developed. A set of land use and climate scenarios was considered and applied within the water quality models. Four land use scenarios (no change, same rate of variation, optimistic and pessimistic) and three climate change scenarios (B1, A1B and A2) were tested and variations for the near future (2025) were assessed and compared to the reference period (2000). Climate change impacts on water quality remained low annually for this time horizon (turbidity: +1.5%, FC: +1.6%, A2 scenario). On the other hand, the influence of land use changes appeared to predominate. Significant benefits for both parameters could be expected following the optimistic scenario (turbidity: -16.4%, FC: -6.3%; p < 0.05). However, pessimistic land use scenario led to significant increases on an annual basis (turbidity: +11.6%, FC: +15.2%; p < 0.05). Additional simulations conducted for the late 21st century (2090) revealed that climate change impacts could become equivalent to those modeled for land use for this horizon. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[New paradigm for soil and water conservation: a method based on watershed process modeling and scenario analysis].

PubMed

Zhu, A-Xing; Chen, La-Jiao; Qin, Cheng-Zhi; Wang, Ping; Liu, Jun-Zhi; Li, Run-Kui; Cai, Qiang-Guo

2012-07-01

With the increase of severe soil erosion problem, soil and water conservation has become an urgent concern for sustainable development. Small watershed experimental observation is the traditional paradigm for soil and water control. However, the establishment of experimental watershed usually takes long time, and has the limitations of poor repeatability and high cost. Moreover, the popularization of the results from the experimental watershed is limited for other areas due to the differences in watershed conditions. Therefore, it is not sufficient to completely rely on this old paradigm for soil and water loss control. Recently, scenario analysis based on watershed modeling has been introduced into watershed management, which can provide information about the effectiveness of different management practices based on the quantitative simulation of watershed processes. Because of its merits such as low cost, short period, and high repeatability, scenario analysis shows great potential in aiding the development of watershed management strategy. This paper elaborated a new paradigm using watershed modeling and scenario analysis for soil and water conservation, illustrated this new paradigm through two cases for practical watershed management, and explored the future development of this new soil and water conservation paradigm.

Spatially explicit scenario analysis for hydrologic services in an urbanizing agricultural watershed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qiu, J.; Booth, E.; Carpenter, S. R.; Turner, M.

2013-12-01

The sustainability of hydrologic services (benefits to people generated by terrestrial ecosystem effects on freshwater) is challenged by changes in climate and land use. Despite the importance of hydrologic services, few studies have investigated how the provision of ecosystem services related to freshwater quantity and quality may vary in magnitude and spatial pattern for alternative future trajectories. Such analyses may provide useful information for sustaining freshwater resources in the face of a complex and uncertain future. We analyzed the supply of multiple hydrologic services from 2010 to 2070 across a large urbanizing agricultural watershed in the Upper Midwest of the United States, and asked the following: (i) What are the potential trajectories for the supply of hydrologic services under contrasting but plausible future scenarios? (ii) Where on the landscape is the delivery of hydrologic services most vulnerable to future changes? The Nested Watershed scenario represents extreme climate change (warmer temperatures and more frequent extreme events) and a concerted response from institutions, whereas in the Investment in Innovation scenario, climate change is less severe and technological innovations play a major role. Despite more extreme climate in the Nested Watershed scenario, all hydrologic services (i.e., freshwater supply, surface water quality, flood regulation) were maintained or enhanced (~30%) compared to the 2010 baseline, by strict government interventions that prioritized freshwater resources. Despite less extreme climate in the Investment in Innovation scenario and advances in green technology, only surface water quality and flood regulation were maintained or increased (~80%); freshwater supply declined by 25%, indicating a potential future tradeoff between water quality and quantity. Spatially, the locations of greatest vulnerability (i.e., decline) differed by service and among scenarios. In the Nested Watershed scenario, although freshwater supply and surface water quality were sustained or enhanced overall, these hydrologic services declined in ~60% and 20% of the landscape, respectively. The greatest improvement for most hydrologic services corresponded to areas of restored wetland, forest and perennial crops, which were less vulnerable to future degradation. In the Investment in Innovation scenario, freshwater supply declined in almost the entire watershed; improvement of surface water quality and flood regulation occurred mainly in urban areas, where highly engineered systems made them less vulnerable. Overall, our results indicated that hydrologic services will respond differently to future climate and land-use change, and sustaining one may involve tradeoffs of another. Technological progress can conserve particular services but might not be the panacea for the future. How society reacts in the face of changes can have an important role in determining the pathways to the future and the provision and spatial patterns of ecosystem services.

Modeling of the nearshore marine ecosystem with the AQUATOX model

EPA Science Inventory

Process-based models can be used to forecast the responses of coastal ecosystems to changes under future scenarios. However, most models applied to coastal systems do not include higher trophic levels, which are important providers of ecosystem services. AQUATOX is a mechanistic...

Resolving the interactions between population density and air pollution emissions controls in the San Joaquin Valley, USA.

PubMed

Hixson, Mark; Mahmud, Abdullah; Hu, Jianlin; Kleeman, Michael J

2012-05-01

The effectiveness of emissions control programs designed to reduce concentrations of airborne particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 microm (PM2.5) in California's San Joaquin Valley was studied in the year 2030 under three growth scenarios: low, medium, and high population density. Base-case inventories for each choice of population density were created using a coupled emissions modeling system that simultaneously considered interactions between land use and transportation, area source, and point source emissions. The ambient PM2.5 response to each combination of population density and emissions control was evaluated using a regional chemical transport model over a 3-week winter stagnation episode. Comparisons between scenarios were based on regional average and population-weighted PM2.5 concentrations. In the absence of any emissions control program, population-weighted concentrations of PM2.5 in the future San Joaquin Valley are lowest undergrowth scenarios that emphasize low population density. A complete ban on wood burning and a 90% reduction in emissions from food cooking operations and diesel engines must occur before medium- to high-density growth scenarios result in lower population-weighted concentrations of PM2.5. These trends partly reflect the fact that existing downtown urban cores that naturally act as anchor points for new high-density growth in the San Joaquin Valley are located close to major transportation corridors for goods movement. Adding growth buffers around transportation corridors had little impact in the current analysis, since the 8-km resolution of the chemical transport model already provided an artificial buffer around major emissions sources. Assuming that future emissions controls will greatly reduce or eliminate emissions from residential wood burning, food cooking, and diesel engines, the 2030 growth scenario using "as-planned" (medium) population density achieves the lowest population-weighted average PM2.5 concentration in the future San Joaquin Valley during a severe winter stagnation event. The San Joaquin Valley is one of the most heavily polluted air basins in the United States that are projected to experience strong population growth in the coming decades. The best plan to improve air quality in the region combines medium- or high-density population growth with rigorous emissions controls. In the absences of controls, high-density growth leads to increased population exposure to PM2.5 compared with low-density growth scenarios (urban sprawl).

An Integrated Environmental Assessment of Green and Gray Infrastructure Strategies for Robust Decision Making.

PubMed

Casal-Campos, Arturo; Fu, Guangtao; Butler, David; Moore, Andrew

2015-07-21

The robustness of a range of watershed-scale "green" and "gray" drainage strategies in the future is explored through comprehensive modeling of a fully integrated urban wastewater system case. Four socio-economic future scenarios, defined by parameters affecting the environmental performance of the system, are proposed to account for the uncertain variability of conditions in the year 2050. A regret-based approach is applied to assess the relative performance of strategies in multiple impact categories (environmental, economic, and social) as well as to evaluate their robustness across future scenarios. The concept of regret proves useful in identifying performance trade-offs and recognizing states of the world most critical to decisions. The study highlights the robustness of green strategies (particularly rain gardens, resulting in half the regret of most options) over end-of-pipe gray alternatives (surface water separation or sewer and storage rehabilitation), which may be costly (on average, 25% of the total regret of these options) and tend to focus on sewer flooding and CSO alleviation while compromising on downstream system performance (this accounts for around 50% of their total regret). Trade-offs and scenario regrets observed in the analysis suggest that the combination of green and gray strategies may still offer further potential for robustness.

The asymmetric impact of global warming on US drought types and distributions in a large ensemble of 97 hydro-climatic simulations.

PubMed

Huang, Shengzhi; Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Qiang; Xie, Yangyang; Liu, Saiyan; Meng, Erhao; Li, Pei

2017-07-19

Projection of future drought is often involved large uncertainties from climate models, emission scenarios as well as drought definitions. In this study, we investigate changes in future droughts in the conterminous United States based on 97 1/8 degree hydro-climate model projections. Instead of focusing on a specific drought type, we investigate changes in meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological drought as well as the concurrences. Agricultural and hydrological droughts are projected to become more frequent with increase in global mean temperature, while less meteorological drought is expected. Changes in drought intensity scale linearly with global temperature rises under RCP8.5 scenario, indicating the potential feasibility to derive future drought severity given certain global warming amount under this scenario. Changing pattern of concurrent droughts generally follows that of agricultural and hydrological droughts. Under the 1.5 °C warming target as advocated in recent Paris agreement, several hot spot regions experiencing highest droughts are identified. Extreme droughts show similar patterns but with much larger magnitude than the climatology. This study highlights the distinct response of droughts of various types to global warming and the asymmetric impact of global warming on drought distribution resulting in a much stronger influence on extreme drought than on mean drought.

DEVELOPMENT OF IMPACT ORIENTED CLIMATE SCENARIOS

EPA Science Inventory

Appropriate scenarios of future climate must be developed prior to any assessment of the impacts of climate change. he information needed by impact assessors was examined in consultation with those having experience in scenario use. ost assessors require regional scenarios with a...

Climate Change Impacts on US Agriculture and the Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Monier, E.; Sue Wing, I.; Stern, A.

2014-12-01

As contributors to the US EPA's Climate Impacts and Risk Assessment (CIRA) project, we present empirically-based projections of climate change impacts on the yields of five major US crops. Our analysis uses a 15-member ensemble of climate simulations using the MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) linked to the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), forced by 3 emissions scenarios (a "business as usual" reference scenario and two stabilization scenarios at 4.5W/m2 and 3.7 W/m2 by 2100), quantify the agricultural impacts avoided due to greenhouse gas emission reductions. Our innovation is the coupling of climate model outputs with empirical estimates of the long-run relationship between crop yields and temperature, precipitation and soil moisture derived from the co-variation between yields and weather across US counties over the last 50 years. Our identifying assumption is that since farmers' planting, management and harvesting decisions are based on land quality and expectations of weather, yields and meteorological variables share a long-run equilibrium relationship. In any given year, weather shocks cause yields to diverge from their expected long-run values, prompting farmers to revise their long-run expectations. We specify a dynamic panel error correction model (ECM) that statistically distinguishes these two processes. The ECM is estimated for maize, wheat, soybeans, sorghum and cotton using longitudinal data on production and harvested area for ~1,100 counties from 1948-2010, in conjunction with spatial fields of 3-hourly temperature, precipitation and soil moisture from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) forcing and output files, binned into annual counts of exposure over the growing season and mapped to county centroids. For scenarios of future warming the identical method was used to calculate counties' current (1986-2010) and future (2036-65 and 2086-2110) distributions of simulated 3-hourly growing season temperature, precipitation and soil moisture. Finally, we combine these variables with the fitted long-run response to obtain county-level yields under current average climate and projected future climate under our three warming scenarios. We close our presentation with a discussion of the implications for mitigation and adaptation decisions.

Global isoprene and monoterpene emissions under changing climate, vegetation, CO2 and land use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hantson, Stijn; Knorr, Wolfgang; Schurgers, Guy; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Arneth, Almut

2017-04-01

Plants emit large quantities of isoprene and monoterpenes, the main components of global biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions. BVOCs have an important impact on the atmospheric composition of methane, and of short-lived radiative forcing agents (e.g. ozone, aerosols etc.). It is therefore necessary to know how isoprene and monoterpene emissions have changed over the past and how future changes in climate, land-use and other factors will impact them. Here we present emission estimates of isoprene and monoterpenes over the period 1901-2 100 based on the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-GUESS, including the effects of all known important drivers. We find that both isoprene and monoterpene emissions at the beginning of the 20th century were higher than at present. While anthropogenic land-use change largely drives the global decreasing trend for isoprene over the 20th century, changes in natural vegetation composition caused a decreasing trend for monoterpene emissions. Future global isoprene and monoterpene emissions depend strongly on the climate and land-use scenarios considered. Over the 21st century, global isoprene emissions are simulated to either remain stable (RCP 4.5), or decrease further (RCP 8.5), with important differences depending on the underlying land-use scenario. Future monoterpene emissions are expected to continue their present decreasing trend for all scenarios, possibly stabilizing from 2050 onwards (RCP 4.5). These results demonstrate the importance to take both natural vegetation dynamics and anthropogenic changes in land-use into account when estimating past and future BVOC emissions. They also indicate that a future global increase in BVOC emissions is improbable.

