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Topic 2a] Read and compare coastal degradation causes for West Africa's coastline

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Topic 2a] Read and compare coastal degradation causes for West Africa's coastline

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WASHINGTON, March 14, 2019―For a long time, Yacine Dieng used to make a decent living as a fishmonger in Bargny, Senegal. Like other members of the Lebou, tribe of the fishermen, she took pride in living on the coast, and off the marine resources that were plentiful. But as the sea gradually swallowed her home, her possessions, and her pride, she could no longer provide for her family.

Yacine has now found a new passion: helping women from the coast get organized and lobby for solutions that can improve their lives. "The sea took the little we had. We are left with no choices, we have nowhere to go," she explained.

Yacine's story is one that could be repeated by thousands who live along the coast of West Africa.

Beyond the shattered lives, the harsh consequences of erosion, pollution and flooding are very costly to Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Togo. A new World Bank study reveals in economic terms the cost of the damage in these four countries.

Titled The Cost of Coastal Zone Degradation in West Africa, the study shows staggering numbers.In 2017 alone, flooding, erosion, and pollution cost about $3.8 billion, or 5.3% of the four countries' GDP. Moreover, coastal degradation causes more than 13,000 deaths a year, primarily due to floods, air and water pollution.

"For the first time, there is a consistent approach to estimating the impacts of environmental degradation in West Africa's coastal areas," said Benoît Bosquet, Director for Environmental and Natural Resources Global Practice at the World Bank. "The findings show the financial and social urgency to strengthen the resilience of millions of people living on the coastline. Countries need to work together to find common solutions and crowd-in the finance needed to protect their coastline and avoid future damage."

. In Benin, a country prone to erosion, this cost was estimated at $229 million equivalent to 2.5% of the country's GDP. These threats are aggravated by climate change which increases the vulnerability of the coastal communities.

These communities are fully affected by flooding due to extreme local rainfall and to rivers overtopping their banks and leading to major damage to assets, houses and infrastructure. Critical ecosystems such as beaches and mangroves as well as many farmlands have been devastated.

Erosion is due to both natural and manmade factors and cost nearly $ 1 billion to the four countries. The coastline is very dynamic. Some areas have no erosion at all, some have land loss, and other land gains. The study estimated that 56% of the coastline in Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal and Togo is subject to an average erosion of 1.8 m per year. ,tweetHash=">.

Pollution is also a growing concern for many stretches of the coast. The combined effect of air pollution, lack of water supply, sanitation, and proper waste management takes an important toll on people's health and quality of life. The cost of air, water and waste pollution was estimated at about $1.4 billion in 2017 in the four countries. ,tweetHash=">.

"The West African coastline is beautiful and has a huge tourist potential," said Maria Sarraf, Practice Manager, Environment and Natural Resources, Africa Region, World Bank and co-author. "Our study shows that investing in coastal adaptation now will reduce these damages and save billions of dollars in the future".

To help countries meet these challenges and preserve their coastline, the World Bank launched in 2018, the West African Coastal Areas Management Program ( WACA). The program finances interventions such as the construction of protective measures, the restauration of mangroves and the treatment of waste to combat the pollution of the ocean.

The degradation of West Africa's coasts already has dramatic significances for Yacine Dieng and many others. Investing in coastal preservation today will help them rebuild their livelihoods.

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West Africa's Coast: Losing Over $3.8 Billion a Year to Erosion, Flooding and Pollution

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WASHINGTON, March 14, 2019―For a long time, Yacine Dieng used to make a decent living as a fishmonger in Bargny, Senegal. Like other members of the Lebou, tribe of the fishermen, she took pride in living on the coast, and off the marine resources that were plentiful.

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Topic 2a] How coasts become ship graveyards

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Topic 2a] How coasts become ship graveyards

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Coastal Mismanagement

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Where Ships Go to Die, Workers Risk Everything | National Geographic

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Topic 2a] Coastal Erosion - Good or Bad for Lyme Regis?

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Topic 2a] Coastal Erosion - Good or Bad for Lyme Regis?

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Coastal Erosion - Good or Bad for Lyme Regis?

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Topic 2a] Hurricane Katrina - Storm Surge 

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Topic 2a] Hurricane Katrina - Storm Surge 

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Why a storm surge can be the deadliest part of a hurricane

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Why a storm surge can be the deadliest part of a hurricane

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Topic 6 - Global Forest Watch - Research tool to explore pressures caused by land-use changes

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Topic 6 - Global Forest Watch - Research tool to explore pressures caused by land-use changes

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Interactive World Forest Map & Tree Cover Change Data | GFW

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Explore the state of forests worldwide by analyzing tree cover change on GFW's interactive global forest map using satellite data. Learn about deforestation rates and other land use practices, forest fires, forest communities, biodiversity and much more.

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Water or Carbon Cycle NEA?

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Share information about the soil in your area with other users and help us to improve our soil map of the UK.

Let's put citizen science into action and build up a community soils dataset produced by you - the users.

All information submitted is anonymous and will be published within this application under the Open Government License.

By clicking the button below you are agreeing to the terms of use.

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Share information about the soil in your area with other users and help us to improve our soil map of the UK. Let's put citizen science into action and build up a community soils dataset produced by you - the users. All information submitted is anonymous and will be published within this application under the Open Government License.

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Topic 6 - Interesting Balance of Written Analysis and Visuals - exploring energy future scenarios - conclusions page 31 - give the common trends in these future scenarios

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Topic 6 - Interesting Balance of Written Analysis and Visuals - exploring energy future scenarios - conclusions page 31 - give the common trends in these future scenarios

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Topic 6 - Large Database Exploring Energy Supply and Demand Trends

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Topic 6 - Large Database Exploring Energy Supply and Demand Trends

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The page below links to all of our content - articles and charts - on the topic of Energy.
We previously had all of this content in a different format; you can still find this .

The Overview

Key Resources

Key Articles on Energy

Access to Energy

Access to Electricity

Energy Mix

Electricity Mix

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Renewable Energy

Nuclear Energy

Measurement

We built 207 country profiles which allow you to explore energy statistics for every country in the world.

See energy consumption and sources of energy in your country and how it compares to others:

Citation

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this entry, please also cite the underlying data sources. This page - and all of our linked articles and resources on this topic - should be cited as:

How to cite

Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2021) - Energy. Published in Our World in Data. Online at: ourworldindata.org/energy

Cite this work

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this entry, please also cite the underlying data sources. This entry can be cited as:

Hannah Ritchie, Max Roser and Pablo Rosado (2020) - "Energy". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/energy' [Online Resource]

BibTeX citation

@article{owidenergy, author = {Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser and Pablo Rosado}, title = {Energy}, journal = {Our World in Data}, year = {2020}, note = {https://ourworldindata.org/energy} }

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The page below links to all of our content - articles and charts - on the topic of Energy. We previously had all of this content in a different format; you can still find this .

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Topic 6 - Oceans and climate change - Read through all 3 sections

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Topic 6 - Oceans and climate change - Read through all 3 sections

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Ocean Acidification

As the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere by human activities, the carbonate chemistry and acidity of seawater is modified in a process known as ocean acidification. While this leaves less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and substantially limits climate change, ocean acidification, which is sometimes referred to as the "other CO2 problem", has emerged as a key global issue in the last decade because of its potential to affect marine organisms and biogeochemical cycles.

Nuclear and isotopic techniques are used to study ocean acidification and have widely contributed to the understanding of the field both in terms of investigating past changes in ocean acidity and the impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms, such as through the study of biological processes like calcification.

Though a decrease in surface ocean pH ("potential of Hydrogen," a measure of acidity or alkalinity) is already detectable, it is hard to estimate the full impact of ocean acidification on marine biota. Studies show a wide variety of possible impacts, both positive and negative, as different species show different levels of resilience and adaptability.

Below a certain pH and corresponding carbonate concentration, conditions become corrosive to calcium carbonate, which is used by many organisms to build shells and skeletons. Some corals, pteropods, bivalve molluscs and calcifying phytoplankton may be particularly sensitive to changes in seawater chemistry. Energy spent overcoming more acidic conditions may reduce the energy available for physiological processes such as reproduction and growth. Scientists at the IAEA's Environment Laboratories are using isotopic techniques to investigate the impacts of ocean acidification and its interaction with other environmental stressors.

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A changing climate means a changing ocean. While the full impacts of climate change on the oceans are unclear, studies predict increasing temperatures, rising sea levels and changes to the ocean chemistry, such as ocean acidification, among others.

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Topic 6 - Geological Carbon Cycle clearly explained and impact of fossil fuels on Carbon Cycling [watch the video as well!]

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Topic 6 - Geological Carbon Cycle clearly explained and impact of fossil fuels on Carbon Cycling [watch the video as well!]

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Source: University of Arkansas

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Carbon is everywhere. It is in the ground, in our food, in our bodies, in our oceans and in our air. Vast stores of carbon exist deep inside the planet in quantities that dwarf what's aboveground. It moves through these two intertwined reserves in a process similar to the water cycle, maintaining a balance that allows life to flourish.

This carbon cycle is complex and multifaceted, it is a system in which surface carbon in the atmosphere, on land and in the sea is "subducted" into the planet's interior via plate tectonics, and eventually returned to the surface through volcanic eruptions, outgassing and other metamorphic processes. The cycle has been largely stable and balanced throughout Earth's history; the amount going down equals the amount coming back up.

Of course there have been times when that wasn't the case. Its these exceptions - when the carbon cycle is out of balance and resulting affects to earth's atmosphere - that interest Celina Suarez, associate professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas. Suarez studies carbon cycle perturbations - large and sometimes sudden shifts in the amount of carbon released to the atmosphere. Her latest research, funded through a $588,000 NSF grant, looks at carbon isotopes in fossils to gain a better understanding of how the earth handled increased temperatures and carbon dioxide levels between 120 and 90 million years ago that mimic levels predicted for the future of the planet in the next 300 years,

Suarez's work, along with breakthrough science that has changed our fundamental understanding of the carbon cycle, helps put modern climate conditions in perspective. The news isn't good. "The last four mass extinctions are associated with these major carbon cycle events," she said.

Peering Down For something so ubiquitous and central to our existence, it's surprising how little we knew about the role of carbon even 10 years ago. That began to change in 2009 when the private, non-profit Alfred P. Sloan Foundation committed $50 million in seed money over 10 years to establish the Deep Carbon Observatory, giving it the broad and ambitious mission of understanding carbon below the surface of the earth. A network of 1,200 scientists from 55 countries worked with the observatory studying the origin, quantity, movement and forms of carbon. They drilled into the ocean floor and collected samples from the summits of some of the world's most inaccessible volcanoes. They descended deep into mines and worked in the inhospitable deserts of the Middle East.

What did they learn? That of the earth's estimated 1.85 billion gigatons of carbon (a gigaton is a billion tons, so that's 1.85 billion billion tons), fully 99.8 percent of it is located below the surface. That leaves a tiny fraction, the carbon we knew about, in the oceans, on land, in the atmosphere and in all living things.

Deep below the surface is where things get interesting. Down there the carbon harbors a vast biosphere, a community of life with a mass some 250 to 400 times more than the mass of all humans. These are microbes living at extreme pressures and temperatures that sustain themselves on hydrogen, methane or abiotic organic molecules instead of sunlight, a crush of life observatory scientists called a "subterranean Galapagos." Some of the microbes have "geologic" lifespans, meaning they survive for thousands or millions of years on only the hydrogen from rocks. Life below the surface of the earth, it turns out, is comparable in diversity to that above it.

Out of Balance The two systems are not equal; there is vastly more carbon under the ground than above it and carbon cycles much more quickly in the atmosphere and biosphere than in the planet's mantle. But for most of the planet's history, the amount of carbon going down into the Earth has roughly equaled the amount being returned to the atmosphere. The cycles have been in balance.

Suarez addressing members of the Deep Carbon Observatory in 2019. Photo courtesy of the Deep Carbon Observatory.

Suarez recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation for research on how climate and tectonic changes influenced the evolution, distribution and extinction of land-based life 90 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period. She talked about her work in a recent edition of Short Talks From the Hill, a research podcast from the University of Arkansas.

Suarez focuses on the interruptions to that happy balance. Some are caused by catastrophic events, such as the asteroid or comet scientists believe hit the earth about 66 million years ago near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, instantly vaporizing carbon-rich deposits and sending the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Other perturbations are caused by widespread volcanic activity releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, as was the case with the end-Triassic extinction some 200 million years ago that wiped out about 76 percent of all marine and land species on Earth. "I'm interested in what causes those carbon cycle perturbations, how those carbon cycle shifts effect the environment, the climate, and how that climate affects origin and extinctions of life on land, and also distribution of animals and plants."

She received a Deep Carbon Observatory grant to study the end-Triassic extinction as evidenced by fossils in Utah. Due to that work, and a prior NSF grant also studying the end-Triassic, she was invited to edit an issue of Elements, an international magazine on the topics of mineralogy, geochemistry and petrology, that explored the work of Deep Carbon Observatory scientists related to carbon-cycle perturbations.

While the observatory wasn't tasked with examining "anthropogenic" sources of carbon - those released by the burning of fossil fuels - Suarez's edition of Elements combined the observatory's deep dive on the carbon cycle with present-day atmospheric carbon levels. The findings are sobering. "We do highlight the fact that the amount of carbon released to the atmosphere from human activity is about the same level of carbon released, at least the same magnitude of carbon released, during these carbon cycle perturbations associated with massive volcanic eruptions, as well as the meteor or asteroid impact," Suarez said. "The modern carbon cycle is out of balance."

Scientists measure shifts in atmospheric carbon by studying carbon isotopes, which are carbon atoms with the same number of protons but a varying number of neutrons. Suarez compares isotopes to milk: from skim to cream it's all the same stuff, but the varying fat content imparts different characteristics. Same with carbon isotopes. By comparing modern atmospheric isotopic readings with carbon bound in fossils or ancient plants, it's possible to track shifts in atmospheric carbon. Organic sources like those found in fossil fuels tend to be light isotopes, more skim milk than cream. And scientists are finding more of them in the atmosphere. "We are seeing very rapid shift in only 200 years, which is a very short time given the age of the Earth," Suarez said.

A diagram of the carbon cycle. Image courtesy of the Deep Carbon Observatory.

The Earth has natural means to bring the carbon cycle back into balance, what Suarez calls "scrubbers." Weathering breaks down rocks into component minerals that take up carbon and are ultimately pushed back into the mantle, organisms in the ocean take up atmospheric carbon into their bodies to create carbonate shells and sink when they die, land plants suck up CO2 into their tissues and put it into the soil when they die. "Earth's natural carbon scrubbers will work," she said. "But it takes up carbon in general at a much slower pace than what is outgassing into the atmosphere. Things will kind of correct themselves."

The problem is that during past mass extinctions, the correction didn't come quickly enough. How long will it take? "Most likely in about 10,000 or 100,000 years the carbon cycle will probably balance itself out, but that may be too late for much of Earth's modern species."​

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Carbon is everywhere. It is in the ground, in our food, in our bodies, in our oceans and in our air. Vast stores of carbon exist deep inside the planet in quantities that dwarf what's aboveground. It moves through these two intertwined reserves in a process similar to the water cycle, maintaining a balance that allows life to flourish.

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Topic 6 - Influence of deforestation on the role of Tropical Woodland within the Carbon Cycle

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Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as "carbon sinks" and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown.

The Amazon could turn into a source of carbon in the atmosphere, instead of one of the biggest absorbers of the gas, as soon as the next decade, owing to the damage caused by loggers and farming interests and the impacts of the climate crisis, new research has found.

If that happens, climate breakdown is likely to become much more severe in its impacts, and the world will have to cut down much faster on carbon-producing activities to counteract the loss of the carbon sinks.

"We've found that one of the most worrying impacts of climate change has already begun," said Simon Lewis, professor in the school of geography at Leeds University, one of the senior authors of the research. "This is decades ahead of even the most pessimistic climate models."

