UK flood defence cuts leave 5 million vulnerable homes 'at risk'

Damian Carrington in the Guardian (UK): The government's cuts to the UK's flood defence budgets risk leaving the country's 5m at-risk homes less protected and the poorest communities losing out to richer areas, according to a critical report by MPs. "Urgent action is needed to ensure that our communities are adequately and effectively protected from flooding," said Anne McIntosh, a Conservative MP and chair of the Environment, Food and Rural affairs select committee.

The increased risk of flooding, such as the floods that swamped homes in Cornwall last month, is due to climate change. Under the last government, spending on flood defences rose 33% in the four years to 2010/1. But the coalition government cut flood-defence spending in the comprehensive spending review.

"Simply to maintain the current level of protection in the face of increasing flood risks requires increased investment and the significant CSR cuts will increase concerns that funding on flood defences remains inadequate," the committee's report concluded, noting the cuts could be a "classic example" of a false economy.

McIntosh said the biggest challenge was whether local authorities would have sufficient money to protect their communities from flooding when the responsibility is passed to them on 1 April next year. Defra and the Department for Communities and Local Government suffered the largest budget cuts in Whitehall. "It's all very well for the government to say we're not ringfencing [local spending], but how do we know they are going to have the money for flood defences," said McIntosh….

Flooding in Hull, 2007, shot by walnut whippet, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Global warming linked to harsh winters

Frank McDonald in the Irish Times: The cold spell Ireland and the rest of northern Europe has been experiencing may, paradoxically, be the result of global warming, rather than evidence it is not happening, according to the most recent scientific research. The Journal of Geophysical Research suggested a link between diminishing levels of sea ice in the Arctic and an increased probability of harsh winters across Europe, saying these “do not conflict the global warming picture, but rather supplement it”.

As HSBC Global Research noted in its latest report, If the World is Warming, Why is it so Cold?, “climate change involves profound disruptions in global average temperatures. But as individuals we only experience local weather.” And “coming on the back of the unusual cold winters of 2009-2010, this cold spell has caused some commentary that global warming is over”. The explanation they offer is that the “warming trend is not uniform, and northern Europe has shown considerable cooling this winter”.

Despite the cold spell here, “almost all the areas of the world have shown considerable warming . . .” According to the British Met Office, “although La Niña has stabilised, it is still expected to affect global temperature through the coming year. This effect is small compared to the total accrued global warming to date, but it does mean that 2011 is unlikely to be a record year.”

Last week, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) published the global temperature figures for January to November 2010, showing that this 11-month period has been the warmest since instrumental records began 131 years ago….

Snowflakes shot by Wilson Bentley, 1902

Sea-level study brings good and bad news to Hampton Roads

David Malmquist in the Virginia Institute of Marine Science News: A new study of local sea-level trends by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) brings both good and bad news to localities concerned with coastal inundation and flooding along the shores of Chesapeake Bay.

Dr. John Boon, the study’s lead author, says the good news is that “absolute sea level in Chesapeake Bay is rising only about half as fast as the global average rise rate.” The bad news, says Boon, is that “local subsidence more than makes up for it.” Boon has previously warned of the long-term impacts of sea-level rise in Hampton Roads, particularly in light of the increased likelihood of coastal flooding during hurricanes and nor’easters.

In their report, Boon and his co-authors, VIMS professor John Brubaker and assistant research scientist David Forrest, stress the distinction between absolute sea level—a measure of the volume and mass of ocean water, and relative sea level—the level of the ocean surface measured relative to land (and more specifically a tide gauge).

The authors note that for Chesapeake Bay, relatively moderate rates of absolute sea-level rise, when combined with locally high rates of land subsidence and an increasing coastal population, add up to a significant and growing threat. They call for continued operation of the local tide gauge network and addition of new mapping tools such as LIDAR to aid in smarter coastal planning and improved emergency-response measures….

A lithograph of the battle between the Monitor and Merrimac--fought March 9th 1862 at Hampton Roads, near Norfolk, Virginia

Invasive species lie in wait, strike after decades

Alister Doyle in Reuters: Animals and plants introduced from foreign habitats may not reveal themselves to be harmful 'invasive' species for decades, according to a European study published on Monday. Species that are moved away from their natural predators back home can displace native species in their new habitats, and scientists say the problem already costs Europe 12 billion euros ($16 billion) a year.

The study, which is likely to hold true for other continents too, means that the seeds of future, perhaps bigger, problems have literally already been sown. The study compared the effects of "alien species" such as American ragweed, Canada geese or Japanese deer in 28 European countries.

The study's findings indicated that it can take decades to figure out which alien species will be disruptive, and looking at those that arrived in 1900 was a better indicator of current problems than looking at those from 2000. "This lag in the cause-and-effect relationship would mean that ... the seeds of future invasion problems have already been sown," said the study, published in the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Birds and insects were quickest to get established in new habitats, helped by their mobility. Others took far longer to reach the critical numbers to become invasive. Introductions to Europe from the 19th century included ragweed, whose pollen is blamed for some hay fever, and the black locust tree, also from North America, which can damage European grassland with its ability to store nitrogen….

Common ragweed, shot by Sue Sweeney, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Global rivers release huge amounts of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas

Live Science: Rivers may be a significant source of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, scientists now find. Their calculation suggests that across the globe the waterways contribute three times the amount of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere as had been estimated by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations scientific body charged with reviewing climate change research.