Impact of land use and land cover change on the water balance of a large agricultural watershed: Historical effects and future directions

USGS Publications Warehouse

Schilling, Keith E.; Jha, Manoj K.; Zhang, You‐Kuan; Gassman, Philip W.; Wolter, Calvin F.

2009-01-01

Over the last century, land use and land cover (LULC) in the United States Corn Belt region shifted from mixed perennial and annual cropping systems to primarily annual crops. Historical LULC change impacted the annual water balance in many Midwestern basins by decreasing annual evapotranspiration (ET) and increasing streamflow and base flow. Recent expansion of the biofuel industry may lead to future LULC changes from increasing corn acreage and potential conversion of the industry to cellulosic bioenergy crops of warm or cool season grasses. In this paper, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to evaluate potential impacts from future LULC change on the annual and seasonal water balance of the Raccoon River watershed in west‐central Iowa. Three primary scenarios for LULC change and three scenario variants were evaluated, including an expansion of corn acreage in the watershed and two scenarios involving expansion of land using warm season and cool season grasses for ethanol biofuel. Modeling results were consistent with historical observations. Increased corn production will decrease annual ET and increase water yield and losses of nitrate, phosphorus, and sediment, whereas increasing perennialization will increase ET and decrease water yield and loss of nonpoint source pollutants. However, widespread tile drainage that exists today may limit the extent to which a mixed perennial‐annual land cover would ever resemble pre‐1940s hydrologic conditions. Study results indicate that future LULC change will affect the water balance of the watershed, with consequences largely dependent on the future LULC trajectory.

Environmental and economic comparisons of the satellite power system and six alternative energy technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whitfield, R. G.; Habegger, L. J.; Levine, E. P.; Tanzman, E.

1981-04-01

The satellite power system (SPS) was compared with alternative systems on life cycle cost and environmental impacts. Environmental and economic effects are evaluated and subdivided into the following issue areas: human health and safety, environmental welfare, resources (land, materials, energy, water, labor), macroeconomics, socioeconomics, and institutional. These evaluations are based on technology characterization data and alternative futures scenarios, developed as part of CDEP. The technologies and the scenarios are described. The cost and performance of the SPS and the alternative technologies provide the basis of the macroeconomic analyses.

Evaluation of ecosystem service based on scenario simulation of land use in Yunnan Province

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Hong; Liao, Xiaoli; Zhai, Tianlin

2018-04-01

Climate change and rapid urbanization are important factors restricting future land use. Situational analysis, as an important foundation for the optimization of land use, needs to focus on the impact of climate factors and socio-economic factors. In this paper, the Markov model and the DLS (Simulation of Land System Dynamics) model are combined for the first time, and the land use pattern in 2020 is simulated based on the data of land use in 2000 and 2010 as well as the climate, soil, topography and socio-economic factors of Yunnan Province. In his paper, we took Yunnan Province as the case study area, and selected 12 driving factors by logistic regression method, then the land use demands and layout of Yunnan Province in 2020 has been forecasted and simulated under business as usual (BAU) scenario and farmland protection (FP) scenario and the changes in ecosystem service value has been calculated. The result shows that: (1) after the regression analysis and ROC (Relative Operating Characteristics) test, the 12 factors selected in this paper have a strong ability to explain the land use change in Yunnan Province. (2) Under the two scenarios, the significant reduction of arable land area is a common feature of land use change in Yunnan Province in the future, and its main land use type will be construction land. However, under FP scenario, the current situation where construction land encroach on arable land will be improved. Compared with the change from 2000 to 2010, the trend of arable land, forest land, water area, construction land and unused land will be the same under the two scenarios, whereas the change trend of grassland was opposite. (3) From 2000 to 2020, the value of ecosystem services in Yunnan Province is on the rise, but the ecosystem service value under FP scenario is higher than that of the ecosystem services under BAU scenario. In general, land use in 2020 in Yunnan Province continues the pattern of 2010, but there are also significant spatial differences. Under the BAU scenario, the construction land is mainly in the south of Lijiang City and the northeastern part of Kunming. Under the FP scenario, the new construction land is concentrated near the Lashi dam in northern Yunnan Province, and the high-quality arable land in the valley will be better protected. The research results can provide reference for the optimization of land use pattern in Yunnan Province, and provide scientific basis for land use management and planning. Based on the value of ecosystem services, we should implement the policy of strict protection of arable land, both to ensure food supply and promote the healthy development of ecological environment.

Future scenarios: a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA Assessment

Treesearch

USDA Forest Service.

2012-01-01

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 (RPA) mandates a periodic assessment of the conditions and trends of the Nation's renewable resources on forests and rangelands. The RPA Assessment includes projections of resource conditions and trends 50 years into the future. The 2010 RPA Assessment used a set of future scenarios to provide a...

Future Coastal Population Growth and Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding - A Global Assessment

PubMed Central

Neumann, Barbara; Vafeidis, Athanasios T.; Zimmermann, Juliane; Nicholls, Robert J.

2015-01-01

Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales by the years 2030 and 2060. Starting from baseline population estimates for the year 2000, we assess future population change in the low-elevation coastal zone and trends in exposure to 100-year coastal floods based on four different sea-level and socio-economic scenarios. Our method accounts for differential growth of coastal areas against the land-locked hinterland and for trends of urbanisation and expansive urban growth, as currently observed, but does not explicitly consider possible displacement or out-migration due to factors such as sea-level rise. We combine spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development. Our scenarios show that the number of people living in the low-elevation coastal zone, as well as the number of people exposed to flooding from 1-in-100 year storm surge events, is highest in Asia. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam are estimated to have the highest total coastal population exposure in the baseline year and this ranking is expected to remain largely unchanged in the future. However, Africa is expected to experience the highest rates of population growth and urbanisation in the coastal zone, particularly in Egypt and sub-Saharan countries in Western and Eastern Africa. The results highlight countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential. Furthermore, we identify needs for further research and scope for improvement in this kind of scenario-based exposure analysis. PMID:25760037

Future coastal population growth and exposure to sea-level rise and coastal flooding--a global assessment.

PubMed

Neumann, Barbara; Vafeidis, Athanasios T; Zimmermann, Juliane; Nicholls, Robert J

2015-01-01

Coastal zones are exposed to a range of coastal hazards including sea-level rise with its related effects. At the same time, they are more densely populated than the hinterland and exhibit higher rates of population growth and urbanisation. As this trend is expected to continue into the future, we investigate how coastal populations will be affected by such impacts at global and regional scales by the years 2030 and 2060. Starting from baseline population estimates for the year 2000, we assess future population change in the low-elevation coastal zone and trends in exposure to 100-year coastal floods based on four different sea-level and socio-economic scenarios. Our method accounts for differential growth of coastal areas against the land-locked hinterland and for trends of urbanisation and expansive urban growth, as currently observed, but does not explicitly consider possible displacement or out-migration due to factors such as sea-level rise. We combine spatially explicit estimates of the baseline population with demographic data in order to derive scenario-driven projections of coastal population development. Our scenarios show that the number of people living in the low-elevation coastal zone, as well as the number of people exposed to flooding from 1-in-100 year storm surge events, is highest in Asia. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam are estimated to have the highest total coastal population exposure in the baseline year and this ranking is expected to remain largely unchanged in the future. However, Africa is expected to experience the highest rates of population growth and urbanisation in the coastal zone, particularly in Egypt and sub-Saharan countries in Western and Eastern Africa. The results highlight countries and regions with a high degree of exposure to coastal flooding and help identifying regions where policies and adaptive planning for building resilient coastal communities are not only desirable but essential. Furthermore, we identify needs for further research and scope for improvement in this kind of scenario-based exposure analysis.

ICT and the future of health care: aspects of health promotion.

PubMed

Haluza, Daniela; Jungwirth, David

2015-01-01

Increasingly, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications enter the daily lives of consumers. Availability of various multimedia interfaces offers the opportunity to develop and adjust ICT solutions to all aspects of society including health care. To address the challenges of the ongoing adaptive progress of ICT, decision makers profit from estimates of expectable merits and risks of future technological developments. The aim of the present study was to assess the prevailing opinions and expectations among Austrian stakeholders regarding ICT-assisted health promotion. In total, 73 experts (74% males) engaged in the Austrian health care sector participated in a biphasic online Delphi survey. Panellists were assigned to three groups representing medical professionals, patient advocates, and administrative personnel. In a scenario-based questionnaire, experts evaluated potential advantages and barriers as well as degree of innovation, desirability, and estimated date of implementation of six future ICT scenarios. Scenario-specific and consolidated overall opinions were ranked. Inter-group differences were assessed using ANOVA. Panellists expected the future ICT-supported health promotion strategies to especially improve the factors living standard (56%), quality of health care (53%), and patient's knowledge (44%). Nevertheless, monetary aspects (57%), acceptance by patient advocates (45%), and data security and privacy (27%) were considered as the three most substantial hampering factors for ICT applications. Although overall mean desirability of the scenarios was quite high (80%) amongst panellists, it was considerably lower in medical professionals compared to patient advocates and administrative personnel (p=0.006). This observation suggests a more precautious attitude of this specific interest group regarding technological innovations. The present Delphi survey identified issues relevant for successful implementation of ICT-based health care solutions, providing a compilation of several areas that might require further research. In the light of ageing societies facing the perceived threat of permanent online surveillance, different requirements and expectations of end users should be accounted for by various stakeholders. Thus, close collaboration could facilitate the harmonization process on hot health topics among interest groups. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Science for decision making: Transmitting hazard science using catastrophic scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wein, A.

2010-12-01

The ShakeOut and ARkStorm scenarios are scientifically-based, multi-disciplinary efforts to describe the damages and consequences of large, but plausible, natural disasters for use in emergency management and other planning. The ShakeOut earthquake scenario, completed in 2008, posits the occurrence of a major earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. It was used by more than 5,000 emergency personnel in a California statewide exercise, and it underpins the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Catastrophic Plan for Southern California. The ARkStorm winter storm scenario, to be completed in 2010, posits the occurrence of a statewide disaster like the storm that occurred during 1861-1862. The ARkStorm scenario will culminate with two planning summits comprised of federal and state agencies, because such an event would exceed local response and recovery capabilities. This talk will address the following questions that are critical to transmitting science for decision making with examples and observations from the two scenarios: 1) Who are the end users of the scenarios, what types of decisions can scenarios inform, and how are stakeholders engaged? 2) What forms of information and processes work best to communicate and apply the hazard science? 3) What are the challenges of using science in decision making? 4) What future directions shall we pursue? From my perspective as coordinator of economic consequences analyses for the two scenarios, I will share insights to these questions. Framing stakeholder decisions in terms of scale (e.g., household to State) and disaster phase (e.g., emergency response, recovery, and mitigation) allows us to align methods of stakeholder engagement with stakeholder decision making. For these regional-scale scenarios, the methods of engagement included stakeholder participation in project vision, scenario construction workshops, presentations, conferences, and emergency response and recovery exercises. Champions (self-motivated individuals who took on leadership roles in their communities or industrial sectors), customized and localized analyses, and workshops enhanced the use of hazard science. Examples from the two scenarios will be used to illustrate these points. We experienced several significant challenges in using science to enhance emergency management exercises and community decision making. Some of these challenges include 1) adapting scientific results to exercise format; 2) the special needs of recovery exercises, which can mimic response exercises only with limited success, because recovery is tactical while response is strategic; 3) staff turnover; and 4) limited resources. An important future direction will be to leverage our in-depth knowledge of scenarios, multi-disciplinary network, and stakeholder relations to integrate knowledge about multiple hazards to better inform risk-based decision making for all hazards.

Scenario Planning for Water Resources: a Forward-looking Approach Combining Science, Demographic Trends and Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stewart, S.; Liu, Y.; Hartmann, H.; Mahmoud, M.; Gupta, H.; Dominguez, F.; Thorsten, W.

2007-12-01

Although there has been much written about the use of scenario analysis for long-term planning, particularly with respect to the decisions facing firms, the extant literature has few examples of scenarios explicitly applied to water resource issues. Fewer still have considered short-fuse events such as floods and failure of water retention and conveyance structures in the context of longer-term scenarios for water resources planning. We report progress on an effort to develop a unified framework for constructing scenarios for water resource management. We place particular emphasis on semi-arid environments and forces external to the traditional water management process such as high-impact weather and climate events or unforeseen changes in government institutions that may drive unanticipated change in environmental systems. Most water resource scenarios are typically based on high, medium and low projections of demographics (gpcd), climate (precipitation, temperature), and perhaps institutional variables (conveyance infrastructure, legal issues). We discuss the relative merits of this with other approaches including: probabalistic scenarios, which explicitly weight the likelihood of different outcomes; anticipatory scenarios, which consider how to achieve or avoid some subjective future state; strategic scenarios, which seeks to identify the inconsistencies between disciplines in the way the environmental models are constructed

Simulating future water temperatures in the North Santiam River, Oregon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buccola, Norman L.; Risley, John C.; Rounds, Stewart A.

