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Supporting the Upscaling of Citizen Science to Address Global Challenges
Get PDFIn May 2024, a workshop was held as part of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) 2024 conference in Vienna to explore the creation of transnational communities to upscale citizen science, to address global issues as outlined by the European Union Horizon Missions and their objectives. This report summarises the discussions and issues that were raised during the workshop, from the point of view of a range of different actors in the citizen science discipline. This includes success stories of projects that have upscaled to an international scope, their methodologies for doing so, and the challenges citizen science initiatives face when attempting to contribute to global-scale challenges. The examples shared demonstrate a range of approaches when upscaling citizen science projects, giving rise to discussions regarding project management, shared learning and practice, citizen science tools and resources, scalability and context, and data interoperability. The success and challenges revealed will provide a clear roadmap for current and future citizen science practitioners, especially those with the ambition of upscaling their efforts to tackle challenges at national, regional, or global levels
Advances in complex climate change risk assessment for adaptation
Get PDFRecent advances in climate change risk assessment and management and their application across cities, coastal zones, and finance highlight promising opportunities for near-term action to better govern complex climate change risk and advance adaptation implementation. Positioning applications of participatory modeling, climate risk assessment, adaptation pathways planning, and systemic fiscal disaster risk modeling across variations in time, space, and sector, examples point towards more actionable insights and governance conditions to accelerate equitable adaptation and address inaction caused by uncertainty and complexity
Climate storylines to build resilience for European public and private risk finance instruments against remote events
Get PDFEurope is increasingly threatened by climate-induced events happening remotely from the continent. To test the resilience of selected public and private finance risk instruments against external shocks we analyse multiple hypothetical scenarios based on historic events, focusing on cyclone risks, and various alternative realisations, so-called climate storylines. We present the storyline approach as a systems approach to examine whether events outside a system can affect elements within the system. Furthermore, we provide a framework to analyse possible transmission channels of such remote events jointly as well as separately. In doing so we combine a multi-model approach within single and multi-climate storylines to better address the various vulnerabilities of risk management and adaptation options for today and in the future. We specifically focus on humanitarian emergency assistance (via the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility), public sector governance help (via the European Union Solidarity Fund), macro-economic financial effects (by assessing international financial flows and investment decisions) and consequences to insurance uptake due to remote climate events (via increases in risk aversion of reinsurers). The experiences made with this approach are compared with the advantages and disadvantages of both storylines and probabilistic assessments and we provide ways forward for a unified approach
Shifts in precipitation regimes exacerbate global inequality in grassland nitrogen cycles
Get PDFGrasslands, the Earth’s largest terrestrial ecosystem, provide crucial ecosystem services through biogeochemical cycles. However, these cycles are disrupted by climate change, particularly precipitation changes, limiting grassland productivity. By synthesizing 2944 experimental observations and integrating multiple models, here we show that under the middle-of-the-road scenario, global nitrogen input, harvest, and surplus from grasslands are projected to increase by 10, 7, and 3 million tonnes per year (Tg yr−1), respectively. Substantial regional inequalities are expected. Regions with increased precipitation (mainly the United States, northern Australia, much of Asia) may see a 16 Tg yr−1 increase in nitrogen harvest. Conversely, regions with decreased precipitation (mainly Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia) will see a 9 Tg yr−1 reduction. Timely adaptation measures could reduce nitrogen input and surplus by 12 and 22 Tg yr−1, respectively, while boosting nitrogen harvest by 10 Tg yr−1, potentially averting losses of 238 billion USD by 2050
CROMES v1.0: a flexible CROp Model Emulator Suite for climate impact assessment
Get PDFGlobal gridded crop models (GGCMs) are simulation tools designed for global, spatially explicit estimation of crop productivity and associated externalities. Key areas for their application are climate impact and adaptation studies. As GGCMs are typically computationally costly and require comprehensive data pre- and post-processing, GGCM emulators are gaining increasing popularity. Earlier emulators have typically been published pre-trained on synthetic weather and management combinations. Here, we present a novel computational pipeline CROp Model Emulator Suite (CROMES) v1.0 that serves for flexibly training GGCM emulators on data commonly available from GGCM simulations. Essentially, CROMES consists of modules to (1) process climate data from daily resolution netCDF files to (sub-)growing season aggregates as climate features, (2) combine various feature types (climate, soil, crop management), (3) train emulators using machine-learning algorithms, and (4) produce predictions. Exemplary, we apply CROMES to train emulators on simulations for rainfed maize from the GGCM EPIC-IIASA and climate projections from a single GCM to subsequently test their skill in predicting crop yields for unseen climate projections from other GCMs. Depending on the training and target data, the regression statistics between GGCM simulations and predictions across all points in time and space are in the ranges R2 = 0.97 to 0.98, slope = 0.99 to 1.01, and intercept = −0.06 to +0.06. The RMSE ranges between 0.49 and 0.65 t ha−1. Spatially, patterns are evident with lowest performance in (semi-)arid regions where aggregation of weather data may result in higher information loss while permanent crop growth limitations may hamper evaluation statistics as well. The gain in computational speed for predictions is at more than an order of magnitude with time required to produce target features and subsequent predictions at about 30min on common hardware. We expect CROMES to be of utility in covering more comprehensively uncertainty in climate impact projections, evaluations of adaptation options, and spatio-temporal assessments of crop productivity
The institutional analysis and development framework: A mathematical representation in water arena
