Climate Change Impacts. 10. Science Promoting Innovation and Engaging Communities
Climate Change Impacts. The purpose of this Annex is to continue to build understanding of climate change impacts and advance the integration of this knowledge into Great Lakes adaptation strategies and management actions. Climate change impacts are being observed in the Great Lakes. Some of the most evident impacts include warmer water, changing precipitation patterns, decreased ice coverage and increased lake evaporation. Climate change can also affect physical, chemical and biological processes in the Great Lakes. For example, warmer water temperatures can result in increased algal blooms, changes to the rates of biological productivity, and effects on water quality; extremes in water levels pose significant risks to the Great Lakes including implications for water quality and ecosystem functions (see also the Nutrients and Lakewide Management Annexes); changes in precipitation patterns may affect shoreline processes and increase the concentration of nutrients, which may in turn increase harmful and nuisance algal blooms; and native fish and wildlife habitats, populations and diversity may be affected by changes to ecosystem functions and by new or expanded ranges of invasive species (see also the Aquatic Invasive Species Annex). This Annex contains commitments that will improve our understanding of the effects of climate change on Great Lakes water quality and ecosystem health. Existing and future climate change impacts and vulnerabilities will be assessed in order to inform management plans and strategies and to help communities take actions to increase ecosystem resiliency to a changing climate. This Xxxxx also outlines commitments that support communities in being better prepared to take action on climate change impacts and adaptation.
Climate Change Impacts. 10. Science Lakewide Management An open process to help answer: • How is the lake doing? • What is stressing the lake? • What additional actions are necessary? A mechanism to help coordinate: • Actions being taken • Tracking progress and challenges Lake Partnerships • Members representing federal, indigenous, tribal, state, provincial and local governments and watershed agencies, with participation from academia, researchers, non-governmental organizations, businesses, and the public. • Co-Chaired by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Lake Objectives Nine General Objectives of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement are related to restoring and/or protecting:
Climate Change Impacts determining the key risks 27
Climate Change Impacts determining the key risks Most frameworks are based on a list of impacts to assess what infrastructure should be resilient to. This list requires the following information: the likely key impacts on infrastructure operations and operators the likelihood and frequency of natural hazards the linkage between different natural hazards the dependencies between infrastructures and essential services (Cabinet Office, 2011). In addition particular attention should be devoted to define uncertainties and time horizon in the models. In Europe, amongst the 52 different impacts due to climate change which have been identified (EC, 2009; EEA, 2008; Xxxxxx et al., 2009), 10 are particularly relevant for urban areas: higher temperatures, heat wave and health; decreased precipitation, water scarcity and drought; wildfires; heavy precipitation and fluvial floods; intensive precipitation and urban drainage; sea level rise and storm surge-driven flooding; saltwater intrusion into aquifers; mass movements and erosion; wind storms; vector-borne diseases (Schauser et al., 2010). The causes and effects of most issues are well documented in the literature although the details of the cause-effect chains for specific urban population groups or systems are often still unknown. For infrastructure assets, there is a consensus that the main threats presented by climate change are: Damage or destruction from extreme events, which can damage or destroy hard infrastructures, such as transport infrastructure, thermal power plants, water networks, refineries and so forth, Floods from sea level rise, coastal and river flooding, because they directly affect power station and transport infrastructure used to deliver fuel to power stations, Change in patterns of water availability, and, to a lesser extent, Increased maintenance costs associated with higher temperatures (see (ESPON Climate, 2011; Xxxxxxx and Xxxxx, 2009; XXXxx, 2011; Xxxxxxxx et al., 2012). Conceptual and data constrains limit the identification of the most important factors describing the sensitivity or adaptive capacity of a system. In particular, the climatic effects on urban systems present significant gaps (Xxxxxxxx et al., 2010). However, extreme events and floods are of major concern because they are likely to result in cascading effects and systemic failure (see §0).
Climate Change Impacts. EU exposure profile In the EU, the ESPON Climate project used the CCLM climate model to determine the general and regional climatic changes which are likely to occur within 30 years and establish the corresponding exposure profiles (ESPON Climate, 2011). The key findings are: An increase of the annual mean temperature between 2 and over 4.1 degrees across EU territory A decrease of average precipitation in the southern territory up to 40% and more An increase of average precipitation in UK and Scandinavia, up to 40% and more A decrease of days with snow cover in Northern territories and Alpine countries A considerable increase in exposure to river flooding in Northern Scandinavia and Northern Italy and, to a lesser extent to selected regions in UK, Ireland, Hungary and Romania An expected decrease in exposure to river flooding in Easter Germany, Poland and Southern Hungary 4 In addition to the natural hazards which are attributable to climate change, the UK National Risk Register also accounts for impacts of volcanic ash and severe space weather resulting from solar eruptions (Cabinet Office, 2012b). Coastal flooding: For most coastal regions changes in inundated area will be rather marginal. However significant increases in regional exposure to coastal storm surge events are expected for selected coastlines of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Eastern UK, Western France, North-Eastern Italy and Romania.