For the last three decades, the amount of carbon absorbed by the world's intact tropical forests has fallen, according to the study from nearly 100 scientific institutions. They are now taking up a third less carbon than they did in the 1990s, owing to the impacts of higher temperatures, droughts and deforestation. That downward trend is likely to continue, as forests come under increasing threat from climate change and exploitation. The typical tropical forest may become a carbon source by the 2060s, according to Lewis.

"Humans have been lucky so far, as tropical forests are mopping up lots of our pollution, but they can't keep doing that indefinitely," he told the Guardian. "We need to curb fossil fuel emissions before the global carbon cycle starts working against us. The time for action is now."

At this year's UN climate talks, known as Cop26 and to be held in Glasgow in November, many countries are expected to come forward with plans to reach net zero emissions by mid-century. But some rich countries and many companies plan to reduce their emissions via offsetting, often by preserving, replanting or growing new forest.

This research shows that relying on tropical forests is unlikely to be enough to offset large-scale emissions. "There is a lot of talk about offsetting, but the reality is that every country and every sector needs to reach zero emissions, with any small amount of residual emissions needing to be removed from the atmosphere," said Lewis. "The use of forests as an offset is largely a marketing tool for companies to try to continue with business as usual."

The uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by tropical forests peaked in the 1990s when about 46bn tonnes were removed from the air, equivalent to about 17% of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. By the last decade, that amount had sunk to about 25bn tonnes, or just 6% of global emissions.

The difference is about the same as a decade of fossil fuel emissions from the UK, Germany, France and Canada put together.

Climate scientists have long feared the existence of "tipping points" in the climate system, which when passed will condemn the world to runaway global heating. There are many known feedback mechanisms: for instance, the melting of Arctic ice leaves more of the sea uncovered, and, as it is darker than the reflective ice, it absorbs more heat, thus leading to more melting.

These feedback mechanisms have the potential to accelerate the climate crisis far ahead of what current projections suggest. If forests start to become sources of carbon rather than absorbers of it, that would be a powerful positive feedback leading to much greater warming that would be hard to stop.

Forests lose their ability to absorb carbon as trees die and dry out from drought and higher temperatures, but the loss of forest area from logging, burning and other forms of exploitation is also a leading factor in the loss of carbon sinks.

Tom Crowther, founder of the Crowther Lab, who was not involved with the research, told the Guardian: "This analysis provides concerning evidence that, along with continuing deforestation rates, the carbon sequestration rate of tropical forests could also be threatened by increasing tree mortality under climate change. This is very important information, as the capacity of tropical forests to capture anthropogenic carbon emissions could be severely impaired."

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, tracked 300,000 trees over 30 years, providing the first large-scale evidence of the decline in carbon uptake by the world's tropical forests. The researchers combined data from two large research networks of forest observations in Africa and the Amazon, as well as years spent travelling to remote field sites, including a week spent in a dug-out canoe to reach Salonga national park in the troubled Democratic Republic of the Congo.

They used aluminium nails to tag individual trees, measuring the diameter and estimating the height of every tree within 565 patches of forest, and returning every few years to repeat the process. This enabled them to calculate the carbon stored in the trees that survived and those that died. They found that the Amazon sink started weakening first, but that African forests are now rapidly following. Amazonian forests are exposed to higher temperatures, faster temperature increases, and more frequent and severe droughts, than African forests.

Their projection that the Amazonian forest will turn into a carbon source in the mid-2030s is based on their observations and a statistical model and trends in emissions, temperature and rainfall to forecast changes in how forests will store carbon up to 2040.

Doug Parr, the chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said governments should heed the science and make strong commitments to cut greenhouse gases at the Cop26 summit, and agree to measures to protect and restore forests. "For years, we have had scientific warnings about tipping points in the Earth system and they've been largely ignored by policy and decision-makers," he said. "That forests are now seemingly losing the ability to absorb pollution is alarming. What more of a wake-up call do we need?"
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Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds

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Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as "carbon sinks" and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown.

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Topic 6 - Analysis of Geo-politics Surrounding the Strait of Hormuz - USA/Iran relations explored - Synoptic link to Superpowers

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The Strait of Hormuz, the world's most sensitive oil-transportation choke point, remains in focus after the U.S. called off a retaliatory strike against Iran late Thursday for its downing on Wednesday of an American military drone.

While President Donald Trump "will likely keep the pressure on the Iranians, it appears we will need another provocation from Tehran to warrant a swift retaliatory measure. Airstrikes from the U.S. would lead to a broader conflict that could see an immediate 10% spike in oil prices," said Edward Moya, senior analyst at OANDA, in a Friday note.

The shooting down of the drone this week is the latest in a string of incidents near the waterway that have contributed to rising fears of a U.S.-Iran military conflict that could disrupt the flow of crude oil from the Middle East. It came less than a week after a pair of oil tankers were attacked near the coast of Iran which the U.S. blamed on Tehran.

Here's a look at the Strait of Hormuz and why it is so important to the global crude-oil market.

Where is the Strait of Hormuz?

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway that links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

At its narrowest point, the waterway is only 21 miles wide, and the width of the shipping lane in either direction is just 2 miles, separated by a two-mile buffer zone.

Why is it important?

Oil tankers carrying crude from ports on the Persian Gulf must pass through the strait. Around 21 million barrels of oil a day flowed through it in 2018, equivalent to roughly a third of global seaborne oil trade and about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday.

What's the latest?

Trump on Friday morning tweeted that he called off a retaliatory strike at the last minute due to concerns the expected fatalities wouldn't be proportionate to the downing of an unmanned drone. Trump said he was in "no hurry" to confront Iran but that the country "can NEVER" have nuclear weapons.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary that reports solely to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday said it shot down the drone when it entered Iranian airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in southern Iran's Hormozgan Province, the Associated Press reported. Kouhmobarak is around 1,200 kilometers southeast of Tehran and near the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military confirmed an unmanned drone was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile in what it said was an unprovoked attack in international airspace, The Wall Street Journal reported (paywall).

Trump on Thursday had tweeted that Iran had made a "very big mistake" and, when asked if the U.S. planned a strike, told reporters, "You will soon find out." But he also said he had a feeling that the downing was an accident and suggested it might have been the work of rogue personnel.

The downing of the drone and last week's tanker attacks follow a May incident that saw four tankers damaged in what Gulf authorities deemed "sabotage." The incidents follow the U.S. decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, with Washington moving this spring to end waivers for several importers of Iranian crude. Military bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq have also come under rocket attack in the past week

Oil futures surged Thursday to set June highs and added to those gains on Friday. Brent crude UK:BRNQ19, the global benchmark, rose 1.2%, while the U.S. standard-bearer, West Texas Intermediate crude US:CLQ19, ended 0.6% higher on Friday.
Read: Here's what's at stake for oil as fears of U.S.-Iran conflict mount
Stock-market investors largely shrugged off the incident, with the S&P 500 rising to an all-time high Thursday in a rally attributed to the Fed's dovish tilt on rates, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced nearly 250 points, or 0.9%. Stocks ended flat to slighlty lower Friday in a choppy trading session.

Following the drone hit, airlines around the world said they would reroute flights to avoid airspace over the Persian Gulf, news reports said.

Can the strait be bypassed?

Not easily. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates operate the only pipelines capable of shipping crude outside the Persian Gulf and the additional pipeline capacity to circumvent the strait, the EIA said. At the end of 2018, the total available crude-oil pipeline capacity for both countries combined was estimated at 6.5 million barrels a day. With 2.7 million barrels a day moving through the pipelines that year, around 3.8 million barrels a day of unused capacity would have been available to bypass the strait, the EIA said (see table below).

Could Iran close the strait?

The presence of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet has long cast doubt on Iran's ability to close the waterway, analysts said. In addition, the U.S. in May announced it was sending an aircraft carrier group, bombers and a Patriot antimissile battery to counter what the Trump administration said were "clear indications" that Iran and its proxies were preparing to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region.

The U.S. military presence would make it extremely difficult for Iran to choke off traffic, but the country "has the strategic depth to stage one-off attacks on vessels, not just in the critical chokepoints but also in the region's relatively open waters," said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets said, in a May research note.

Is war likely?

Iran's leadership appears comfortable taking large risks in its engagements, targeting U.S. forces directly rather than sticking to deniable, low-level attacks against third-party targets, said Henry Rome, analyst at Eurasia Group, in a Thursday note. The death of U.S. service members would be almost certain to force Trump's hand, he said.

The analyst had predicted the U.S. would be unlikely to retaliate for the drone hit with a military strike, but reflected increased chances of a confrontation.

Thursday's attack "underscores our decision to raise the probability of war between the U.S. and Iran to 40%, but war is still not base case," said Henry Rome, analyst at Eurasia Group, in a note. The political-risk consulting firm earlier this week raised its estimate of the probability of a U.S.-Iran military confrontation over the next six months to 40% from 30%.

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Global oil 'choke point' in focus after Trump calls off military strike against Iran: What you need to know

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The Strait of Hormuz, the world's most sensitive oil-transportation choke point, remains in focus after the U.S. called off a retaliatory strike against Iran late Thursday for its downing on Wednesday of an American military drone. While President Donald Trump "will likely keep the pressure on the Iranians, it appears we will need another provocation from Tehran to warrant a swift retaliatory measure.

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Topic 6 - Large database useful for researching energy production and also analysis of energy security - Superpowers Link

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Topic 6 - Large database useful for researching energy production and also analysis of energy security - Superpowers Link

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Source [US Energy Information Agency]

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International - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

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Energy Information Administration - EIA - Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government

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Topic 6 - Video Explaining Through Interactive Map the World's Major Shipping Routes [Synoptic link - Globalisation and Energy Chokepoints]

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Topic 6 - Video Explaining Through Interactive Map the World's Major Shipping Routes [Synoptic link - Globalisation and Energy Chokepoints]

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Each year, more than 11 billion tons of stuff gets carried around the world by large ships. Clothes, flat-screen TVs, grain, cars, oil - transporting these goods from port to port is what makes the global economy go 'round.

Now there's a great way to visualize this entire process, through this stunning interactive map from the UCL Energy Institute:

You can use the toggles at the top of the map to break down the ships by type - container ships (yellow), dry bulk carriers (blue), oil and fuel tankers (red), gas carriers (green), and ships transporting vehicles (purple) - or zoom in on different regions.

The researchers assembled data from the thousands of commercial ships that moved across the ocean in 2012. They then worked with the data visualization studio Kiln to make this map. Here are a few neat highlights from playing around with the thing:

1) You can trace the outlines of continents solely by looking at shipping routes

You can toggle the map so that it only shows major shipping routes and nothing else. Even here, you can clearly see the continents, save for the region above the Arctic circle, where few ships travel. (Though that may change as summer sea ice keeps receding.)

You can also see a few of the major river routes where large ships can navigate - like the Amazon River in northern Brazil, or the St. Lawrence River that allows ships to travel from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes, or the complex Volga-Baltic waterway in Russia.

It's also easy to spot some hubs of the global economy with this map. The red lines above trace ships carrying liquid fuels - crude oil or gasoline. As you can see, both Louisiana and Texas are major hydrocarbon hubs. There are also thick red lines streaming out of the Valdez Terminal in Alaska, which is at the southern end of the Alaska Pipeline, bringing oil from fields in the north.

2) There's a major shipping choke point around Malaysia and Singapore

One of the most important shipping lanes on the planet is the Strait of Malacca, the shortest route between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which you can see here as a congested line of ships traveling past Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. About 40 percent of world trade passes through this strait each year, including much of the crude oil that goes from the Middle East to China.

But the narrow strait is also vulnerable to disruption - and in recent years, there's been an uptick of pirate attacks in these straits. Technically, the three bordering states - Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia - are responsible for security in this region, defending it against piracy, but because it's so crucial, the US, China, India, and Japan have all provided assistance in securing the region.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way around. Ships that can't fit through the strait (its minimum depth is about 82 feet) have to take a detour of thousands of miles further south.

3) In 2012, most ships steered clear of Somalia

Starting around 2005, armed pirates from Somalia began stepping up raids on ships traveling around the Horn of Africa. Some analysts argued that illegal fishing by foreign boats in the region had initially driven many Somali fishermen to form armed militias to defend their waters. But those groups later turned to seizing cargo ships and holding the crews for ransom.

By 2012, pirates were costing commercial ships between $900 million and $3.3 billion per year. And, as you can see from the maps above, many ships were steering clear of Somalia's coast after emerging from the Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djibouti, which leads up to the Suez Canal.

But that was also peak Somali piracy. In the years since, raids seems to have declined dramatically. Shipping companies increased their on-boat security while various militaries deployed armed ships to patrol the region. By most accounts, it seems to have worked.

4) Ships have to move in neat routes through tight spaces like the English Channel

The researchers note that "while ships can move freely through the open ocean, routes are predetermined closer to land." This is evident in the English Channel, where ships need to move in nice, neat lanes - as if it were a two-lane highway.

5) You can see ships waiting their turn at the Panama Canal

Each year, nearly 15,000 ships pass through the Panama Canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Only a few ships can go through the narrow locks at a time as they are slowly raised and lowered using water from the lake above. So ships anchor outside the canal, sometimes for weeks, while they wait their allotted turn. (All told, about 30 to 40 large ships pass through the canal each day.)

To handle the next generation of large container ships, the Panama Canal is undergoing an expansion, with an additional set of locks on both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Even this expansion, however, won't be able to handle the very largest set of container ships - which can be as big as four football fields laid end-to-end.

So what do those behemoths do? Nicaragua has thought about building its own, bigger canal to accommodate these ships, but that may never get built (and is a fiasco for a whole host of reasons). So, for now, the big ships still have to go all the way around South America.

6) The world's ships are a major source of carbon dioxide emissions

There's a huge cost to all this shipping. The ships have to burn a lot of bunker fuel, and in 2012, they ended up emitting some 796 million tons of carbon dioxide. The researchers note that that's more than "the whole of the UK, Canada or Brazil emit in a year." Or, put another way, shipping is responsible for some 3 to 4 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, this is still much more efficient than shipping all that stuff by land or air. Still, researchers have been looking into ways to shrink the shipping industry's carbon footprint. Nate Berg ran through some of the best ideas here: "From technological improvements such as retrofitted rudders and propellers to enhanced weather routing, shipping companies are eyeing many ways to improve their efficiency."

Further reading: The environmental cost of shipping our stuff is huge. Can we fix that?
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This is an incredible visualization of the world's shipping routes

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Ships carry 11 billion tons of goods each year. This interactive map shows where they all go.

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Topic 1 - Japan 2011 - Mega-thrust Earthquake

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Topic 1 - Japan 2011 - Mega-thrust Earthquake

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On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck under the seabed off Japan -- the most powerful quake to hit the country in modern times, and the fourth most powerful in the world since modern record keeping began. It generated a series of tsunami waves that reached an extraordinary 125 to 130 feet high in places. The waves devastated much of Japan's populous coastline, caused three nuclear reactors to melt down, and killed close to 20,000 people.

The tsunami's obvious cause: the quake occurred in a subduction zone, where the tectonic plate underlying the Pacific Ocean was trying to slide under the adjoining continental plate holding up Japan and other landmasses. The plates had been largely stuck against each other for centuries, and pressure built up. Finally, something gave. Hundreds of square miles of seafloor suddenly lurched horizontally some 160 feet, and thrust upward by up to 33 feet. Scientists call this a megathrust. Like a hand waved vigorously underwater in a bathtub, the lurch propagated to the sea surface and translated into waves. As they approached shallow coastal waters, their energy concentrated, and they grew in height. The rest is history.

But scientists soon realized that something did not add up. Tsunami sizes tend to mirror earthquake magnitudes on a predictable scale; This one produced waves three or four times bigger than expected. Just months later, Japanese scientists identified another, highly unusual fault some 30 miles closer to shore that seemed to have moved in tandem with the megathrust. This fault, they reasoned, could have magnified the tsunami. But exactly how it came to develop there, they could not say. Now, a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience gives an answer, and possible insight into other areas at risk of outsize tsunamis.

The study's authors, based at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, examined a wide variety of data collected by other researchers before the quake and after. This included seafloor topographic maps, sediments from underwater boreholes, and records of seismic shocks apart from the megathrust.