2016-04-01

A previously calibrated two-dimensional hydrodynamic and water-quality model (CE-QUAL-W2) of Detroit Lake in western Oregon was used in conjunction with inflows derived from Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) hydrologic models to examine in-lake and downstream water temperature effects under future climate conditions. Current and hypothetical operations and structures at Detroit Dam were imposed on boundary conditions derived from downscaled General Circulation Models in base (1990-1999) and future (2059-2068) periods. Compared with the base period, future air temperatures were about 2 °C warmer year-round. Higher air temperature and lower precipitation under the future period resulted in a 23% reduction in mean annual PRMS-simulated discharge and a 1 °C increase in mean annual estimated stream temperatures flowing into the lake compared to the base period. Simulations incorporating current operational rules and minimum release rates at Detroit Dam to support downstream habitat, irrigation, and water supply during key times of year resulted in lower future lake levels. That scenario results in a lake level that is above the dam's spillway crest only about half as many days in the future compared to historical frequencies. Managing temperature downstream of Detroit Dam depends on the ability to blend warmer water from the lake's surface with cooler water from deep in the lake, and the spillway is an important release point near the lake's surface. Annual average in-lake and release temperatures from Detroit Lake warmed 1.1 °C and 1.5 °C from base to future periods under present-day dam operational rules and fill schedules. Simulated dam operations such as beginning refill of the lake 30 days earlier or reducing minimum release rates (to keep more water in the lake to retain the use of the spillway) mitigated future warming to 0.4 and 0.9 °C below existing operational scenarios during the critical autumn spawning period for endangered salmonids. A hypothetical floating surface withdrawal at Detroit Dam improved temperature control in summer and autumn (0.6 °C warmer in summer, 0.6 °C cooler in autumn compared to existing structures) without altering release rates or lake level management rules.

Ecological niche modeling of coastal dune plants and future potential distribution in response to climate change and sea level rise.

PubMed

Mendoza-González, Gabriela; Martínez, M Luisa; Rojas-Soto, Octavio R; Vázquez, Gabriela; Gallego-Fernández, Juan B

2013-08-01

Climate change (CC) and sea level rise (SLR) are phenomena that could have severe impacts on the distribution of coastal dune vegetation. To explore this we modeled the climatic niches of six coastal dunes plant species that grow along the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, and projected climatic niches to future potential distributions based on two CC scenarios and SLR projections. Our analyses suggest that distribution of coastal plants will be severely limited, and more so in the case of local endemics (Chamaecrista chamaecristoides, Palafoxia lindenii, Cakile edentula). The possibilities of inland migration to the potential 'new shoreline' will be limited by human infrastructure and ecosystem alteration that will lead to a 'coastal squeeze' of the coastal habitats. Finally, we identified areas as future potential refuges for the six species in central Gulf of Mexico, and northern Yucatán Peninsula especially under CC and SLR scenarios. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Assessing the impacts of future climate conditions on the effectiveness of winter cover crops in reducing nitrate loads into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed using SWAT model

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lee, Sangchul; Sadeghi, Ali M.; Yeo, In-Young; McCarty, Gregory W.; Hively, W. Dean

2017-01-01

Winter cover crops (WCCs) have been widely implemented in the Coastal Plain of the Chesapeake Bay watershed (CBW) due to their high effectiveness at reducing nitrate loads. However, future climate conditions (FCCs) are expected to exacerbate water quality degradation in the CBW by increasing nitrate loads from agriculture. Accordingly, the question remains whether WCCs are sufficient to mitigate increased nutrient loads caused by FCCs. In this study, we assessed the impacts of FCCs on WCC nitrate reduction efficiency on the Coastal Plain of the CBW using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. Three FCC scenarios (2085 – 2098) were prepared using General Circulation Models (GCMs), considering three Intergovernmnental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) greenhouse gas emission scenarios. We also developed six representative WCC implementation scenarios based on the most commonly used planting dates and species of WCCs in this region. Simulation results showed that WCC biomass increased by ~ 58 % under FCC scenarios, due to climate conditions conducive to the WCC growth. Prior to implementing WCCs, annual nitrate loads increased by ~ 43 % under FCC scenarios compared to the baseline scenario (2001 – 2014). When WCCs were planted, annual nitrate loads were substantially reduced by ~ 48 % and WCC nitrate reduction efficiency water ~ 5 % higher under FCC scenarios relative to the baseline. The increase rate of WCC nitrate reduction efficiency varied by FCC scenarios and WCC planting methods. As CO2 concentration was higher and winters were warmer under FCC scenarios, WCCs had greater biomass and therefore showed higher nitrate reduction efficiency. In response to FCC scenarios, the performance of less effective WCC practices (e.g., barley, wheat, and late planting) under the baseline indicated ~ 14 % higher increase rate of nitrate reduction efficiency compared to ones with better effectiveness under the baseline (e.g., rye and early planting), due to warmer temperatures. According to simulation results, WCCs were effective to mitigate nitrate loads accelerated by FCCs and therefore the role of WCCs in mitigating nitrate loads is even more important in the given FCCs.

Global Futures: The Emerging Scenario.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seth, Satish C.

1983-01-01

Acknowledging global interdependence, especially in economics, may be the most important step toward resolving international conflicts. Describes seven major global dangers and gives scenarios for exploring likely global futures. As "tools of prescription" these global models are inadequate, but as "tools of analysis" they have…

Control Strategy Tool (CoST)

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The EPA Control Strategy Tool (CoST) is a software tool for projecting potential future control scenarios, their effects on emissions and estimated costs. This tool uses the NEI and the Control Measures Dataset as key inputs. CoST outputs are projections of future control scenarios.

Future road salt use in Switzerland: an example of an effective climate service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zubler, Elias M.; Fischer, Andreas M.; Schlegel, Thomas H.; Liniger, Mark A.

2015-04-01

The application of salt is the predominant measure taken to enhance road safety in Switzerland by clearing the roads from snow or preventing frozen surfaces during winter. The need for road salt exhibits a strong interannual variability, according to Schweizer Salinen AG - the Swiss monopolist for production and distribution of road salt. These fluctuations are to a large extent a direct consequence of the year-to-year variability in winter climate. In the course of the 21st century, Swiss climate is projected to depart significantly from present and past conditions. By the end of the century, winter temperatures over Switzerland are expected to rise by about 2-4°C relative to the mean over the period 1980-2009, while winter precipitation may either increase or decrease based on ENSEMBLES regional climate model projections under the SRES-scenario A1B. Faced with these changes, Schweizer Salinen AG asked for an estimate of the expected future road salt use for designing their long-term business strategy. The study is based on climate change projections from the CH2011 initiative and later extensions thereof as well as monthly sales data of road salt from Schweizer Salinen AG. For the period 1997-2013, a linear relationship was derived between the average number of days with snowfall and the road salt amount sold over "saltation years" defined from October 1st to September 30th in the 26 cantons (provinces) of Switzerland. The ad-hoc linear relationship was applied to the climate change projections to obtain future salt use information in three future periods for the greenhouse gas emission scenarios A1B, A2 and RCP3PD. We find that the expected future salt use is likely to be reduced by about 50% in 2045-2074 under the scenario A1B. Currently, the countrywide mean annual road salt use corresponds to about 220'000 tons. In a particularly snow-rich year, the company sells up to 400'000 tons. At the end of the century, following a pessimistic scenario such as A1B or A2, the long-term mean salt use may even drop below today's annual minimum of 70'000 tons.

Adaptive constructive processes and memory accuracy: Consequences of counterfactual simulations in young and older adults

PubMed Central

Gerlach, Kathy D.; Dornblaser, David W.; Schacter, Daniel L.

2013-01-01

People frequently engage in counterfactual thinking: mental simulations of alternative outcomes to past events. Like simulations of future events, counterfactual simulations serve adaptive functions. However, future simulation can also result in various kinds of distortions and has thus been characterized as an adaptive constructive process. Here we approach counterfactual thinking as such and examine whether it can distort memory for actual events. In Experiments 1a/b, young and older adults imagined themselves experiencing different scenarios. Participants then imagined the same scenario again, engaged in no further simulation of a scenario, or imagined a counterfactual outcome. On a subsequent recognition test, participants were more likely to make false alarms to counterfactual lures than novel scenarios. Older adults were more prone to these memory errors than younger adults. In Experiment 2, younger and older participants selected and performed different actions, then recalled performing some of those actions, imagined performing alternative actions to some of the selected actions, and did not imagine others. Participants, especially older adults, were more likely to falsely remember counterfactual actions than novel actions as previously performed. The findings suggest that counterfactual thinking can cause source confusion based on internally generated misinformation, consistent with its characterization as an adaptive constructive process. PMID:23560477

Exploring climate change vulnerability across sectors and scenarios using indicators of impacts and coping capacity.

PubMed

Dunford, R; Harrison, P A; Jäger, J; Rounsevell, M D A; Tinch, R

Addressing climate change vulnerability requires an understanding of both the level of climate impacts and the capacity of the exposed population to cope. This study developed a methodology for allowing users to explore vulnerability to changes in ecosystem services as a result of climatic and socio-economic changes. It focuses on the vulnerability of Europe across multiple sectors by combining the outputs of a regional integrated assessment (IA) model, the CLIMSAVE IA Platform, with maps of coping capacity based on the five capitals approach. The presented methodology enables stakeholder-derived socio-economic futures to be represented within a quantitative integrated modelling framework in a way that changes spatially and temporally with the socio-economic storyline. Vulnerability was mapped for six key ecosystem services in 40 combined climate and socio-economic scenarios. The analysis shows that, whilst the north and west of Europe are generally better placed to cope with climate impacts than the south and east, coping could be improved in all areas. Furthermore, whilst the lack of coping capacity in dystopian scenarios often leads to greater vulnerability, there are complex interactions between sectors that lead to patterns of vulnerability that vary spatially, with scenario and by sector even within the more utopian futures.

Adaptive constructive processes and memory accuracy: consequences of counterfactual simulations in young and older adults.

PubMed

Gerlach, Kathy D; Dornblaser, David W; Schacter, Daniel L

2014-01-01

People frequently engage in counterfactual thinking: mental simulations of alternative outcomes to past events. Like simulations of future events, counterfactual simulations serve adaptive functions. However, future simulation can also result in various kinds of distortions and has thus been characterised as an adaptive constructive process. Here we approach counterfactual thinking as such and examine whether it can distort memory for actual events. In Experiments 1a/b young and older adults imagined themselves experiencing different scenarios. Participants then imagined the same scenario again, engaged in no further simulation of a scenario, or imagined a counterfactual outcome. On a subsequent recognition test participants were more likely to make false alarms to counterfactual lures than novel scenarios. Older adults were more prone to these memory errors than younger adults. In Experiment 2 younger and older participants selected and performed different actions, then recalled performing some of those actions, imagined performing alternative actions to some of the selected actions, and did not imagine others. Participants, especially older adults, were more likely to falsely remember counterfactual actions than novel actions as previously performed. The findings suggest that counterfactual thinking can cause source confusion based on internally generated misinformation, consistent with its characterisation as an adaptive constructive process.

Study of the triton-burnup process in different JET scenarios using neutron monitor based on CVD diamond

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nemtsev, G., E-mail: g.nemtsev@iterrf.ru; Amosov, V.; Meshchaninov, S.

We present the results of analysis of triton burn-up process using the data from diamond detector. Neutron monitor based on CVD diamond was installed in JET torus hall close to the plasma center. We measure the part of 14 MeV neutrons in scenarios where plasma current varies in a range of 1-3 MA. In this experiment diamond neutron monitor was also able to detect strong gamma bursts produced by runaway electrons arising during the disruptions. We can conclude that CVD diamond detector will contribute to the study of fast particles confinement and help predict the disruption events in future tokamaks.

Trade-Off Analysis Report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dhas, Chris

2000-01-01

NASAs Glenn Research Center (GRC) defines and develops advanced technology for high priority national needs in communications technologies for application to aeronautics and space. GRC tasked Computer Networks and Software Inc. (CNS) to examine protocols and architectures for an In-Space Internet Node. CNS has developed a methodology for network reference models to support NASAs four mission areas: Earth Science, Space Science, Human Exploration and Development of Space (REDS), Aerospace Technology. CNS previously developed a report which applied the methodology, to three space Internet-based communications scenarios for future missions. CNS conceptualized, designed, and developed space Internet-based communications protocols and architectures for each of the independent scenarios. GRC selected for further analysis the scenario that involved unicast communications between a Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) International Space Station (ISS) and a ground terminal Internet node via a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) transfer. This report contains a tradeoff analysis on the selected scenario. The analysis examines the performance characteristics of the various protocols and architectures. The tradeoff analysis incorporates the results of a CNS developed analytical model that examined performance parameters.

