Improving nitrogen use efficiency lessens environmental impact of crops

Science Daily: Most agricultural crops require large quantities of nitrate-rich fertilizer to realize optimal yields. The dilemma for growers is finding ways to balance the amount of nitrogen needed for production while minimizing potentially harmful nitrates that can leach into ground and surface waters. Increased interest in environmentally beneficial "low-input" approaches is challenging researchers to identify genotypes that have a characteristic called "high nutrient use efficiency," or NUE.

Using vegetable types with high NUE could help growers lessen environmental impacts while maintaining high crop yields. A new study reported on improved NUE traits that resulted from grafting melon plants onto commercial rootstocks.

Scientist Giuseppe Colla from the University of Tuscia and colleagues published the research in HortScience. The researchers evaluated a "rapid and economical" methodology for screening melon rootstocks for NUE using two experiments. In the first experiment melon plants, either ungrafted or grafted onto four commercial rootstocks grown in hydroponics, were compared. The second experiment was designed to confirm whether the use of a selected rootstock with high NUE could improve crop performance and NUE of grafted melon plants under field conditions….

Australian floodwaters rise as bushfire threat looms

The Guardian (UK) via Reuters: Floodwaters have risen across a vast area of north-east Australia, affecting 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes and closing an important sugar export port. Flooding has already shut coal mines and the biggest coal export port in Queensland, forcing companies such as Anglo American and Rio Tinto to slow or halt operations.

The worst flooding in about 50 years has been caused by a "La Niña" weather pattern, which cools water in the eastern Pacific and has produced torrential rain in the past two weeks across north-east Australia. In the southern states of Victoria and South Australia, meanwhile, soaring temperatures and tinder dry conditions have sparked bushfires.

Authorities warned of possible "catastrophic" fires if conditions worsened, and holiday travellers were asked to prepare evacuation plans. South Australia rural fire chief Andrew Lawson said: "We're asking people to have a plan, how they're going to get to where they're going ... a plan to get away ... if a bushfire happens to threaten."…

A flooded street in Toowomba, Australia, from 1906

Climate change, or why we are like slave owners

Jean-Francois Mouhot has a great piece in the Ecologist, working out an analogy that has crossed my mind: Why does climate change science generate so much heat and controversy? In a recent article in the journal Climatic Change, I argue that we have a vested interest not to cut carbon emissions, similar to that of slave-owners in the 19th century who opposed the abolition of slavery.

First, slaves and fossil-fuelled machines play(ed) similar economic and social roles: ‘energy slaves' (machines powered by fossil fuels) now do the work in our homes, fields and factories, which used to be carried out by slaves and servants in the past. Both slave societies and developed countries externalise(d) labour (labour came from slaves in the former case and 'work' is provided by machines in the latter), and both slaves and modern machines free(d) their owners from daily chores.

Before the advent of fossil fuel powered appliances, 'slavery was the most efficient means by which the ambitious and powerful could become richer and more powerful. It was the answer to energy shortage', writes historian John McNeill. This was well understood by educated men and women from the antiquity onwards. As the leading historian of slavery David Brion Davis has noted, 'what made slavery so appealing and seductive, especially in the long era before self-powered appliances, engines, and other labor-saving devices, was the freedom it brought for slaveholders'. As a consequence, economically and socially, we are today as dependent on fossil fuels as slave societies were dependent on bonded labour.

Second, in differing ways, suffering resulting (directly) from slavery and (indirectly, through Climate Change) from the excessive burning of fossil fuels are now morally comparable. When we burn oil or gas at a rate that exceeds what the ecosystem can absorb, we contribute to global warming, which in turn contributes to droughts, floods or hurricanes. These climatic events cause suffering to other human beings, today and in the future. They contribute to crop failures and put some people at risk of falling into debt bondage, a condition similar to traditional slavery. Other people are driven away from their land because of poverty, and become refugees, stationed in camps, where they may have to work for unscrupulous employers or in prostitution rings (a form of slavery in which refugees are over-represented).

