Publications: New study highlights impact of environmental change on older people by University of York and Simon Fraser University's Gerontology Research Centre (1 Feb 2013)

New study highlights impact of environmental change on older people

Friday, 01 February 2013 15:03

Photo: Refugee during the 2010 Pakistan floods © EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection

Recent natural disasters illustrate vulnerability of older people: majority of deaths from the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011) and Hurricane Katrina (2005) occurred among older people.

Researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York and Simon Fraser University's Gerontology Research Centre in Canada are calling for better awareness among policy makers and the public of the impact climate change and deteriorating environmental quality will have on an ageing population.

According to UN projections, by 2050, nearly 25 per cent of the global population will be aged 55 or over. An ageing population and environmental change are two key policy challenges which need to be addressed to ensure a safe, secure, equitable and sustainable future. But international policy makers have given little attention to the effects global environmental change will have on older people.

A new report from an international consortium led by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York and Simon Fraser University's Gerontology Research Centre, and including the Community Service Volunteers' Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP), highlights the need to raise awareness of the effects of a changing environment on older people across the world.

Dr Gary Haq, of SEI, said: "Our study shows that older people are particularly vulnerable to environmental change – but awareness among policy makers and older people is lagging behind. There is an urgent need for policy makers to better understand the interaction between global ageing and the environment to prevent and minimise disproportionate negative impacts on older people."

The results of a pilot international survey of older people's attitudes suggest they are concerned about the environment, the threat of climate change and energy and water security. They are pessimistic about the state of the planet that future generations will inherit believing environmental challenges will have grown significantly by 2050.

Professor Gloria Gutman, Research Associate at Simon Fraser University's Gerontology Research Centre said: "Older people themselves, and especially those with chronic illnesses, need to recognise that environmental change can affect them personally. Data from around the world show that weather-related disasters kill older people at a disproportionate rate."

The report calls for appropriate policies to encourage older people to reduce their personal contribution to environmental change, to protect older people from environmental threats, and to mobilise their wealth and knowledge and experience in addressing environmental problems.

The report highlights three areas where action should be taken:

1) Reduce the environmental footprint of the ageing population by promoting greener attitudes and behaviour and individual lifestyle choices. This could be done with targeted engagement of older people and providing appropriate infrastructure and incentives.

2) Protect older people from environmental change by adopting policies that reduce their environmental vulnerability. In developing countries, lack of basic infrastructure such as clean water and sanitation, health and social care combined with poverty and malnutrition make them vulnerable to environmental threats.

3) Mobilise older people in environmental protection by encouraging them to take part in environmental volunteering and making the most of their local knowledge of past environmental change.

The report underlines the need for more evidence-based research towards a better understanding of the unique geographical and socio-economic factors affecting interaction between older people and environmental change.

It calls for policies to be 'age proofed' so they support older people throughout their lives as well as harnessing the contribution they can make to addressing environmental threats and reducing their vulnerability.

Download the report (PDF, 3.6 Mbytes)

Additional Info:

• SEI has produced the following reports on older people and environment: Greening the Greys: Over 50s and Climate,Growing Old in a Changing Climate, Older People and Environment: The Case for Better Engagement.
• The Gerontology Research Centre at Simon Fraser University recently hosted a conference on the interface of population ageing and climate change, two of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Proceedings are available atwww.sfu.ca/fc2011.
• RSVP encourages volunteering in the over 50's within the UK and is part of Community Service Volunteers (CSV), a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity.
• The web-based pilot survey was conducted in the period 1 February – 30 April 2012 across five countries. A total of 1,258 individuals completed the survey. The results are not representative of each country and provide only an indication of environmental attitudes of the over 55s in the sample.

Source: http://sei-international.org/-news-archive/2557

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Articles:Salinization of Rivers: A Global Environmental Problem by Environmental Pollution Journal (11 Jan 2013)

Salinization of Rivers: A Global Environmental Problem

Jan. 11, 2013 — The salinisation of rivers is a global problem that affects to countries all over the world and it causes a high environmental and economic cost, and poses a high risk to global health. Climate change and the increasing water consumption can worsen even more the future scene, according to an article published on the journal Environmental Pollution based on the research developed by an international team led by the experts of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona Narcís Prat and Miguel Cañedo-Argüelles.

Human activity increases the salinity of river ecosystems
River salinity can be natural, caused by the geology of the area or the climatology, or anthropogenic, in other words, caused by domestic and industrial waste discharges, mining activity, agricultural and farming residues, etc. In worldwide river ecosystems, excessive salt concentrations caused by human activity are a threat to the survival of organisms and communities, biodiversity, the ecosystem's biological balance, and it produces severe economical and public health problems.

According to Miguel Cañello-Argüelles, the main author of the article, "this article aims at giving a integrating view and emphasize the seriousness of the ecological, economic and global health effects that secondary salinisation has." The expert remarks that it is a global process: "It happens in many regions from all over the world, although there is a great ignorance about the problem." The most extreme case of salinisation occurs in some Australian rivers. "However -- Cañedo-Argüelles adds -- , in this case local studies have been done in order to clearly diagnose the problem; therefore, all the agents who make use of the natural resources of some rivers (farmers, industrialists, etc.) have collaborated in the process of finding solutions."

