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Regional variations in the impacts of high temperature on hospital admissions in Brazil
Get PDFBackground
High temperatures driven by climate change significantly threaten global health. Their impact on health systems, particularly within low- and middle-income countries, remains underexplored.
Methods
Daily non-elective hospital admissions were collected from the Brazil Hospital Information System for 5,459 (98%) Brazilian municipalities, 2008–2019. Gridded daily maximum temperatures were obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis V5 for the historical period (2008–2023) and projected up to 2060 under three SSP emission scenarios. Population projections were derived from WorldPop. We used a case time-series design and distributed lag non-linear models to examine the relationship between temperature and hospitalisation risk for each state, estimating the number of heat-attributable hospitalisations from 2008 to 2060. Related economic costs were estimated using a cost-of-illness approach including direct and indirect costs.
Findings
Without adaptation, high-temperature-related annual hospitalisations were projected to reach 51 (95 % CI: 19–103), 54 (21–106), and 59 (25–112) per 100,000 population in the 2050s under SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, respectively, representing 54 %, 62 %, and 78 % increases from the 2010s baseline of 33 (9–67) per 100,000. Annual economic costs were projected to reach 264 million in the 2050s, with higher absolute costs in the South and faster relative increases in the North.
Interpretation
The substantial impact of heat on hospitalisations, and its associated costs to the health sector and wider economy, worsen under future climate and demographic change. Regional adaptation and targeted healthcare investments are crucial to manage rising health burdens
The New Paradigm of Informal Economies Under GAI-Driven Innovation
Get PDFAs globalization deepens, concerns over global fragmentation have intensified, accompanied by rising expectations that the Global South will emerge as a key driver of innovation, competitiveness, advanced markets, and high-quality employment. The widespread diffusion of the Internet and smartphones across developing countries suggests the possibility of leapfrog growth, highlighting the informal economy as a potential source of innovation. Recent developments in generative artificial intelligence (GAI) have further underscored the opportunity for collaborative engagement between developed and developing countries to awaken and harness sleeping innovation resources. This study investigates the dynamism of such international collaboration, focusing on digitalization-related challenges and its contributions to leapfrog growth. The interconnections among Internet usage, smartphone penetration, and economic development are examined, revealing the formation of a self-propagating cycle facilitated by GAI. A mathematical model is constructed to demonstrate the dependency of growth on sleeping resources inherent in the informal economy, which is empirically validated through data from nine African countries. Using the coevolutionary dynamics of Amazon and AWS as a conceptual reference, a novel framework is proposed for international collaborative utilization of sleeping innovation resources, offering new insights into GAI-driven innovation rooted in the informal economy
ForestScope: Comprehensive tool for analysing soil, climate, and stand data in forest ecosystems
Get PDFIn environmental conservation and management, analysing soil, climate, and stand data within forest ecosystems is crucial for understanding ecological dynamics, projecting changes, and developing sustainable forestry practices. Often, these data are scattered and unintegrated, complicating their use in modelling and analysis. Current tools lack modular integration of soil, climate, and stand data at large and diverse NFI datasets like International Co-operative Programme (ICP) scale (12,000+ sites). ForestScope bridges this gap by automating harmonization of ICP’s Level I/II datasets, together with soil and climate data, which is essential for informed decision-making in forest management.
ForestScope introduces an open-source framework designed to systematically organize, extract, and harmonize fragmented soil, climate, and stand data from ICP datasets. It includes comparative analyses of International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) and Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) soil datasets, and assessments of Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) climate models and Climatologies at High resolution for the Earth’s Land Surface Areas (CHELSA) against observational data, selecting HWSD v2.0 and CHELSA as optimal for ICP data gaps.