They found that the amount of nitrous oxide produced in streams is related to human activities that release nitrogen into the environment, such as fertilizer use and sewage discharges. "Human activities, including fossil fuel combustion and intensive agriculture, have increased the availability of nitrogen in the environment," said Jake Beaulieu of the University of Notre Dame and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lead author of the paper published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

…The finding is important, the researchers say, because nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change and destruction of the stratosphere's ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation. Compared with carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide is 300-fold more potent in terms of its warming potential, though carbon dioxide is a far more prevalent greenhouse gas. Scientists estimate nitrous oxide accounts for about 6 percent of human-induced climate change.

…"Changes in agricultural and land-use practices that result in less nitrogen being delivered to streams would reduce nitrous oxide emissions from river networks," Beaulieu said.

Poole Harbor in Dorset at sunset, shot by Petr Kratochvil, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Indonesia eligible for adaptation funds, says envoy

Adianto Simamora in the Jakarta Post: Indonesia, home to the second-largest total length of coastline after Canada, should be eligible for climate adaptation funds because of its high vulnerability to rising sea levels, an official says. The President’s special envoy on climate change, Rachmat Witoelar, said rising sea levels could be a major threat to Indonesia because more than 50 percent of the population lived on the country’s 95,185 kilometers of coastline.
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“Indonesia is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change. We will fight to get the adaptation funds,” he told reporters. Rachmat argued that Indonesia’s low income per capita and high rate of unemployment were factors that should strengthen Indonesia’s right to the funds. Many Indonesians are employed in natural-resource based sectors, such as farming and fishing, which are prone to extreme weather changes caused by climate change.

Rich nations agreed to distribute US$30 billion in so-called adaptation funds from 2010-2012 to the nations most vulnerable to climate change, to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change. They also said they would increase the fund allocation every year until it had reached $100 billion per year by 2020. The Cancun agreement said the eligible countries would be the least-developed nations, including small-island states and African countries.

There are no specific perquisites as to which nations might be eligible. “We will monitor discussions that define the term vulnerable,” Rachmat said. A 2009 study by the Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry that covered seven provinces showed that sea levels were increasing by 8 millimeters per year on average….

The Sumatran coast after the tsunami, shot in January 2005, US Navy image

Bid to prevent Scottish floods approved

Donna McAllister in the Press and Journal (UK): An £88million flood-prevention scheme that aims to protect hundreds of homes and businesses in Moray won approval from Scottish Government ministers yesterday. The Elgin project has been designed to respond to a long history of flooding problems in the town.

But last night the scheme’s construction programme remained uncertain. Moray Council’s deputy convener Allan Wright said the local authority needed “long-term funding assurances” from the Scottish Government before the scheme could be built.

The Elgin Flood Alleviation Scheme went before a public inquiry in September 2009 and resulted in minor changes being made to downstream sections of the project at Barmuckity. That same month more than 100 people were forced to leave their homes and businesses at Elgin after torrential rain battered the area. Flooding also occurred in 1997, 2000, 2002….

A flood-prone stretch of the River Lossie, shot by Anne Burgess, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Thousands flee California flooding

John Pape in Disaster News Network: A relentless weather system continued to pound California on Monday, forcing the evacuation of several thousand residents in a Kern County farming community. The evacuations were ordered after major flooding was reported in McFarland, a community of 12,000 residents. Kern County Fire Department spokesman Sean Collins said as many as 2,000 people needed to seek shelter.

“Hundreds of houses are in danger of flooding,” Collins said. “They need to evacuate as soon as possible.” A sheriff’s department helicopter was dispatched to the area to conduct an aerial survey of the flooding and search for any stranded residents….

This map shows the incorporated and unincorporated areas in Kern County, California, highlighting McFarland in red, created by Arkyan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Climate scientists sharpen their focus on Western Antarctica

James Dacey in Environmental Research Web: Ice shelves in Western Antarctica need to be monitored in much closer detail to build a clearer picture of how, and to what extent, ice is being lost. That was the clear message of two climate-research groups addressing journalists on Wednesday at the AGU Fall meeting in San Francisco, US.

A team of NASA scientists presented new maps of ice elevations in Antarctica, using data obtained from satellite missions such as the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). They found that the Larsen ice shelf region in Western Antarctica continued to lose 12 GTonnes of ice per year between 2001 and 2006, accounting for 30% of all ice lost throughout the Antarctic peninsula. The Larsen A ice shelf broke up in 1995, while the Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated in 2002.

The reason for the continued melt, they believe, is likely due to the depleted ozone layer above Antarctica, which allows more UV radiation to feed into the local weather system. This extra energy triggers stronger winds, which in turn cause surface waters to move more rapidly. Warmer water from the circumpolar deep water then wells up towards the surface where it can get beneath the ice shelf and increase melting.

The NASA team has singled out another region in Western Antarctica known as Pine Island Bay, which the scientists say is losing ice at similar rates. “Ice shelves are important because they hold Antarctica’s ice back to some degree,” said Michael Studinger, one of the researchers based at the NASA Goddard Space Center. “We need to be there, to try to understand the processes that are driving these changes.”…

Pine Island Bay is tucked into a corner of the West Antarctic’s Walgreen Coast. Shot by NASA

A positive step in the face of uncertainty

Terra Daily: Enormous uncertainty. These two words describe the condition of Phoenix's climate and water supply in the 21st century. Reservoirs have dipped to their lowest levels, continuous drought has plagued the state and forecasts for even warmer summers are predicted. Despite this uncertainty, professors at Arizona State University say there's no need to be fearful because positive impacts can be made.

ASU professors Patricia Gober and Craig Kirkwood working in conjunction with Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC), which specializes in decision making under uncertainty, assessed the climate's affect on water shortage in Phoenix. Their results were published in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A special section in this PNAS issue focuses on what the 21st century climate in the Southwest will mean in terms of sustainability.

