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Based on the questionnaire survey and key informant interview conducted in Baoshan prefecture located in western Yunnan province, this paper explores, while government promoted farmers’ out-migration as a response to local drought, the impacts of out-migration on local farmers climate change adaptability, through a comprehensive and comparative study on the difference of income source, drought response, family income distribution between remittance-recipient families and non remittance-recipient families
. Results show that the remittance brought back by out migrated farmers had a positive effect on the climate change adaptability of their families stayed in the origin. On the other hand, the mass out-migration of rural laborers also created potential problems, such as laborer shortage, for local agricultural development. It is suggested that in the future, vocational training for out-migration farmers, should include important courses such as family financial management, climate change and other related content to strengthen the climate change adaptability for farmers and rural communities; government should promote the concept of climate smart agriculture and localized adaptation strategies
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Vulnerability to and perceptions of climate change may be significantly affected by gender
. However, in China, gender is rarely addressed in climate adaption or resource management strategies. This paper demonstrates the relevance of gender in responses to climate change in the mountainous province of Yunnan in southwest China. Based on surveys undertaken during a record-breaking drought, the paper explores how women and men in a village in Baoshan Prefecture differ in their perceptions of and responses to drought, and how the changing roles of women and men in the home and the community are influencing water management at the village level. Our results show that despite the increasingly active role of women in managing water during the drought, they are excluded from community-level decision-making about water. The paper argues that given the importance of gender differences in perceptions of and responses to drought, the lack of a gender perspective in Chinese policy may undermine efforts to support local resource management and climate adaptation
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Extreme climate events, including floods and droughts, represent disturbances that impact plant functioning, biodiversity and ecosystem processes
. Wetlands can mediate climate change impacts through their multiple ecosystem services, and wet grasslands offer a fascinating wetland case because they are adapted to regular disturbance regimes typified by inundation, cutting and/or grazing. This review identifies key concepts for a better understanding of extreme climate impacts on wet grassland plant communities, focussing upon the use of functional traits for ecological resilience. It suggests that wet grasslands are underrepresented in extreme climate event experiments, despite some field studies that show floods have significant impacts upon community composition. Mechanisms for ecological stability and resilience are linked to functional diversity through plant traits, via niche complementarity or dominance. Facilitation may be important as climate stresses increase, while modified plant behaviour may promote recovery. However, plant community responses to extreme events are complex; the challenges for wet grassland researchers include: (i) identifying thresholds, tipping points and lag effects; (ii) monitoring key community components; (iii) using effective plant trait metrics; (iv) investigating beyond conservative norms; (v) combining multiple stressors and traits and (vi) extrapolating experimental results to field conditions
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Of all the natural hazards, drought affects the maximum number of people globally causing devastating impacts
. It is a reality that drought results in sets of socio-economic impacts starting with crop-yield failure, unemployment, erosion of assets, income decrease, poor nutrition and decreasing risk absorptive capacity, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the community. This paper gives a brief of the existing approaches that focus on vulnerability and impact assessment aid to characterize and identify regions, sectors and communities which are at risk for drought currently and in the future. It also discusses the limitation, constraints and pre-requisites in these approaches and highlights the importance of micro-level information to have a more realistic understanding of impact and vulnerability through illustration, with reference to the recent study conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). This exercise will provide a guiding framework for devising action plans to improve adaptive capacity among vulnerable populations
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Increased risk due to global warming has already become embedded in agricultural decision making in Central Asia and uncertainties are projected to increase even further
. Agro-ecology and economies of Central Asia are heterogenous and very little is known about the impact of climate change at the sub-national levels. The bio-economic farm model (BEFM) is used for ex ante assessment of climate change impacts at sub-national levels in Central Asia. The BEFM is calibrated to 10 farming systems in Central Asia based on the household survey and crop growth experiment data. The production uncertainties and the adaptation options of agricultural producers to changing environments are considered paramount in the simulations. Very large differences in climate change impacts across the studied farming systems are found. The positive income gains in large-scale commercial farms in the northern regions of Kazakhstan and negative impact in small-scale farms in arid zones of Tajikistan are likely to happen. Producers in Kyrgyzstan may expect higher revenues but also higher income volatilities in the future. Agricultural producers in Uzbekistan may benefit in the near future but may lose their income in the distant future. The negative impacts could be further aggravated in arid zones of Central Asia if irrigation water availability decline due to climate change and water demand increase in upstream regions. The scenario simulations show that market liberalization and improved commodity exchange between the countries have very good potential to cope with the negative consequences of climate change
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The paper intends to review the current status of low-flow hydrology — a discipline which deals with minimum flow in a river during the dry periods of the year
. The discussion starts with the analysis of low-flow generating mechanisms operating in natural conditions and the description of anthropogenic factors which directly or indirectly affect low flows. This is followed by the review of existing methods of low-flow estimation from streamflow time-series, which include flow duration curves, frequency analysis of extreme low-flow events and continuous low-flow intervals, baseflow separation and characterisation of streamflow recessions. The paper describes the variety of low-flow characteristics (indices) and their applications. A separate section illustrates the relationships between low-flow characteristics. The paper further focuses on the techniques for low-flow estimation in ungauged river catchments, which include a regional regression approach, graphical representation of low-flow characteristics, construction of regional curves for low-flow prediction and application of time-series simulation methods. The paper presents a summary of recent international low-flow related research initiatives. Specific applications of low-flow data in river ecology studies and environmental flow management as well as the problem of changing minimum river flows as the result of climate variability are also discussed. The review is largely based on the research results reported during the last twenty years
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