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Emerging Risk to Dengue in Asian Metropolitan Areas Under Global Warming
AbstractAedes sp. mosquitoes are changing their geographic range in response to climate change. This is of concern because these mosquitoes can carry dengue fever and other viral diseases. Changing weather patterns can also increase the numbers of Aedes mosquitoes, leading to greater human exposure and enhancing population health risks. We project the geographic distribution of Aedes and associated changes in populations exposed to dengue in Asian metropolitan areas under warming scenarios from 1.5°C to 5.0°C above pre‐industrial temperatures, using multi‐model ensembles. With global warming, the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, the coast of the Arabian Sea in southern Iran, southern Pakistan in West Asia, the Korean Peninsula, most of the Japanese islands, and parts of North China in East Asia are projected to become suitable for dengue transmission. The numbers of metropolitan areas exposed to dengue is projected to change from 142 (48%) in the reference period (1995–2014) to 211 (71%) at 5.0°C warming. With the combined impact of socioeconomic and climate change, population exposure to dengue in Asian metropolitan areas is projected to increase from 263 (multi‐model range 252–268) million in 1995–2014 to 411 (394–432) million, 446 (420–490) million, 509 (475–601), 558 (493–685) and 587 (529–773) million, respectively, at 1.5°C, 2.0°C, 3.0°C, 4.0°C and 5°C warming, with an average of 2.9 million new people exposed to dengue fever in metropolitan areas each year.
Decoupling of economic growth and CO2 emissions in 11 European Union Member States in Central and Eastern Europe
Challenges for Flood Risk Reduction in Poland’s Changing Climate
Floods are the main natural disaster in Poland, and the risk of both fluvial and pluvial floods is serious in the country. Pluvial floods are on the rise in the changing climate, particularly in increasingly sealed urbanized areas. In this paper, we examine the changes in flood risk in Poland, discussing the mechanisms, observations, projections and variability. Next, we discuss flood risk management in the country, including specific issues related to urban and rural areas and the synergies between flood and drought risk reduction measures. We identify and assess the weaknesses of the existing flood risk management plans in Poland for the first planning period 2016–2021 and for the second planning period 2022–2027. We find the level of implementation of plans in the former period to be very low. Many planned measures do not have much to do with flood risk reduction but are often linked to other objectives, such as inland navigation. The plans contain numerous small measures, which come across as inapt and economically ineffective solutions. We specify policy-relevant recommendations for necessary and urgent actions, which, if undertaken, could considerably reduce flood risk. We also sketch the way ahead for flood risk management in Poland within the timeframe of the implementation of plans for 2022–2027 and the next regular update of plans for 2028–2033.
Climate Change Will Aggravate South Asian Cropland Exposure to Drought by the Middle of 21st Century
AbstractDrought has a paramount impact on global agriculture and food security. However, the study on future cropland areas that can incur drought is inadequate. This paper uses input parameters from 7 CMIP6 models for 7 future scenarios (SSP1‐1.9, SSP1‐2.6, SSP4‐3.4, SSP2‐4.5, SSP4‐6.0, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP5‐8.5) to measure South Asian cropland exposure to drought and its underlying factors. Some defined epochs such as 2021–2040 (near‐term), 2041–2060 (mid‐term), 2081–2100 (long‐term), and 1995–2014 (reference period) are designed to explore diverse outlooks of the change. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index and the Run theory methods are applied to detect drought. Results indicate an intensified cropland (under SSP4‐3.4, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP5‐8.5) in the Indo‐Gangetic Plain region of South Asia, where mostly the variation occurs among scenarios and periods. Notably, the future cropland exposed to drought will increase in the 2021–2040, and 2041–2060 periods, but it intends to decline during the 2081–2100. Relatively, the exposed cropland will upturn highest by 49.2% (SSP3‐7.0) in the mid‐term period and decrease by −8.2% (SSP5‐8.5) in the end future. Spatially, distributed cropland in the central, south‐west, and portion of the northeast of South Asia are subjective to be exposed largely, but it can drop greatly across the eastern part by the end future. Importantly, the climate change effect plays a grounding role in future exposure change over the region during the near to mid‐term periods, while the cropland change effect is predominant in the long‐term perspectives. However, these findings signify the urgency of policymaking focusing on drought mitigation to ensure food security.
Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Flood Hazard Zones
AbstractThere have been many destructive pluvial and fluvial floods in Poland and the projection of increasing flood hazards in the future is a reason of considerable concern. The maps of river hazard zones are changing over time, and understanding these changes is of primary importance for flood risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This article aims to assess the impact of climate change on the spatial extent and depth classes of flood hazard zones for a selected reach of the River Warta in the western part of Poland. To this end, we integrated the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model of the Warta River Basin with the 1D hydraulic model HEC-RAS of the selected reach. The climate change effect was quantified based on the coupled model simulations forced with bias-corrected projections from the EURO-CORDEX project. Flood hazard maps were developed for two townships along the River Warta (Oborniki and Wronki), three greenhouse gas concentration scenarios (one for the baseline scenario in the reference period, 1971–2000; one for RCP 4.5 and one for RCP 8.5, for the time horizon 2021–2050) and for three return periods (10-, 100- and 500-year floods). Based on the ensemble mean, the increase in the flooded area projected in the future is more pronounced for RCP8.5 than for RCP4.5. This unique combination of software and data enabled the transformation of climate change impact into the land surface part of the hydrological cycle and assessment of changes in flood hazard and opens the way to assess the potential increases in the economic losses in the future.
Storing Carbon in Forest Biomass and Wood Products in Poland—Energy and Climate Perspective
Huge amounts of carbon being sequestered in forest ecosystems make them an important land carbon sink at the global scale. Their ability to withdraw carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, whose concentration is gradually increasing due to anthropogenic emissions, renders them important natural climate-mitigation solutions. The urgent need for transition from high to zero net emission on country, continental, and global scales, to slow down the warming to an acceptable level, calls for the analysis of different economic sectors’ roles in reaching that ambitious goal. Here, we examine changes in CO2 emission and sequestration rates during recent decades focusing on the coal-dominated energy sector and Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) as well as wood production at the country level. The main purpose of the presented study is to examine the potential of storing carbon in standing forest biomass and wood products in Poland as well as the impact of disturbances. The ratio of LULUCF absorption of CO2 to its emission in Poland has ranged from about 1% in 1992 to over 15% in 2005. From a climate-change mitigation point of view, the main challenge is how to maximize the rate and the duration of CO2 withdrawal from the atmosphere by its storage in forest biomass and wood products. Enhancing carbon sequestration and storage in forest biomass, via sustainable and smart forestry, is considered to be a nature-based climate solution. However, not only forests but also wood-processing industries should be included as important contributors to climate-change mitigation, since harvested wood products substitute materials like concrete, metal, and plastic, which have a higher carbon footprint. The energy perspective of the paper embraces two aspects. First, CO2 sequestration in forests and subsequently in harvested wood products, is an effective strategy to offset a part of national CO2 emissions, resulting largely from fossil fuel burning for energy-production purposes. Second, wood as biomass is a renewable energy source itself, which played an important role in sustaining energy security for many individual citizens of Poland during the unusual conditions of winter 2022/2023, with a scarce coal supply.