Their paper, "Vulnerability assessment of climate-induced water shortage in Phoenix," discusses simulation modeling and the principles of decision making under uncertainty, looks at human vulnerability to environmental risks in terms of water shortages, looks at factors that affect water supply and provides numerous options for solutions.

Factors such as population growth, increased development, outdoor landscaping and more private pools all affect water supply. Gober and Kirkwood used an integrated simulation model, called WaterSim, to investigate the long-term consequences of policies that manage groundwater, growth and urban development in Phoenix. Gober, who also is director of DCDC, said the goal is not to preach an agenda but to provide the science that supports better decision making.

"If you make this set of choices then you can continue to have a vibrant city even under dire climate conditions. We have a smorgasbord of choices," Gober said. "You pick the menu items that are going to work best for your community."

Adapting to a shortage in water supply, Gober said is "not a one size fits all answer." The paper points out a few things people can do such as changing their type of landscape, limiting the number of pools in a community, building a higher density city and investing money to fix water leaks….

Phoenix, Arizona, seen from the SPOT satellite, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

What to expect from urban development

Nirwono Joga in the Jakarta Post: A sustainable city is a city that in its development is able to meet the needs of its citizens, can compete in the global economic environment by maintaining the vitality of social harmony, cultural, political, and defense and security, without ignoring or diminishing the ability of future generations to fulfill their needs...

The challenge for urban development is to minimize exploitation of natural resources that could exacerbate climate change impacts and integrate the sustainable development approach. Some cities in Indonesia are currently involved in developing climate-mitigation and adaptation strategies with the assistance of the national network, such as Semarang, Bandarlampung and Surabaya, which have a strong focus on community issues.

The approach provides a new model on climate change mitigation and adaptation in Indonesian cities based on the concept of “mass collaboration” (Tapscott and Williams, 2006). Semarang municipality’s climate-mitigation strategy has four focus areas, namely inundation and sea rise-induced flooding, coastal erosion, drought and landslide. The key elements in these projects are political will and forward-looking leadership, involvement of city stakeholders and data availability.

Bandarlampung municipality’s climate-mitigation strategy has three focus areas, which are solid waste management, clean water management and water catchment/reservoir area rehabilitation. The Surabaya municipality decided to implement a community-based waste management program, also known as the Green and Clean Initiative, due to a massive waste issue in the city….

From the Tropenmuseum Collection on Wikimedia Commons, an aqueduct in Semarang, year unknown

Three Philippine towns pilot sites for climate change initiatives

News Today (Philippines): Three towns in Iloilo, including Janiuay, Pototan and Dumangas, are among the eight municipalities chosen as pilot sites for developing models of climate change-resilient communities in agricultural and forested areas. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the four-pronged $4.97-million project, under the Philippine Climate Change Adaptation Project Phase I (PhilCCAP1), will used updated scientific data on climate risk management.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said the project seeks to address vulnerabilities of the agricultural and natural resource sectors to climate change as it recognizes the need to strengthen biodiversity conservation and forest protection efforts to bring down poverty especially in the rural communities…

…PhilCCAP1 will operate on a platform that will develop and demonstrate climate change adaptation strategies in the agriculture and natural resources management, using five core elements, namely, climate proofing irrigation infrastructure, enhancing delivery and effectiveness of extension services for farm-level climate risk management; pilot-testing the feasibility of weather index-based crop insurance; strengthening climate change resilience through improved management of protected areas; and improving the access, especially in the agriculture and natural resources sectors, to more reliable scientific information that would enable more rapid and accurate decision making for climate risk management….

Locator map of Iloilo by seav (Magalhães?), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Coverage prompts national climate change strategy in Costa Rica

Inside Costa Rica: An investigative series by Costa Rican journalist Pablo Fonseca, one of this year’s Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) Fellows in Cancun, helped prompt the government to enact new policies to address climate change and environmental issues. With colleagues Alejandra Vargas and Marcela Cantero, Fonseca wrote a series of investigative reports on the affects of climate change on Costa Rica for the daily, La Nación, the largest national paper in Costa Rica.

The 2007 five-part series covered sea level rise and coastal erosion, floods, endangered species, biodiversity, health and carbon emissions. “The series we did on climate change brought the issues home for Costa Ricans. Before, most people thought of it as a problem in Africa or some other place, but never realized how much climate change was affecting our daily lives as Costa Ricans,” said Fonseca.

The series prompted the government to act. Shortly following its publication, the government created the National Strategy for Climate Change. President Oscar Arias Sánchez declared that Costa Rica would be carbon neutral by 2021, and personally spearheaded the creation of Peace with Nature, a presidential initiative with “a strong political commitment to fight against environmental degradation.”…

US drought monitor for the southeastern US

From the weekly summary for the Southeast and mid-Atlantic: ....Weekly precipitation totals generally increased from south to north along the East Coast, with light rainfall (0.1 to 0.3 inches) in much of Florida and eastern Georgia and heavy precipitation (2 to 4 inches) in eastern New England. In-between, 1 to 1.5 inches of rain in eastern New Jersey was enough to alleviate the D0, while the 1 to 1.5 inches of precipitation in southeastern Virginia (west of Norfolk) and eastern North Carolina (north of Wilmington) allowed for trimming of the D0 edge.

Similar to the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, the Northeast has also seen increased precipitation since October which has led to drought improvement or removal, as has parts of the Southeast, namely northern sections of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The trend continued this week in the northern parts of the Southeast as another 1 to 1.5 inches of rain maintained surpluses out to 90-days, resulting in additional trimming of D0-D1 in northern Mississippi, central and northern Alabama, and northern Georgia.