Additionally, ForestScope integrates a vegetation model enhancing National Forest Inventory (NFI) data processing, thus improving forest ecosystem modelling. This advancement deepens our understanding of forest dynamics and supports more effective management strategies
Transformative Spatio-Temporal Insights into Indian Summer Days for Advancing Climate Resilience and Regional Adaptation in India
Get PDFWith global temperatures steadily rising, understanding the impacts of warming on regional climates has become crucial, particularly for countries like India, where climate sensitivity has significant socio-economic implications. This study assesses the trends and spatial distribution of summer days across India under different warming targets (1.5 °C, 2 °C, 2.5 °C, 3 °C, 3.5 °C, 4 °C, 4.5 °C, and 5 °C) and emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). A Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) approach, combining five best-performing CORDEX-SA experiments, was utilized to analyze projected summer days in India. Non-parametric trend analysis techniques—such as the Mann–Kendall test, Modified Mann–Kendall, Sen’s Slope estimator, and Pettitt test—were used to investigate temporal patterns, and Reliability Ensemble Averaging (REA) was applied for uncertainty analysis to ensure robust projections. The results indicate that summer days are expected to increase significantly across India under both RCP scenarios, with the highest increases projected for northeastern regions and north-central regions of India. This study underscores the pressing need for region-specific adaptation strategies to manage extended periods of extreme temperatures and safeguard public health, agriculture, and socio-economic stability
Stakeholder-informed approach improves national modelling of water resources for a Sub-Saharan African basin
Get PDFImproving our understanding of groundwater resources is essential for effective management and sustainable development. Here, we apply a global hydrological model, the Community Water Model (CWatM, 5 arc minute resolution) with MODFLOW6 (5 km resolution), to gain understanding of Malawi’s understudied groundwater resources. The study applies semi-structured stakeholder interviews to inform simulation of water management in a data scarce context. Model simulation was validated against streamflow data for 35 rivers. Basin-wide scale model validation was undertaken by comparison with remote sensing observations of evapotranspiration, precipitation, and changes in total water storage (using GRACE Satellite data)
Norway’s electric vehicle revolution: unveiling greenhouse gas emissions reductions and material use of passenger cars across space and time
Get PDFElectric vehicles (EVs) are a key strategy for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from personal mobility. Norway’s strong EV supporting policies has led to an explosion of EVs and reduced direct emissions, but with rural-urban differences and undocumented upstream impacts. We investigated how the material composition and life cycle GHG emissions of Norwegian vehicles have evolved between 2000 and 2023 by integrating spatiotemporal vehicle data with a vehicle life cycle assessment model. The average life cycle GHG emissions per vehicle-km (vkm) of a newly registered car have significantly decreased (−49% since 2000) thanks to the decrease in use phase emissions (−89% since 2000). However, component-related emissions have increased (+81% since 2000) due to electrification and a trend towards large vehicles. Changes in the fleet are slow: EVs constituted 24% of the stock in 2023 and average life cycle GHG emissions per vkm have barely declined (−8% since 2000). EVs are concentrated in urban and peri-urban areas, while remote areas have few EVs, illustrating the unequal spatial distribution of electric mobility. Our study highlights the challenges related to EV penetration and emphasizes the need to expand to additional indicators beyond direct GHG emissions for a comprehensive understanding of EVs’ role in climate change mitigation
A life-cycle model of risk-taking on the job
Get PDFBehavioral studies suggest that individuals become more averse to taking risks as they age. Nevertheless, the incidence of fatal work injuries is increasing in age in the US and the EU. We develop a life-cycle model that rationalizes this pattern. We find that the decreasing value of life incentivizes higher risk-taking towards the end of a career and can potentially dominate an increasing preference for safer jobs. Calibrated to the US, our model generates a compensating wage differential and a trade-off between wealth and mortality, by which wealthier workers give up part of their wages in favor of lower mortality risk at the workplace. In a counterfactual analysis, we study the effect of pension reforms and aging on on-the-job mortality, finding that a higher retirement age as well as lower baseline mortality reduce risk-taking at all ages, while a higher pension replacement rate only benefits older workers
Understanding science-society interactions (SSI): diverse viewpoints from mountain biosphere reserves
Get PDFAddressing global challenges necessitates innovative forms of knowledge production such as various forms of science-society interactions (SSI), increasingly endorsed by international initiatives like the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and its biosphere reserves. Despite strong policy support advocating for SSI characterized by knowledge co-production and local collaboration, scholarly exploration of SSI within biosphere reserves remains sparse. This study employs the semi-quantitative Q-method to identify viewpoints of SSI among representatives of mountain biosphere reserves and examine the extent to which these correspond to the international UNESCO MAB policies. Following the qualitative development of the statements and data collection, principal component analysis was conducted and revealed four distinct viewpoints. Viewpoint 1 emphasizes SSI as inclusive, collaborative endeavours, prioritizing the active involvement of diverse actors in decision-making. Viewpoint 2 frames SSI as science-driven, with a focus on environmental research, monitoring, and expert knowledge, reflecting historical conservation-focused biosphere reserve approaches. Viewpoint 3 emphasizes the relevance of SSI for knowledge integration and diffusion. Viewpoint 4 positions biosphere reserves as catalysts for SSI, dynamic platforms for fostering co-creation, research and innovation. The study illustrates that despite a strong conceptual basis, the nuanced and subjective nature of SSI presents significant challenges for researchers and other actors in understanding them. UNESCO policies guiding SSI implementation and co-creation in biosphere reserves may not align with diverse on-the-ground perspectives, highlighting the difficulty of translating policy into practice and the need for further exploration to develop effective, context-specific SSI initiatives