Similarly, cheap fossil fuels facilitate imports of goods from countries without (or with grossly inadequate) legislation to protect economical and social rights of employees and workers. Indeed, our global economy rests on Ricardo's famous comparative advantage concept, which is based on the assumption of negligible transport costs. The availability of cheap energy is a required condition for the transportation of foreign goods on a massive scale over large distances, otherwise it would become uneconomical. Fossil fuels hence help externalise labour and perpetuate oppression….

"Black Conscience Day" by Carlos Latuff

Water projects on top agenda of Beijing in 2011

People’s Daily (China): As extreme weather becomes more frequent in China due to the effects of climate change, the country's weak water projects are facing unexpected challenges, a senior official said. Chen Lei, minister of water resources, told China Daily that the flooding and drought that affected millions of people this year has exposed many problems. He said about 130 million people across the country are living in potential flood zones with an area of nearly 1 million square kilometers.

A catastrophic mudslide, triggered by mountain torrents in Zhouqu county in Gansu province on Aug 8 left 1,472 dead, 294 missing and more than 15,000 homeless, according to the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters. More than 66 percent of the country's small- and medium-sized rivers do not meet national flood control standards and more than 32,000 small water reservoirs are flawed, according to the ministry. More than 70 percent of flooding disasters happen in small- and medium-sized rivers, the ministry said.

Besides flood season when water projects are challenged, the lack of anti-drought water projects and the limited capacity of small reservoirs aggravate the drought season that runs from spring to summer every year, Chen said. At the peak of the severe drought in Southwest China early this year, nearly 21 million people from the worst-hit areas such as Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Sichuan lacked drinking water, according to statistics from the ministry. "We are facing the fact that large populations and limited water resources are unevenly located," Chen said….

The Taklamakan desert near Yarkand in the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. Shot by Colegota, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Spain license

Desertification causes flooding in northern Nigeria

Mustapha Suleiman in AllAfrica.com via the Daily Trust (Nigeria): Desertification has been described as one of the major causes of the perennial flooding in some Northern states which lead to loss of farmlands and crops. It also causes sand dunes to occupy productive land resulting in high cost of food items such as maize, yams, beans, millet, sorghum, potatoes, tomatoes and pepper grown in Northern Nigeria.

This assertion was contained in a lead paper presentation by Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun entitled, "Climate change and desertification: Threat to food security in Nigeria, " during the international climate change and desertification summit held recently at Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto.

Prof. Faghohun further stated that the high cost of cattle is also the fallout of desertification which has led to mass extinction of cattle heads denied grazing lands, adding that desertification also diminishes biological diversity. "Climate change will also affect the ability of individuals to use food effectively by altering the conditions for food safety….”

Satellite image of a dust storm near Lake Chad in Nigeria

Sand from Bangladesh may boost Maldives

UPI: Sand from Bangladesh may help to keep the Maldives above water under a proposed agreement between the two countries, an official said. "We have received a proposal from the Maldives government regarding this. They want to import soil from our country in defense against rising sea levels," said Bangladesh Commerce Minister Muhammad Faruk Khan, the Business Standard newspaper of India reports.

The two countries are investigating the possibility and may sign an agreement within three or four months, Khan said. Dredging Bangladesh's rivers has become necessary because of huge amounts of sediment -- totaling around 264 billion gallons -- that is naturally deposited from the Himalayas. As a result, the country's rivers are becoming increasingly difficult for vessels to navigate, Khan said.

Dredging would start with Mongla Port on the Posur River and isn't likely to have an impact on Bangladesh's environment, Khan said. "We are more than happy if the deal works out because it will be beneficial for a brotherly nation," Khan said.

The Maldives' 1,200 low-lying islands and coral atolls, about 500 miles from the tip of India, are in danger of disappearing if the current pace of global climate change continues. In 2007, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that rising sea levels of up to nearly 2 feet would swamp many of the country's islands, which average 4.9 feet above sea level…

Three-dimensional imaging satellite TanDEM-X ready for routine operations in 2011

Space Mart: On 14 December 2010, TanDEM-X passed another important milestone: the radar mission's test phase has concluded in less than six months according to plan, paving the way for routine operations - the collection of elevation data - in 2011. The TanDEM-X mission was developed by the German Aerospace Center in collaboration with Astrium, and is operated from DLR Oberpfaffenhofen. The objective of the mission is to create a highly accurate three-dimensional elevation model of Earth's entire surface.