In contrast, subnormal precipitation (weekly totals less than 0.5 inches) in the eastern Gulf and southern Atlantic Coasts further degraded conditions. Less than 25 percent of normal precipitation has fallen in portions of eastern Georgia and northern Florida the past 60-days, and since mid-September (90-days), under half of normal rainfall was observed in eastern Georgia and most of north-central Florida. Most USGS average stream flow sites at all time periods (1-, 7-, 14-, and 28-days) were at near or record lows in northern and central Florida, eastern Georgia, and the central Carolinas, while soil moisture indices, blends, and models were depicting percentiles in the lower 5th percentile in eastern Georgia and north-central Florida.

Accordingly, D1-D3 crept northward into eastern Georgia and southeastern South Carolina; the two separate D3 areas in eastern Florida were joined, encompassing the Florida Space Coast; D1 and D2 expanded westward in north-central Florida; D1 extended into Collier County and surrounding areas in southern Florida; D1 slightly expanded eastward in central South Carolina; and the last remaining no drought area was removed in extreme southern Florida....

Reservoir flood maps go online

Public Service (UK): Councils and emergency services and are to be better prepared for reservoir flood risks after the Environment Agency published online maps highlighting areas potentially at risk from flooding. The maps show the worst case scenario of how far flood water could spread from a reservoir, giving emergency services and councils information to plan ahead to protect the public.

Created using dam breach and flood modelling techniques the maps cover reservoirs in England and Wales and have been published on the Environment Agency website. "While the risk of a reservoir failure is extremely low the safety of the public must remain our top priority and where there is even a small risk we need to make sure that we are prepared," said environment minister Richard Benyon.

"These reservoir flood maps will help ensure that authorities and emergency services know what to do to reduce the possibility of water escaping from a reservoir and how to reduce damage and danger if a reservoir does fail."

Welsh minister for environment sustainability and housing, Jane Davidson said: "Making the outline maps accessible on the Environment Agency's web pages is important, not only to help raise the public's awareness of wider flood risk information but also to spell out what actions they should take in the unlikely event of a reservoir emergency."…

A 2007 flood in Oxford, shot by John Barker, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Dwindling funding could leave Pakistan flood survivors without aid

Daily Times (Pakistan): Even as people displaced by the devastating floods in Pakistan continue streaming back to their destroyed homes, the UN and its partners warned on Friday that humanitarian needs remain enormous amid dwindling resources. “Under-funding remains a challenge,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update, warning that with the food cluster facing a $237 million shortfall, food aid could run out next month, unless further contributions are received.

The shelter cluster has reported that emergency shelter materials have been distributed to 47 percent of the estimated number of people whose homes were damaged or destroyed, but agencies will be unable to provide early recovery shelter to an estimated 800,000 homeless households. In Sindh, people have continued to return to their villages as the flood waters recede and access improves, but some areas remain under water, the UN said. Of the 4,800 camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) identified in October, 325 are still open, accommodating roughly 130,000 people. There are, however, newly established camps or secondary displacement sites that have sprung up in areas of return, according to OCHA.

In province, receding water has enabled people to move out of camps in several districts, but more than 4,300 families remain in camps. With temperatures continuing to fall rapidly across the country, thousands of flood-affected households remain in need of “winterised” shelter and medical aid….

Turn REDD on its head

James Mayers in the "Sustainable Markets" page of the International Institute for Environment and Development website: National REDD strategies must be based on local, not government, control, say opinion leaders from ten countries in the IIED-facilitated Forest Governance Learning Group. Argument about REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) was raging in Mozambique as well as Mexico last week. By the weekend the climate negotiators in Cancun had come up with an outline agreement on REDD — a useful step and a bigger one than looked likely two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I was in Mozambique among 40 people from ten countries grappling with the practical realities of REDD. We came to talk with the Madjajane and Goba communities about their forests and then continued to debate and plan our future work in the small town of Namaacha. We agreed that if you set out to invent the perfect mechanism to counter the forces that destroy or degrade forests — the chainsaws, bulldozers, drinks in the bar and grease on the palms of those making forest-trashing business deals — you would not come up with REDD (or even its more people-friendly variants REDD+ and REDD++). REDD is about reducing emissions, not managing forests sustainably and improving people’s lives.

But the prospect of unprecedented funding through REDD is enticing — it could bring more money than ever before for doing useful things for forests. The hooks for making governance more accountable are also exciting — the money must be tracked and the emission reductions credibly verified. We need to help shape these programmes so that they do the right thing by forest management and livelihoods.

All the lessons learnt from the past thirty years of effort in many countries to try and sustainably manage forests while improving livelihoods point to the fundamental need for local decision making power. This means that communities and the rightful individual owners of forest land must have secure tenure and be able to run viable enterprises based on sustainably managing their forest assets….

Bamboo and ferns in a Peruvian rainforest, shot by Tadd and Debbie Ottman, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Adapting to climate change may have been easier 13,500 years ago

Sify News: Adapting to climate change may have been easier in the past, according to a new study. Samuel Munoz, now a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and geologist Konrad Gajewski at the University of Ottawa measured the effects of five major climate change events in North America.

…The period they examined ranged from the time humans first settled the region 13,500 years ago to the first European-settled colonies 500 years ago. The researchers compared the known changes in climate to the cultural time periods defined as Paleoindian, Archaic and Woodland.

Every change in the climate, they discovered, occurred at the same time as a change in the culture. The tools the natives used, the crops they grew, the animals they hunted all changed with the circumstances…. Some of the changes were abrupt, some more gradual, but largely 'every cultural transition corresponds to a major transition in the climate and vegetation of the region', observed the researchers.

When climate change altered food resources for pre-agricultural American Indians, they shifted strategy, and sometimes population size. Similar climate changes are now happening in Alaska and the Yukon, where the present day indigenous people are still living.