In Europe, the process of river salinisation by human action is getting worse as years goes by. "It is also a problem in Spain," declares the professor Narcís Prat, director of the Research Group Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM) of the UB. " In the Ebro plain, due to soil's characteristic and the kind of agricultural activity performed, rivers are saltier than in Australia -- he explains -- , but here river conservation is not among the priorities of water resources management," so these problems are not solved. According to Prat, the question is even worse in the region of Murcia: "It is a semi-arid area where irrigation is a common activity and rivers are saline as a result of the excessive exploitation of water resources."

What is the degree of salinity of Catalan rivers?
In the Catalan river system, there are also some parts where high levels of salinity can be found. To be exact, experts have studied the salinisation of the Llobregat River basin supported by Mesocosmos Sostaqua, an infrastructure located at the water-treatment plan of Balsareny. The pump, which reproduces the natural conditions of the river ecosystem, was built by the group FEM of the UB and the company Aigües de Barcelona. "We are aware of the salinity of Llobregat River -- Narcís Prat affirms -- , but apart from the salt, there are also other features that can damage the environmental quality of water. Therefore, sometimes we cannot determine what is more important: salt or the pollution produced by other factors. With Mesocosmos, we can study separately the effect of each factor (for example, the salt concentration) and differentiate its influence from the one made by the other factors." Despite the qualitative improvement of Llobregat River water thanks to the collector of brines, which leads mining leachates directly to the sea, the UB experts alert that salinity is a remaining question because the collector has not been able to solve all the problems. According to Narcís Prat, "the level of salinity at the lower course of the Llobregat River where the area of potash mining begins is so high that its use can only be agricultural, not human. It is not such an alarming situation as in Australia but it is worrying. The situation is the same at the lower course of the Besòs River: its water is more and more salty, and in this case the reason is not mining but all the processes developed in order to decalcificate the water (like in dishwashers when we add salt to avoid the stains that lime will cause)."

Experts explain that excessive salt is also a factor that has a negative effect on water potabilization. For example, it makes necessary to install new technologies, such as reverse osmosis, that have put up the price of water potabilization for human consumption in the plants of Abrera and Sant Joan Despí. In addition, the use of chlorine to potabilizate water produces many chemical compounds (borates, chlorates, trihalomethanes, etc.) which can be toxic for environment and health.

Looking for solutions
According to the article, current legislation is generally flexible when it comes to establish limits for salt concentrations in rivers. In Europe, salinisation is not considered an important problem and no legally prescribed environmental quality standards exist for salt. In many countries, business and industrial factor predominates over the necessity to set a limiting regulation. Miguel Cañedo-Argüelles considers that "legislation is still waiting. People are not aware of the severity of the problem and information about the effects of excessive salt on river ecosystems is missing."
In the article, the authors also quote some successful management strategies, for example, the Hunter River salinity trading scheme upstream in Singleton (Australia), with controlled salt discharges adapted to the volume of the river: when the volume is high, more salt is discharged, whereas when it goes down the quantity of salt is reduced.

In a future
The study states that the effects of global change could increase even more the salinisation of rivers in many regions. Miguel Cañedo-Argüelles thinks that "it is difficult to predict the impact of climate change. In comparison with other regions of the planet, lower rainfall, worse drought, more water consumption, and therefore, more salinity in rivers are expected in the Mediterranean region." Finally, Narcís Prat concludes that "the most important aspect is to stop fighting and began to work together. It is necessary to react against the problem of excessive salinity in Catalan and worldwide rivers before it will be a severer problem."

The article is also authored by Ben J. Kefford from the University of Technology of Sydney (Australia); Christophe Piscart from the University of Lyon (France); Ralf B. Schäfer from the University Koblenz-Landau (Germany); and Claus-Jürgen Schulz from the Thuringian State Institute for Environment and Geology (TLUG, Germany).

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130111092529.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Fair_quality+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Air+Quality%29

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Chinese Updates: China faces a flooding crisis as natural disasters triple in 30 years (1 Jan 2013)

China faces a flooding crisis as natural disasters triple in 30 years

Olivia Boyd

01.01.2013

China is feeling the force of a global rise in natural disasters, as a surge in flooding brings malaria, snail-borne diseases and more.

Debarati Guha-Sapir is director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and professor at University of Louvain School of Public Health in Belgium. CRED runs the Em-dat database of global disasters and their impacts on humans.

Olivia Boyd: Your database points to a remarkable rise in natural disasters over the past 30 years. What’s happening?

Debarati Guha-Sapir: The numbers of natural disasters – those events that qualify for the Emdat database – have maybe even tripled in the last three decades. There are a few reasons for this increase.

One of them of course is simply better reporting – better telecommunications, cheaper telecommunications. Today there are very few disasters that go unreported. Then there is the effect of actually going out and looking for disasters: we have a whole team that does that. That also increases the numbers.