Modelling the impact of future socio-economic and climate change scenarios on river microbial water quality.

PubMed

Islam, M M Majedul; Iqbal, Muhammad Shahid; Leemans, Rik; Hofstra, Nynke

2018-03-01

Microbial surface water quality is important, as it is related to health risk when the population is exposed through drinking, recreation or consumption of irrigated vegetables. The microbial surface water quality is expected to change with socio-economic development and climate change. This study explores the combined impacts of future socio-economic and climate change scenarios on microbial water quality using a coupled hydrodynamic and water quality model (MIKE21FM-ECOLab). The model was applied to simulate the baseline (2014-2015) and future (2040s and 2090s) faecal indicator bacteria (FIB: E. coli and enterococci) concentrations in the Betna river in Bangladesh. The scenarios comprise changes in socio-economic variables (e.g. population, urbanization, land use, sanitation and sewage treatment) and climate variables (temperature, precipitation and sea-level rise). Scenarios have been developed building on the most recent Shared Socio-economic Pathways: SSP1 and SSP3 and Representative Concentration Pathways: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in a matrix. An uncontrolled future results in a deterioration of the microbial water quality (+75% by the 2090s) due to socio-economic changes, such as higher population growth, and changes in rainfall patterns. However, microbial water quality improves under a sustainable scenario with improved sewage treatment (-98% by the 2090s). Contaminant loads were more influenced by changes in socio-economic factors than by climatic change. To our knowledge, this is the first study that combines climate change and socio-economic development scenarios to simulate the future microbial water quality of a river. This approach can also be used to assess future consequences for health risks. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier GmbH.. All rights reserved.

Scenarios of land use and land cover change in the conterminous United States: Utilizing the special report on emission scenarios at ecoregional scales

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Sohl, Terry L.; Bouchard, Michelle A.; Reker, Ryan R.; Soulard, Christopher E.; Acevedo, William; Griffith, Glenn E.; Sleeter, Rachel R.; Auch, Roger F.; Sayler, Kristi L.; Prisley, Stephen; Zhu, Zhi-Liang

2012-01-01

Global environmental change scenarios have typically provided projections of land use and land cover for a relatively small number of regions or using a relatively coarse resolution spatial grid, and for only a few major sectors. The coarseness of global projections, in both spatial and thematic dimensions, often limits their direct utility at scales useful for environmental management. This paper describes methods to downscale projections of land-use and land-cover change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission Scenarios to ecological regions of the conterminous United States, using an integrated assessment model, land-use histories, and expert knowledge. Downscaled projections span a wide range of future potential conditions across sixteen land use/land cover sectors and 84 ecological regions, and are logically consistent with both historical measurements and SRES characteristics. Results appear to provide a credible solution for connecting regionalized projections of land use and land cover with existing downscaled climate scenarios, under a common set of scenario-based socioeconomic assumptions.

Multi objective climate change impact assessment using multi downscaled climate scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rana, Arun; Moradkhani, Hamid

2016-04-01

Global Climate Models (GCMs) are often used to downscale the climatic parameters on a regional and global scale. In the present study, we have analyzed the changes in precipitation and temperature for future scenario period of 2070-2099 with respect to historical period of 1970-2000 from a set of statistically downscaled GCM projections for Columbia River Basin (CRB). Analysis is performed using 2 different statistically downscaled climate projections namely the Bias Correction and Spatial Downscaling (BCSD) technique generated at Portland State University and the Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogs (MACA) technique, generated at University of Idaho, totaling to 40 different scenarios. Analysis is performed on spatial, temporal and frequency based parameters in the future period at a scale of 1/16th of degree for entire CRB region. Results have indicated in varied degree of spatial change pattern for the entire Columbia River Basin, especially western part of the basin. At temporal scales, winter precipitation has higher variability than summer and vice-versa for temperature. Frequency analysis provided insights into possible explanation to changes in precipitation.

Application of synthetic scenarios to address water resource concerns: A management-guided case study from the Upper Colorado River Basin

USGS Publications Warehouse

McAfee, Stephanie A.; Pederson, Gregory T.; Woodhouse, Connie A.; McCabe, Gregory

2017-01-01

Water managers are increasingly interested in better understanding and planning for projected resource impacts from climate change. In this management-guided study, we use a very large suite of synthetic climate scenarios in a statistical modeling framework to simultaneously evaluate how (1) average temperature and precipitation changes, (2) initial basin conditions, and (3) temporal characteristics of the input climate data influence water-year flow in the Upper Colorado River. The results here suggest that existing studies may underestimate the degree of uncertainty in future streamflow, particularly under moderate temperature and precipitation changes. However, we also find that the relative severity of future flow projections within a given climate scenario can be estimated with simple metrics that characterize the input climate data and basin conditions. These results suggest that simple testing, like the analyses presented in this paper, may be helpful in understanding differences between existing studies or in identifying specific conditions for physically based mechanistic modeling. Both options could reduce overall cost and improve the efficiency of conducting climate change impacts studies.

Potential for Jobs and Economic Development from Offshore Wind in California

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tegen, Suzanne

In California's future scenarios, energy demand increases with population growth and productivity. Decision-makers will have to make choices about which energy resources to utilize, and offshore wind offers one option for carbon-free electricity with the potential for increased local jobs. This presentation discusses results from an NREL report, Floating Offshore Wind in California: Gross Potential for Jobs and Economic Impacts from Two Future Scenarios. Presenter Suzanne Tegen describes the Jobs and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) model and its results for two offshore wind scenarios in California. She discusses different assumptions and how they affect the scenarios.

Integrating volcanic hazard data in a systematic approach to develop volcanic hazard maps in the Lesser Antilles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindsay, Jan M.; Robertson, Richard E. A.

2018-04-01

We report on the process of generating the first suite of integrated volcanic hazard zonation maps for the islands of Dominica, Grenada (including Kick 'em Jenny and Ronde/Caille), Nevis, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts, Saint Lucia and St Vincent in the Lesser Antilles. We developed a systematic approach that accommodated the range in prior knowledge of the volcanoes in the region. A first-order hazard assessment for each island was used to develop one or more scenario(s) of likely future activity, for which scenario-based hazard maps were generated. For the most-likely scenario on each island we also produced a poster-sized integrated volcanic hazard zonation map, which combined the individual hazardous phenomena depicted in the scenario-based hazard maps into integrated hazard zones. We document the philosophy behind the generation of this suite of maps, and the method by which hazard information was combined to create integrated hazard zonation maps, and illustrate our approach through a case study of St. Vincent. We also outline some of the challenges we faced using this approach, and the lessons we have learned by observing how stakeholders have interacted with the maps over the past 10 years. Based on our experience, we recommend that future map makers involve stakeholders in the entire map generation process, especially when making design choices such as type of base map, use of colour and gradational boundaries, and indeed what to depict on the map. We also recommend careful consideration of how to evaluate and depict offshore hazard of island volcanoes, and recommend computer-assisted modelling of all phenomena to generate more realistic hazard footprints. Finally, although our systematic approach to integrating individual hazard data into zones generally worked well, we suggest that a better approach might be to treat the integration of hazards on a case-by-case basis to ensure the final product meets map users' needs. We hope that the documentation of our experience might be useful for other map makers to take into account when creating new or updating existing maps.

Olive cultivars adaptability in Southern Italy in present and future climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riccardi, M.; Alfieri, S.; Bonfante, A.; Basile, A.; Di Tommasi, P.; Menenti, M.; De Lorenzi, F.

2012-04-01

The intra-specific biodiversity of agricultural crops is very significant and likely to provide the single major opportunity to cope with the effects of the changing climate on agricultural ecosystems. Assessment of adaptive capacity must rely on quantitative descriptions of plant responses to environmental factors (e.g. soil water availability, temperature). Moreover climate scenario needs to be downscaled to the spatial scale relevant to crop and farm management. Distributed models of crop response to environmental forcing might be used for this purpose, but severely constrained by the very scarce knowledge on variety-specific values of model parameters, thus limiting the potential exploitation of intra-specific biodiversity towards adaptation. We have developed an approach towards this objective that relies on two complementary elements: a)a distributed model of the soil plant atmosphere system to downscale climate scenarios to landscape units, where generic model parameters for each species are used; b)a data base on climatic requirements of as many varieties as feasible for each species relevant to the agricultural production system of a given region. By means of this approach, the adaptability of some olive cultivars was evaluated in a composite (hills and plains) area of Southern Italy (Valle Telesina, Campania Region, about 20.000 ha). The yearly average temperature is 22.5 °C and rainfall ranges between 600 and 900 mm. Two different climate scenarios were considered: current climate (1961-1990) and future climate (2021-2050). Future climate scenarios at low spatial resolution were generated with general circulation models (AOGCM) and down-scaled by means of a statistical model (Tomozeiu et al., 2007). The climate was represented by daily observations of minimum, maximum temperature and precipitation on a regular grid with a spatial resolution of 35 km; 50 realizations were used for future climate. The soil water regime of 45 soil units was described for the two climate scenarios by using an hydrological distributed model (SWAP). For 11 olive cultivars, the yield response function to soil water regime was determined through the re-analysis of experimental data (unpublished or derived from scientific literature). According to these responses, cultivar-specific threshold values of soil water (or evapotranspiration) deficit were defined. The soil water regime calculated by the distributed model was compared with the threshold values to identify cultivars compatible with present and expected climates. The operation is repeated for a set of realizations of each climate scenario. This analysis is performed in a distributed manner, i.e. using the time series for each model grid to assess possible variations in the extent and spatial distribution of cultivated area of olive cultivars. In the study area future climate scenarios predict an increase of monthly minimum and maximum air temperature of about 2°C during the summer (June, July and August) and a reduction of rainfall in autumn. Spatial pattern of cultivars distribution, according their threshold values and soil water regime, was determined in the present and future climate scenarios, thus assessing variations in cultivars adaptability to future climate with respect to the present. Key words: climate change, biodiversity, water availability, yield response. The work was carried out within the Italian national project AGROSCENARI funded by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies (MIPAAF, D.M. 8608/7303/2008).

Application of Inverse Modeling to Estimate Groundwater Recharge under Future Climate Scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akbariyeh, S.; Wang, T.; Bartelt-Hunt, S.; Li, Y.

2016-12-01

Climate variability and change will impose profound influences on groundwater systems. Accurate estimation of groundwater recharge is extremely important for predicting the flow and contaminant transport in the subsurface, which, however, remains as one of the most challenging tasks in the field of hydrology. Using an inverse modeling technique and HYDRUS 1D software, we predicted the spatial distribution of groundwater recharge across the Upper Platte basin in Nebraska, USA, based on 5-year projected future climate and soil moisture data (2057-2060). The climate data was obtained from Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model under RCP 8.5 scenario, which was downscaled from global CCSM4 model to a resolution of 24 by 24 km2. Precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, and soil moisture data were extracted from 76 grids located within the Upper Platte basin to perform the inverse modeling. Hargreaves equation was used to calculate the potential evapotranspiration according to latitude, maximum and minimum temperature, and leaf area index (LAI) data at each node. Van-Genuchten parameters were optimized using the inverse algorithm to minimize the error between input and modeled soil moisture data. The groundwater recharge was calculated as the amount of water that passed the lower boundary of the best fitted model. The year of 2057 was used as a spin-up period to minimize the impact of initial conditions. The model was calibrated for years 2058 to 2059 and validation was performed for 2060. This work demonstrates an efficient approach to estimating groundwater recharge based on climate modeling results, which will aid groundwater resources management under future climate scenarios.

Land use planning and wildfire: development policies influence future probability of housing loss

USGS Publications Warehouse

Syphard, Alexandra D.; Massada, Avi Bar; Butsic, Van; Keeley, Jon E.

2013-01-01

Increasing numbers of homes are being destroyed by wildfire in the wildland-urban interface. With projections of climate change and housing growth potentially exacerbating the threat of wildfire to homes and property, effective fire-risk reduction alternatives are needed as part of a comprehensive fire management plan. Land use planning represents a shift in traditional thinking from trying to eliminate wildfires, or even increasing resilience to them, toward avoiding exposure to them through the informed placement of new residential structures. For land use planning to be effective, it needs to be based on solid understanding of where and how to locate and arrange new homes. We simulated three scenarios of future residential development and projected landscape-level wildfire risk to residential structures in a rapidly urbanizing, fire-prone region in southern California. We based all future development on an econometric subdivision model, but we varied the emphasis of subdivision decision-making based on three broad and common growth types: infill, expansion, and leapfrog. Simulation results showed that decision-making based on these growth types, when applied locally for subdivision of individual parcels, produced substantial landscape-level differences in pattern, location, and extent of development. These differences in development, in turn, affected the area and proportion of structures at risk from burning in wildfires. Scenarios with lower housing density and larger numbers of small, isolated clusters of development, i.e., resulting from leapfrog development, were generally predicted to have the highest predicted fire risk to the largest proportion of structures in the study area, and infill development was predicted to have the lowest risk. These results suggest that land use planning should be considered an important component to fire risk management and that consistently applied policies based on residential pattern may provide substantial benefits for future risk reduction.

Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis of Impacts of Future Heat Waves on Mortality in the Eastern United States

PubMed Central

Wu, Jianyong; Zhou, Ying; Gao, Yang; Fu, Joshua S.; Johnson, Brent A.; Huang, Cheng; Kim, Young-Min

2013-01-01

Background: Climate change is anticipated to influence heat-related mortality in the future. However, estimates of excess mortality attributable to future heat waves are subject to large uncertainties and have not been projected under the latest greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Objectives: We estimated future heat wave mortality in the eastern United States (approximately 1,700 counties) under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and investigated sources of uncertainty. Methods: Using dynamically downscaled hourly temperature projections for 2057–2059, we projected heat wave days that were defined using four heat wave metrics and estimated the excess mortality attributable to them. We apportioned the sources of uncertainty in excess mortality estimates using a variance-decomposition method. Results: Estimates suggest that excess mortality attributable to heat waves in the eastern United States would result in 200–7,807 deaths/year (mean 2,379 deaths/year) in 2057–2059. Average excess mortality projections under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios were 1,403 and 3,556 deaths/year, respectively. Excess mortality would be relatively high in the southern states and eastern coastal areas (excluding Maine). The major sources of uncertainty were the relative risk estimates for mortality on heat wave versus non–heat wave days, the RCP scenarios, and the heat wave definitions. Conclusions: Mortality risks from future heat waves may be an order of magnitude higher than the mortality risks reported in 2002–2004, with thousands of heat wave–related deaths per year in the study area projected under the RCP8.5 scenario. Substantial spatial variability in county-level heat mortality estimates suggests that effective mitigation and adaptation measures should be developed based on spatially resolved data. Citation: Wu J, Zhou Y, Gao Y, Fu JS, Johnson BA, Huang C, Kim YM, Liu Y. 2014. Estimation and uncertainty analysis of impacts of future heat waves on mortality in the eastern United States. Environ Health Perspect 122:10–16; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1306670 PMID:24192064

LONG-TERM GLOBAL WATER USE PROJECTIONS USING SIX SOCIOECONOMIC SCENARIOS IN AN INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT MODELING FRAMEWORK

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hejazi, Mohamad I.; Edmonds, James A.; Clarke, Leon E.

2014-01-19

In this paper, we assess future water demands for the agricultural (irrigation and livestock), energy (electricity generation, primary energy production and processing), industrial (manufacturing and mining), and municipal sectors, by incorporating water demands into a technologically-detailed global integrated assessment model of energy, agriculture, and climate change – the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM). Base-year water demands—both gross withdrawals and net consumptive use—are assigned to specific modeled activities in a way that maximizes consistency between bottom-up estimates of water demand intensities of specific technologies and practices, and top-down regional and sectoral estimates of water use. The energy, industrial, and municipal sectorsmore » are represented in fourteen geopolitical regions, with the agricultural sector further disaggregated into as many as eighteen agro-ecological zones (AEZs) within each region. We assess future water demands representing six socioeconomic scenarios, with no constraints imposed by future water supplies. The scenarios observe increases in global water withdrawals from 3,578 km3 year-1 in 2005 to 5,987 – 8,374 km3 year-1 in 2050, and to 4,719 – 12,290 km3 year-1 in 2095. Comparing the projected total regional water withdrawals to the historical supply of renewable freshwater, the Middle East exhibits the highest levels of water scarcity throughout the century, followed by India; water scarcity increases over time in both of these regions. In contrast, water scarcity improves in some regions with large base-year electric sector withdrawals, such as the USA and Canada, due to capital stock turnover and the almost complete phase-out of once-through flow cooling systems. The scenarios indicate that: 1) water is likely a limiting factor in climate change mitigation policies, 2) many regions can be expected to increase reliance on non-renewable groundwater, water reuse, and desalinated water, but they also highlight an important role for development and deployment of water conservation technologies and practices.« less

Ship accessibility predictions for the Arctic Ocean based on IPCC CO2 emission scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oh, Jai-Ho; Woo, Sumin; Yang, Sin-Il

2017-02-01

Changes in the extent of Arctic sea ice, which have resulted from climate change, offer new opportunities to use the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and Northwest Passage (NWP) for shipping. However, choosing to navigate the Arctic Ocean remains challenging due to the limited accessibility of ships and the balance between economic gain and potential risk. As a result, more precise and detailed information on both weather and sea ice change in the Arctic are required. In this study, a high-resolution global AGCM was used to provide detailed information on the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice. For this simulation, we have simulated the AMIP-type simulation for the present-day climate during 31 years from 1979 to 2009 with observed SST and Sea Ice concentration. For the future climate projection, we have performed the historical climate during 1979-2005 and subsequently the future climate projection during 2010-2099 with mean of four CMIP5 models due to the two Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCP 8.5 and RCP 4.5). First, the AMIP-type simulation was evaluated by comparison with observations from the Hadley Centre sea-ice and Sea Surface Temperature (HadlSST) dataset. The model reflects the maximum (in March) and minimum (in September) sea ice extent and annual cycle. Based on this validation, the future sea ice extents show the decreasing trend for both the maximum and minimum seasons and RCP 8.5 shows more sharply decreasing patterns of sea ice than RCP 4.5. Under both scenarios, ships classified as Polar Class (PC) 3 and Open-Water (OW) were predicted to have the largest and smallest number of ship-accessible days (in any given year) for the NSR and NWP, respectively. Based on the RCP 8.5 scenario, the projections suggest that after 2070, PC3 and PC6 vessels will have year-round access across to the Arctic Ocean. In contrast, OW vessels will continue to have a seasonal handicap, inhibiting their ability to pass through the NSR and NWP.

Quantifying the consequences of changing hydroclimatic extremes on protection levels for the Rhine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sperna Weiland, Frederiek; Hegnauer, Mark; Buiteveld, Hendrik; Lammersen, Rita; van den Boogaard, Henk; Beersma, Jules

2017-04-01

The Dutch method for quantifying the magnitude and frequency of occurrence of discharge extremes in the Rhine basin and the potential influence of climate change hereon are presented. In the Netherlands flood protection design requires estimates of discharge extremes for return periods of 1000 up to 100,000 years. Observed discharge records are too short to derive such extreme return discharges, therefore extreme value assessment is based on very long synthetic discharge time-series generated with the Generator of Rainfall And Discharge Extremes (GRADE). The GRADE instrument consists of (1) a stochastic weather generator based on time series resampling of historical f rainfall and temperature and (2) a hydrological model optimized following the GLUE methodology and (3) a hydrodynamic model to simulate the propagation of flood waves based on the generated hydrological time-series. To assess the potential influence of climate change, the four KNMI'14 climate scenarios are applied. These four scenarios represent a large part of the uncertainty provided by the GCMs used for the IPCC 5th assessment report (the CMIP5 GCM simulations under different climate forcings) and are for this purpose tailored to the Rhine and Meuse river basins. To derive the probability distributions of extreme discharges under climate change the historical synthetic rainfall and temperature series simulated with the weather generator are transformed to the future following the KNMI'14 scenarios. For this transformation the Advanced Delta Change method, which allows that the changes in the extremes differ from those in the means, is used. Subsequently the hydrological model is forced with the historical and future (i.e. transformed) synthetic time-series after which the propagation of the flood waves is simulated with the hydrodynamic model to obtain the extreme discharge statistics both for current and future climate conditions. The study shows that both for 2050 and 2085 increases in discharge extremes for the river Rhine at Lobith are projected by all four KNMI'14 climate scenarios. This poses increased requirements for flood protection design in order to prepare for changing climate conditions.

European drought under climate change and an assessment of the uncertainties in projections

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, R. M. S.; Osborn, T.; Conway, D.; Warren, R.; Hankin, R.

2012-04-01

Extreme weather/climate events have significant environmental and societal impacts, and anthropogenic climate change has and will continue to alter their characteristics (IPCC, 2011). Drought is one of the most damaging natural hazards through its effects on agricultural, hydrological, ecological and socio-economic systems. Climate change is stimulating demand, from public and private sector decision-makers and also other stakeholders, for better understanding of potential future drought patterns which could facilitate disaster risk management. There remain considerable levels of uncertainty in climate change projections, particularly in relation to extreme events. Our incomplete understanding of the behaviour of the climate system has led to the development of various emission scenarios, carbon cycle models and global climate models (GCMs). Uncertainties arise also from the different types and definitions of drought. This study examines climate change-induced changes in European drought characteristics, and illustrates the robustness of these projections by quantifying the effects of using different emission scenarios, carbon cycle models and GCMs. This is achieved by using the multi-institutional modular "Community Integrated Assessment System (CIAS)" (Warren et al., 2008), a flexible integrated assessment system for modelling climate change. Simulations generated by the simple climate model MAGICC6.0 are assessed. These include ten C4MIP carbon cycle models and eighteen CMIP3 GCMs under five IPCC SRES emission scenarios, four Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, and three mitigation scenarios with CO2-equivalent levels stabilising at 550 ppm, 500 ppm and 450 ppm. Using an ensemble of 2160 future precipitation scenarios, we present an analysis on both short (3-month) and long (12-month) meteorological droughts based on the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) for the baseline period (1951-2000) and two future periods of 2001-2050 and 2051-2100. Results indicate, with the exception of high latitude regions, a marked increase in drought condition across Europe especially in the second half of 21st century. Patterns, however, vary substantially depending on the model, emission scenario, region and season. While the variance introduced by choice of carbon cycle model is of minor importance, contribution of emission scenario becomes more important in the second half of the century; nevertheless, GCM uncertainty remains the dominant source throughout the 21st century and across all regions.

Water-Energy Nexus Challenges & Opportunities in the Arabian Peninsula under Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flores-Lopez, F.; Yates, D. N.; Galaitsi, S.; Binnington, T.; Dougherty, W.; Vinnaccia, M.; Glavan, J. C.

2016-12-01

Demand for water in the GCC countries relies mainly on fossil groundwater resources and desalination. Satisfying water demand requires a great deal of energy as it treats and moves water along the supply chain from sources, through treatment processes, and ultimately to the consumer. Hence, there is an inherent connection between water and energy and with climate change, the links between water and energy are expected to become even stronger. As part of AGEDI's Local, National, and Regional Climate Change Programme, a study of the water-energy nexus of the countries in the Arabian Peninsula was implemented. For water, WEAP models both water demand - and its main drivers - and water supply, simulating policies, priorities and preferences. For energy, LEAP models both energy supply and demand, and is able to capture the impacts of low carbon development strategies. A coupled WEAP-LEAP model was then used to evaluate the future performance of the energy-water system under climate change and policy scenarios. The coupled models required detailed data, which were obtained through literature reviews and consultations with key stakeholders in the region. As part of this process, the outputs of both models were validated for historic periods using existing data The models examined 5 policy scenarios of different futures of resource management to the year 2060. A future under current management practices with current climate and a climate projection based on the RCP8.5; a High Efficiency scenario where each country gradually implements policies to reduce the consumption of water and electricity; a Natural Resource Protection scenario with resource efficiency and phasing out of groundwater extraction and drastic reduction of fossil fuel usage in favor of solar; and an Integrated Policy scenario that integrates the prior two policy scenarios Water demands can mostly be met in any scenario through supply combinations of groundwater, desalination and wastewater reuse, with some regional fossil groundwater basins draw to extinction by 2060. While the analysis includes both demand and supply oriented scenarios, the results of the analysis strongly suggest that the region will need to simultaneously purse demand and supply side policies to achieve more sustainable uses of water and energy into the second half of the 21st century.