Summers are getting drier and lightning-caused forest fires are getting more intense. The boreal forest, mostly spruce, is on the verge of a major transformation and will gradually be replaced by lodgepole pines. Besides changing the look of the forest, the transition will be good news for moose, which find lots to eat in deciduous forests, and bad news for caribou now living the area, which do not.

"People who are dependent on caribou will have to change," said Gajewski. But they will find adaptation more difficult than the people of the past, according to Craig Gerlach of the Center for Cross Cultural Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks as modern indigenous people…

China announces package for post-flood reconstruction in Pakistan

CRI (China): Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday announced a package for post-flood reconstruction in Pakistan, including a 10 million U.S. dollar grant for flood victim compensation and a 400 million dollar concession loan.

Speaking at the National Disaster Management Authority in Islamabad, Wen said China would continue to help Pakistan in the post-disaster phase of the floods and would provide resources and technical support for disaster prevention and forecasting technology.

China has the expertise in dealing with situations such as the landslide-triggered Attabad lake and would send its experts to address the perils arising from the lake along the Karakoram Highway, Wen said. The premier said the provision of disaster control and forecasting technology would help Pakistan in better handling such situations in the future.

Wen said the reconstruction plan will also cover the repairing of damaged infrastructure, roads and the rehabilitation of the flooded people in Pakistan….

An aerial view of damage caused by flooding is shown in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan Aug. 5, 2010. US Army photograph

Deltas at the front line

Olivia Boyd in China Dialogue: This year, officials in Jakarta realised they had a serious problem: rain – and more rain. Indonesia’s wet months are famously soggy and rainstorms nothing new for the capital. But this time around the downpours continued long after they were meant to have passed. “We have noticed there is no more dry season,” said Fauzi Bowo, the governor of Jakarta. “We use the dry season to repair and prepare our infrastructure for the rainy season. Now we have no chance. It rains every day.”

Jakarta, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River, is just one of many major global cities situated in low-lying, coastal deltas and already grappling with the effects of climate change. Deltas are areas of land formed from sediment where a river flows into the sea or another body of water. They are home to more than half the world’s population and many of its most valuable assets.

…It was in this context that Bowo, speaking at an international conference on the impacts of climate change on deltas earlier this year, made his remarks. The gathering in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam brought together scientists and policymakers from delta regions across the world, from Vietnam to northern Italy, to share knowledge and ideas on adaptation and mitigation. It also acted as a launch pad for the Delta Alliance, a new network of cities and provinces working towards solutions to their common climate-related problems.

And the problems are significant. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) singled out deltas as some of the most vulnerable systems in the world. As Martin Parry, climate scientist at London’s Imperial College and former co-chair of IPCC working group II, said in Rotterdam: “Deltas already have high vulnerability – high flood risk, weather extremes. With climate change, these get worse.”…

Pinisi ships dock at the Sunda Kelapa Harbor, Jakarta. Shot by Danumurthi Mahendra from Indonesia, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Climate resilience studies in Tajikistan to be led by Mott MacDonald

Water World: Mott MacDonald, the leading engineering, management and development consultancy, has been appointed by the Asian Development Bank to carry out climate resilience planning and capacity building in Tajikistan. The studies form part of the joint Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and World Bank PilotProgramme for Climate Resilience in nine countries around the world.

Tajikistan, a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia, is among the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change. There are worsening weather conditions, more frequent floods and droughts, increasing glacier melt, combined with already frequent earthquakes, landslides and avalanches. All of which pose a severe threat to the country's food security, ecosystems, downstream infrastructure, communities and services such as irrigation, hydropower and potable water. As nearly half of Central Asia's water resources originate in the Tajikistan mountains, there are concerns the melting glaciers could eventually lead to water shortages across the entire region.

Mott MacDonald's role, as technical consultant, involves assessing the vulnerability of Tajikistan's water sector assets to climate impact. This will include identifying and prioritising vulnerable communities, ecosystems and infrastructure. The consultancy will be required to develop adaptation and mitigation measures for climate change, based on downscaled hydroclimate impact models. The company will demonstrate ways to integrate climate risk and resilience into core development planning as well as prepare sector-based hazard management investment plans….

Uzoi dam with Lake Sarez (right) and Lake Shadau (left), shot by Hausibek, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Water pact could help Lake Mead

Henry Brean in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: Federal officials are wrapping up negotiations with Mexico on a water deal that could provide a much-needed boost to Lake Mead. In a speech on Friday in Las Vegas , Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he will travel to Mexico on Sunday to discuss the international water agreement and other issues. "We have high hopes. We'll know more within a very few short days," he said.

The details have not been finalized, but the concept is for Mexico to store some of its Colorado River allocation in Lake Mead for use in future years, temporarily lifting the water level in the drought-stricken reservoir. Right now, Mexico can't take its full share of water from the river because of a 7.2 magnitude quake that struck Mexicali on April 4, damaging canals and reservoirs that supply the vast agricultural area just south of the California border.

Salazar said the expected agreement with Mexico would benefit the U.S. by keeping additional water in storage "so we can help address lake levels at Lake Mead." The surface of the reservoir has dropped 130 vertical feet since drought took hold on the Colorado River in 1999. If the lake falls another 9 feet, it will trigger the first-ever shortage declaration on the river that supplies water and power to about 25 million people across the West.

Under shortage rules, Nevada and Arizona would be forced to reduce their combined use by 400,000 acre-feet a year. Nevada's share of those cuts would start at 13,000 acre-feet and increase incrementally as Lake Mead continues to drop. One acre-foot of water is enough to supply two average Las Vegas Valley homes for a year. Nevada gets 300,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water annually, one-fifth of Mexico's allocation.

