Exposure, sensitivity, and social adaptive capacity related to climate change: empirical research in China

ABSTRACT The present research established a preliminary indicator assessment system satisfying Chinese characters for exposure, sensitivity, and social adaptive capacity related to climate change. The 31 province-level administrative regions in mainland China were considered in our research. We developed three dimensions of indices related to climate change, including primary, secondary, and tertiary indicators. We chose all variables and indicators based on a literature review and used principal component analysis and the varimax method to develop a weighted assessment index system. Districts in central China scored higher on the overall exposure index than other sample districts, western China generally exhibited higher sensitivity, and eastern China exhibited comparatively higher social adaptive capacity than the other regions. This study also provides perspective for adaptation policies that all regions in China could adopt to determine development direction decision-making based on their specific conditions and diversified comparative advantages to enhance adaptive capacity in response to climate change.

[1]  W. Adger,et al.  Social Capital, Collective Action, and Adaptation to Climate Change , 2003 .

[2]  Tao Wang.  Integrating Global Environmental Concerns into Urban Management : The Scale and the Readiness Arguments , 2011 .

[3]  J. Sessler,et al.  Modern reaction-based indicator systems. , 2009, Chemical Society reviews.

[4]  W. Adger,et al.  Successful adaptation to climate change across scales , 2005 .

[5]  Claudia Ringler,et al.  Determinants of farmers’ choice of adaptation methods to climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia , 2009 .

[6]  J. Baidu-Forson.  Factors influencing adoption of land-enhancing technology in the Sahel: lessons from a case study in Niger , 1999 .

[7]  W. Adger,et al.  Theory and Practice in Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change andFacilitating Adaptation , 2000 .

[8]  K. L. Maharjan,et al.  Vulnerability of rural households to climate change and extremes: Analysis of Chepang households in the Mid-Hills of Nepal , 2012 .

[9]  S. Emori,et al.  Assessing Mortality Risk from Heat Stress due to Global Warming , 2007 .

[10]  Susan Roaf,et al.  Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change , 2009 .

[11]  Martijn Gough.  Climate change , 2009, Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[12]  N. H. Ravindranath,et al.  Climate Change Vulnerability Profiles For North East India , 2011 .

[13]  A. Chauhan,et al.  Performance of dairy self help groups (SHGs) in India: principal component analysis (PCA) approach. , 2010 .

[14]  P. Jin,et al.  Water shortage and needs for wastewater re-use in the north China. , 2006, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[15]  K. Wilson,et al.  Descriptive review and evaluation of the functioning of the International Health Regulations (IHR) Annex 2 , 2012, Globalization and Health.

[16]  W. Adger,et al.  THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ASSESSING VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND FACILITATING ADAPTATION , 2000 .

[17]  Victor Owusu,et al.  Adoption of safer irrigation technologies and cropping patterns: Evidence from Southern Ghana , 2011 .

[18]  W. Adger,et al.  Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of Entitlements , 1999 .

[19]  Xiaodong Song,et al.  An empirical study on the relationship between urban compactness and CO2 efficiency in China , 2014 .

[20]  Jaime Romero-González,et al.  An indicator tool for assessing local vulnerability to climate change in the Mexican agricultural sector , 2015, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change.

[21]  Libing Yang,et al.  Predicting the wetland distributions under climate warming in the Great Xing’an Mountains, northeastern China , 2011, Ecological Research.

[22]  K. Baker,et al.  Marine Ecosystem Sensitivity to Climate Change , 1999 .

[23]  J. Alcamo,et al.  Deriving and Applying Response Surface Diagrams for Evaluating Climate Change Impacts on Crop Production , 2000 .

[24]  D. Lettenmaier,et al.  Hydrologic Sensitivity of Global Rivers to Climate Change , 2001 .

[25]  U. Akpan,et al.  Households’ perception and livelihood vulnerability to climate change in a coastal area of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria , 2015, Environment, Development and Sustainability.

[26]  D. Crawford‐Brown.  Assessing the Sensitivity of Climate Change Targets to Policies of Land Use, Energy Demand, Low Carbon Energy and Population Growth , 2012 .

[27]  S. Pauleit,et al.  A multi-dimensional assessment of urban vulnerability to climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa , 2016, Natural Hazards.

[28]  P. Aldunce,et al.  Unpacking Resilience for Adaptation: Incorporating Practitioners’ Experiences through a Transdisciplinary Approach to the Case of Drought in Chile , 2016 .

[29]  S. K. Gupta,et al.  Water for India in 2050: first-order assessment of available options , 2004 .

[30]  W. Adger.  Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam , 1999 .

[31]  Potential Impact of Climate Change on Hurricane Flooding Inundation, Population Affected and Property Damages in Corpus Christi† , 2010 .

[32]  Xiaoqian Liu,et al.  Assessing vulnerability to drought based on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity: A case study in middle Inner Mongolia of China , 2013, Chinese Geographical Science.

[33]  Vasja Roblek,et al.  Primer Izpeljave Analize Besedila v Kvalitativni Raziskavi (An Example of Performing a Text Analysis in a Qualitative Research) , 2009 .

[34]  Helen M. Regan,et al.  Bioclimatic velocity: the pace of species exposure to climate change , 2014 .

[35]  S. K.C..  Community Vulnerability to Floods and Landslides in Nepal , 2013 .

[36]  Yaning Chen,et al.  Impact of population growth and land-use change on water resources and ecosystems of the arid Tarim River Basin in Western China , 2006 .

[37]  Rainer Sauerborn,et al.  Climate change and natural disasters – integrating science and practice to protect health , 2012, Global health action.

[38]  C. Conde,et al.  Exposure to climate and climate change in Mexico , 2015 .

[39]  C. Hutton,et al.  Dependence on agriculture and ecosystem services for livelihood in Northeast India and Bhutan: vulnerability to climate change in the Tropical River Basins of the Upper Brahmaputra , 2014, Climatic Change.

[40]  K. K. Datta,et al.  Assessment of social vulnerability to climate change in the eastern coast of India , 2015, Climatic Change.

[41]  C. Ringler,et al.  Adaptation to climate change in Ethiopia and South Africa: options and constraints. , 2009 .

[42]  Robin M. Leichenko,et al.  Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization , 2000 .

[43]  A. Hense,et al.  Sensitivity of climate change signals deduced from multi-model Monte Carlo experiments , 2002 .

[44]  Ian Stirling,et al.  Quantifying the sensitivity of Arctic marine mammals to climate-induced habitat change. , 2008, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[45]  Fred F. Hattermann,et al.  Exposure to climate change in Central Europe: What can be gained from regional climate projections for management decisions of protected areas? , 2015, Regional Environmental Change.

[46]  S. Hanson,et al.  A global ranking of port cities with high exposure to climate extremes , 2011 .

[47]  Igor Linkov,et al.  Avoiding Decline: Fostering Resilience and Sustainability in Midsize Cities , 2016 .

[48]  J. Porter,et al.  Crop responses to climatic variation , 2005, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[49]  R. Kovats,et al.  Impacts of Climate Change on Indirect Human Exposure to Pathogens and Chemicals from Agriculture , 2008, Environmental health perspectives.

[50]  J. Norman,et al.  The global distribution of cultivable lands: current patterns and sensitivity to possible climate change , 2002 .

[51]  H. Awan,et al.  Mapping vulnerability to climate change and its repercussions on human health in Pakistan , 2012, Globalization and Health.

[52]  C. Conde,et al.  Two methods to assess vulnerability to climate change in the Mexican agricultural sector , 2014, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change.