Immediately after it was launched to its 514-kilometre high orbit on 21 June 2010, the satellite was operating nominally, and sent back its first high resolution images after just three and a half days. TanDEM-X was thoroughly tested and calibrated over the following months.

This included the first close formation flight with TerraSAR-X, launched in 2007, during which the two radar satellites flew at a distance of just a few hundred metres from each other. This formation flight made it possible to take simultaneous images of Earth's surface from two different points of view - crucial to the three-dimensional mapping of the entire globe.

"The next step towards our global three-dimensional map was commissioning the control and processing chains and confirming the predicted quality of the first digital three-dimensional models," says Dr. Manfred Zink, TanDEM-X Project Manager for the ground segment at DLR. Completion of this phase means that now nothing stands in the way of full operation in early 2011….

TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites orbiting together, image from Astrium GMBH

Resurgent disease, climate change threaten wheat

Charles J. Hanley in the Chronicle Herald via AP (Nova Scotia): …The future of wheat — in many ways the future of food — was the subject of an emergency meeting of agricultural officials who flew to Rome from around the world in late September, concerned over skyrocketing prices. … Since 2005, the FAO’s cereals price index has doubled. Meanwhile, the number of chronically undernourished in the world has swelled, standing today at an FAO-estimated 925 million — one-seventh of humanity.

…In the face of leapfrogging prices, stagnating yields and shifting climate zones, wheat cannot be counted on to fill mankind’s stomach in the future as it has since at least 7000 BC. And affordable substitutes are often unavailable in places like India and Egypt. "Humanity faces tremendous challenges to food security," the world’s top wheat researchers conclude in a blueprint for a stepped-up strategy to produce more of the grain.

Across the 4,100-metre-high Tlaloc sierra from Taboada’s farm — the mountain where Aztec farmers prayed to their rain god — these researchers search for more scientific ways to boost crop yields at CIMMYT, Spanish-language acronym for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, whose $60-million budget and global staff of 700 are supported by governments and foundations worldwide. The most urgent task facing CIMMYT is to stop the spread of the virulent wheat stem rust, first identified in Uganda in 1999 and dubbed Ug99.

…The biggest challenges may come from climate change. Although wheat might first flourish, it would eventually suffer in a warmer world. … "The evolution of pests and diseases is very much a function of climate," said Matthew Reynolds, CIMMYT’s chief of wheat physiology. "If the climate is changing, then new races can spring up in a very unpredictable fashion. It could be seen as the greatest threat of climate change to agriculture."

…They have big plans: A year-old global research consortium has set a goal of boosting wheat yields by 50 per cent in 20 to 25 years. It will mean "redesigning" the plant. They’re consulting structural engineers, for example, about how a stem can support a fatter head of grain.

Getting that fatter head may require genetic modification, the engineering of life forms that still arouses public opposition. Such opposition is "self-delusion," said Thomas A. Lumpkin, CIMMYT’s director-general. "GM is necessary."…

Photograph of a wheat field taken by Tarquin, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

More unreason about water in California

John Gibler in Solve Climate News via Earth Island Journal: The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta used to be the region where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers would meet, pool for hundreds of square miles, and slowly drain into the San Francisco Bay and out to sea through the Golden Gate. Not anymore. The San Joaquin River is mostly diverted for irrigation before it can reach the Delta and the Sacramento is largely lifted out of the southern tip of the Delta and pumped down the San Joaquin Valley for irrigation.

Today, the Delta is a work of human engineering built over 150 years that consists of thousands of miles of levees, emaciated river flows, immense pumps, bromide and mercury contamination, endangered species, and below sea level “islands” housing communities and farms that would most likely be under water within hours of a major earthquake.

The Delta is the hub of California’s water engineering system and the current focal point of the state’s infamous water wars. Environmentalists and Delta communities want to reduce water exports. Irrigators in the San Joaquin and their strange bedfellows in the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which draws water pumped through the Delta, want to increase water exports. There is one thing all sides agree on: The Delta is a disaster waiting to explode.