Get PDFInstitutions are human-designed systems facilitating structured interactions to achieve specific objectives. The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD), introduced by Elinor Ostrom, is a valuable tool for analyzing these systems. This study formulates a mathematical representation of the IAD within an operational context related to water demand and supply services. It demonstrates that structuring institutional (sub)systems entails a cost driven by external factors and interactions. Such a cost functions as an outcome within the scope of the IAD. This outcome can be mathematically expressed based on the components of the action arena and exogenous variables within a given context and over a distinct timeframe. This concept provides a theoretical basis for computationally evaluating and comparing different system states across varying (sub)system structures
Global forest carbon leakage and substitution effect potentials: The case of the Swedish forest sector
Get PDFThe forest sector's climate change mitigation depends on forest carbon sequestration, storing carbon in wood products, and avoidance of fossil greenhouse gas emissions by replacing more emission intensive products or energy sources, i.e., the substitution effect. In addition, market responses to changes in wood supply following altered forest management by one region induce climate relevant changes in form of compensatory roundwood harvest outside the region, and thus forest carbon leakage. This study presents a global climate change mitigation assessment of the forest sector, accounting for market-effects leakage. We use a global forest sector model, wood flow analysis and life cycle inventory data to assess the impact of forest management changes on climate change mitigation, with a focus on Sweden. Results suggest decreased wood harvesting causes global net climate change mitigation until 2070, despite forest carbon leakage, forgone wood product carbon storage and forgone substitution effect potentials. Increasing domestic wood removals induces global additional emissions until 2100. Additional domestic wood product consumption is climate beneficial which however depends on substitution effects actually materializing. Roundwood harvest leakage ranges from 40 % to 60 % and forest carbon leakage from 50 % to 80 %. Leakage effects occur mainly in North America and Asia, with a gradual shift towards Latin America over time. To further the climate benefit, drivers of growing demand should be addressed and measures be implemented which promote more efficient and sustainable use of wood as a resource. Only concerted global forest policy cooperation would avoid leakage and with that result in improved global climate change mitigation
Regional Trends and Spatial Gradients of Total Column Methane over India, China, and USA─Implications for Emissions from Coal Mining and Oil/Gas Exploitation
No full textObservation-based verification of regional/national methane (CH4) emission trends is crucial for transparent monitoring and mitigation strategy planning. Although surface observations track the global and sub-hemispheric emission trends well, their sparse spatial coverage limits our ability to assess regional trends. Dense satellite observations complement surface observations, offering a valuable means to validate emission trends, especially in regions where emissions changes are substantial but debated. The uncertainty surrounding the rate of increase in fugitive coal mine emissions in China and emissions from unconventional oil and natural gas (ONG) exploration in the United States underscores the need for rigorous validation. Here, we examine the time evolution of total column dry-air mole fractions of CH4 (XCH4) during 2010-2020 by comparing observations from the GOSAT satellite with simulations from an atmospheric chemistry-transport model (ACTM). This study analyzes emissions and XCH4 trends in global totals and regions of India, China, the USA, and the global tropics. Our results suggest that GAINSv4 emission inventory overestimates the emission increase rate for the unconventional ONG sector of USA by about 3 times, while EDGARv6 inventory overestimates coal mine emissions in China. Emission increases in China and India agree with those estimated by GAINSv4. Analysis of spatially integrated XCH4 statistics (mean, 1-σ standard deviation) reveals a slight systematic underestimation of total emissions in China and bias (in both directions) in different parts of USA. Our results suggest that long-term satellite observations and ACTM simulations can effectively validate emission inventories for CH4 emissions and emission trends regionally
Challenges for policy and practice in meeting ambitious ecological restoration targets by 2030: A perspective from Colombia
Get PDFTargets for ecosystem restoration have been made at global, regional, and national scales, but monitoring of progress remains challenging. Differences in definitions, goals, and practices among restoration initiatives, linked to policy drivers and funding sources, add complexity. We evaluate the current state of ecological restoration activity in Colombia, where, since 2012, legal requirements to compensate for environmental damage may be driving widespread restoration efforts, alongside a long history of government and private restoration initiatives. We systematically searched several public databases, and circulated an online survey, to collect records of 675 terrestrial and coastal restoration projects initiated between 1963 and 2021, capturing data on: location, funding, monitoring, ecosystem type and actors. Location was reported for 613 projects at municipality level, and 261 projects at point level. Restoration aims included recovery of ecological processes, hydrological processes, soil erosion, and natural resources. Only 24 % reported any monitoring, with just 2 % monitoring effectiveness. Forty-one percent of projects were enacted under environmental compensation laws. Funding was mostly from within Colombia, with minimal international funding. This work highlights major gaps in the monitoring needed to achieve effective implementation of restoration targets. Enhancing coordination among institutions, and enhancing monitoring, will now be crucial to achieving restoration goals
Navigating the participatory turn in agricultural and food research: Best practice from citizen science
Get PDFFood systems have enormous impacts on people and the planet, with agriculture and food research becoming strategic for many countries. However, the way this research is conducted and the rise of new agri-food technologies have ethical and socio-economic implications. To address these, many scholars are gaining interest in participatory methods, such as citizen science, but are unfamiliar with the latest debates on ethical and methodological issues surrounding non-academic stakeholder engagement. In this perspective paper, we revisit the European Citizen Science Association’s (ECSA) Ten Principles of Citizen Science under the specific lens of agri-food research. The discussion presented is based on a review of the state of the art from academic literature, secondary data from agri-food citizen science projects, and the reflections of 11 scientist and practitioners, members of ECSA’s Agri-Food Working Group. The findings reflect theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for navigating the participatory turn in agriculture and food research