The unusual fault in question is a so-called extensional fault -- one in which the Earth's crust is pulled apart rather than being pushed together. Following the megathrust, the area around the extensional fault moved some 200 feet seaward, and a series of scarps 10 to 15 feet high could be seen there, indicating a sudden, powerful break. The area around the extensional fault was also warmer than the surrounding seabed, indicating friction from a very recent movement; that suggested the extensional fault had been jolted loose when the megathrust struck. This in turn would have added to the tsunami's power.

Extensional faults are in fact common around subduction zones -- but only in oceanic plates, not the overriding continental ones, where this one was found. How did it get there? And, might such dangerous features lurk in other parts of the world?

The authors of the new paper believe the answer is the angle at which the ocean plate dives under the continental; they say it has been gradually shallowing out over millions of years. "Most people would say it was the megathrust that caused the tsunami, but we and some others are saying there may have been something else at work on top of that," said Lamont PhD. student Bar Oryan, the paper's lead author. "What's new here is we explain the mechanism of how the fault developed."

The researchers say that long ago, the oceanic plate was moving down at a steeper angle, and could drop fairly easily, without disturbing the seafloor on the overriding continental plate. Any extensional faulting was probably confined to the oceanic plate behind the trench -- the zone where the two plates meet. Then, starting maybe 4 million or 5 million years ago, it appears that angle of subduction began declining. As a result, the oceanic plate began exerting pressure on sediments atop the continental plate. This pushed the sediments into a huge, subtle hump between the trench and Japan's shoreline. Once the hump got big and compressed enough, it was bound to break, and that was probably what happened when the megathrust quake shook things loose. The researchers used computer models to show how long-term changes in the dip of the plate could produce major changes in the short-term deformation during an earthquake.

There are multiple lines of evidence. For one, material taken from boreholes before the quake show that sediments had been squeezed upward about midway between the land and the trench, while those closer to both the land and the trench had been subsiding -- similar to what might happen if one laid a piece of paper flat on a table and then slowly pushed in on it from opposite sides. Also, recordings of aftershocks in the six months after the big quake showed scores of extensional-fault-type earthquakes carpeting the seabed over the continental plate. This suggests that the big extensional fault is only the most obvious one; strain was being released everywhere in smaller, similar quakes in surrounding areas, as the hump relaxed.

Furthermore, on land, Japan hosts numerous volcanoes arranged in a neat north-south arc. These are fueled by magma generated 50 or 60 miles down, at the interface between the subducting slab and the continental plate. Over the same 4 million to 5 million years, this arc has been migrating westward, away from the trench. Since magma generation tends to take place at a fairly constant depth, this adds to the evidence that the angle of subduction has gradually been growing shallower, pushing the magma-generating zone further inland.

Lamont geophysicist and coauthor Roger Buck said that the study and the earlier ones it builds on have global implications. "If we can go and find out if the subduction angle is moving up or down, and see if sediments are undergoing this same kind of deformation, we might be better able to say where this kind of risk exists," he said. Candidates for such investigation would include areas off Nicaragua, Alaska, Java and others in the earthquake zones of the Pacific Ring of Fire. "These are areas that matter to millions of people," he said.

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Shifts in deep geologic structure may have magnified great 2011 Japan tsunami: Where tectonic plates meet, a change in angle

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On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck under the seabed off Japan -- the most powerful quake to hit the country in modern times, and the fourth most powerful in the world since modern record keeping began. It generated a series of tsunami waves that reached an extraordinary 125 to 130 feet high in places.

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Topic 2a] - Plate Tectonics and Sea Level Change

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Topic 2a] - Plate Tectonics and Sea Level Change

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Today, the Earth's ocean is made up of the large Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. These bodies of water were not always in their current shape and configuration. As a result, you can imagine the large-scale changes in sea level that would have accompanied their assembly since the last super-continent (Pangea) began to break up some 250 million years ago. These changes would have been very slow but significant, operating on time scales beyond those experienced by human beings.

Long-Term Sea Level Change (hundreds of thousands to millions of years) is influenced by factors that modify the size and shape of ocean basins. Global or eustatic sea level can change as the result of changes in the number, size, and shape of ocean basins. Throughout Earth's history, the global ocean has been modified by plate tectonics. Often, large continents assembled from smaller ones produced more expansive oceans between them. These expansive ocean bodies were subsequently dissected when super-continents rifted and formed smaller oceans out of the formerly vast oceans. For visualization purposes, please watch the quick (3:18) paleogeographic animation below (no audio).

The tectonic processes at work on the Earth influence the size of ocean basins and therefore, sea level in many, complex ways. The following list gives an idea of some of these processes and their interactions and feedback mechanisms:

rifting of tectonic plates at divergent plate boundaries;

assembly of micro-continents, volcanic terrains, continents - especially supercontinents like Rodinia, Pangea, etc.;

subduction of tectonic plates at ocean trenches at convergent plate boundaries;

eruption and formation of large igneous provinces that originate from massive extrusions of lava, oceanic plateaus, hotspot volcanic island chains, etc.;

high rates of volcanism on the seafloor volumetrically displace water out of the ocean basin producing higher sea levels (called transgression of sea level);

low rates of volcanism allow water to return to the ocean basin and sea levels drop (called regression of sea level);

when rocks cool from a molten state, they contract in volume; this allows subsidence to occur, especially along the mid-ocean ridges, and sea levels fall;

when rates of volcanism are low, rocks tend to cool faster and sea levels drop as subsidence occurs.

conversely, when rates of volcanism are high, it takes longer for the rocks to cool, and sea level remains higher for longer periods of time after the rate of volcanism subsides.

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Today, the Earth's ocean is made up of the large Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. These bodies of water were not always in their current shape and configuration. As a result, you can imagine the large-scale changes in sea level that would have accompanied their assembly since the last super-continent (Pangea) began to break up some 250 million years ago.

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Topic 2a] Causes of Sea Level Change Clearly Explained

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News stories often link climate change to rising sea levels.

Throughout Earth's history sea level has constantly changed and, indeed, it is these very changes that generate most of the geological record!

Geology has left us many clues to how the environment has changed over time and whether the sea was higher or lower than it is today.

Maybe the place where you live was once below sea level!

What do we mean by sea level?

Sea level, or 'mean sea level' as it is sometimes known, is the average height of the ocean's surface between high and low tide.

Scientists refer to it as the equipotential surface of the world's oceans, which means that its level is affected by the strength of gravity (or, more technically, 'gravitational acceleration') around the Earth.

Variations in the gravitational acceleration are themselves caused by variations in the internal density of the Earth.

Changes in tides and wave conditions over time are averaged out to determine a 'still water level' that can be used to identify whether the sea level has changed and also the height of the land above sea level.

In the UK, height above sea level is measured from the ' Ordnance Datum', which is the mean sea level at the .
More about the UK Tide Gauge Network.

What is sea level change?

Because the surface of the land also moves up and down over long periods of time, sea level changes may be described as 'relative' or 'absolute'.

Relative changes may be observed even though the absolute height of the oceans remains the same.

It is important to realise that when earth scientists talk about a rise in mean global sea level (what we call 'eustatic' sea level), local changes may be quite different. This is why local studies of sea level rise and fall are so important.

How much has sea level changed over geological time?

During the last ice age, lots of sea water was stored in ice sheets and glaciers and sea level was, on average, more than 130 metres lower than it is today.

But these sea level changes, related to the growth and melting of ice sheets, happen relatively quickly, taking tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.

Sea levels also rise and fall more slowly, over time spans of millions of years. And these gradual changes have generated the enormously thick sequences of sedimentary rocks that record the long history of geological time.

We would have very little if any of our sedimentary rocks were it not for the fact that sea levels rise and fall!

Why does sea level change?

Sea levels change for many reasons and over timescales that are very different. Sea levels are rising today not only because significant parts of the land-based ice is melting, but also because ocean waters are warming and therefore expanding.

Note that there is no direct effect on sea level when sea-based ice melts, because sea-ice is already part of the ocean system. Ice floats because it is less dense than water and because it displaces an equivalent mass of water there is no increase in sea level as it melts - in just the same way a cold drink does not overflow the glass as the ice cubes it contains melt.

There is, however, a significant indirect effect of Arctic ice melting, which is that the albedo changes.

Albedo is the ability of a surface to reflect sunlight, and ice and snow are very good at reflecting the warming rays of the sun.

As the Arctic ice melts, polar regions will warm even more quickly because the Arctic ocean will now absorb the incoming energy. Thus, warming leads to Arctic ice melting which leads to more warming.

This is a classic positive feedback in the climate.

A eustatic sea level change occurs when there is a global change in the amount of water stored in the oceans, or a change in the geometry of the ocean basins which alters the volume of water they can hold.

When the sea level changes in response to the amount of water stored in ice caps this is called glacial-eustasy.

If the two main ice caps - Greenland and Antarctica - melted, then it is calculated that the oceans would rise by 66 metres.

During glacial periods areas of land are covered with thick layers of ice.

The weight of the ice causes the surface of the Earth's crust to deflect downwards.

At the end of the glacial period the ice melts and the crust can rebound. This is known as an isostatic sea level change and it causes a relative sea level change as it is the land rising, not the amount of water increasing.

A change in the temperature of sea water also contributes to a change in sea level because sea water expands at higher temperatures.

As the atmosphere becomes warmer, the oceans will absorb some of the heat and increase in volume, which in turn leads to higher sea levels.

Orogeny or mountain building, can decrease sea level by changing the size of the oceans.

The most famous of these is the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates that formed the Himalaya Mountains.

One relevant consequence of the collision is that a lot of continental crust was inserted under Tibet, leaving a larger ocean basin and therefore lower global sea-levels.

How are changes in sea level linked to the climate?

The Earth's climate and global sea levels are closely linked.

During cold periods some of the ocean's water is evaporated and stored in ice caps or mountain glaciers, meaning a lower sea level.

During warmer periods sea levels rise as the ice melts and once again is added to the volume of the oceans.

Over the past 100 years the Earth's climate has warmed a little less than 1°C, and as temperatures rise thermal expansion of water will add to sea level rise.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
British Geological Survey 1998 - 2017 (c)NERC mailto:www-bgs@bgs.ac.uk

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News stories often link climate change to rising sea levels. Throughout Earth's history sea level has constantly changed and, indeed, it is these very changes that generate most of the geological record! Geology has left us many clues to how the environment has changed over time and whether the sea was higher or lower than it is today.

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Topic 6 - Simple Explanations of how the carbon cycle and climate change are inter-connected

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What is climate and what is climate change?

'Weather' describes the combination of wind, rain, temperature and other natural atmospheric conditions we experience at a particular time and place.

Climate is the pattern of weather of an area averaged over many years.

So, if we have extremes in weather conditions, such as a long summer drought or a very cold winter, it doesn't necessarily mean that the climate is changing.

We can only show whether or not climate change has occurred after decades of careful measurements and analysis.

The climate system

The climate system has many components that can alter. The effects of the alteration are often dependent on the operation of feedback mechanisms.

A feedback that enhances an initial change in climate is positive, but those that decrease the size of the change are negative.

For example, if the amount of solar energy absorbed on the Earth's surface were to increase, then the surface temperature would increase.

This, in turn, would lead to a decrease in the amount of snow cover. As snow reflects more solar energy than land, vegetation or water, a decrease in the amount of land covered by snow would allow more solar radiation to be absorbed and so a positive feedback is initiated.

Carbon

Carbon is a crucial element for all life on Earth. It is also present in plants and rocks, the atmosphere and the oceans.

Carbon therefore moves, or 'cycles', between each of these things and is redistributed between carbon dioxide 'sources' and ' sinks'.

Carbon is an interesting chemical because we don't always know where these sinks and sources are!

The carbon cycle

The carbon in the carbon cycle may be either 'organic' or 'inorganic'. The majority of the inorganic carbon exists as carbon dioxide, carbonate and hydrogen carbonate.

Organic carbon is that found in living or dead organisms, fossil fuels, small deposits in rocks, dissolved in water or dispersed in the atmosphere.

There is a continuous two-way flow of carbon between the organic and inorganic forms. Inorganic carbon is in an oxidised state which is reduced to organic carbon during photosynthesis.

Organic carbon is in a reduced state so it can be easily oxidised by atmospheric oxygen, this can happen in the absence of living organisms but usually living organisms are involved, in which case the process is called respiration.

The energy released during respiration is used both by plants and animals to maintain their bodily functions. A similar process in which oxygen is cycled between the atmosphere, the Earth and living organisms is interlinked with the carbon cycle, and photosynthesis and respiration are central to both.

More than 99 per cent of the carbon in the carbon cycle is found in the Earth's crust in both organic and inorganic forms.

Carbon is added to, or removed from, this carbon 'reservoir' only slowly, so much of the carbon is essentially unavailable for cycling and has a long residence time.

Most of the carbon in the crust has a biological origin, deposited on the ocean floor from the remains of the many marine organisms that use calcium carbonate in their skeletons. After consolidation, these deposits may be formed into limestone rocks.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere depend on a balance (equilibrium) between carbon dioxide sources and sinks: sources give out carbon dioxide and sinks absorb and store carbon.

Geological sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide are volcanism, escaped gases from the Earth's mantle and the erosion of rocks containing hydrocarbons such as oil.

Geological sinks include the erosion of silicate rocks, a process which tends to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

So volcanoes increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, whereas the erosion of mountain ranges reduces it.

Volcanism was much greater during the middle part of the Cretaceous Period, around 100 million years ago, and so this is why carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were much higher, which produced a much warmer climate.

The greenhouse effect

Greenhouse gases are actually crucial to keeping our planet at a habitable temperature, without them, the Earth would be about -17°C. Anthropogenic or human release of carbon dioxide contributes to the current enhanced greenhouse effect.

A greenhouse gas is so called because it absorbs infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's surface (this radiation originally came from solar radiation), in the form of heat, which is circulated in the atmosphere and eventually lost to space.

Greenhouse gases also increase the rate at which the atmosphere can absorb short-wave radiation from the sun, but this has a much weaker effect on global temperatures.

Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are:

Methane hydrates

Methane is composed of carbon and hydrogen and is actually a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide but is less concentrated in the atmosphere.

Inside methane hydrates (or 'clathrates') the methane molecules are enclosed in a 'cage' of water molecules. This structure allows the methane molecules to be held much closer together than if they were in their gaseous form which means that solid methane hydrate can potentially hold a lot of methane gas.

There is a large quantity of methane below the sea floor and in permafrost soils. Methane in these reservoirs can potentially be released by such things as temperature changes in the deep oceans and on land, or by disturbing the sediment as a result of submarine landslides.

The amount of methane hydrate in permafrost soils is poorly known with some estimates ranging from 7.5 to 400 gigatonnes of carbon. If all of this methane hydrate were to melt, there could be catastrophic changes to our climate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
British Geological Survey 1998 - 2017 (c)NERC mailto:www-bgs@bgs.ac.uk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'Weather' describes the combination of wind, rain, temperature and other natural atmospheric conditions we experience at a particular time and place. Climate is the pattern of weather of an area averaged over many years. So, if we have extremes in weather conditions, such as a long summer drought or a very cold winter, it doesn't necessarily mean that the climate is changing.

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Topic 6 - How is climate change influencing stores and fluxes in the carbon cycle? What are the consequences? [Feedback processes]

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Over the past 50 years, a growing wealth of long-term atmosphere, ocean, and ecosystem observations has provided essential insights into how climate change affects the ways that carbon moves through Earth's environment, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered. Perhaps the most challenging and societally relevant question is whether the rate at which the land and ocean can sequester carbon will continue to keep pace with rising carbon dioxide emissions.

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO ₂) and methane (CH ₄) stemming from human activities are rapidly and dramatically altering Earth's climate. Warmer temperatures drive longer and more destructive fire seasons, shifting precipitation patterns cause flooding in some areas and drought in others, and ocean acidification threatens marine life across the globe.

However, land and ocean ecosystems act as natural buffers that limit the increase of CO ₂ in the atmosphere by absorbing and sequestering nearly half of emitted CO ₂. Although anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, this natural climate change mitigation has so far proportionally kept pace with emissions, limiting global warming to a certain extent (Figure 1).