Simulation of Regionally Ecological Land Based on a Cellular Automation Model: A Case Study of Beijing, China

PubMed Central

Xie, Hualin; Kung, Chih-Chun; Zhang, Yanting; Li, Xiubin

2012-01-01

Ecological land is like the “liver” of a city and is very useful to public health. Ecological land change is a spatially dynamic non-linear process under the interaction between natural and anthropogenic factors at different scales. In this study, by setting up natural development scenario, object orientation scenario and ecosystem priority scenario, a Cellular Automation (CA) model has been established to simulate the evolution pattern of ecological land in Beijing in the year 2020. Under the natural development scenario, most of ecological land will be replaced by construction land and crop land. But under the scenarios of object orientation and ecosystem priority, the ecological land area will increase, especially under the scenario of ecosystem priority. When considering the factors such as total area of ecological land, loss of key ecological land and spatial patterns of land use, the scenarios from priority to inferiority are ecosystem priority, object orientation and natural development, so future land management policies in Beijing should be focused on conversion of cropland to forest, wetland protection and prohibition of exploitation of natural protection zones, water source areas and forest parks to maintain the safety of the regional ecosystem. PMID:23066410

Simulation of regionally ecological land based on a cellular automation model: a case study of Beijing, China.

PubMed

Xie, Hualin; Kung, Chih-Chun; Zhang, Yanting; Li, Xiubin

2012-08-01

Ecological land is like the "liver" of a city and is very useful to public health. Ecological land change is a spatially dynamic non-linear process under the interaction between natural and anthropogenic factors at different scales. In this study, by setting up natural development scenario, object orientation scenario and ecosystem priority scenario, a Cellular Automation (CA) model has been established to simulate the evolution pattern of ecological land in Beijing in the year 2020. Under the natural development scenario, most of ecological land will be replaced by construction land and crop land. But under the scenarios of object orientation and ecosystem priority, the ecological land area will increase, especially under the scenario of ecosystem priority. When considering the factors such as total area of ecological land, loss of key ecological land and spatial patterns of land use, the scenarios from priority to inferiority are ecosystem priority, object orientation and natural development, so future land management policies in Beijing should be focused on conversion of cropland to forest, wetland protection and prohibition of exploitation of natural protection zones, water source areas and forest parks to maintain the safety of the regional ecosystem.

Modelling regional land change scenarios to assess land abandonment and reforestation dynamics in the Pyrenees (France)

USGS Publications Warehouse

Vacquie, Laure; Houet, Thomas; Sohl, Terry L.; Reker, Ryan R.; Sayler, Kristi L.

2015-01-01

Over the last decades and centuries, European mountain landscapes have experienced substantial transformations. Natural and anthropogenic LULC changes (land use and land cover changes), especially agro-pastoral activities, have directly influenced the spatial organization and composition of European mountain landscapes. For the past sixty years, natural reforestation has been occurring due to a decline in both agricultural production activities and rural population. Stakeholders, to better anticipate future changes, need spatially and temporally explicit models to identify areas at risk of land change and possible abandonment. This paper presents an integrated approach combining forecasting scenarios and a LULC changes simulation model to assess where LULC changes may occur in the Pyrenees Mountains, based on historical LULC trends and a range of future socio-economic drivers. The proposed methodology considers local specificities of the Pyrenean valleys, sub-regional climate and topographical properties, and regional economic policies. Results indicate that some regions are projected to face strong abandonment, regardless of the scenario conditions. Overall, high rates of change are associated with administrative regions where land productivity is highly dependent on socio-economic drivers and climatic and environmental conditions limit intensive (agricultural and/or pastoral) production and profitability. The combination of the results for the four scenarios allows assessments of where encroachment (e.g. colonization by shrublands) and reforestation are the most probable. This assessment intends to provide insight into the potential future development of the Pyrenees to help identify areas that are the most sensitive to change and to guide decision makers to help their management decisions.

Scenarios of global agricultural biomass harvest reveal conflicts and trade-offs for bioenergy with CCS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Powell, Tom; Lenton, Tim

2013-04-01

We assess the quantitative potential for future land management to help rebalance the global carbon cycle by actively removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere with simultaneous bio-energy offsets of CO2 emissions, whilst meeting global food demand, preserving natural ecosystems and minimising CO2 emissions from land use change. Four alternative future scenarios are considered out to 2050 with different combinations of high or low technology food production and high or low meat diets. Natural ecosystems are protected except when additional land is necessary to fulfil the dietary demands of the global population. Dedicated bio-energy crops can only be grown on land that is already under management but is no longer needed for food production. We find that there is only room for dedicated bio-energy crops if there is a marked increase in the efficiency of food production (sustained annual yield growth of 1%, shifts towards more efficient animals like pigs and poultry, and increased recycling of wastes and residues). If there is also a return to lower meat diets, biomass energy with carbon storage (BECS) as CO2 and biochar could remove up to 4.0 Pg C per year in 2050. With the current trend to higher meat diets there is only room for limited expansion of bio-energy crops after 2035 and instead BECS must be based largely on biomass residues, removing up to 1.5 Pg C per year in. A high-meat, low-efficiency future would be a catastrophe for natural ecosystems (and thus for the humans that depend on their services) with around 8.5 Gha under cultivation in 2050. When included in a simple earth system model with a technological mitigation CO2 emission baseline these produce atmospheric CO2 concentrations of ~ 450-525ppm in 2050. In addition we assess the potential for future biodiversity loss under the scenarios due to three interacting factors; energy withdrawal from ecosystems due to biomass harvest, habitat loss due to land-use change, and climate change. Forecasts of committed global biodiversity loss in 2050 (from 2000 levels) vary by more than a factor of two across the scenarios. The greatest biodiversity loss is forecast in the 'high meat low efficiency' scenario with roughly equal contributions from biomass harvest and climate change, and a smaller land-use change contribution. The smallest biodiversity loss is forecast in the 'high meat high efficiency' scenario and is mostly due to biomass harvest, followed by climate change. Climate change is lowest in the 'low meat high efficiency' efficiency scenario thanks to BECCS based on bio-energy crops, but the resulting withdrawal of energy from ecosystems has a greater negative impact on biodiversity than the positive effect of less climate change. This suggests that using bio-energy to tackle climate change in order to limit biodiversity loss would instead have the opposite effect.

Application of stakeholder-based and modelling approaches for supporting robust adaptation decision making under future climatic uncertainty and changing urban-agricultural water demand

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhave, Ajay; Dessai, Suraje; Conway, Declan; Stainforth, David

2016-04-01

Deep uncertainty in future climate change and socio-economic conditions necessitates the use of assess-risk-of-policy approaches over predict-then-act approaches for adaptation decision making. Robust Decision Making (RDM) approaches embody this principle and help evaluate the ability of adaptation options to satisfy stakeholder preferences under wide-ranging future conditions. This study involves the simultaneous application of two RDM approaches; qualitative and quantitative, in the Cauvery River Basin in Karnataka (population ~23 million), India. The study aims to (a) determine robust water resources adaptation options for the 2030s and 2050s and (b) compare the usefulness of a qualitative stakeholder-driven approach with a quantitative modelling approach. For developing a large set of future scenarios a combination of climate narratives and socio-economic narratives was used. Using structured expert elicitation with a group of climate experts in the Indian Summer Monsoon, climatic narratives were developed. Socio-economic narratives were developed to reflect potential future urban and agricultural water demand. In the qualitative RDM approach, a stakeholder workshop helped elicit key vulnerabilities, water resources adaptation options and performance criteria for evaluating options. During a second workshop, stakeholders discussed and evaluated adaptation options against the performance criteria for a large number of scenarios of climatic and socio-economic change in the basin. In the quantitative RDM approach, a Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) model was forced by precipitation and evapotranspiration data, coherent with the climatic narratives, together with water demand data based on socio-economic narratives. We find that compared to business-as-usual conditions options addressing urban water demand satisfy performance criteria across scenarios and provide co-benefits like energy savings and reduction in groundwater depletion, while options reducing agricultural water demand significantly affect downstream water availability. Water demand options demonstrate potential to improve environmental flow conditions and satisfy legal water supply requirements for downstream riparian states. On the other hand, currently planned large scale infrastructural projects demonstrate reduced value in certain scenarios, illustrating the impacts of lock-in effects of large scale infrastructure. From a methodological perspective, we find that while the stakeholder-driven approach revealed robust options in a resource-light manner and helped initiate much needed interaction amongst stakeholders, the modelling approach provides complementary quantitative information. The study reveals robust adaptation options for this important basin and provides a strong methodological basis for carrying out future studies that support adaptation decision making.

A large set of potential past, present and future hydro-meteorological time series for the UK

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guillod, Benoit P.; Jones, Richard G.; Dadson, Simon J.; Coxon, Gemma; Bussi, Gianbattista; Freer, James; Kay, Alison L.; Massey, Neil R.; Sparrow, Sarah N.; Wallom, David C. H.; Allen, Myles R.; Hall, Jim W.

2018-01-01

Hydro-meteorological extremes such as drought and heavy precipitation can have large impacts on society and the economy. With potentially increasing risks associated with such events due to climate change, properly assessing the associated impacts and uncertainties is critical for adequate adaptation. However, the application of risk-based approaches often requires large sets of extreme events, which are not commonly available. Here, we present such a large set of hydro-meteorological time series for recent past and future conditions for the United Kingdom based on weather@home 2, a modelling framework consisting of a global climate model (GCM) driven by observed or projected sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice which is downscaled to 25 km over the European domain by a regional climate model (RCM). Sets of 100 time series are generated for each of (i) a historical baseline (1900-2006), (ii) five near-future scenarios (2020-2049) and (iii) five far-future scenarios (2070-2099). The five scenarios in each future time slice all follow the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) and sample the range of sea surface temperature and sea ice changes from CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) models. Validation of the historical baseline highlights good performance for temperature and potential evaporation, but substantial seasonal biases in mean precipitation, which are corrected using a linear approach. For extremes in low precipitation over a long accumulation period ( > 3 months) and shorter-duration high precipitation (1-30 days), the time series generally represents past statistics well. Future projections show small precipitation increases in winter but large decreases in summer on average, leading to an overall drying, consistently with the most recent UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) but larger in magnitude than the latter. Both drought and high-precipitation events are projected to increase in frequency and intensity in most regions, highlighting the need for appropriate adaptation measures. Overall, the presented dataset is a useful tool for assessing the risk associated with drought and more generally with hydro-meteorological extremes in the UK.

Climate change and fire effects on a prairie-woodland ecotone: projecting species range shifts with a dynamic global vegetation model

USGS Publications Warehouse

King, David A.; Bachelet, Dominique M.; Symstad, Amy J.

2013-01-01

Large shifts in species ranges have been predicted under future climate scenarios based primarily on niche-based species distribution models. However, the mechanisms that would cause such shifts are uncertain. Natural and anthropogenic fires have shaped the distributions of many plant species, but their effects have seldom been included in future projections of species ranges. Here, we examine how the combination of climate and fire influence historical and future distributions of the ponderosa pine–prairie ecotone at the edge of the Black Hills in South Dakota, USA, as simulated by MC1, a dynamic global vegetation model that includes the effects of fire, climate, and atmospheric CO2 concentration on vegetation dynamics. For this purpose, we parameterized MC1 for ponderosa pine in the Black Hills, designating the revised model as MC1-WCNP. Results show that fire frequency, as affected by humidity and temperature, is central to the simulation of historical prairies in the warmer lowlands versus woodlands in the cooler, moister highlands. Based on three downscaled general circulation model climate projections for the 21st century, we simulate greater frequencies of natural fire throughout the area due to substantial warming and, for two of the climate projections, lower relative humidity. However, established ponderosa pine forests are relatively fire resistant, and areas that were initially wooded remained so over the 21st century for most of our future climate x fire management scenarios. This result contrasts with projections for ponderosa pine based on climatic niches, which suggest that its suitable habitat in the Black Hills will be greatly diminished by the middle of the 21st century. We hypothesize that the differences between the future predictions from these two approaches are due in part to the inclusion of fire effects in MC1, and we highlight the importance of accounting for fire as managed by humans in assessing both historical species distributions and future climate change effects.

Climate change and fire effects on a prairie-woodland ecotone: projecting species range shifts with a dynamic global vegetation model.

PubMed

King, David A; Bachelet, Dominique M; Symstad, Amy J

2013-12-01

Large shifts in species ranges have been predicted under future climate scenarios based primarily on niche-based species distribution models. However, the mechanisms that would cause such shifts are uncertain. Natural and anthropogenic fires have shaped the distributions of many plant species, but their effects have seldom been included in future projections of species ranges. Here, we examine how the combination of climate and fire influence historical and future distributions of the ponderosa pine-prairie ecotone at the edge of the Black Hills in South Dakota, USA, as simulated by MC1, a dynamic global vegetation model that includes the effects of fire, climate, and atmospheric CO2 concentration on vegetation dynamics. For this purpose, we parameterized MC1 for ponderosa pine in the Black Hills, designating the revised model as MC1-WCNP. Results show that fire frequency, as affected by humidity and temperature, is central to the simulation of historical prairies in the warmer lowlands versus woodlands in the cooler, moister highlands. Based on three downscaled general circulation model climate projections for the 21st century, we simulate greater frequencies of natural fire throughout the area due to substantial warming and, for two of the climate projections, lower relative humidity. However, established ponderosa pine forests are relatively fire resistant, and areas that were initially wooded remained so over the 21st century for most of our future climate x fire management scenarios. This result contrasts with projections for ponderosa pine based on climatic niches, which suggest that its suitable habitat in the Black Hills will be greatly diminished by the middle of the 21st century. We hypothesize that the differences between the future predictions from these two approaches are due in part to the inclusion of fire effects in MC1, and we highlight the importance of accounting for fire as managed by humans in assessing both historical species distributions and future climate change effects.