Local water managers worry that Lake Mead will drop far enough to shut down one of the two intake pipes that supply the Las Vegas Valley with about 90 percent of its drinking water. "Obviously it's a priority to keep Lake Mead levels as high as possible," said Scott Huntley, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "Keeping those lake levels up is a top priority."…

Lake Mead from space, via NASA

More extreme weather on the way for Vietnam

Helen Clark in the Global Post: Extreme weather is a part of everyday life in Vietnam. The Mekong Delta floods each year and small children travel to school by boat. Typhoons and tropical storms blow across the South China Sea to the central coast, often on course from the Philippines. Rains flood the cities and thousands of motorbike exhaust pipes choke on the murky water.

But the floods that hit the north-central coast of Vietnam this past October were outside the normal pattern. What initially looked like an unremarkable depression on satellite maps wound up dropping 80 percent of Ha Tinh province's average annual rainfall in just 10 days. Close to 200 people died in these and later floods. More than 250,000 houses were submerged.

Major floods are usually prefaced by a storm. These weren’t. Few had the opportunity to move their belongings to higher ground. Many were trapped on rooftops without food or water for days. Reports by aid groups detailed stories of costly hospital equipment ruined and pregnant women giving birth in attics.

And this likely won’t be a one-off event. According to experts, unpredictable weather patterns seem to be on the rise in Vietnam. The country will need to adapt, they say, or face increased losses of agriculture, infrastructure and overall GDP. “If you look at last year and this year what we saw were a succession of medium-scale storm events that affected the country and they also came towards the latter part of the year, which is unusual,” said Ian Wilderspin, a senior technical adviser of disaster risk management at the U.N. Development Program….

Pay more attention to adaptation

Scott Vaughn in the Chronicle Herald (Canada): The Maritimes have taken a beating from severe weather events in the last few months. Three days ago, they were pounded with winds of up to 140 kph and heavy rains that left 79,000 Nova Scotia residents without power and caused flooding in New Brunswick.

In August, Meat Cove was at the centre of flash floods that severely damaged roads and bridges, and cut off communities for days. The Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office estimates the cost from that single two-day event to be over $7 million, including evacuation, repairs of public infrastructure and damages to private homes.

Two weeks later, in early September, Hurricane Earl brought with it high winds and heavy rains along the southern shore of Nova Scotia. Although damages from Hurricane Earl were less than predicted, according to media reports, one person died because of the storm, and power outages were reported in many counties.

…The question many are asking is whether these recent events, and similar ones in the past year, are one-time weather anomalies, or a glimpse of what we may face in the coming years because of the long-term impact of climate change. Canadians are demanding to know more about what climate change impacts mean to their communities and about their governments’ capacities to respond to these impacts.

Last week, my office released a report to Parliament that addressed whether the federal government is getting ready to face the long-term impacts of climate change. The report found that there is still no federal policy on adapting to climate change, and no strategy or action plan in place. This is alarming, given that the federal government has concluded, through its own scientific assessments, that climate change impacts are inevitable, and are already taking place in some parts of the country….

Tropical Storm Earl makes landfall in Nova Scotia, September 4, 2010, via NASA

Dire issues converge in the drylands

Kanya d’Almeida in IPS: Few are aware that close to one billion people in over 100 different countries are suffering from or severely threatened by intense desertification. Yet awareness is crucial, for it is human behaviour that has led to the proliferation of hyper- arid, uncultivable drylands over the past few decades.

As vast amounts of land are increasingly lost to desertification, the United Nations General Assembly declared the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification (UNDDD), scheduled to run from January 2010 to December 2020 to raise awareness and develop action plans to protect the drylands. On Thursday, the European Launch of UNDDD was held in London, home to scores of NGOs, think-tanks and advocacy organisations dedicated to combating land degradation and promoting the sustainability of deserts.

Researchers, activists and policy experts gathered to share knowledge, strategies and perspectives on the crisis, working within the framework that "A decade is time enough for change." Jointly organised by the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC), and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the European Launch earmarked the culmination of the 2010 calendar year for the Decade, including events in Fortaleza, Brazil; Nairobi, Kenya; Seoul, Republic of Korea and Colorado, United States.

Following the disappointments in Cancún and the failure of countless international treaties to stem land degradation, the Decade presents the international community with an opportunity to act swiftly and urgently to deal with the crisis. The drylands are home to one in every three people on earth. Some of the world's most dire issues - from biodiversity and food production, to energy extraction and famine - converge in the drylands….

Camel's Rock in Tunisia, shot by Jaume Ollé, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Alternate wetting and drying of rice paddies in Bangladesh cuts arsenic contamination

Janet Pelley in Chemical & Engineering News: Rice is the staff of life for millions of Bangladeshis, but it could also damage their health. The well water drawn for irrigating rice in Bangladesh is naturally high in arsenic, a carcinogen with no safe dose. Now a study shows that a simple farming practice promoted to save water could also help cut exposure to arsenic (Environmental Science & Technology (DOI: Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es102882q).

Rice usually grows in perpetually flooded fields that provide a reducing and anoxic environment. In such an environment, arsenic becomes bioavailable and gets released from the soil. Plants can then readily take it up. Rice in a typical Asian diet can lead to daily arsenic exposures equivalent to drinking 2 L of water that is at or above the World Health Organization's limit for arsenic of 10 µg/L. Researchers have found that growing rice on dry fields cuts arsenic levels in the grains by 90% but also slashes yields.

A different farming method has been catching on fast in Bangladesh as a way to save water. In it, farmers irrigate their fields and then wait up to 10 days to let their paddies dry out before irrigating again. Stephan Hug, an aquatic geochemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, and colleagues in Switzerland and Bangladesh wondered if intermittent irrigation could also lessen plant exposure to arsenic….