This situation could change, however. For example, although tropical forests in the Amazon have been CO ₂ sinks over the past 50 years, increasing land use change, drought, fires, and tree deaths in recent years may have tipped the balance, making this region a periodic net carbon source [, 2018]. Arctic observations, meanwhile, have revealed little change in long-term CH ₄ emissions from the region so far. However, Arctic warming has occurred at double the average global rate [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014], and the resulting abrupt permafrost thaw events and increased winter emissions could eventually lead to a tipping point by the mid-21st century [Turetsky et al., 2019].

Decades of global measurements can now help address two key questions: (1) How do ecosystems respond to climate change? (2) How will these ecosystem responses change Earth's carbon budget in the future?

Interacting Processes Introduce Complexity

Predicting interactions between Earth's climate and carbon cycle is challenging because of the number of feedbacks involved. Carbon cycle feedbacks are interacting processes that amplify or dampen carbon emissions.

Direct carbon cycle feedbacks are driven solely by increasing atmospheric CO ₂ concentrations. For example, increasing atmospheric CO ₂ increases the efficiency of photosynthesis and promotes plant growth, sequestering atmospheric CO ₂; this dampening is a negative feedback. Similarly, increasing atmospheric CO ₂ increases the concentration gradient between the atmosphere and the ocean, driving carbon dissolution into the ocean and sequestering atmospheric CO ₂.

Indirect feedbacks influence carbon exchange via ecosystem responses to climate change and are referred to as carbon-climate feedbacks. For example, CO ₂ is less soluble in warmer water; thus, warmer oceans absorb less CO ₂, meaning more CO ₂ remains in the atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to further warming in a process known as a positive feedback. Warmer temperatures lead to longer growing seasons and reduce atmospheric CO ₂ through photosynthetic uptake by plants, but warming also increases plant and soil respiration, water stress, drought, disturbance, and forest dieback, which reduces CO ₂ uptake and increases the risk and severity of wildfires (Figure 2).

Methane is produced by organisms that do not use oxygen to convert nutrients into energy (anaerobic respiration), and it is removed by oxidation in the atmosphere. Although CH ₄ is a small component of the overall carbon budget, it is a potent greenhouse gas, and changes in atmospheric CH ₄ are of great concern. Changes in wetland extent due to changing precipitation in the tropics and warming-induced permafrost thaw in the Arctic could lead to large changes in CH ₄ production [, 2017]. Thawing Arctic permafrost, in particular, has been cited as a potentially major positive feedback, where thawing leads to increased CH ₄ release, driving warming and more permafrost thaw.

The Carbon Cycle from Many Vantages

Our understanding of carbon-climate feedbacks is built on long-running observational networks and ecosystem manipulation studies, ranging from site-level, bottom-up experiments across a variety of ecosystems to global, space-based, top-down measurements.

Recently, space-based measurements of atmospheric CO ₂ have greatly expanded observational coverage, allowing for more resolved estimates of CO ₂, although ground-based truthing of satellite data remains challenging.Since the late 1950s, atmospheric CO ₂ measurements from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and, later, the Earth System Research Laboratory's global network of surface stations have provided continental- to global-scale constraints on CO ₂ exchanges between the land and atmosphere. These measurements constitute precise estimates of atmospheric CO ₂ concentration and provide a constraint on the partitioning of anthropogenic CO ₂ emissions between different regions. They also help scientists identify emerging trends such as the increasing seasonal amplitude of carbon uptake and release by Northern Hemisphere ecosystems since the 1960s [Keeling et al., 1996]. Recently, space-based measurements of atmospheric CO ₂ have greatly expanded observational coverage, particularly in the tropics, allowing for more resolved estimates of CO ₂, although ground-based truthing of satellite data remains challenging.

Another important data set comes from the global FLUXNET network of eddy covariance flux towers. This network, comprising hundreds of instrument towers across many different ecological settings, uses micrometeorological observations to estimate exchanges of water, energy, and carbon across entire ecosystems and over a span of decades. Over this period, these towers have captured a wide range of environmental variability, providing insights into the sensitivity of plant and soil physiology to changes in temperature, humidity, and disturbance events like fires and land use change [, 2019]. FLUXNET is an essential tool for expanding our understanding of plant physiology to the landscape scale.

Complementing these observations are ecosystem manipulation experiments, which monitor responses to imposed environmental changes. At Free Air CO ₂ Enrichment ( FACE) sites, researchers artificially raise CO ₂ levels in small areas containing whole ecosystems by pumping CO ₂ from towers into the air below to mimic future atmospheric conditions. Data from these experiments provide direct evidence of increasing photosynthetic uptake with CO ₂ fertilization and the potential for nutrient shortages to limit this fertilization [Leakey et al., 2009].

Similarly, warming studies (e.g., Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments ( SPRUCE)) manipulate soil temperature to elucidate potential positive feedbacks from soil respiratory carbon losses under climate warming [, 2016]. FACE and warming studies provide some of the most direct evidence of ecosystem sensitivity to future climates. However, both FLUXNET and FACE sites are limited to northern midlatitude ecosystems, in part because of logistical constraints and in part because that's where most of the scientists are. Thus, there are observational gaps in climate-sensitive tropical, boreal, and Arctic ecosystems.

Space-based observing systems are an essential complement to site-level measurements, allowing researchers to monitor ecosystem function across continents and identify critical regions and scales for carbon cycling. With multidecadal satellite remote sensing records, it has become possible to distinguish interannual variability from trends. For example, the widespread "greening" of northern high latitudes may indicate increased vegetation productivity in response to CO ₂ fertilization or warming [, 2016]. Remote sensing time series can also detect and quantify areas of disturbance and land use change, revealing the extent to which warming-induced increases in fires and insect disturbance may cause forests to transition from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

Observational systems monitoring ocean chemical and physical processes are also critical for understanding the ocean carbon cycle. Current ocean observing systems include ship-based measurements, the Argo floats network, and surface buoys from the Global CO₂ Time-Series and Moorings Project. These systems measure surface water CO ₂ and temperature and, in conjunction with atmospheric observations, provide evidence of surface ocean carbon exchange through wind-driven upwelling and transport.

Satellite-based microwave sensors can be used to infer additional surface ocean properties influencing air-sea exchange, such as rain, wind speed, sea state, and salinity. These properties influence density-driven thermohaline circulation originating in high latitudes, which is principally responsible for relocating CO ₂ into the deep ocean, where it is stored for several hundred years. Changes in precipitation that increase river runoff and warmer temperatures that melt sea ice may freshen high-latitude surface oceans. This freshening may result in less overturning of the layers of water in the oceans, thus slowing thermohaline circulation and carbon removal.

A Struggle for Consistency

Different methods of carbon flux observations do not always produce consistent results: There is an emerging chasm between constraints on carbon cycling derived from small-scale and large-scale observations: Not only do the physical processes differ at different scales, but different experimental methods and data sources produce different results. For example, multidecadal site-level observations at FLUXNET sites do not clearly show that plants increase their carbon uptake in response to CO ₂ fertilization, but they do confirm that plant and soil respiration are sensitive to temperature, suggesting that warming will lead to carbon loss from the biosphere. Furthermore, because of regional observational gaps, data upscaling methods trained on these sites (e.g., FLUXCOM) estimate unrealistically large carbon sinks in the tropics [Tramontana et al., 2016]. In contrast, top-down constraints from atmospheric CO ₂ measurements show trends of increasing carbon uptake by unmanaged ecosystems in both the tropics and northern extratropics.

Just as observational methods produce different results, current terrestrial ecosystem models indicate different trends in carbon uptake.Reconciling these conflicting results is challenging because of the extreme difference in scales between bottom-up and top-down estimates and heterogeneity among ecosystems. Resolving the discrepancies requires both more site-level observations in relatively undersampled regions and continued investment in space-based satellite observations, which are crucial for monitoring regional changes in carbon uptake.

Just as observational methods produce different results, current terrestrial ecosystem models indicate different trends in carbon uptake (Figure 3), limiting our understanding of the evolution of carbon-climate feedbacks [Friedlingstein et al., 2014]. This divergence is partly due to complexities in simulating biogeochemical systems and their sensitivity to climate. It also arises from incomplete representation of complex land-atmosphere interactions, such as water stress impacts from repeated droughts and shifts in precipitation.

Yet both process-based and empirical models remain key for understanding recent changes and projecting future climate and carbon cycle changes. Increasingly complex models with sophisticated representations of dynamic vegetation, plant hydraulics, and disturbances are under development, but this increasing complexity is more challenging to validate.

The International Land Model Benchmarking Project provides an attempt to formalize model validation by developing systematic methods for confronting a variety of models with a standard set of observations to advance model development. An emerging area of research deals with optimizing parameterizations within terrestrial biosphere models by assimilating quantities such as soil moisture, solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, and variation in atmospheric CO ₂ [Scholze et al., 2017], providing additional observational constraints on parameter uncertainty. However, this technique cannot account for errors in model structure.

Ocean modeling studies will benefit from increased resolution and better representation of critical processes such as eddies, brine plumes, and formation of oxygen minimum zones. Increased stratification due to surface ocean warming and decreased vertical mixing both reduce upwelling, which is critical for providing nutrients to the surface ocean. During El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, nutrient shortages can cause fisheries to collapse. Although ENSO events are a natural part of the ocean-atmosphere climate system, their global teleconnections drive interannual variability in the carbon cycle [, 2017], and the evolution of ENSO with climate change is uncertain.

Unintended Consequences of Mitigation

Developing and implementing technologies to remove CO ₂ from the atmosphere are key for limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C above preindustrial levels, the benchmark determined in the 2016 Paris Agreement. However, carbon capture may have unintended consequences by affecting concentration-driven direct carbon feedbacks. Decreased atmospheric CO ₂ will reduce CO ₂ fertilization and ocean carbon uptake, potentially reversing natural carbon sequestration [Keller et al., 2018]. These effects will counter mitigation strategies, making them appear less effective.

Understanding these complex feedback-mitigation interactions is important not only for stakeholders who assess mitigation scenarios but also for those tasked with clearly communicating the expectations of mitigation strategies to the public. If expected changes are not communicated well, muted reductions in atmospheric CO ₂ after the implementation of mitigation might be misinterpreted as failures or shortcomings of mitigation efforts. Mitigation strategy planning must account for both rising CO ₂ emissions and reduced efficacy of natural CO ₂ sinks (Figure 4).

An emerging area of carbon cycle research examines human and economic responses, which are an indirect form of feedback. Climate-driven decreases in economic activity could decrease emissions in some sectors-an example of a negative carbon-climate-economic feedback. New modeling frameworks designed around Shared Socioeconomic Pathways attempt to integrate human responses into Earth system models to account for the interactions between population, economic growth, energy system parameters, land use, emissions, and concentrations [, 2017].

Investing in Measurements and Models

Looking forward, it's likely that potential nonlinear, time-dependent, and state-dependent feedbacks and responses in the carbon cycle will remain difficult to predict, particularly because many feedbacks interact with each other. Investments should be made to continue observations with existing networks and observing systems and to expand these sorts of observations to undersampled regions (e.g., the Arctic and tropics). And new types of measurements (e.g., of carbonyl sulfide and solar-induced fluorescence) that can provide new perspectives on ecosystem processes should be explored.

Including socioeconomic responses to climate change in Earth system models will also be critical for understanding future changes to the climate and carbon cycle. Anthropogenic CH ₄ emissions are ultimately tied to how we grow food (e.g., in rice paddies and cattle feed lots), deal with waste (e.g., in landfills), and produce energy (e.g., via oil and gas extraction)-all essential activities for civilization. Mitigating CH ₄ emissions in response to climate change will impact economic activity, an example of emerging climate socioeconomic feedbacks.

Finally, a large spread in future carbon uptake is predicted by terrestrial biosphere models, suggesting that they do not yet have sufficient skill to offer precise predictions of future uptake at fine scales and into the far future. Further development of evaluation metrics and improved model representations of Earth system processes are thus crucial for understanding recent changes, projecting further into the future (e.g., to 2300), and identifying which data are key to collect.

Acknowledgments

This feature is largely based on the science presentations and discussions at the recent AGU Chapman Conference on Understanding Carbon-Climate Feedbacks, which took place in La Jolla, Calif., in August 2019. A.K. was supported by a Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences postdoctoral appointment, administered by the University of Colorado Boulder. B.B. was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, administered by the Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA. J.W. was supported by the University of California National Laboratory Fees Research Program, administered by the University of California Office of the President. J.G. was supported by Boise State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (contract 4000145196). K.D. was supported by NASA Carbon Monitoring System (grant NNX16AQ55G). R.K. was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, administered by the Universities Space Research Association.

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The Future of the Carbon Cycle in a Changing Climate - Eos

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Over the past 50 years, a growing wealth of long-term atmosphere, ocean, and ecosystem observations has provided essential insights into how climate change affects the ways that carbon moves through Earth's environment, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered.

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Topic 6 - Good introductory animated video lecture that teaches the basics of the carbon cycle

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Topic 6 - Good introductory animated video lecture that teaches the basics of the carbon cycle

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The Carbon Cycle & Carbon Stores | A-level Geography | AQA, OCR, Edexcel

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Topic 6 - Excellent Short Video Clip - Overview of the main key terms  - carbon sinks and the carbon cycle

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Topic 6 - Excellent Short Video Clip - Overview of the main key terms  - carbon sinks and the carbon cycle

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Carbon is the foundation of all life on Earth, required to form complex molecules like proteins and DNA. This element is also found in our atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon helps to regulate the Earth's temperature, makes all life possible, is a key ingredient in the food that sustains us, and provides a major source of the energy to fuel our global economy.

The carbon cycle describes the process in which carbon atoms continually travel from the atmosphere to the Earth and then back into the atmosphere. Since our planet and its atmosphere form a closed environment, the amount of carbon in this system does not change. Where the carbon is located - in the atmosphere or on Earth - is constantly in flux.

On Earth, most carbon is stored in rocks and sediments, while the rest is located in the ocean, atmosphere, and in living organisms. These are the reservoirs, or sinks, through which carbon cycles.

Carbon is released back into the atmosphere when organisms die, volcanoes erupt, fires blaze, fossil fuels are burned, and through a variety of other mechanisms.

In the case of the ocean, carbon is continually exchanged between the ocean's surface waters and the atmosphere, or is stored for long periods of time in the ocean depths.

Humans play a major role in the carbon cycle through activities such as the burning of fossil fuels or land development. As a result, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rapidly rising; it is already considerably greater than at any time in the last 800,000 years.

Video Transcript

What is the carbon cycle? Carbon is the chemical backbone of all life on Earth. All of the carbon we currently have on Earth is the same amount we have always had. When new life is formed, carbon forms key molecules like protein and DNA. It's also found in our atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide or CO2. The carbon cycle is nature's way of reusing carbon atoms, which travel from the atmosphere into organisms in the Earth and then back into the atmosphere over and over again. Most carbon is stored in rocks and sediments, while the rest is stored in the ocean, atmosphere, and living organisms. These are the reservoirs, or sinks, through which carbon cycles. The ocean is a giant carbon sink that absorbs carbon. Marine organisms from marsh plants to fish, from seaweed to birds, also produce carbon through living and dying. Over millions of years, dead organisms can become fossil fuels. When humans burn these fuels for energy, vast amounts of carbon dioxide are released back into the atmosphere. This excess carbon dioxide changes our climate - increasing global temperatures, causing ocean acidification, and disrupting the planet's ecosystems.

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national oceanic and atmospheric administration

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The carbon cycle describes the process in which carbon atoms continually travel from the atmosphere to the Earth and then back into the atmosphere. Since our planet and its atmosphere form a closed environment, the amount of carbon in this system does not change.

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Topic 6 - Good background reading to help before you start this topic - Although its quite long it explains the key concepts clearly

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Topic 1 - Detailed Report on the Sendai Framework's view on the aspects of Disaster Risk

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Topic 1 - Detailed Report on the Sendai Framework's view on the aspects of Disaster Risk

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The growth of accuracy and sophistication of risk assessment has been propelled by the hazard community. This is reflective of a past paradigm where disaster and hazard were used interchangeably. It also reflects the emphasis on empiricism in risk science. In many ways, that emphasis on scientific methods to understand hazards has led to a state in which disaster research is accorded a certain respect. Hazard research continues to dominate global research related to understanding risk.