Future of endemic flora of biodiversity hotspots in India.

PubMed

Chitale, Vishwas Sudhir; Behera, Mukund Dev; Roy, Partha Sarthi

2014-01-01

India is one of the 12 mega biodiversity countries of the world, which represents 11% of world's flora in about 2.4% of global land mass. Approximately 28% of the total Indian flora and 33% of angiosperms occurring in India are endemic. Higher human population density in biodiversity hotspots in India puts undue pressure on these sensitive eco-regions. In the present study, we predict the future distribution of 637 endemic plant species from three biodiversity hotspots in India; Himalaya, Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, based on A1B scenario for year 2050 and 2080. We develop individual variable based models as well as mixed models in MaxEnt by combining ten least co-related bioclimatic variables, two disturbance variables and one physiography variable as predictor variables. The projected changes suggest that the endemic flora will be adversely impacted, even under such a moderate climate scenario. The future distribution is predicted to shift in northern and north-eastern direction in Himalaya and Indo-Burma, while in southern and south-western direction in Western Ghats, due to cooler climatic conditions in these regions. In the future distribution of endemic plants, we observe a significant shift and reduction in the distribution range compared to the present distribution. The model predicts a 23.99% range reduction and a 7.70% range expansion in future distribution by 2050, while a 41.34% range reduction and a 24.10% range expansion by 2080. Integration of disturbance and physiography variables along with bioclimatic variables in the models improved the prediction accuracy. Mixed models provide most accurate results for most of the combinations of climatic and non-climatic variables as compared to individual variable based models. We conclude that a) regions with cooler climates and higher moisture availability could serve as refugia for endemic plants in future climatic conditions; b) mixed models provide more accurate results, compared to single variable based models.

Future of Endemic Flora of Biodiversity Hotspots in India

PubMed Central

Chitale, Vishwas Sudhir; Behera, Mukund Dev; Roy, Partha Sarthi

2014-01-01

India is one of the 12 mega biodiversity countries of the world, which represents 11% of world's flora in about 2.4% of global land mass. Approximately 28% of the total Indian flora and 33% of angiosperms occurring in India are endemic. Higher human population density in biodiversity hotspots in India puts undue pressure on these sensitive eco-regions. In the present study, we predict the future distribution of 637 endemic plant species from three biodiversity hotspots in India; Himalaya, Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, based on A1B scenario for year 2050 and 2080. We develop individual variable based models as well as mixed models in MaxEnt by combining ten least co-related bioclimatic variables, two disturbance variables and one physiography variable as predictor variables. The projected changes suggest that the endemic flora will be adversely impacted, even under such a moderate climate scenario. The future distribution is predicted to shift in northern and north-eastern direction in Himalaya and Indo-Burma, while in southern and south-western direction in Western Ghats, due to cooler climatic conditions in these regions. In the future distribution of endemic plants, we observe a significant shift and reduction in the distribution range compared to the present distribution. The model predicts a 23.99% range reduction and a 7.70% range expansion in future distribution by 2050, while a 41.34% range reduction and a 24.10% range expansion by 2080. Integration of disturbance and physiography variables along with bioclimatic variables in the models improved the prediction accuracy. Mixed models provide most accurate results for most of the combinations of climatic and non-climatic variables as compared to individual variable based models. We conclude that a) regions with cooler climates and higher moisture availability could serve as refugia for endemic plants in future climatic conditions; b) mixed models provide more accurate results, compared to single variable based models. PMID:25501852

Climate change and fire effects on a prairie–woodland ecotone: projecting species range shifts with a dynamic global vegetation model

PubMed Central

King, David A; Bachelet, Dominique M; Symstad, Amy J

2013-01-01

Large shifts in species ranges have been predicted under future climate scenarios based primarily on niche-based species distribution models. However, the mechanisms that would cause such shifts are uncertain. Natural and anthropogenic fires have shaped the distributions of many plant species, but their effects have seldom been included in future projections of species ranges. Here, we examine how the combination of climate and fire influence historical and future distributions of the ponderosa pine–prairie ecotone at the edge of the Black Hills in South Dakota, USA, as simulated by MC1, a dynamic global vegetation model that includes the effects of fire, climate, and atmospheric CO2 concentration on vegetation dynamics. For this purpose, we parameterized MC1 for ponderosa pine in the Black Hills, designating the revised model as MC1-WCNP. Results show that fire frequency, as affected by humidity and temperature, is central to the simulation of historical prairies in the warmer lowlands versus woodlands in the cooler, moister highlands. Based on three downscaled general circulation model climate projections for the 21st century, we simulate greater frequencies of natural fire throughout the area due to substantial warming and, for two of the climate projections, lower relative humidity. However, established ponderosa pine forests are relatively fire resistant, and areas that were initially wooded remained so over the 21st century for most of our future climate x fire management scenarios. This result contrasts with projections for ponderosa pine based on climatic niches, which suggest that its suitable habitat in the Black Hills will be greatly diminished by the middle of the 21st century. We hypothesize that the differences between the future predictions from these two approaches are due in part to the inclusion of fire effects in MC1, and we highlight the importance of accounting for fire as managed by humans in assessing both historical species distributions and future climate change effects. PMID:24455138

Assessing the prospective resource base for enhanced geothermal systems in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Limberger, J.; Calcagno, P.; Manzella, A.; Trumpy, E.; Boxem, T.; Pluymaekers, M. P. D.; van Wees, J.-D.

2014-12-01

In this study the resource base for EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) in Europe was quantified and economically constrained, applying a discounted cash-flow model to different techno-economic scenarios for future EGS in 2020, 2030, and 2050. Temperature is a critical parameter that controls the amount of thermal energy available in the subsurface. Therefore, the first step in assessing the European resource base for EGS is the construction of a subsurface temperature model of onshore Europe. Subsurface temperatures were computed to a depth of 10 km below ground level for a regular 3-D hexahedral grid with a horizontal resolution of 10 km and a vertical resolution of 250 m. Vertical conductive heat transport was considered as the main heat transfer mechanism. Surface temperature and basal heat flow were used as boundary conditions for the top and bottom of the model, respectively. If publicly available, the most recent and comprehensive regional temperature models, based on data from wells, were incorporated. With the modeled subsurface temperatures and future technical and economic scenarios, the technical potential and minimum levelized cost of energy (LCOE) were calculated for each grid cell of the temperature model. Calculations for a typical EGS scenario yield costs of EUR 215 MWh-1 in 2020, EUR 127 MWh-1 in 2030, and EUR 70 MWh-1 in 2050. Cutoff values of EUR 200 MWh-1 in 2020, EUR 150 MWh-1 in 2030, and EUR 100 MWh-1 in 2050 are imposed to the calculated LCOE values in each grid cell to limit the technical potential, resulting in an economic potential for Europe of 19 GWe in 2020, 22 GWe in 2030, and 522 GWe in 2050. The results of our approach do not only provide an indication of prospective areas for future EGS in Europe, but also show a more realistic cost determined and depth-dependent distribution of the technical potential by applying different well cost models for 2020, 2030, and 2050.

Development of Return Period Inundation Maps In A Changing Climate Using a Systems of Systems Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bilskie, M. V.; Hagen, S. C.; Alizad, K.; Passeri, D. L.; Irish, J. L.

2016-12-01

Worldwide, coastal land margins are experiencing increased vulnerability from natural and manmade disasters [Nicholls et al., 1999]. Specifically, coastal flooding is expected to increase due to the effects of climate change, and sea level rise (SLR) in particular. A systems of systems (SoS) approach has been implemented to better understand the dynamic and nonlinear effects of SLR on tropical cyclone-induced coastal flooding along a low-gradient coastal landscape (northern Gulf of Mexico [NGOM]). The backbone of the SoS framework is a high-resolution, physics-based, tide, wind-wave, and hurricane storm surge model [Bilskie et al., 2016a] that includes systems of SLR scenarios [Parris et al., 2012], shoreline morphology [Passeri et al., 2016; Plant et al., 2016], marsh evolution [Alizad et al., 2016], and population dynamics driven by carbon emission scenarios [Bilskie et al., 2016b]. Prior to considering future conditions, the storm surge model was comprehensively validated for present-day conditions [Bilskie et al., 2016a]. The present-day model was then modified to represent the potential future landscape based on four SLR scenarios prescribed by Parris et al. [2012] linked to carbon emissions scenarios for the year 2100. Numerical simulations forced by hundreds of synthetic tropical cyclones were performed and the results facilitate the development of return period inundation maps across the NGOM that reflect changes to the coastal landscape. The SoS approach allows new patterns and properties to emerge (i.e. nonlinear and dynamic effects of SLR) that would otherwise be unobserved using a static SLR model.

Adaptation Measures Evaliation on Agriculture Under Future Climate and Land Use Scenarios in Central Chile

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henriquez Dole, L. E.; Vicuna, S.; Gironas, J. A.; Meza, F. J.

2016-12-01

Future climate change scenarios threaten current practices in agriculture and therefore adaptation measures have been proposed to overcome this possible situation. Regional to local ideas apply for all kind of adaptation measures and can be found among literature for Central Chile, but their quantitative efficiency is rarely evaluated. Furthermore, land uses changes are commonly neglected in such evaluations. This research use the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model and the Plant Growth Model (PGM) to simulate weekly water distribution and consumption in Chile's rural areas up to 2050. Using information directly provided by the Water User Organizations (WUO), the developed model assesses possible future impacts on 2 crops (corn and plum) under 15 climate scenarios and land use trends. Results show that WEAP-PGM tool can represent satisfactorily crop sensitiveness to historic and future circumstances. Nine scenarios satisfy average crop water demands, but all of them present a diminished yield (1%-14%) and production (8%-20%). Just six scenarios cannot meet crop water demands (40-70% of reliability) if adaptation measures are not applied. Given this need, two adaptation measures were evaluated: a) using all water rights and b) irrigation improvements. The second option showed to be the most effective measure leading to the satisfaction of crop water demands under all the scenarios, but still a diminished yield and production remained.

Flying into the future: aviation emissions scenarios to 2050.

PubMed

Owen, Bethan; Lee, David S; Lim, Ling

2010-04-01

This study describes the methodology and results for calculating future global aviation emissions of carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen from air traffic under four of the IPCC/SRES (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) marker scenarios: A1B, A2, B1, and B2. In addition, a mitigation scenario has been calculated for the B1 scenario, requiring rapid and significant technology development and transition. A global model of aircraft movements and emissions (FAST) was used to calculate fuel use and emissions to 2050 with a further outlook to 2100. The aviation emission scenarios presented are designed to interpret the SRES and have been developed to aid in the quantification of the climate change impacts of aviation. Demand projections are made for each scenario, determined by SRES economic growth factors and the SRES storylines. Technology trends are examined in detail and developed for each scenario providing plausible projections for fuel efficiency and emissions control technology appropriate to the individual SRES storylines. The technology trends that are applied are calculated from bottom-up inventory calculations and industry technology trends and targets. Future emissions of carbon dioxide are projected to grow between 2000 and 2050 by a factor in the range of 2.0 and 3.6 depending on the scenario. Emissions of oxides of nitrogen associated with aviation over the same period are projected to grow by between a factor of 1.2 and 2.7.

New Methods for Crafting Locally Decision-Relevant Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lempert, R. J.

2015-12-01

Scenarios can play an important role in helping decision makers to imagine future worlds, both good and bad, different than the one with which we are familiar and to take concrete steps now to address the risks generated by climate change. At their best, scenarios can effectively represent deep uncertainty; integrate over multiple domains; and enable parties with different expectation and values to expand the range of futures they consider, to see the world from different points of view, and to grapple seriously with the potential implications of surprising or inconvenient futures. These attributes of scenario processes can prove crucial in helping craft effective responses to climate change. But traditional scenario methods can also fail to overcome difficulties related to choosing, communicating, and using scenarios to identify, evaluate, and reach consensus on appropriate policies. Such challenges can limit scenario's impact in broad public discourse. This talk will demonstrate how new decision support approaches can employ new quantitative tools that allow scenarios to emerge from a process of deliberation with analysis among stakeholders, rather than serve as inputs to it, thereby increasing the impacts of scenarios on decision making. This talk will demonstrate these methods in the design of a decision support tool to help residents of low lying coastal cities grapple with the long-term risks of sea level rise. In particular, this talk will show how information from the IPCC SSP's can be combined with local information to provide a rich set of locally decision-relevant information.