…“We have a system where we try to deliver more water than can be reliably delivered. All the signals tell us that we have been exceeding the capacities of the system,” said Tina Swanson, executive director and chief scientist at the Bay Institute. “It is incontrovertible that we have to expect to export less water from the Delta than we have in the past; it is unsustainable. We’re going to have to learn to make do with less.”…

The Suisun Marsh Salinity Control Gates span the Montezuma Slough at the Roaring River intake detail. They operate like a heart valve, allowing flow in only one direction. In this picture, the three gates are open to allow the freshwater ebb tide from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to push the more saline Grizzly Bay water out of the slough. Photo by the Army Corps of Engineers

Water scarcity grave in Barind area of Bangladesh

Financial Express (Bangladesh): Water shortage is gradually becoming grave in the drought-prone Barind area due to scanty rainfall and excessive extraction of groundwater for irrigation as well as adverse impacts of the climate change caused by the global warming.

Simultaneously, the unprecedented fall of water level in the River Padma and its tributaries and other wetlands has created an adverse impact on livelihood of people especially the farmers and other marginal groups.

"Capital dredging of the Padma River has become indispensable to ensure surface water resources for protecting the northern region of the country from environmental degradation," said Agriculturist Rabiul Alam, Executive Director of Agriculture Sustainable and Socio-economic Development Organisation (ASSESO), while sharing views with the newsmen at his office here Sunday.

Jonouddyog, a network of different likeminded development organisations, organised the views-sharing session aimed at depicting the grim pictures of abnormal lowering of groundwater table together with its consequences.

"We have no alternative but to save the mighty Padma and other small rivers and tributaries from the continuous siltation to conserve the vast tract of the Barind area from desertification," he said, adding, "Adequate fund allocation is needed for the work"….

The Padma River, approaching Chittagong, shot by Shahnoor Habib Munmun, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Rain may disappear from Latin America

Mario Osava in IPS: South America still has vast extensions of land available for growing crops to help meet the global demand for food and biofuels. But the areas of greatest potential agricultural production -- central-southern Brazil, northern Argentina, and Paraguay -- could be left without the necessary rains.

Every deforested hectare in the Amazon -- a jungle biome extending across the northern half of South America -- weakens the system that has been protecting the region from the desert fate of the Sahara, a third of Australia, and other lands located approximately 30 degrees latitude north and south, warns scientist Antonio Nobre, of the Brazil's national space research institute, INPE.

Halting deforestation in the Amazon needed to be done "by yesterday" and Brazil's official goal to reduce it 80 percent by 2020 is like "quitting smoking when you have advanced lung cancer; when you're already dying," Nobre told IPS. We should already be rebuilding the destroyed forests in order to restore equilibrium, he said, adding that monoculture of eucalyptus and African palm trees is not the answer.

"We don't know where the point of no return is," when forest degradation will become irreversible, and lands that benefited from the rains generated in the Amazon turn to desert, said the agronomist who lived 22 years in that region as a researcher, before joining INPE, in São José dos Campos, 100 kilometres from São Paulo.

The Amazon forest and the barrier created by the Andes Mountains, which run north-to-south through South America, channel the humid winds, now known as "flying rivers." Those winds ensure rainfall for a region that is the continental leader in meat, grain and fruit exports, and a world leader in sugar, soybeans and orange juice. The flying-river phenomenon, as established by climate researchers, led Nobre and other scientists around the globe to a new theory, the "biotic pump," which explains climate phenomena, equilibrium and disequilibrium in the Earth's natural systems -- and in which forest biomes play an essential role….

Facing reality on dam development, according to a dam developer

Jia Jingsheng, head of an international dam organization, speaks out in favor of dams in International Water Power and Dam Construction: In 2001 the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) issued its final comments about the World Commission on Dams’ report. In fact, the goals of dam construction that ICOLD insist upon aim to achieve the maximum possible benefits by minimising negative effects on social, environmental and ecological aspects, including cultural relics, through the full and rational utilisation of natural resources. The different kinds of schemes have to be carefully and thoroughly studied and screened by current regulations in order to attain a harmonious co-existence of mankind and nature. This idea can be viewed in various ICOLD bulletins and publications, and is something which is not significantly different from the goals mentioned in the WCD report.