The era of the Sendai Framework has opened the door for the inclusion of a broader community of research in understanding the true nature of risk. Social science researchers, economists, public policy specialists, epidemiologists and others who can contribute valuable information about the nature of vulnerability and exposure are finding a welcoming community whose main objective is to give increasingly clear and accurate risk information. There is no doubt that the nature of risk information is and will continue to be quantitative, but the focus on probabilistic modelling and homogeneous data sets is giving way to a future that is less definitive and more accurately representative of the world as it is.

In this section, there is still a focus on hazards first, but the interconnection among hazards and the connections of the hazard research community to other risk research is validation of the Sendai Framework.

3.1.1 Seismic

This peril has been responsible for an average direct death toll of over 20,000 people per year in the last several decades and economic losses that can reach a significant fraction of a country's wealth. On average, earthquakes constitute 20% of annual economic losses due to disasters, but in some years, this proportion has been as high as 60% (e.g. in 2010 and 2011). In Central America and the Caribbean, the earthquakes of Guatemala (1976), Nicaragua (1972), El Salvador (1986) and Haiti (2010) caused direct economic losses of approximately 98%, 82%, 40% and 120% of the nominal GDP of each country, respectively.

While global earthquake models have not changed dramatically, many of the inputs have changed, as has the way in which earthquakes are being studied and understood. GAR15 focused on earthquakes as ground shaking and the impact of earthquakes as related to structural damage to buildings due to shaking. Nearly five years on, knowledge of earthquakes is being informed by new models, and by a better understanding of faults and thus movement within time and space. This has been facilitated by greater collaboration enabling local-level data to help inform the global level.

In general, earthquake models are heavily based on data from past earthquakes: magnitude, frequency, ground shaking and damage. Thus, models at the global level have been created mainly through statistical analyses of past events and empirical data on damage and mortality. Models are improving in several ways: increased understanding of how active faults accumulate seismic energy; greater availability of ground shaking recordings from damaging earthquakes; better understanding of the vulnerability of structures from field observations as well as computer simulations; and better descriptions of the human and built environment from a wide range of sources, including satellite imagery and crowdsourcing.

Global models now integrate local information about faults and microfaults as well as to reflect verified plate movement measurements. There is a growing emphasis on the use of geodesy (the branch of mathematics dealing with the shape and area of the Earth). Each factor affects ground shaking differently, thus the greater the level of detail, the more accurate forecasting can be.

The Global Earthquake Model (GEM) now includes nearly 10,000 fault lines. This level of comprehensiveness is available only due to the confluence of improved satellite capability, expanded availability of computing power and the inputs of hundreds of national and local seismic specialists.

As the level of available detail varies by location (by region, by country and sometimes even within countries), to ensure the most up-to-date data is incorporated into a global model, it is necessary to apply consistent methodologies and tools at all levels of analysis, from local to global. This information can then be combined into a homogeneous mosaic that allows comparisons of hazard among locations and regions.

Regionally, seismic models have extended such that there are now models for a larger part of the world at a better quality with improved catalogues and geological parameters than ever before. Risk modelling has progressed to include cascading hazards in the models. An example of this new capacity is the increasing focus on modelling contingent losses or indirect losses. Pilot efforts are showing that it could be possible to estimate the price increases for certain types of goods when disaster events of different scales occur in some contexts. For risk managers and planners, this will be useful in understanding the probable knock-on effects of the event, but also to inform emergency measures.

3.1.2 Tsunami

Tsunamis must be treated as a multidisciplinary hazard. They can be triggered by earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes or meteorological events, with large earthquakes being the most frequent trigger. Because their drivers require specific conditions to result in a tsunami, they are decidedly rarer than their triggering events. Tsunamis have a basis of historical evidence, but the data set is too sparse to characterize the tsunami risk on each specific coastline, especially in confined areas where there is a limited coastline section. Making this more challenging, over the last 100 years, only a handful of truly devastating tsunamis have occurred, contributing to most of the disaster tsunami losses across the globe. Large tsunamis occur with relatively low frequency but have potentially high impact. In the last two decades, this has been demonstrated, for instance, by the Indian Ocean (2004) and the Great East Japan (2011) tsunamis. The scale of these disasters far exceeded the previously perceived risk in these areas.

Assessing tsunami risk requires a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach. It is a topic that includes a wide range of disciplines, such as geophysics (e.g. seismology, geology and faulting), hydrodynamics and flow modelling (e.g. landslide dynamics, volcanology, coastal engineering and oceanography), vulnerability and risk assessment (e.g. geography, social sciences, economy, structural engineering, mathematical and statistical sciences), in addition to disaster risk management and mitigation.
Figure 3.2. Selected tsunami wave heights (maximum wave heights recorded)
(Sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Geophysical Data Center/World Data Service Global Historical Tsunami Database 2019; National Centers for Environmental Information 2019)

The tsunami maximum wave heights in Figure 3.3 do not correlate with their level of damage. The largest known tsunami occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in the United States of America in 1958. The massive scale of the wave caused relatively little damage due to the limited exposed stock in the area at the time. The Great East Japan tsunami in 2011 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 were far smaller than the Lituya Bay tsunami, but they caused far more losses.

Tsunami hazards are heterogeneous; smaller events can cause devastation, as evidenced by the events in Indonesia with the Palu tsunami in 2018 and the Mentawai tsunami in 2010. These events exemplify cases where unconventional mechanisms generate tsunamis that are unexpectedly large given the magnitude of the triggering event.

Due to their infrequent nature, tsunamis often catch coastal communities off-guard. Perhaps the most pertinent example is the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that hit a largely unprepared coastal population in nearly a dozen countries and resulted in more than 230,000 fatalities. Due to the enormous consequences of that tsunami, the need for more sophisticated and comprehensive methodologies to understand and manage tsunami risk in a wider range of locations immediately became obvious. The most obvious interventions were in risk mitigation activities such as construction of wave-absorbing sea walls, elevated facilities, evacuation routes and EWSs. After 2004, tsunami research and risk mitigation activities spread to many regions that previously had very little focus on tsunami risk - particularly South and South-East Asia.

3.1.3 Landslide

The evaluation of landslide hazard should entail diagnosis of the geo-hydro-mechanical processes bringing about the landslides that eventually generate damage.

The assessment of landslide hazard based upon geo-hydro-mechanical analysis of slopes is generally recognized to be the planning basis for countries experiencing high landslide susceptibility (e.g. in Afghanistan, in Himalaya belt slopes in Asia, in Bolivia, Brazil and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in South America, and in Italy and Spain in Europe). But the experienced losses from contemporary landslide events testify that these assessments, or the mitigation measures they should have precipitated, are not appropriately developed.

The Multiscalar Method for Landslide Mitigation is a new methodology for the assessment of landslide hazard at the local scale, based on geo-hydro-mechanical analyses. This method seeks to identify the geo-hydro-mechanical contexts most common in the slopes of the region, and for the corresponding landslide mechanisms, which are then recognized as the mechanisms typical to the region. Having as a basis the set of representative landslide mechanisms can make landslide risk management at the local scale more sustainable, since it can guide the selection of the mitigation measures based on awareness of the typical landslide features and causes.

Urbanization frequently extends over unstable slopes and ancient landslides. This is particularly true for informal settlements. Therefore, landslides often affect the poorest parts of urban areas, whose expansion is restricted to land that would not withstand simple engineering tests.

3.1.4 Flooding

While seismic science has been able to move forward with a coordinated, collaborative approach to modelling the hazard, flood science faces several obstacles that make the process of reaching the same point more complicated. Floods are simply the presence of water on land that is usually dry. The causes of that flooding can be too much precipitation, snow melt that occurs too quickly, a dam break, a tsunami or storm surge, inadequate water management practices, etc. The dynamics that dictate flood risk are difficult to model - a key reason why not all flood causations can be modelled with contemporary resources. There are models for many different drivers of flooding, but not all, and the work of harmonizing the different drivers into a harmonized flood model remains a challenge for the flood community.

Several different flood models have been developed for riverine and coastal flooding. But the challenge in developing a more comprehensive global model is to combine these models together. A first step in this direction has been made by linking one hydrodynamics model with downstream boundary conditions from a tide and storm-surge data set. In doing this, the linked effects of flooding at river water levels and in estuaries have been mapped globally. Other initiatives are developing methods to nest local flood models within global models, thereby increasing computational efficiency and enhancing localized accuracy in those areas where the local models exist

When assessing flood risk, a key concern is related to triggering factors. There is no single source that causes a flood; it can arise from multiple drivers. Considering the challenges in accuracy related to short-term weather forecasts, where at least some of the dynamics can be modelled, the challenge of risk projection for precipitation drivers of flooding are orders of magnitude more complex. Precipitation patterns must consider multiple dynamic sources. Even in the same catchment area, the same precipitation distributed in different ways can lead to vastly different results. Other conditions must be factored in, including the soil conditions (very dry, partial saturation, snow melt, etc.), and all those elements must then be linked to local factors that are not always possible to project at the global level. The primary difference between global and local models is not the processes - those are effectively the same - but rather the ability to tailor them to a local context that can make the difference for producing a comprehensive understanding of risk.

Older hydrological models were focused on projecting probable discharge of rivers, creating a time series of the flow in the river and applying those discharge values to a hydraulics model that incorporated flood flow and depth. Now, with the ability to run calculations on far more powerful computers, the hydrological cycle can be resolved in a more accurate way, thus enabling improved simulation of hydrology and the production of more reliable values of discharge.

Using these tools, many probabilistic flood maps are now available. Recent work to combine them has highlighted the significant advances possible in recent years. Through the Global Flood Partnership (GFP), work is under way to compare the various existing models and identify gaps that will require further research and development. GFP is a multidisciplinary group of scientists, agencies and flood risk managers focused on developing efficient and effective global flood tools. Its aim is to build cooperation for global flood forecasting, monitoring and impact assessment to strengthen preparedness and response and to reduce global disaster losses. Much like seismic science, the ideal case is to use locally produced models, and a plan is required to collect these and figure out how to fill gaps. The result should provide a basis for other models and enable them to be mutually improved.

3.1.5 Fire

The increased number of intense heat-waves and wildfires that has been recorded during recent years on a global basis has raised great concerns. It is apparent that projected climatic changes may significantly affect such phenomena in the future. Each year, wildfires result in high mortality rates and property losses, especially in the wildland urban interface (WUI). These fires affect millions of people and have devastating global consequences for biodiversity and ecosystems. Wildfire disasters can rapidly change their nature into technological disasters (e.g. in mixed areas of forest and residential, in heavy industrial or in recycling zones). In such cases, there is a global concern because toxic components such as dioxins are released, as well as fine and ultrafine particles with transboundary effects. Even though international policies and fire safety legislation have resulted in effective prevention mechanisms, environmental and technological fire hazards continue to threaten the sustainability of local populations and the biodiversity of affected areas.

The year 2018 was reported as one of the warmest, affecting European Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, and also the countries of Central and Northern Europe. For example, Austria's June 2018 national temperature was 1.9Â°C above average and was one of the 10 warmest Junes on record. Higher temperatures have generally been correlated with extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, heat-waves and flash floods. The short-term precipitation period that is spatially intensive usually causes flash floods and hence it more often occurs in drier climates. Under such circumstances, fire incidents in dry climate zones can easily be converted to megafires such as the Greek fires of August 2007, which destroyed huge forest areas, and even within the Arctic Circle, as seen in the Swedish wildfires of July 2018.

There is a general challenge surrounding the definition of fires. In the European Union (EU) the focus has been on forest fires. More frequent occurrences of wildfires have spurred an expanded definition into wildfire that does not require the fire at any point to affect a forest. A wildfire is a fire that is out of control. This excludes fires set for legitimate purposes such as crop burning but would include the same fires if they spread outside of the intended area.

3.1.6 Biological

Biological hazards cover a category of hazards that are of organic origin or conveyed by biological vectors, including pathogenic microorganisms, toxins and bioactive substances. Examples are bacteria, viruses or parasites, as well as venomous wildlife and insects, poisonous plants and mosquitoes carrying disease-causing agents. While biological hazards also cause diseases in plants and animals, this chapter focuses on those biological hazards that affect human health.

Like other hazards, biological hazards and their associated infectious diseases occur at different scales with varying levels of consequence for public health. Diseases may be categorized by the way in which they are spread and people are infected, namely: water and food-borne diseases, where the pathogen can enter the body via contaminated food or water; vector-borne diseases, which involve mosquitoes, ticks and other arthropod species, or other animals that transmit the disease from animals to humans (zoonotic diseases) or among humans; air-borne or respiratory infections, which are spread between humans by the respiratory route; and other infectious diseases involving contact with bodily fluids such as blood.

Biological hazards affect people at all levels of society. At the extreme, epidemic infectious diseases affect millions of people every year, with potentially severe consequences for individuals, communities, health systems and economies, especially in fragile and vulnerable countries where they are most common. However, no country is immune to the risk. New pathogens continue to emerge by mutating, re-assorting and adapting. Previously well-understood infectious agents change their behaviour or scale of impact as the world is getting warmer and more populated, with associated animal husbandry strategies, and with ecosystem changes, increasing speed of transportation and mass distribution systems.

As infectious diseases travel easily across administrative boundaries, the world's defences are only as effective as the weakest link in any country's efforts to anticipate and prevent emergence and outbreak at all scales. Biological hazards and their impact on global public health have brought to prominence the need for a collective and coordinated mechanism involving all sectors to prevent new risks, reduce and mitigate existing risks, and strengthen resilience. This approach is being promoted and reinforced by the integration of biological hazards in whole-of-society and all-hazard approaches to the management of risks, as reflected in the Sendai Framework, SDGs and the Paris Agreement, which are complemented by international health regulations (IHRs) and other relevant global, regional, national and subnational strategies and agreements.

3.1.7 Nuclear/Radiological

Radioactivity and the radiation it produces existed on Earth long before life emerged. In fact, they have been present in space since the beginning of the Universe, and radioactive material was part of the Earth at its very formation. But humanity first discovered this elemental, universal phenomenon only in the last years of the nineteenth century. Most people are aware of the use of radiation in the nuclear power production of electricity or in medical applications, yet many other uses of nuclear technologies in industry, agriculture, construction, research and other areas are hardly known at all. The sources of radiation causing the greatest risk to the public are not necessarily those that attract the most attention (Figure 3.10). In fact, everyday experience such as air travel and living in well-insulated homes in certain parts of the world can substantially increase exposure to radiation.

There is no formal distinction between nuclear and radiological risks and thus between associated safety arrangements. However, it is a well-established practice to distinguish exposures related to nuclear power generation from other radiation exposures. From the physical point of view, both situations may result in the same kind of radiation exposure, so this distinction considers the different characteristics of the source of the risk. This GAR assumes that nuclear risks arise (or may potentially arise) from the uncertainties in the management of a nuclear chain reaction or the decay of the products of a chain reaction. Consequently, the radiological risks arise from uncertainties related to any other activities involving ionizing radiation.
Figure 3.10. Potential biological impacts of radiation damaging a cell
(Source: UNISDR)

3.1.8 Chemical/Industrial

Industrial production is a central characteristic of the modern world economy. Industry creates jobs and provides a wide range of essential materials, products and services. However, authorities, in cooperation with industry, must ensure that industrial facilities producing, handling or storing hazardous substances such as tailings management facilities (TMFs), pipelines, oil terminals and chemical installations are safely located and operated, as accidents can have far-reaching and severe effects on people, environments and economies.

Industrial hazards originate from technological or industrial conditions, dangerous procedures, infrastructure failures or specific human activities. These include toxic releases, explosions, fires and chemical spills into the air, adjacent water courses and land. In many countries, industrial hazards are exacerbated by ageing, abandoned or idle installations. These problems are amplified by insufficient institutional and legal capacities to deal with technological risk reduction. Natural hazards - for example, storms, landslides, floods or earthquakes - can also cause industrial accidents by triggering the release of hazardous substances from industrial facilities that are located within their path of destruction (see section 3.1.9). The impact associated with industrial accidents relate to loss of life, injury, or destruction or damage of assets that could occur to a system, society or a community. Effective management of risks requires cooperation within and across systems, sectors, countries and scales.