Drying rice in the sun in Bangladesh, shot by Shahnoor Habib Munmun, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Loss of Arctic ice may promote hybrid marine mammals, contribute to extinction

University of Massachussetts (Amherst): Scientists have expected for some time that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by the end of this century. Writing in today’s issue of the journal Nature, a trio of researchers say the seasonal loss of this ice sheet, a continent-sized natural barrier between species such as bears, whales and seals, could mean extinction of some rare marine mammals and the loss of many adaptive gene combinations.

Marine mammalogist and first author Brendan Kelly of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine mammal lab in Juneau, with conservation geneticist Andrew Whiteley of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and evolutionary biologist David Tallmon of the University of Alaska, say genes developed over millennia in isolated populations have given many Arctic marine animals sets of fine-tuned adaptations, helping them uniquely thrive in the harsh environment. Their article for the first time looks ahead to speculate on what biologists can expect as these populations meet, hybridize by interbreeding and mix their gene pools.

The authors call for immediate monitoring and stepped-up study of many already rare, threatened or endangered bears, whales and seals in the coming decades, before discrete populations begin to disappear through interbreeding.

As Whiteley explains, the picture is complicated and it is hard for biologists to know exactly what to expect because hybridization can have beneficial consequences in the first generation. But in later generations, the process begins to have more negative effects as genomes mix and any genes associated with environment-adapted traits are recombined. Genes related to any trait that once allowed the animal to thrive in a specific habitat can be diluted, leaving the animal less well suited to surviving and reproducing there.

In some cases hybridization, which is one of nature’s sources of evolutionary novelty, might not be so bad, the authors acknowledge. But in other cases such as interbreeding between the rare North Pacific right whale, with fewer than 200 individuals believed to be left, and more numerous bowhead whales, interbreeding could mean extinction of the rarer, smaller population….

A size comparison of a human and a right whale, image by Chris_huh, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Extinctions: loss of habitat harms evolutionary diversity

University of Oregon: A mathematically driven evolutionary snapshot of woody plants in four similar climates around the world has given scientists a fresh perspective on genetic diversity and threats posed by both extinctions and loss of habitat.

The message from the study, appearing online ahead of publication in the journal Ecology Letters, says lead author Hélène Morlon, is that evolutionary diversity -- the millions of years of evolutionary innovations contained in present-day species -- is more sensitive to extinctions or loss of habitat than long thought. And that, she adds, means conservation efforts really need to take into consideration how species are evolutionarily related.

"We are all interested in preserving biodiversity," said Morlon, a French scientist formerly with the University of Oregon's Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as a postdoctoral researcher and now at the University of California, Berkeley. "This means trying to preserve the most species we can, but remembering that all species are not equal. None of us want to make choices on which species to preserve, but if we have to, we might be interested in preserving the species that are the most unique in evolutionary history. There are also other characteristics of species to consider, of course. Biodiversity is simply too complex to be summarized by a single number -- be it species richness or phylogenetic diversity."…

Protoaceae plants banksia menziesii (firewood banksia) in Australia. Photos by H. Morlon, from the University of Oregon website

Heavy rains continue as Colombia seeks to aid flood victims

Chris Kraul in the Los Angeles Times: Even as the government struggled to get emergency relief to thousands of flood victims, torrential rains continued to batter northern Colombia on Wednesday, adding to the misery caused by one of the worst natural disasters in this nation's modern history. Weeks of rainfall — and the breach of an important canal levee — has caused flooding that has killed 257 people and affected more than 1.9 million residents, or nearly 5% of the population. An exact count of those left homeless by water damage in several parts of Colombia was unavailable, but the total is believed to be in the tens of thousands.

…Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa arrived in Cali on Wednesday to offer help and inspect flood damage with Santos. The two leaders also announced the imminent restoration of diplomatic relations, which were severed after Colombian troops invaded Ecuador in 2008 to kill a rebel leader.

Government estimates of damages run up to $5 billion. More than 320,000 schoolchildren are without classrooms, and 1.5 million acres of farmland and cattle pastures have been inundated. Dozens of roads and bridges have been washed out. Officials in Cartagena said this week that most roads leading into the northern port city were closed.

Meteorologists said El Niño conditions call for heavy rains to continue through February. Health officials alerted hospitals and clinics to the possible outbreak of disease among victims exposed to the elements and scarcities of food and clean water….

How hard are we pushing the land?

NASA: We may be becoming an ever more technologically advanced society, but we remain as dependent as ever -- if not more and more so -- on the natural world that surrounds us. That is one takeaway from new NASA research that has found humans are using an increasing amount of the Earth's total land plant production each year for food, fiber, building and packaging materials and biofuels.

This remains a young data record, as one of the first global measurements tied to satellite data was published in 2004. That baseline-setting measurement was for the year 1995, when humans needed 20 percent of all plant growth for our various products. But the early returns are in, and despite uncertainties in the measurement, the signal is headed in a clear direction: up. From 1995 to 2005, global annual plant consumption rose from 20 percent to 25 percent of all plant production in those years.

As the human population continues to grow and more societies develop modern economies, this rate of consumption is increasing both as a whole and on a per capita basis globally, a NASA research group led by Marc Imhoff at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., has found.

The group has also used NASA satellite data to produce a multi-decadal record of plant production (from 1982 to 2007) that establishes a baseline of the Earth's productivity. But it is the consumption data, estimated from UN Food and Agriculture Organization country profiles, that reveals a snapshot of how much pressure human consumption is putting on the landscape. These new findings are being presented at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting.

The first data point that jumps out from the research is the increase in demand for plants, from '95 to '05, from 20 percent to 25 percent. Imhoff said that scientists think this is a significant rise for that period of time, but that part of the challenge of this research is determining the limits of ecosystems' production and the impacts of a rising consumption rate.

