Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 1 Security Diagrams Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel Joseph Alcamo (Project leader) Dörthe Krömker Frank Eierdanz (Project manager) Adelphi Research, Berlin Alexander Carius Dennis Tänzler Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Richard Klein Lilibeth Acosta-Michlik A New Approach to Assessing Vulnerability to Drought: Results from the Security Diagrams Project Funded by German Research Ministry Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Research Community Montreal, Canada October, 2003

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 2 Security Diagrams A New Approach to Assessing Vulnerability to Drought: Results from the Security Diagrams Project Introduction & first resultsJoseph Alcamo Using fuzzy set theory to address the uncertainty of susceptibility to drought Frank Eierdanz The socio-economic dimension of assessing vulnerability to extreme climate events Lilibeth Acosta-Michlik Assessing susceptibility of society: 1. An environmental psychology perspective 2. A political science perspective Doerthe Kroemker Doerthe Kroemker (for Dennis Tanzler & Alex Carius) Summing UpJoseph Alcamo

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 3 Security Diagrams Introduction to the Security Diagrams Project Overriding research question: How can vulnerability of society to global change be quantified?

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 4 Security Diagrams Why quantify vulnerability? To provide framework for comparing and integrating different disciplinary perspectives. To include vulnerability in climate impact models, in integrated models, and other models.

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 5 Security Diagrams Susceptibility Environmental Stress Not a crisis Crises event High probability of crises Low probability of crises Framework for Quantifying Vulnerability: Security Diagram Security diagrams deconstruct vulnerability into stress, susceptibility and crisis

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 6 Security Diagrams Conceptual Overview Environmental Stress SusceptibilityLikelihood of Crisis

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 7 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 8 Security Diagrams Approach of Project Focus: Vulnerability of population to drought Analysis 1.Estimate crisis events – Media analysis 2.Compute water stress – Use WaterGAP model and test indicators against crisis events 3.Compute susceptibility – Develop inference models from three disciplinary perspectives Data collection Top down (statistical data, 1980 – 2000) Bottom up (limited surveys, late 1990s) Three case study regions...

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 9 Security Diagrams Case Study Regions Southern Portugal Volga region Andhra Pradesh

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 10 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 11 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Crisis: unstable or crucial time or state of affairs brought about by environmental stress; decisive undesirable change is impending/occurring, requires emergency measures.

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 13 Security Diagrams Identifying Drought Crisis Events Media analysis -- Factiva media data base (8000 media sources, local/regional/national) 1.Establish classes of attributes of crisis 2.Identify reliable local media 3.Tabulate recurrent (> 2 per month) reports of attributes

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 14 Security Diagrams Results of Media Analysis Example – Southern Portugal, 1983 Attributes of crisis Agriculture (0.25) Energy & Industry (0.25) Political (0.25) Social (0.25) Sum 1.0 Irrigation strongly reduced Reservoirs empty towards end of year Hydroelectric production severely curtailed. Announce- ment of emergency for Alentejo Mandatory electricity- saving measures

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 15 Security Diagrams Year India 0,750,251,00,5 Portugal 1,0 Russia 0,5 0,250,75 First Estimate – Drought Crisis Events Volga Region A. Pradesh S. Portugal 13/48

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 16 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 17 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 18 Security Diagrams Water Stress: Withdrawal to Availability ratio 1995 Environmental stress: the intensity of environmental change that is (i) an undesirable departure, (ii) short duration.

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 19 Security Diagrams Water Stress: Withdrawal to Availability ratio 1995 Is there a problem? Are there thresholds? If yes, where? Source: WaterGAP model, U.N. World Water Assessment Report

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 20 Security Diagrams WaterGAP... Global water use and availability model, Computes surface runoff, groundwater recharge Spatial resolution 0.5°, monthly temporal resolution. Based on the best global data sets currently available Uses local climate and socio-economic data to compute water availability and use in case study regions Computing water stress – the WaterGAP model

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 21 Security Diagrams Testing the WaterGAP Model River Discharge of Volga at Volgograd (km 3 /a) Computed Observed

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 22 Security Diagrams Water Stress Indicators -- Test against occurrence of crisis events -- Statistical significance, t test (0.05) Water withdrawal to availability ratio Deviation of groundwater recharge from long time average Deviation of water availability from long time average Runoff deficit index Deviation of evapotranspiration from long time average MaxIndex Maximum function [withdrawal to availability ratio, deviation of water availability from long term average, and percentage of area with high water stress] Water withdrawal to internal availability ratio Annual groundwater recharge in mm Groundwater discharge per capita Water availability per capita Internal renewable water availability per capita Percentage of area under stress (defined as withdrawal to availability ratio of 0.4 or more) Percentage of population under stress Deviation of precipitation from long time average Statistically significant indicatorsNot statistically significant indicators

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 23 Security Diagrams 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1, > > > > Water Stress (Categories) Relative frequency of crises [number of crises / number of cases per category] 0 crises / 4 cases 3 crises / 24 cases 7 crises / 16 cases 1 crises / 2 cases 2 crises / 2 cases Testing Water Stress Water stress (MaxIndex) vs. crisis data from three case study regions

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 24 Security Diagrams First conclusions about crisis and stress Estimating crisis events – Reproducible? Definition of crisis? Testing water stress – Data period and sample too small?

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 25 Security Diagrams First conclusions about crisis and stress Are vulnerability estimates testable? Possible to identify independent variable for testing regional vulnerability indicators – crisis event Is it possible to verify environmental stress estimates and thresholds? Using crisis data, can determine statistical significance/insignificance of water stress indicators Using crisis data, identify water stress threshold.

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 26 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 27 Security Diagrams 1.Crisis – How can crisis events be identified? 2.Environmental Stress – What measures of environmental stress best reflect societys vulnerability to drought? 3.Susceptibility – How can susceptibility of society to drought be quantified, and how similar/different are different disciplinary perspectives? Specific Research Questions

Susceptibility: the capability of an individual, community or state to resist and/or recover from crisis brought about by environmental stress.

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 29 Security Diagrams Quantifying Susceptibility Objective: Quantify the estimation of susceptibility and compare differences between 3 disciplinary perspectives: Environmental psychology Economics Political Science

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 30 Security Diagrams 1.Develop inference models: Adapt theory, select variables, specify relationships between variables, select indicators for variables. 2. Quantify the models based on fuzzy set theory 3.Collect data for indicators: (top-down and bottom-up from case study regions: Southern Portugal, Volga region, Andhra Pradesh) 4. Input data to model and compute susceptibility Procedure to Assess Susceptibility

Joseph Alcamo Center for Environmental Systems Research, KasselSlide 31 Security Diagrams A New Approach to Assessing Vulnerability to Drought: Results from the Security Diagrams Project Introduction & first resultsJoseph Alcamo Using fuzzy set theory to address the uncertainty of susceptibility to Drought Frank Eierdanz The socio-economic dimension of assessing vulnerability to extreme climate events Lilibeth Acosta-Michlik Assessing susceptibility of society: 1. An environmental psychology perspective 2. A political science perspective Doerthe Kroemker Doerthe Kroemker (for Dennis Tanzler) Summary of the projectJoseph Alcamo