Most industrial accidents entail the release of hazardous substances into water bodies with grave impacts on water resources, threatening the availability of safe water for drinking, household use and agriculture, as well as human safety.

For many decades, the issue of industrial accident prevention, preparedness and response has been of concern to governments, as well as industry. In the mid-1980s, the issue took on a new level of urgency and political importance in response to the Bhopal accident in India, which resulted in more than 15,000 deaths and more than 100,000 people affected. While regulation and new standards have driven significant progress in industrial safety in the past 40 years, major accidents still occur as countries face new challenges and emerging risks. In recent years, extreme weather-related events triggered industrial accidents with severe environmental and economic consequences, such as Hurricane Harvey in the United States of America.

A multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to addressing industrial accident risk is required. The Sendai Framework promotes this across its four priorities in the systems-based approaches to risk management.

This section explores the trends in industrial risks and the underlying drivers of these risks (identifying the casual factors). It examines how progress in managing risks is measured, introduces industrial accident risk reduction approaches, and explores challenges and opportunities for effective risk management in the future.

3.1.9 NATECH

Many of the goods and services upon which societies depend are provided by industrial activities. From refining, oil and gas production and transport, to nuclear power generation or the preparation of specialty chemicals, many of these activities have constructed inherent susceptibility to shocks, including those provoked by natural hazards.

Natural hazards have the potential to surpass safeguards, triggering negative impacts that may entail hazardous substance release, fire, explosion or indirect effects with wider repercussions than those felt in the immediate proximity. The cascading technological side effects of natural hazards are called NATECH accidents.
Figure 3.17. Hurricane Harvey caused several oil spills and chemical releases in Texas, 2017
(Source: Union of Concerned Scientists 2019)
Disclaimer: The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.
3.1.10 Environmental

Evidence from the latest intergovernmental and global assessments shows that the planet is overheating and becoming increasingly densely populated. Climate change, food insecurity, rapid urbanization and growing levels of pollution are damaging human and ecosystem health. Growing inequalities in wealth and access to technology and resources are leading to malnutrition, conflicts and the displacement of millions of people.

Understanding of environmental hazards and associated risks and distributional impacts caused by these pressures has been enhanced through the assessments of various key international scientific bodies. The concept of interlinkages among environmental risks lies at the heart of the concept of planetary boundaries and dynamic systems. Four out of the nine planetary boundaries (climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen)) have now been crossed. Fifteen out of 24 categories of ecosystem services are in decline due to overuse of resources. The spread of zoonoses and invasive alien species is being exacerbated by climate change and global trade, and is already posing direct threats to native and endemic species and ecosystem functioning. Overharvesting, land-use change, unsustainable use of - and lack of fair access to - genetic resources, and climate change are key drivers of the decline in wild plant resources, including those used commercially for food and medicinal purposes. Approximately 15,000 species or 21% of global medicinal plant species are now endangered due to overharvesting and habitat loss.

Intense heat-waves, wildfires and storms occurred in 2018. The 20 warmest years on record have all occurred in the last 22 years. Meanwhile, GHG emissions keep rising (another 2.7% increase in 2018) and extreme weather-related events continue to spread and intensify globally.

In past GARs, the production of the Global Risk Model and standard risk metrics (AAL, PML and hybrid loss exceedance curves) relied on a global data set of standardized and homogeneous exposure data. Due to the heterogeneity of national reporting and the availability of data, model-based exposure calculations relied on an understanding of the constructed environment and used data from satellite observations. These satellite-based exposure layers were often validated locally through ground truthing. A team of on-the-ground analysts would visit a satellite-modelled site and verify if the model layer accurately depicted the extent of construction, building use, construction type, density, floors, materials, etc. The advantage of this approach was that the loss and replacement value of construction materials is relatively easy to describe country by country, even considering local market variability. A second advantage was that the use of built assets meant that in the cases of disaster events that affected areas that were more often insured, modelling data could be validated and corrected based on loss claims. Third, many of the hazards that were modelled were major natural hazards for which extensive engineering tests had been done to better understand their robustness faced with certain natural phenomena. For example, extensive testing has been done to understand the maximum ground acceleration due to earthquakes that the different types of building materials can withstand or the scales of modelled flooding a typical family home would be expected to experience.

3.2.1 Structural Exposure

There are several difficulties in relying on structural exposure. Huge regions of the world rarely experience seismic hazards. For example, much of Africa is at relatively low risk from a seismic perspective. Furthermore, the nature of construction materials, population densities and other elements of structural exposure as modelled for Africa dictate that the true risk of many African countries was not fully revealed. As past GARs have noted, the prevalence of extensive risk in many parts of the world have been historically underrepresented. When the predominantly extensive risk profile is coupled with relatively low rates of insurance penetration and very diverse construction types, it becomes evident how difficult it has historically been to reveal the true cost of risk in many countries. Droughts, epidemics, epizootics, agricultural infestations, etc., imply effectively no damage to structures, but their economic cost in direct and indirect terms could be devastating.

The Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-2015, which killed more than 11,000 people, is estimated to have cost 9.4% of GDP in Guinea, 8.5% in Liberia and 4.8% in Sierra Leone. Liberia lost more than 8% of its health-care workers. Surveillance, treatment and care of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB were set back, and the entire region suffered economic effects of the stigma. An exposure model predicated on counting and categorizing buildings would have captured effectively none of the above exposed elements and thus failed to show the true risk faced by those countries.
Figure 3.19. Projected economic losses due to Ebola in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, 2010-2016
(Source: World Bank 2016)

3.2.2 Exposure related to growth

Leaving aside the above-mentioned challenges of keeping pace with the exposure drivers for the built environment, the exposure for people, infrastructure and systems implied in those growth rates represents an astronomically complicated computation.

Exposure is not static, risk can increase with changes in exposure (e.g. a three-storey building can become five storeys over the course of a few weeks, populations can displace en masse very quickly or border crossings can be closed). In Africa, average GDP growth for 2018 was above 4%, with one third of African countries experiencing real GDP growth of more than 5% year on year. In developing countries and countries in transition, growing middle classes and expanded access to the global market are fuelling growth of exposed assets while regulatory structures and risk management capacity struggle to keep pace. The result is a compounded risk, as the scale of exposed assets and lower likelihoods of careful application of safety standards overtake public investment in risk management strategies. This applies equally to construction regulation as to food safety inspection, industrial facilities verification, disease surveillance, biodiversity preservation, etc.

Urbanization is one of the twenty-first century's most transformative trends, posing challenges in terms of exposure and vulnerability, with implications in housing, infrastructure and basic services. The developing world is experiencing 90% of this urban growth, and it is estimated that 70 million new residents are added to urban areas in developing countries each year; infrastructure development cannot keep pace with growth. Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent; between 1990 and 2015, the population in urban clusters increased by 484 million, while Asia has 89% of its population living in urban clusters. Low-income countries have seen a 300% increase in built-up areas and an 176% increase in population over the past 40 years. For example, the number of fire incidents in formal and informal dwellings per year are similar, but with approximately 18% of the population living in informal settlements, the informal settlement dweller is 4.8 times more likely to be affected by fire than someone residing in a formal dwelling. The propensity of informal settlements to fire indicates that the burden of fire disasters is often borne by the poor.

3.2.3 Environmental Exposure

Exposure in a global environmental sense takes into consideration systems for which individual quantitative figures do not exist. Over the last two decades, approximately 20% of the productivity of the Earth's vegetated surface has shown a persistent downward trend, due to climate change, biodiversity loss and poor management practices. With overharvesting of resources and land-use change remaining as key pressures, more than half of the world's ecosystems services are in decline.

The widespread loss of biodiversity and ecosystem health is evidence of a failure to account for and manage the breadth of exposed global assets. That loss also has a major effect on risk reduction and the mitigation of environmental hazards. This is because ecosystem services help to regulate climate, filter air and water, and mitigate the impact of natural hazards. There are other direct benefits such as availability of timber, fish, crops and medicines, all of which support human health. These are often lost in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and can take many years to restore. Freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services are threatened more than any others. Rivers and wetlands the world over are distorted, dried and overwhelmed with waste, toxic pollution, invasive species, and are damaged by overfishing and overuse of irrigation water. Two thirds of all rivers are highly degraded, along with the freshwater habitat they support. This problem affects nearly 5 billion people living in high-water-threat areas.

Marine biodiversity is at risk from overfishing, ocean warming and acidification, melting of sea-ice with the loss of under-ice biota, oil and gas development, shipping, coastal habitat destruction, loss of coral reefs, eutrophication and pollution (including marine plastics, toxic algal blooms and invasive species). Terrestrial biodiversity is at risk from rising temperatures, loss of grasslands to deserts and drylands making them unsuitable for wildlife or agriculture, deforestation and degradation of tropical forests, and melting of glaciers in high mountain ecosystems and polar regions.

The impact of disasters encompasses more than just affected people or economic losses. While every society is vulnerable to risk, some suffer significantly more and recover more slowly than others when adversity strikes. Much of the existing literature on risk remains sector specific and treats vulnerability as people's exposure to risk. This section, building on the analysis offered in previous GARs and empirical evidence on the multidimensional aspects of risk exposure, reiterates the need for a more holistic and people-centred approach to vulnerability. It asks why some people do better in overcoming adversity than others by assessing the main obstacles that individuals, households and societies may face in managing risk, including challenges in terms of information, resources and incentives to build back faster and better.

Vulnerability is defined as the "conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards". It occurs in connection with the incidence of disasters of varying magnitudes, which negatively affect the economic, social environmental/ecological profiles of countries over time. Implicit here is the notion of "differential vulnerability", referring to the different facets and variant levels of risk, to which populations are exposed, accounting for differentiated impacts and outcomes in disasters.

Hazard identification is only an initial step within a risk management strategy. While the intensity remains important, of greater importance is the profile of a population whose economic, demographic, environmental, institutional and social characteristics may place its members at greater risk before, during and after a disaster. Whereas evidence suggests that wealthier countries with more developed institutions or governance are better able to reduce disaster risk, several countries have witnessed rapid economic growth in the last few decades without a commensurable rate of vulnerability reduction.

3.3.1 Measuring Vulnerability

Disasters significantly interfere with daily life. They disrupt livelihoods, family and social networks, and interrupt schooling trajectories, access to health services, infrastructure networks, supply chains and connections of essential services, all of which are critical for people's well-being. Conceptually, the quantification of vulnerability has been surrounded by debate in recent decades about appropriate methodologies, metrics and indicators applied within quantitative, survey-based methods (single cross sections, panel surveys and community surveys) and qualitative ones. Empirical literature on risk and vulnerability is extensive. It is therefore inevitable that there would be differences in how analysts/organizations define and measure vulnerability in relation to disasters. However, considering the increasingly damaging impact of disasters, an improved ability to measure vulnerability - albeit incomplete and imperfect - should be a welcome step towards the promotion of a disaster-resilient culture.

3.3.2 Life-cycle Vulnerability

Risks and capacities to cope accumulate over lifetimes. The life-cycle approach has been commonly used to cluster different vulnerable groups and prioritize action among them. It is founded on a multidimensional concept of vulnerability, initially conceived by the World Bank, which allows the identification of risk factors for each group and thereafter forecasts the long-term consequences of those risks into next stages in life. Life trajectories are the result of investments made in preceding stages as the consequences of shocks may cascade into long-term consequences. A setback in early childhood has compounding effects throughout the rest of a person's life, in terms of growth, job and social status and the uncertainties involved with growing older and the transmission of vulnerability to the next generation. This GAR argues that the cumulative and cascading nature of vulnerability requires timely and continuous investment to effectively protect those groups whose vulnerability profiles - many structural and many tied to the life cycle - make them more susceptible to risks.

Once metrics for observation have been selected, the life-cycle approach can be used to rank various groups, by degree of destitution, by their numbers or a combination of both. As vulnerable groups are clustered according to their specific characteristics, poverty data can be extremely useful as a touchstone because it is well measured and relates to most of the other characteristics (age, gender, health and asset ownership). If such basic data is not available, the survey-based approach is preceded by a qualitative analysis to cluster population groups.

The advantages of a life-cycle approach to vulnerability is that it can forecast socioeconomic impacts for different population groups and thus prioritize risk-coping mechanisms but also develop policies to prevent these risks from cascading into the next stages in life. In other words, the analysis is not static; rather it adapts based on learning from the dynamic processes that perpetuate vulnerabilities over time.

In practical terms, when it comes to assessing such vulnerabilities this means that if a vulnerable group is identified at an early stage of analysis, analysts can better measure the elements of such vulnerabilities over time by tracking those indicators through longitudinal surveys. This type of information does not need to be collected in isolation. Rather, vulnerability analysis can inform the development of existing and future surveys and census data developed by national statistical offices (NSOs). In ideal cases, the inclusion of disaster-sensitive indicators offers improved measurements of disaster incidences, identifies linkages with other aspects of welfare and integrates those with risk management instruments.

3.3.3 Socioeconomic Vulnerability

An overreliance on asset losses to explain vulnerability obscures the relationship between risk and poverty. By definition, wealthy individuals have more assets to lose; therefore, their interests dominate in risk assessments that are limited to asset losses. But measuring asset losses misses a major dimension, particularly in the developing world; the poor are less likely to have assets to lose. Just as highly developed countries are more exposed to risk (by virtue of having more to lose), so too are wealthy people. But the losses felt by less-wealthy countries and less-wealthy people are not less important. In fact, they also lack the means and opportunity to smooth the impact of shocks while maintaining their consumption, and to recover and rebuild their assets.

To compensate for the bias towards asset losses as the key metric of vulnerability, the Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters report introduced the concept of well-being losses. In addition to traditional asset losses, well-being losses account for people's socioeconomic resilience, including:

Their ability to maintain their consumption for the duration of their recovery

Their ability to save or borrow to rebuild their asset stock

The decreasing returns in consumption - that is, poorer people are more affected by a $1 reduction in consumption than richer individuals

Traditional risk assessments evaluate asset exposure and vulnerability to hazards to determine expected asset losses. The Unbreakable model additionally incorporates the socioeconomic resilience of the communities to predict well-being losses.

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Introduction The term "risk" has different meanings: (a) as a synonym for probability of a harmful effect occurring and (b) as a synonym for the mathematical expectation of the magnitude of the undesirable consequence (even as a quasi-synonym of consequence, wher

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Topic 1: Use this data platform to research the nature of natural hazard risks globally e.g. The Philippines

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population

98,393,574

WB, 2012

Population density

330.0p/KM ²

WB, 2012

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

272,017.377

WB, 2012

Capital stock - USD

566,949

WB, 2012

Social expenditure - USD

11,419

WB, 2012

Total Reserves - USD

75,688.608

WB, 2012

What's this?

- Population, GDP, GFCF, Gross savings, Total reserves (World Bank Development indicators. http://data.worldbank.org/ More information can be found in "Indicators definitions and sources".)
- Capital stock (Global Exposure Database 2014. Di Bono, 2014)
- Social expenditure (International Labour Organisation, ILO: Total Social Protection expenditure, 2012; Public Health Care expenditure, 2012; World Bank Development indicators, Public Education expenditure, 2011)
- Rule of law, Government effectiveness, Voice and accountability, Control of corruption (World Bank Governance indicators. http://data.worldbank.org/)
- Pop living in slums (Indicadores de los Objetivos del Desarrollo del Milenio http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=710)
- Ecological footprint (Global Footprint Network www.footprintnetwork.org)
- Environmental performance index, Forest change (Environmental Performance Index, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN); Columbia University http://epi.yale.edu)

What's this?

For a disaster to be entered into the database at least one of the following criteria must be fulfilled:
- Ten (10) or more people reported killed.
- Hundred (100) or more people reported affected.
- Declaration of a state of emergency.
- Call for international assistance.

CRED EM-DAT (Feb. 2015) : The OFDA/CRED - International Disaster Database www.emdat.be Université catholique de Louvain Brussels - Belgium.