"The question is, 'How hard are we pushing the land?'" Imhoff said. "People are wary about that percentage creeping up. Most people consider that a high number, although we're still doing research."…

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Vices - Gluttony

Is the flood over in Pakistan?

Wajid Shamsul Hasan in a guest blog on IBN Live (India): Is the flood over in Pakistan? No. Most certainly not! Notwithstanding the Herculean massive relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction operations carried out by the government and people of Pakistan, floodgates of devastation in the wake of worst ever natural disaster in recent times continue to claim lives in scores due to outbreak of epidemics, lack of health facilities, shortage of food, shelter and clothing.

How horrendous life has been after the deluge is unfortunately fading away from the focus of international media. No doubt media have more spicy things to go after such as WikiLeaks, it must not ignore what Pakistan continues to waddle through the aftermath of a natural calamity described by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as slow Tsunami, six times bigger than any other catastrophe in the last fifty years. The flood sweeping through northern tip of Pakistan to Sindh has affected land mass to the size of England uprooting more than 20 million people.

Flood water has not yet receded in many areas. According to recent reports following the visit of European Union delegation to Pakistan stagnant water may take months to dry particularly in Sindh where due to geographical factors the water will stay longer. Dislocated victims put up in tented settlements, lack of infrastructure and no means of livelihood have compounded their sufferings.

Reconstruction work is on full swing - thanks to domestic and international agencies. As a resilient nation Pakistanis are doing their best to get back on their feet. No doubt there are gigantic challenges ahead but these floods have opened new venues of opportunities to everyone whether within Pakistan or abroad….

700,000 lives in Bangkok at risk from floods

Bangkok Post: The lives of about 700,000 people and 1.16 million buildings in Bangkok will be seriously affected by floods caused by more rainfall and rising sea levels as a result of climate change in the next 40 years, a study has found. The managing director of Phetchaburi-based Sirindhorn International Environmental Park, Seeree Supratid, said yesterday the projections were based on a study his team had been conducting to determine the impact of global warming on the capital and its vicinity.

The study, which used statistics from 2008 as a basis, predicts that western Bangkok will be partly covered by water due to a rise in the sea level. The eastern part would be affected more often by flooding caused by increasing rainfall. It is believed the higher sea level could result in a sea surge as far as 1.8 kilometres inland. The water level in affected areas would vary depending on their distance from the shore.

Mr Seeree said as many as 700,000 people were expected to be affected. About 250,000 of these would be in Don Muang, Nong Chok, Bang Kho Laem and Yannawa districts, and the country's main business hubs of Silom and Sathon. The study team predicts 1.16 million buildings would be affected by floods of at least 10 centimetres in depth including 900,000 residential buildings….

A floating market in Bangkok, shot by Paolobon140, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Fatal floods in Africa

Philip F. Schewe in Inside Science News Service: When natural disasters claim human lives, it's important to determine whether the problem is geophysical or cultural. A new study shows that the large upswing in flood deaths in Africa over past decades is chiefly the result of population settlement patterns, and is not a consequence of changing climate.

Floods displaced 2.5 million people in Africa in 2009 and more than a million in 2007. Overall African flood fatalities increased by a factor of ten from 1950 to 2009. Over 15,000 people died during the decade 2000-2009. The human population in areas prone to flood damage also increased by a factor of ten over the same period.

Why do people live in places that flood? Historically people are drawn to riverbanks and coastlines for a number of reasons: jobs, irrigation water and easy transport. Six scientists made a detailed study of the water discharge of African rivers over the years from 1900 to 2000 to see if the rivers themselves had changed, perhaps due to climate change. They found that the amount of water coursing through the rivers hasn't changed that much.

Despite a tenfold increase in flood deaths, the consistent river flow and the tenfold increase in the population settled in flood-risk areas suggested to the new study's authors that the problem is chiefly one of human settlement patterns…

The yellow-to-red areas on this map of Africa show population growth over the period 1960-2000. The location of floods over the period 1985 to 2009 are denoted by dots and deadly floods by black circles. Credit: Courtesy Giuliano Di Baldassarre

Giant icebergs head to watery end at island graveyard

Jonathan Amos in the BBC: The huge tabular blocks of ice that frequently break off Antarctica get swept towards the Atlantic and then ground on the shallow continental shelf that surrounds the 170km-long island. As they crumble and melt, they dump billions of tonnes of freshwater into the local marine environment.

UK scientists say the giants have quite dramatic impacts, even altering the food webs for South Georgia's animals. … "The scale of some these icebergs is something else," said oceanographer Dr Mark Brandon from the Open University.

"The iceberg known as A-38 had a mass of 300 gigatonnes. It broke up into two fragments, but it also shattered into lots of smaller bergs. Each smaller berg was still fairly big and each dumped lots of freshwater into the system."

…With a group of colleagues he planted scientific moorings off South Georgia in several hundred metres of water. The moorings held sensors to monitor the physical properties of the water, including temperature, salinity and water velocity. The presence of plankton was also measured. The moorings were in prime position to capture what happened when the mega-berg A-38 turned up in 2004.

It is one of many tabular blocks, such as B-10A and A-22B, which have been caught at South Georgia, which lies downstream of the Antarctic Peninsula in currents known as the Weddell-Scotia Confluence…

From NASA, the split of the A38-B iceberg is recorded in this series of images. The iceberg was originally part of the massive A-38 iceberg, which broke from the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Another section of the A-38 iceberg, A-39D, was covered in melt water ponds as it drifted past South Georgia Island in late January 2004—the height of the summer in the Southern Hemisphere.