Long-term prospects for developments in space: A scenario approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brown, W. M.; Kahn, H. D.

1977-01-01

Long-term plans for future NASA programs are reported, and some of the following topics are discussed in detail: (1) systematic formulation of space scenarios; (2) the basic international context; (3) potential 21st century space developments; (4) space vehicle developments; and (5) future exploration.

Pesticide exposure assessment for surface waters in the EU. Part 2: Determination of statistically based run-off and drainage scenarios for Germany.

PubMed

Bach, Martin; Diesner, Mirjam; Großmann, Dietlinde; Guerniche, Djamal; Hommen, Udo; Klein, Michael; Kubiak, Roland; Müller, Alexandra; Preuss, Thomas G; Priegnitz, Jan; Reichenberger, Stefan; Thomas, Kai; Trapp, Matthias

2017-05-01

In order to assess surface water exposure to active substances of plant protection products (PPPs) in the European Union (EU), the FOCUS (FOrum for the Co-ordination of pesticide fate models and their USe) surface water workgroup introduced four run-off and six drainage scenarios for Step 3 of the tiered FOCUSsw approach. These scenarios may not necessarily represent realistic worst-case situations for the different Member States of the EU. Hence, the suitability of the scenarios for risk assessment in the national authorisation procedures is not known. Using Germany as an example, the paper illustrates how national soil-climate scenarios can be developed to model entries of active substances into surface waters from run-off and erosion (using the model PRZM) and from drainage (using the model MACRO). In the authorisation procedure for PPPs on Member State level, such soil-climate scenarios can be used to determine exposure endpoints with a defined overall percentile. The approach allows the development of national specific soil-climate scenarios and to calculate percentile-based exposure endpoints. The scenarios have been integrated into a software tool analogous to FOCUS-SWASH which can be used in the future to assess surface water exposure in authorisation procedures of PPPs in Germany. © 2017 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry. © 2017 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Constructing probabilistic scenarios for wide-area solar power generation

DOE PAGES

Woodruff, David L.; Deride, Julio; Staid, Andrea; ...

2017-12-22

Optimizing thermal generation commitments and dispatch in the presence of high penetrations of renewable resources such as solar energy requires a characterization of their stochastic properties. In this study, we describe novel methods designed to create day-ahead, wide-area probabilistic solar power scenarios based only on historical forecasts and associated observations of solar power production. Each scenario represents a possible trajectory for solar power in next-day operations with an associated probability computed by algorithms that use historical forecast errors. Scenarios are created by segmentation of historic data, fitting non-parametric error distributions using epi-splines, and then computing specific quantiles from these distributions.more » Additionally, we address the challenge of establishing an upper bound on solar power output. Our specific application driver is for use in stochastic variants of core power systems operations optimization problems, e.g., unit commitment and economic dispatch. These problems require as input a range of possible future realizations of renewables production. However, the utility of such probabilistic scenarios extends to other contexts, e.g., operator and trader situational awareness. Finally, we compare the performance of our approach to a recently proposed method based on quantile regression, and demonstrate that our method performs comparably to this approach in terms of two widely used methods for assessing the quality of probabilistic scenarios: the Energy score and the Variogram score.« less

Constructing probabilistic scenarios for wide-area solar power generation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Woodruff, David L.; Deride, Julio; Staid, Andrea

Optimizing thermal generation commitments and dispatch in the presence of high penetrations of renewable resources such as solar energy requires a characterization of their stochastic properties. In this study, we describe novel methods designed to create day-ahead, wide-area probabilistic solar power scenarios based only on historical forecasts and associated observations of solar power production. Each scenario represents a possible trajectory for solar power in next-day operations with an associated probability computed by algorithms that use historical forecast errors. Scenarios are created by segmentation of historic data, fitting non-parametric error distributions using epi-splines, and then computing specific quantiles from these distributions.more » Additionally, we address the challenge of establishing an upper bound on solar power output. Our specific application driver is for use in stochastic variants of core power systems operations optimization problems, e.g., unit commitment and economic dispatch. These problems require as input a range of possible future realizations of renewables production. However, the utility of such probabilistic scenarios extends to other contexts, e.g., operator and trader situational awareness. Finally, we compare the performance of our approach to a recently proposed method based on quantile regression, and demonstrate that our method performs comparably to this approach in terms of two widely used methods for assessing the quality of probabilistic scenarios: the Energy score and the Variogram score.« less

The Future of Public Health Informatics: Alternative Scenarios and Recommended Strategies

PubMed Central

Edmunds, Margo; Thorpe, Lorna; Sepulveda, Martin; Bezold, Clem; Ross, David A.

2014-01-01

Background: In October 2013, the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) and Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) convened a multidisciplinary group of experts to evaluate forces shaping public health informatics (PHI) in the United States, with the aim of identifying upcoming challenges and opportunities. The PHI workshop was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its larger strategic planning process for public health and primary care. Workshop Context: During the two-day workshop, nine experts from the public and private sectors analyzed and discussed the implications of four scenarios regarding the United States economy, health care system, information technology (IT) sector, and their potential impacts on public health in the next 10 years, by 2023. Workshop participants considered the potential role of the public health sector in addressing population health challenges in each scenario, and then identified specific informatics goals and strategies needed for the sector to succeed in this role. Recommendations and Conclusion: Participants developed recommendations for the public health informatics field and for public health overall in the coming decade. These included the need to rely more heavily on intersectoral collaborations across public and private sectors, to improve data infrastructure and workforce capacity at all levels of the public health enterprise, to expand the evidence base regarding effectiveness of informatics-based public health initiatives, and to communicate strategically with elected officials and other key stakeholders regarding the potential for informatics-based solutions to have an impact on population health. PMID:25848630

An integrated approach to modeling changes in land use, land cover, and disturbance and their impact on ecosystem carbon dynamics: a case study in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Liu, Jinxun; Daniel, Colin; Frid, Leonardo; Zhu, Zhiliang

2015-01-01

Increased land-use intensity (e.g. clearing of forests for cultivation, urbanization), often results in the loss of ecosystem carbon storage, while changes in productivity resulting from climate change may either help offset or exacerbate losses. However, there are large uncertainties in how land and climate systems will evolve and interact to shape future ecosystem carbon dynamics. To address this we developed the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS) to track changes in land use, land cover, land management, and disturbance, and their impact on ecosystem carbon storage and flux within a scenario-based framework. We have combined a state-and-transition simulation model (STSM) of land change with a stock and flow model of carbon dynamics. Land-change projections downscaled from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) were used to drive changes within the STSM, while the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) ecosystem model was used to derive input parameters for the carbon stock and flow model. The model was applied to the Sierra Nevada Mountains ecoregion in California, USA, a region prone to large wildfires and a forestry sector projected to intensify over the next century. Three scenario simulations were conducted, including a calibration scenario, a climate-change scenario, and an integrated climate- and land-change scenario. Based on results from the calibration scenario, the LUCAS age-structured carbon accounting model was able to accurately reproduce results obtained from the process-based biogeochemical model. Under the climate-only scenario, the ecoregion was projected to be a reliable net sink of carbon, however, when land use and disturbance were introduced, the ecoregion switched to become a net source. This research demonstrates how an integrated approach to carbon accounting can be used to evaluate various drivers of ecosystem carbon change in a robust, yet transparent modeling environment.

Untangling Consequential Futures: Discovering Self-Consistent Regional and Global Multi-Sector Change Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lamontagne, J. R.; Reed, P. M.

2017-12-01

Impacts and adaptations to global change largely occur at regional scales, yet they are shaped globally through the interdependent evolution of the climate, energy, agriculture, and industrial systems. It is important for regional actors to account for the impacts of global changes on their systems in a globally consistent but regionally relevant way. This can be challenging because emerging global reference scenarios may not reflect regional challenges. Likewise, regionally specific scenarios may miss important global feedbacks. In this work, we contribute a scenario discovery framework to identify regionally-specific decision relevant scenarios from an ensemble of scenarios of global change. To this end, we generated a large ensemble of time evolving regional, multi-sector global change scenarios by a full factorial sampling of the underlying assumptions in the emerging shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs), using the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM). Statistical and visual analytics were then used to discover which SSP assumptions are particularly consequential for various regions, considering a broad range of time-evolving metrics that encompass multiple spatial scales and sectors. In an illustrative examples, we identify the most important global change narratives to inform water resource scenarios for several geographic regions using the proposed scenario discovery framework. Our results highlight the importance of demographic and agricultural evolution compared to technical improvements in the energy sector. We show that narrowly sampling a few canonical reference scenarios provides a very narrow view of the consequence space, increasing the risk of tacitly ignoring major impacts. Even optimistic scenarios contain unintended, disproportionate regional impacts and intergenerational transfers of consequence. Formulating consequential scenarios of deeply and broadly uncertain futures requires a better exploration of which quantitative measures of consequences are important, for whom are they important, where, and when. To this end, we have contributed a large database of climate change futures that can support `backwards' scenario generation techniques, that capture a broader array of consequences than those that emerge from limited sampling of a few reference scenarios.

The never ending road: improving, adapting and refining a needs-based model to estimate future general practitioner requirements in two Australian states.

PubMed

Laurence, Caroline O; Heywood, Troy; Bell, Janice; Atkinson, Kaye; Karnon, Jonathan

2018-03-27

Health workforce planning models have been developed to estimate the future health workforce requirements for a population whom they serve and have been used to inform policy decisions. To adapt and further develop a need-based GP workforce simulation model to incorporate current and estimated geographic distribution of patients and GPs. A need-based simulation model that estimates the supply of GPs and levels of services required in South Australia (SA) was adapted and applied to the Western Australian (WA) workforce. The main outcome measure was the differences in the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) GPs supplied and required from 2013 to 2033. The base scenario estimated a shortage of GPs in WA from 2019 onwards with a shortage of 493 FTE GPs in 2033, while for SA, estimates showed an oversupply over the projection period. The WA urban and rural models estimated an urban shortage of GPs over this period. A reduced international medical graduate recruitment scenario resulted in estimated shortfalls of GPs by 2033 for WA and SA. The WA-specific scenarios of lower population projections and registrar work value resulted in a reduced shortage of FTE GPs in 2033, while unfilled training places increased the shortfall of FTE GPs in 2033. The simulation model incorporates contextual differences to its structure that allows within and cross jurisdictional comparisons of workforce estimations. It also provides greater insights into the drivers of supply and demand and the impact of changes in workforce policy, promoting more informed decision-making.

Hantavirus reservoir Oligoryzomys longicaudatus spatial distribution sensitivity to climate change scenarios in Argentine Patagonia

PubMed Central

Carbajo, Aníbal E; Vera, Carolina; González, Paula LM

2009-01-01

Background Oligoryzomys longicaudatus (colilargo) is the rodent responsible for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in Argentine Patagonia. In past decades (1967–1998), trends of precipitation reduction and surface air temperature increase have been observed in western Patagonia. We explore how the potential distribution of the hantavirus reservoir would change under different climate change scenarios based on the observed trends. Methods Four scenarios of potential climate change were constructed using temperature and precipitation changes observed in Argentine Patagonia between 1967 and 1998: Scenario 1 assumed no change in precipitation but a temperature trend as observed; scenario 2 assumed no changes in temperature but a precipitation trend as observed; Scenario 3 included changes in both temperature and precipitation trends as observed; Scenario 4 assumed changes in both temperature and precipitation trends as observed but doubled. We used a validated spatial distribution model of O. longicaudatus as a function of temperature and precipitation. From the model probability of the rodent presence was calculated for each scenario. Results If changes in precipitation follow previous trends, the probability of the colilargo presence would fall in the HPS transmission zone of northern Patagonia. If temperature and precipitation trends remain at current levels for 60 years or double in the future 30 years, the probability of the rodent presence and the associated total area of potential distribution would diminish throughout Patagonia; the areas of potential distribution for colilargos would shift eastwards. These results suggest that future changes in Patagonia climate may lower transmission risk through a reduction in the potential distribution of the rodent reservoir. Conclusion According to our model the rates of temperature and precipitation changes observed between 1967 and 1998 may produce significant changes in the rodent distribution in an equivalent period of time only in certain areas. Given that changes maintain for 60 years or double in 30 years, the hantavirus reservoir Oligoryzomys longicaudatus may contract its distribution in Argentine Patagonia extensively. PMID:19607707

Inside Information--A Door to the Future?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Twining, John

1986-01-01

Explains background to development by the British Broadcasting Corporation of Inside Information, a course providing an introduction to information technology for adults, and its linking to the City and Guilds of London Institute's short-course program. Medium and long-term education scenarios are suggested based on the Inside Information model.…