10-year moving average 2005-2014

Events

18

Deaths

1817

Economic loss (,000 US$)

1,659,402

What's this?

The Average Annual Loss (AAL) is the expected loss per annum associated to the occurrence of future perils assuming a very long observation timeframe. It considers the damage caused on the exposed elements by small, moderate and extreme events and results a useful and robust metric for risk ranking and comparisons.

Hazard

Absolute
[Million US$]

Capital
stock [%]

GFCF
[%]

Social
exp [%]

Total
Reserves [%]

Gross
Savings [%]

Hazard contribution to AAL

Probable Maximum Loss (PML)

What's this?

The Probable Maximum Loss (PML) is a risk metric that represents the maximum loss that could be expected, on average, within a given number of years. PML is widely used to establish limits related to the size of reserves that, for example, insurance companies or a government should have available to buffer losses: the higher the return period, the higher the expected loss. PML always have associated a mean return period.

Mean return period in years - Values for hazard are in million US$

Hazard

20

50

100

250

500

1000

1500

Exposure to volcano

Number of volcanoes

47

Total population living within 30km from a volcano

30,511,866

% of population living with 30km distance from a volcano

30

Extensive risk is used to describe the risk of low-severity, high-frequency disasters, mainly but not exclusively associated with highly localized hazards. Intensive risk is used to describe the risk of high-severity, mid to low-frequency disasters, mainly associated with major hazards.
AAL: The Average Annual Loss is the expected loss per annum associated to the occurrence of future perils assuming a very long observation timeframe. It considers the damage caused on the exposed elements by small, moderate and extreme events and results a useful and robust metric for risk ranking and comparisons.
AAL Flood results are provisional. These results give an overview of the risk associated with river flooding. Factors other than the depth of the water also have a considerable influence on loss, which means that there is greater uncertainty compared with other hazards.
Risk and development implications index. This index is useful to provide a ranking of the countries based on the ratio of the expected Average Annual Loss (AAL) with relation to a set of relevant macroeconomic, financial, and social development variables. It attempts to reveal the weight of the AAL with respect to the social expenditure, the capital formation (domestic investment) and reserves (financial capacity), and the produced capital or capital stock (assets at risk) and savings (treasury) of each country. It reflects, in adverse conditions, growth and social constraints for the country as a result of potential future disasters.
The fiscal portfolio is composed by the government buildings, public education and health buildings, and low income residential private buildings.
PML: The Probable Maximum Loss is a risk metric that represents the maximum loss that could be expected, on average, within a given number of years. PML is widely used to establish limits related to the size of reserves that, for example, insurance companies or a government should have available to buffer losses: the higher the return period, the higher the expected loss. PML always have associated a mean return period.
Mean return period of 100, 250, 500, 1000 and 1500 years means the 5%, 2%, 1%, 0.5% and 0.3% probability respectively of exceeding those losses in 5 years.

UNISDR Global Risk Assessment 2015: GVM and IAVCEI, UNEP, CIMNE and associates and INGENIAR, FEWS NET and CIMA Foundation.
World Bank Development indicators. http://data.worldbank.org/
More information can be found in "Indicators definitions and sources".
International Labour Organisation, ILO: Total Social Protection expenditure (2012), Public Health Care expenditure (2012), World Bank Development indicators, Public Education expenditure (2011)
Global Footprint Network: http://www.footprintnetwork.org
EM-DAT (Feb. 2015) : The OFDA/CRED - International Disaster Database http://www.emdat.be Université catholique de Louvain Brussels - Belgium

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The Global Assessment Report GAR is a major initiative of the ISDR that contributes to the achievement of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) through monitoring risk patterns and trends and progress in disaster risk reduction while providing strategic policy guidance to countries and the international community.

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Topic 1 - Important Source of Research into Factors Influencing Risk from Natural Hazards but also good explanation of the SENDAI framework

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At UNDRR, we envision a world where disasters no longer threaten the well-being of people and the future of the planet. Sustainable development and the 2030 Agenda cannot be achieved without working towards that goal of building resilience.

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At UNDRR, we envision a world where disasters no longer threaten the well-being of people and the future of the planet. Sustainable development and the 2030 Agenda cannot be achieved without working towards that goal of building resilience.

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Topic 5 - Aral Sea Water Crisis - Described and Explained with good links to other similar problems in other locations

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The Aral Sea is bringing new wealth to fishing villages in Kazakhstan, but their neighbours on the opposite shore in Uzbekistan are suffering a very different fate.

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Topic 5 - Excellent large scale interactive data base / map that shows causes of water conflict around the world

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*NOTE: Mapped locations may not be exact. For additional information on definitions, methods, and sources, please go here.

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Topic 1 - Glacial outbursts as a secondary hazard after volcanic eruptions or earthquakes

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Topic 1 - Liquefaction Earthquakes

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Liquefaction of Soil During Earthquakes | Maps, Video

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Liquefaction occurs when vibrations of an earthquake cause a soil to lose strength and flow.

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Topic 1 - Clear explanation of the causes of building collapse but also engineering strategies explained

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Topic 1 - Japan Earthquake and Tsunami 2011 - Good visual information on the extent of the damange

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On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced the strongest earthquake in its recorded history.

Subjects

Earth Science, Oceanography, Geography, Physical Geography

On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced the strongest earthquake in its recorded history. The earthquake struck below the North Pacific, 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of Sendai, the largest city in the Tohoku region, a northern part of the island of Honshu.

The Tohoku earthquake caused a tsunami. A tsunami-Japanese for "harbor wave"-is a series of powerful waves caused by the displacement of a large body of water. Most tsunamis, like the one that formed off Tohoku, are triggered by underwater tectonic activity, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The Tohoku tsunami produced waves up to 40 meters (132 feet) high, More than 450,000 people became homeless as a result of the tsunami. More than 15,500 people died. The tsunami also severely crippled the infrastructure of the country.

In addition to the thousands of destroyed homes, businesses, roads, and railways, the tsunami caused the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The Fukushima nuclear disaster released toxic, radioactive materials into the environment and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and businesses.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Writer

National Geographic Society

Producer

National Geographic Society

other

Last Updated

July 25, 2023

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On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced the strongest earthquake in its recorded history.

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Topic 5 - China's South to North Water Transfer Project - Pros and Cons

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On Friday afternoon, China quietly inaugurated one of the biggest engineering projects of all time: the South-North Water Diversion, a £48bn, 2,400km network of canals and tunnels, designed to divert 44.8bn cubic metres of water annually from China's humid south to its parched, industrialised north.

At 2.32pm, the project's "middle line" officially began carrying water from the Danjiangkou reservoir in central China's Hubei province to Beijing - the distance from Corsica to London. The project, officials say, will save China from a water crisis that could set its development back years.

It has also destroyed Wang Yanhe's life. Wang was born near the Danjiangkou reservoir in 1979, married young and had two children - the family lived between a small stream and a leafy hillside, and grew a variety of grains. In 2009, seven years after the project was approved, officials informed him that the reservoir's water levels were rising and that his village would be submerged. About 345,000 villagers have been displaced by the project to date, and Wang soon became one of them. The government gave him a home in the Heba New Migrant Village by a dusty highway in rural Pingdingshan, a coal-rich municipality in neighbouring Henan province whose name translates to "flat mountain".

Then came the drought. This summer was Pingdingshan's driest in 63 years - Wang's corn crop only grew to knee-height, forcing him to abandon his harvest. "Nothing is as good as before," he said, chain-smoking cigarettes in his concrete-floored living room. His roof leaks; he can't speak the local dialect. Officials promised him 0.2 acres of land, but only gave him 0.15. "After we arrived, we realised that the land was all dry," he said. "So it doesn't even matter what they promised us."

The Henan Daily newspaper announced the line's inauguration in a pithy microblog post on Friday. "Being a peoples' engineering project, in keeping with a frugal and pragmatic working style, celebratory activities will be kept as simple as possible," it said. "No officials will take part in the ceremonies."

China's booming economy over the past three decades, coupled with a long-held mandate to "grow first, clean up later", has been cataclysmic for the country's once-bountiful lakes, rivers and aquifers. More than half of China's 50,000 rivers have vanished over the past two decades, according to China's first national census of water, published last year. About 70% of its remaining fresh water is polluted. "If we continue with our business-as-usual model, China will basically run out of water," said Feng Hu, a water analyst with the Hong Kong-based research group China Water Risk. "It won't have enough water to power its economy."

The project has roots in an offhand comment by Mao Zedong who, on an inspection tour in the early 1950s, said: "The south has plenty of water, but the north is dry. If we could borrow some, that would be good." The project has three sections: a 1,150km eastern line, which runs from the lower Yangtze River to Tianjin; the middle line, from Danjiangkou to Beijing; and a western line, which could some day link the headwaters of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers across the high-altitude Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The eastern line began delivering water to coastal Shandong province last winter. The western line remains largely conceptual, so grand in scale that it may ultimately prove impossible to build.

While the project could provide some much-needed relief, it "will never solve north China's water problem", said Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Wilson Center in Washington DC. She called the project a "Band-Aid" rather than a long-term solution. "The challenge in the water sector, writ large, is that it is so hooked into supply-side management," she said. "It's like the engineers in China have a special tattoo that says 'nothing is too big' - they'll move water massive distances rather than get deep and dirty into the mess of pushing effective water conservation."

In February, Qiu Baoxing, vice-minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, called the project unsustainable. "As the scale of the project gets bigger and the distance gets longer, it is more and more difficult to divert water," he wrote. "Recycled water could replace diverted water. Most Chinese cities are capable of finding more water if we develop water desalination technology and collect more rain water."

Experts say the south may no longer have enough water to spare. They say the project could decimate the Han River, an important tributary of the Yangtze - about 40% of the river's water will eventually be diverted north, despite acute water shortages that already plague the cities along its banks. In 2011, five months of drought in Hubei province left 315,000 people short of drinking water. The Danjiangkou reservoir dropped to four metres below "dead water" level, rendering it unusable. Speculation that the South-North Water Diversion project caused this year's drought grew so heated that state media issued a denial. "Henan province is the recipient of benefits from the [project]," Yang Biantong, a spokesman for Henan's flood control and drought relief department, told the People's Daily in late August. "Not only has it not had a negative effect, the [project] has also been extremely helpful."

Christine Boyle, founder of Blue Horizon Insight and an expert on China's water issues, said the issue boils down to how one defines a drought. In addition to crippling weather droughts - periods of little rainfall - China is also suffering from economic droughts, which occur when the demand for water outstrips supply. "You can't say the South-North Water Diversion is causing a weather drought," she said. "But you can say it's intensifying an economic drought." Many Chinese farmers are already economically squeezed, and increasingly erratic weather patterns, perhaps related to climate change - freezing winters, blistering summers, floods and droughts - are now pushing them into a state of emergency.

The South-North Water Diversion project began sending emergency water supplies to Pingdingshan in mid-August and, according to the official newswire Xinhua, the diversion was a success. The middle line delivered more than 50m cubic metres of water to the city's Baiguishan reservoir over a month and a half, it said, "effectively relieving the scarce water supply of Pingdingshan city's one million-plus residents".

While that water has flowed into the taps of Pingdingshan's urbanites and the cooling systems of its coal-fired power plants, farmers on the city outskirts have been left to fend for themselves. Chang Xiangdang, 40, lives with his family of six in Malou Village, population 1,000, a dense cluster of cinderblock houses only a few hundred metres from the project's main channel. From his small patch of radish and cabbage, high concrete embankments stretch to the horizon and an arch-like sluice rises like a mirage. "The channel runs through our town, but there's no way to get the water, no gap in the wall," he said. Villagers rely on groundwater for bathing and cooking. In previous years, they could dig 20 metres to reach the aquifer. This year, even 80-metre wells are running dry.

Chang said the lack of water has thrown his life into flux. Like Wang, the displaced farmer, he has given up on this year's corn harvest. His family has been subsisting on a compensation package that project officials gave him four years ago, when they requisitioned much of his farmland. Another dry summer, he says, would leave him destitute. He has considered taking a construction job in the city. "There's no more water here," he said. "I'll do what it takes to survive."

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China's water diversion project starts to flow to Beijing

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On Friday afternoon, China quietly inaugurated one of the biggest engineering projects of all time: the South-North Water Diversion, a £48bn, 2,400km network of canals and tunnels, designed to divert 44.8bn cubic metres of water annually from China's humid south to its parched, industrialised north.

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Topic 5 - Link between water security and geo-politics in China [Good for developing synoptic skills]

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Topic 5 - Water Transfer - South to North Project [China]

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Topic 5 - Water Transfer - South to North Project [China]

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Visually information and well explained issues surrounding water stress in China

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A Story of Invisible Water examines the problem of water pollution and drought in the northeastern Chinese province of Hebei. Farmers in Xizhang village claim that for more than twenty years, local factories have polluted the groundwater they use for both drinking and irrigation. According to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Land and Resources, approximately ninety percent of the groundwater that supplies cities on the North China Plain is polluted. Clean surface water in the region is already perilously scarce, and as demand for water in fast-growing urban areas has begun to outstrip supply, cities have begun to drain aquifers in the surrounding countryside. This has led to a steep drop in groundwater levels and put further strain on local farms. Farmers and environmentalists worry that unless measures are taken to reverse current trends, before long villages like Xizhang will have no accessible ground water at all.

This short film follows thirteen farmers from Xizhang as they attempt to bring a petition to the central government in Beijing to address the pollution of their water supply.

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Topic 5 - Spec link 5.9a] Water Transfer Scheme in New South Wales - Australia

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With towns across New South Wales at risk of running out of water within months, there are renewed calls for an urgent upgrade of water storage infrastructure.

With dam levels at near-record lows, water restrictions are now in force across many regional areas, while Sydney, Blue Mountains and Illawarra residents had level one restrictions implemented on June 1.

Warragamba Dam, which supplies water to Greater Sydney, is at 53 per cent capacity, while Burrendong Dam in the central west is at 5.7 per cent.

Keepit Dam, near Tamworth, has fallen to just 0.9 per cent capacity.

"We have one of the most unprecedented droughts in the state's history and this water supply issue is hitting both urban and regional areas hard," said Linda Scott, president of Local Government NSW.

"There are record low inflows and people are crying out for help," she said.

"Councils need more help from State and Federal Government to secure water supplies."

Among the ideas raised are building more dams, with Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack among those pushing for new dams to be constructed.

"Sometimes it's difficult working with states, so the National Water Grid Commission has been established to take the politics out of it," Mr McCormack said.

"We want to put the science and stakeholders first, including the states and territories, to get dams built."

In opposition, the Coalition set up a dam taskforce in 2011, and a Government White Paper in 2015 promised more dams but there hasn't been a new dam built in western NSW since 1987.

Hydro scheme

As well as dams, there is also a push in New South Wales to look overseas to what other countries are doing to manage water supply.

One example is China, where a north-south water transfer scheme was established in an attempt to distribute water to areas requiring it.

"Years ago their government decided that the southern part of China was getting overpopulated," said Ashish Sharma, Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of NSW.

"They needed to be able to transport water from the part of the country that is water rich to the part that is dry and essentially enhanced farming options in it.

"They started work on a plan 30 years ago. Now that plan is partly in place and it's been extended more and more now that this is a grand scheme."

While not advocating for such a scheme in Australia, Professor Sharma said there was a need to start the dialogue about what could be viable and productive options to pursue in Australia.

"There are engineering solutions like the Snowy Hydro Scheme, turning rivers inland or north-south pipelines.

"They would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and could take 30 years to build.

"I'm an advocate for the Snowy Hydro Scheme in Australia and there are similar schemes around the world.

"These are very formidable and very significant projects but they were implemented, and as a result of that we are benefiting nowadays."

The New South Wales Government has proposed raising the wall of some dams, including Wyangala in the state's central west.

It would see the dam wall raised by a height of 10 metres at a cost of $650 million.

Pipeline proposal

States are being encouraged to work together better in an effort to secure water supplies.

On the New South Wales-Queensland border, council representatives recently met to discuss water security in south-east Queensland.

Among the ideas raised was a plan to build a dam on the Maryland River in the upper Clarence catchment, and pipe the water to the Condamine River.

