Economic analysis of climate change adaptation strategies in selected coastal areas in Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam

Climate change with its attendant geophysical hazards is well studied. A great deal of attention has gone into analyzing climate change impacts as well as searching out possible mitigating adaptive strategies. These matters are very real concerns, especially for coastal communities. Such communities are often the most vulnerable to climate change, since their citizens frequently live in abject poverty and have limited capacity to adapt to geophysical hazards. Their situation is further complicated by the prospect of dealing with a confluence of hazards in comparison with those in other ecosystems. Against this backdrop Worldfish and the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) collaborated to implement the cross-country study “Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability Assessments, Economic and Policy Analysis of Adaptation Strategies in Selected Coastal Areas in Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam”. As its title suggests the study covered selected sites in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Employing a gamut of interdisciplinary methodologies -- ranging from community-based approaches such as community hazard mapping and focus group discussions (FGDs) to regression techniques -- the study documented the impacts from three climate hazards affecting coastal communities. These were typhoon/flooding, coastal erosion, and saltwater intrusion. The team also analyzed planned adaptation options suited to implementation by communities and local governments, augmenting autonomous responses of households to protect and insure themselves from these hazards.

Linking climate change, rice yield, and migration: the Philippine experience

This study tests the hypothesis that climate change, through its rice productivity impacts, induces out-migration in the Philippines. Results show that climate change effects such as increasing night time temperature and extreme rainfall pattern, by way of reduction in rice yield and farm revenues, significantly increases the number of Overseas Filipino Workers. Findings also show that overseas migration of female workers is more sensitive to climate and rice productivity changes compared to male overseas migration. However, unlike overseas migration, the reduction in yield and farm revenues act as a constraint to domestic migration.

On the trail of interannual variability in phytoplankton and climate [abstract and figures]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): A selective but nontheless real record of phytoplankton activity over the Santa Barbara Basin can be obtained from the underlying varved sediments. The phytoplankton groups preserved are: diatoms (frustrules and spores), silicoflagellates, dinoflagellates (cysts) and coccoliths.

Holocene climate and El Nino history as recorded in the sediments of northern coastal Peru [abstract, table, and references]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The history of the El Nino phenomena is recorded in both the fluvial and coastal sediments of northern Peru. The fluvial record was presented at the 1987 PACLIM Workshop and is discussed in detail elsewhere (Wells, 1987). However, the number of radiocarbon dated El Nino events has increased since Wells (1987) was published; this data is presented in Table 1.

A sensitivity analysis of Southwestern climate [abstract and conclusions]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): We provide here an estimate of the extent that modern climate in the southwest US is sensitive to changes in several parameters that reflect global climatic changes. For the purposes of this study, we define modern climate as mean monthly values for the months of February and August (called winter and summer, respectively) of temperature and precipitation, at points representing the average of cells of dimension 7.5' on a side. The area studied surrounds the drainage basin of Death Valley, California.