However, the WCD report overlooked the huge benefits and improvements made on society and the environment by dam construction. And in many aspects, the 26 guidelines proposed in the report for the planning and implementation of future dams, don’t fully take into account the special conditions and the specific development phase of different countries. They are somewhat too idealistic. Therefore, it is inappropriate to require all countries and all international banking organisations to follow the same guidelines.

…Today, sustainable development and sustainability of the life in many parts of the world continue to be threatened by the scarcity of supplies of water, food and energy: 1.1B people are still lacking access to safe drinking water; 2.4B people are without the service of sanitation; and 2B people are waiting for electricity supply. We need more water and energy on one the hand; we need blue sky and clean water on the other. Multi-purpose dams and reservoirs are vital for human development.

…More and more people are recognising that water resources development is essential to achieve sustainable development. Insufficient water storage facilities will delay our ability to respond to global changes and to meet the Millennium Development Goals. In this context, a developing country has more urgent need for water storage facility development as the construction of water storage facilities is not only a crucial matter relating to economic development but also to survival and the alleviation of poverty….

Water intake tubes at Itaipu Dam in Brazil and Paraguay, shot by Wutzofant, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Scientists train software to keep track of climate change

Sify News via ANI: An international team of researchers say that a computer program, which automatically analyzes mounds of satellite images and other data, could help climate scientists keep track of complex, constantly changing environmental conditions.

The program uses probability to analyze and extract environmental information from satellite images and sensor data about ocean structures like wakes, upwellings and cold and warm eddies, according to the researchers.

Researchers first built a database of ocean structures and then used the knowledge of human experts to train the program to recognize and identify changes in the ocean. Researchers tested the technology on satellite images provided by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer of sections of oceans in the Iberian Atlantic, the Mediterranean coast and near the Canary Islands.

The tests included 1,000 cases of real ocean features, including 472 upwellings, 119 cloudy upwellings, 180 wakes, 10 anticyclonic eddies, 40 cyclonic eddies and 180 misclassified regions….

Deadly La Niña goes global

Aubrey Ann Parker and Steve Kellman in Circle of Blue Waternews: The weather phenomenon known as La Niña is having wide-ranging impacts around the Pacific basin, as Colombia copes with record rains and New Zealand swelters through a heat wave. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon consisting of El Niño and La Niña cycles. This year is being classified as a moderate-to-strong La Niña, following 2009’s especially intense El Niño year.

La Niña causes colder than usual water currents along the Pacific coast of the Western Hemisphere, which has caused a severe rainy season from May through November in Mexico, Central America, and the northern part of South America. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, although ENSO is naturally occurring, a warming climate may contribute to an increase in frequency and intensity of El Niño cycle. La Niña events double the likelihood of intense weather events, such as hurricanes and tropical storms, for much of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

In November, rainfall in the Caribbean was five times the average of 2 inches and in the central highlands of Colombia, rainfall was more than double the average of 3.5 inches. In Colombia, this year’s rainy season—the worst in 42 years—has been exceedingly severe, with close to 300 deaths and more than 2 million people affected over the last two months, according to the BBC.

…With close to 2.5 million acres of farmland and over 600 schools under water, the damage in Colombia is estimated at $5 billion. The United States, the European Union, North Korea, and Switzerland have pledged more than $20 million in aid. After visiting neighbor Venezuela, which has also had particularly severe flooding this winter, the Ecuadorian visited Colombia and vowed to help, thus restoring diplomatic relations, which have been strained since Colombia’s 2008 military raid on a clandestine Colombian guerrilla camp just inside Ecuadorian territory.

…La Niña tends to result in dryer and warmer conditions across much of the southern tier of the United States and wetter weather across the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and the Northern Rockies, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The flip side of the weather pattern, El Niño, occurs when water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are warmer than average and results in nearly the opposite effects….

Roelant Savery's 1620 painting of Noah's Ark, shot by Dorota Folga-Januszewska (2005). Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie : arcydzieła malarstwa. Arkady. ISBN 83-21343-31-7

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

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….

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

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