"It's a potential long-term solution," said Toowoomba Mayor, Paul Antonio, who was at the meeting.

"We're looking for a regional solution to a national issue.

"This would not come to pass for some years, and I think by working together across northern New South Wales and southern Queensland we probably could help each other.

Tenterfield Shire Councillor Gary Verri said the scheme could be a solution for regions facing the prospect of running out of water.

"The Maryland is a dry river, it has a sandy bottom, and the yield from that dam is only 21,000 megalitres, as opposed to 4.9 million megalitres that flows out of the mouth of the Clarence," he said.

"It's a little bit more than nothing what we would take out of the river system.

"It's a good fix because it really helps the whole system come through."

But not everyone is supportive of the proposal.

"I just think it's a pie-in-the-sky dream," said Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis.

"It's an emotive call for help when some of the country is in drought.

"The northern rivers, while it's not in drought, we're certainly not overabundant with water.

"At the moment the Clarence isn't freely flowing.

"I understand in the upper reaches, it's only just flowing, you could just about step across it.

"There's no water to demand and it certainly wouldn't help anyone else and it would do more harm to the Clarence."

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Water levels in crucial NSW dams drop to record lows

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With towns across New South Wales at risk of running out of water within months, there are renewed calls for an urgent upgrade of water storage infrastructure. With dam levels at near-record lows, water restrictions are now in force across many regional areas, while Sydney, Blue Mountains and Illawarra residents had level one restrictions implemented on June 1.

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Topic 5 - Spec Link 5.9c] Make sure you have got your head round understanding the politics behind water resource management

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The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers is an international guideline regulating how rivers and their connected groundwaters that cross national boundaries may be used, adopted by the International Law Association (ILA) in Helsinki, Finland in August 1966. In spite of its adoption by the ILA, there is no mechanism in place that enforces the rules. Notwithstanding the guideline's lack of formal status, its work on rules governing international rivers was pioneering. It led to the creation of the United Nations' Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. In 2004, it was superseded by the Berlin Rules on Water Resources.

Applicable to all drainage basins that cross national boundaries, except where other agreement between bordering nations exists, the Helsinki Rules assert the rights of all bordering nations to an equitable share in the water resources, with reasonable consideration of such factors as past customary usages of the resource and balancing variant needs and demands of the bordering nations. It also mandates protection of the resource by bordering nations with respect to water pollution in Chapter 3 (Articles IX to XI) and sets forth recommendations for resolving disputes over usage of such watercourses.

The Helsinki rules consist of 37 articles spread over 6 chapters.

Chapter 2, Article 4 states: "Each basin State is entitled, within its territory, to a reasonable and equitable share in the beneficial uses of the waters of an international drainage basin".

In determining what is reasonable and equitable share, all relevant factors are to be considered together and a conclusion reached on the basis of the whole. The list provided in Article 5 (2) is produced in full below:

1. The geography of the basin, including in particular the extent of the drainage area in the territory of each basin State

2. The hydrology of the basin, including in particular the contribution of water by each basin State

3. The climate affecting the basin

4. The past utilization of the waters of the basin, including in particular existing utilization

5. The economic and social needs of each basin State

6. The population dependent on the waters of the basin in each basin State

7. The comparative costs of alternative means of satisfying the economic and social needs of each basin State

8. The availability of other resources

9. The avoidance of unnecessary waste in the utilization of waters of the basin

10. The practicability of compensation to one or more of the co-basin States as a means of adjusting conflicts among uses

11. The degree to which the needs of a basin State may be satisfied, without causing substantial injury to a co-basin State

Article 6 precludes inherent preference of any use over others. Article 7 prohibits denial of reasonable use to a basin state on the basis of future uses of other states.

Article 8 relates to "existing reasonable uses".

Section 8 (1) states: "An existing reasonable use may continue in operation unless the factors justifying its continuance are outweighed by other factors leading to the conclusion that it be modified or terminated so as to accommodate a competing incompatible use".

Section 8 (2) defines the entry & exit criterion of an existing use.

Section 8 (3) prohibits a use that is incompatible with an already existing reasonable use at the time of becoming operational from being treated as an existing use.

Although "an important set of draft rules," according to Stephen McCaffrey of the McGeorge School of Law, the Helsinki Rules do not address independent aquifers, but only those connected to a river. Accordingly, the United Nations decided in 1970 to create a more inclusive set of guidelines, which after more than twenty years of investigation by the International Law Commission resulted in the adopting of the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997. The ILA itself addressed this limitation in adopting the Rules on International Groundwaters, also known as the Seoul Rules, in Seoul, Korea in 1986 and the Berlin Rules on Water Resources in 2004, which superseded this guideline.

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The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers

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The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers is an international guideline regulating how rivers and their connected groundwaters that cross national boundaries may be used, adopted by the International Law Association (ILA) in Helsinki, Finland in August 1966.

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Topic 5 - Spec Link 5.8b] Water Security and Human Well Being - Very interesting ideas for both crisis and longer term water aid

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The global water crisis has many causes, requiring many different solutions. As 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity, these solutions must span policy, technology, and behaviour change to make a real difference.

A number of technological innovations address the crisis in novel ways. We asked two water experts - Vincent Casey, senior water and sanitation adviser at WaterAid, and Hannah Safford, an energy and environmental policy analyst - to assess some of the most creative approaches.

Photograph: Water is Life

In partnership with non-profit Water is Life, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed this education and filtration tool. Each page of the book provides basic water and sanitation advice, such as the importance of keeping contaminants like rubbish and faeces away from water, often unknown in developing countries. Perhaps more novel is that the advice is printed on "scientific coffee filter" paper that can be used to purify drinking water and reduce 99.9% of bacteria. Each book has enough filtration sheets to provide its reader with clean water for four years. It's being distributed in Ghana, Kenya, Haiti, Ethiopia, India and Tanzania, and a Farsi version of the book is in development.

Casey: Many different filter products will purify water and remove pathogens, but it needs to have a demand from users. It also needs to be affordable [in the local context] or come with some credit mechanism. Filters play a crucial role in making the water safe, but if you're not blocking other routes of transmission (eg flies on food, handwashing after toilet use) you will still have problems. In other words, any filter has to be part of a combined solution.

Photograph: WaterSeer

It looks like a well, but instead of withdrawing groundwater, the WaterSeer uses the surrounding environment to extract water from the atmosphere. It is planted six feet below the surface, where its lower chamber is surrounded by cool earth. Above ground, wind spins a turbine which spins fan blades inside the device. These blades send the air into an internal condensation chamber where, as the warm air cools, the vapour condenses on the sides of the chamber. Water then flows down to the lower chamber and can be extracted with a simple pump and hose. In ideal conditions, it can collect 37 litres of water a day. Developed by VICI labs in the US, the project is being tested by the National Peace Corps Association and will be piloted later this year.

Casey: If we take sub-Saharan Africa as an example, groundwater tends to be available in most places we work - about 20m below the surface. So it's a management or infrastructure problem that prevents people accessing water, not a lack of it. It's not really about fixing the problem with technology; it's about fixing the system. With this example, I would imagine there could be problem with vandalism, as the device seems quite fragile. However, that's not to say that technology is not part of the solution - it has a role, but it's makes up 20% of the whole picture, along with policy and management.

Desalination, converting saltwater into freshwater, has historically been too expensive and energy-intensive to serve as a widespread solution for improving access. However, Lockheed Martin has developed and patented a Perforene graphene filter which it claims would reduce the energy cost of conventional reverse osmosis desalination by 20%, while withstanding higher pressure and temperatures. The perforated, hyper-permeable filter is one atom thick and is said to improve the flow of water compared to conventional methods by 500%. While the technology would be hugely beneficial to the oil and gas sector, which reportedly produces 18bn gallons of wastewater each year, the company is also researching other applications for the technology, including in food and energy generation.

Safford: Desalination should only be used as a last resort. Emphasis should be placed on smart water management, reducing water losses, and increasing the uptake of water-efficient technologies practices. But in regions where there is truly not enough freshwater to meet demand, a cheaper and less energy-intensive desalination method is certainly a good thing.

Nets set up by a group of community leaders called Peruvians Without Water are used to trap water from the moisture in fog. Photograph: Mariana Bazo/Reuters

Vast mesh nets capture moisture from fog, which drips into collection trays after condensation. The largest of these projects is on the slopes of Mount Boutmezguida, a microclimate in Morocco where 6,300 litres of water can be harvested per day. The water is clean, free and instant, which is perhaps why Dar Si Hmad - the non-profit responsible for the project -was awarded the UN's 2016 Momentum for Change award. First developed in South America, fog catching systems also exist in Chile, Peru, Ghana, Eritrea, South Africa and California.

Safford: Fog catching could provide a sustainable supply of drinking water for small communities in water-scarce regions, but it is unlikely to generate enough water to significantly increase water supplies. The Mount Boutmezguida project only generates enough water to serve about 160 people per day - a project of a similar size in a developed country would serve a smaller number of people [due to higher consumption habits].

Sukhdev Vishwakarma and his daughter, Meenu, use water pumped from a solar water pump at a farms in Jagadhri. Photograph: Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan

In hot and dry climates, many farmers pump groundwater to irrigate crops, and there has been a growth in the use of solar-powered pumps. A problem arises when farmers view solar energy as free, as it can cause over-irrigation. A part-technological, part policy and management solution by CGIAR's research programme on water, land and ecosystems, and in partnership with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), incentivises farmers using solar pumps to sell excess power back to the grid. The guaranteed buy-back scheme produces a "triple win"; farmers gain income, the state gains electricity reserves, and the water source is conserved by curbing usage - all while reducing carbon emissions. The scheme is being piloted in Gujarat, and IWMI estimates that solarising India's 20m irrigation wells could reduce carbon emissions by 4-5% per year.

Casey: A good initiative addressing a serious problem through changes to policy and management, not just focusing on a technical solution. In addition, selling electricity back to the grid could generate revenue to conduct maintenance on these pumps - a good sign for the sustainability of the arrangement.
What have we missed? Have you developed technology to tackle water problems? Tell us in the comments below. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter, and have your say on issues around water in development using #H2Oideas.

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Could these five innovations help solve the global water crisis?

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The global water crisis has many causes, requiring many different solutions. As 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity, these solutions must span policy, technology, and behaviour change to make a real difference. A number of technological innovations address the crisis in novel ways.

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Excellent Resource for Researching Current and Prior Weather Conditions [Also helps with understanding how Global Atmospheric Circulation Works]

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Live wind, rain and temperature maps, detailed forecast for your place, data from the best weather forecast models such as GFS, ICON, GEM

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Topic 2a] Pages 14-15 of this document explain in straightforward terms the coastal management decisions for Studland Bay and Swanage [NEA link]

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Topic 2a] Coasts Knowledge Booster - Highly recommended for Levelling Up your understanding of Coastal processes and Management Issues

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Topic 2a] Coasts Knowledge Booster - Highly recommended for Levelling Up your understanding of Coastal processes and Management Issues

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Video: The challenges of sea-level rise and coastal management

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The challenges of sea-level rise and coastal flooding, facing the Somerset Coast.Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

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Topic 2a] A Challenging but important report to read that explains how scientists have had to change their predictions on how far coastal cities may be impacted by sea level changes [its not good news!!]

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Topic 2a] Global Sea Level Rise Prediction Interactive Map - excellent research tool

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Topic 2a] Global Sea Level Rise Prediction Interactive Map - excellent research tool

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Sea level rise and coastal flood risk maps -- a global screening tool by Climate Central

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Interactive global map showing areas threatened by sea level rise and coastal flooding.

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Topic 2a] NOAA USA territories sea level rise interactive map - Use to research sea level rise predictions around the world

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Topic 2a] NOAA USA territories sea level rise interactive map - Use to research sea level rise predictions around the world

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Sea Level Rise Viewer: View projected sea level rise at any coastal location up to 6 feet of inundation from flooding, hurricane storm surge, high tides.

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Topic 2a] UK Flood Risk Map - Use this as a research tool to explore your UK case study areas - What is the flood risk in these areas?

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Topic 2a] UK Flood Risk Map - Use this as a research tool to explore your UK case study areas - What is the flood risk in these areas?

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Check your risk of flooding and use flood risk maps

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Topic 5 - Water Cycle and Water insecurity

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Topic 5 - Water Cycle and Water insecurity

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Singapore - Classic Example of a Country Managing its Water Resources in a more sustainable way

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Topic 5 - Well summarised causes, impacts and management of water shortages in the Sahel [Spec 5.4b]

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Topic 5 - Spec link 5.4 b] The contribution of human activity to emerging water crisis

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Cape Town's Water Crisis Approaches Day Zero

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Topic 1 - Large Global Database of Earthquakes [useful for data research - Hazard profiling]

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Javascript must be enabled to view our earthquake maps. To access USGS earthquake information without using javascript, use our Magnitude 2.5+ Earthquakes, Past Day ATOM Feed or our other earthquake feeds.

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Javascript must be enabled to view our earthquake maps. To access USGS earthquake information without using javascript, use our Magnitude 2.5+ Earthquakes, Past Day ATOM Feed or our other earthquake feeds.

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Topic 5 - Spec Link - 5.1a] Good detailed explanation of the Global Water Cycle

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Topic 5 - Basic explanation of the key concept of Global Fresh Water Insecurity

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Fresh water scarcity: An introduction to the problem - Christiana Z. Peppard

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Topic 1 - High Resolution Live Earthquake Map - Not so good for data but excellent visual information and also easy way to check plate boundary types

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The most popular scale of energy evaluation in earthquakes is the local scale of the Richter magnitude. Thus, the increase is a degree of magnitude of the 32-fold increase in the released seismic energy. An earthquake of magnitude 2 is subtle until the magnitude 7 is the lower limit of destructive earthquakes that cover large areas.

1 (undetectable) - only indicated by special devices;
2 (very low) - only felt by very sensitive pets and people in the upper floors of tall buildings;
3 (low) - feels only in some buildings, like the vibration of a truck;
4 (moderate) - the earthquake is felt by many people; It is possible to balance open windows and doors;
5 (strong note) - shaking of hanging objects, noise in construction, window breakage, dust blowing;
6 (strong) - slight damage to construction of buildings, cracks in plaster, etc.;
7 (very strong) - significant damage to buildings; Cracks in the plaster and breaking of individual pieces, thin cracks on the walls, cracks of chimneys; Cracks in the foundations;
8 (destructive) - destruction in buildings: large cracks on the walls, falling cornices and chimneys. Landslides and cracks up to a few centimeters on mountain slopes;
9 (devastating) - burglary of some buildings, falling walls, dividing walls and roofs. Landslides, collapse and falling debris into the mountains. The rate of increase of the cracks can be up to 2 cm/s;
10 (destructive) - collapse of many buildings; In others - serious damage. Cracks in the ground up to 1 m wide, avalanches, landslides. Through the accumulation of rubble, lakes can form in the river valleys;
11 (catastrophic) - numerous cracks on the surface of the earth, large avalanches in the mountains. Mass destruction of buildings;
12 (total) - changes of the relief on a large scale. Huge avalanches and burglaries. Total destruction of buildings and facilities.

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The most popular scale of energy evaluation in earthquakes is the local scale of the Richter magnitude. Thus, the increase is a degree of magnitude of the 32-fold increase in the released seismic energy. An earthquake of magnitude 2 is subtle until the magnitude 7 is the lower limit of destructive earthquakes that cover large areas.

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Topic 1 - Excellent link for researching response to Natural Hazards

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By Miguel Angel Hernandez Rivera

In 2023, ReliefWeb, the leading source of humanitarian information, remained committed in its mission to inform humanitarians worldwide. The platform experienced a deeper engagement, with 18.2 million users interacting more actively with the content. This increased interaction, despite an 11% decrease in overall users, indicates a higher investment and activity level among ReliefWeb users. During...

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ReliefWeb - Informing humanitarians worldwide

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The leading humanitarian information source on global crises and disasters. Reliable and timely information from trusted sources.

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Topic 1 - Volcanic eruptions - Spec links 1.5 a]&b] and also 1.3b]

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BBC Two - Volcano Live - Live volcano webcams

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Good resource of Topic 2a] and Physical Geography NEA