And the third reason would be, plausibly, that there is a real increase. There are, in fact, more disasters, even if you take account of these “statistical” biases. We separated the natural disasters into two groups – geological disasters and hydro-meteorological disasters. Geological disasters are volcanoes and earthquakes and hydro-meteorological disasters are storms, cyclones, hurricanes, droughts and so on. And we see that most of the increase is due to these hydro-meteorological disasters. If it was only statistical bias, then you would have seen the same kind of increase in geological disasters.

So we can conclude that although some of it might be better reporting, most of the increase is a real increase and this real increase, most of it is in the hydro-meteorological category.

OB: How is China being affected?

DGS: If you look at the data, divided by regions, a very large proportion of the natural disasters – about 60% or more – occur in the Asia region. And a much larger proportion of the victims are in Asia. You’re talking essentially of about 80-85% of the total number of victims of natural disasters being in Asia. That’s a lot.

Part of it is because China and India are in Asia. Because you have such large and highly populated countries, the absolute numbers of victims become very high whenever there is any natural disaster in one of these countries.

And both of these countries suffer significantly more from floods than almost any other natural disaster. This is really unfortunate because, of all the natural disasters, floods are probably the only phenomena for which we have low-cost technology or effective prevention methods, things like flood zoning and building embankments.

Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and cyclones we can do very little about – there’s really no such thing as an early warning for earthquakes, so you just have to live with it. For cyclones, you can have very effective early warning, but it’s very hard for low-resource countries to actually prepare in such a way that it’s effective and inexpensive. But floods are actually something for which we have very good, low-cost engineering solutions.

OB: So why aren’t we better at implementing them?

DGS: I think there are two things. First, most people who live in highly flood-prone areas tend to be the very poor. People who are wealthier – I don’t mean driving Mercedes, but just a little bit better off – will choose not to live by river banks and will choose not to live in the sea-level areas of Bangladesh, for example. They will choose to live on slightly higher plains.

In the Middle Ages, you could see that kings and noblemen all lived on top of hills, while poorer people lived on the slopes and down below. And it’s the same thing here. Most of these poor people are in fact disenfranchised people. If it’s a democracy, their vote banks are not worth very much and so nobody really cares. And, in China, I don’t know how much power they have. I think most of them are poor peasants who have very little pull as it were when it comes to resource distribution. So flood zoning or prevention methods, they just don’t want to put the money up.

The second thing I think is happening is that high rates of urbanisation – not only deforestation around large cities but also concretisation of very large spaces for parking cars, or shopping malls, the urban sprawl as it were – is creating a very significant effect on water run-offs. Small rains and small rivulets from those rains are now becoming very intense torrents because they accumulate over these very large areas and create massive urban flooding. So a country like China where urbanisation is growing is probably going to face increasing problems with urban flooding.

I think the tendency of urban planning to put very large shopping malls, hypermarkets, supermarkets, parking, all those on the outside perimeters of the city should be reviewed. This has been a general idea – let’s just push it out of the city. We saw this in Rio, where there were huge floods last year. That policy needs to be reviewed because of the deforestation and concretisation and, therefore, the increase of flooding.

OB: What problems does more flooding tend to bring with it in terms of human impacts?

DGS: Urban flooding and rural flooding can have different impacts on the populations affected. In rural areas, there is definitely a very high risk of diarrhoea and diseases because of contamination of water. If you have poor populations whose immune systems or resistance is weak, where the children are a little bit malnourished, then the diarrhoea problem can become quite severe.

You can also have an increase in breeding sites of mosquitoes or other vectors, and in China in particular both malaria and dengueare an increasing problem, as is schistosomiasis, a disease carried by snails. The strain of schistosomiasis that you see in China was a very, very big problem and then they got rid of all the snails – they mobilised millions of people. Now it’s coming back again. These are all diseases of concern and do have a link to the heavy precipitation and increases in breeding sites.

In rural areas, you also have the problem of delayed malnutrition, when lots of people have lost their crops and they’re unable to sell anything anymore, or they were eating those crops. You can argue that the children of those families, although they may be given some food aid or something, they will have a drop in the required calorie intake for the next six months or so, until the family gets back on its feet.

In the urban areas, we have seen the problems of sanitary systems breaking down and floodwaters overflowing sanitary systems. This of course has the same effect on diarrhoea and disease. Since urban areas are much more densely populated and people tend to live close to sanitary infrastructure, this can become a very big problem for some categories of people.

The other problem we have seen in Jakarta is that there is an epidemic level increase of diseases like leptospirosis. Leptospirosis is carried in the water through the urine of cats or dogs or rats and then infects human children or adults when they play or walk barefoot in these waters and if they have small lesions in their feet, then it enters by that. Leptospiroris in itself is a benign disease but, like dengue, is more and more showing hemorrhagic forms.

OB: Is there any sign we’re getting better at dealing with these impacts as flooding becomes more common?

DGS: To me, the first thing with a flood is what I call primary prevention. A flood is one thing you can actually stop from happening. The second line of action is to reduce the impact of it – reduce the diseases, or any kind of drownings, electrocutions and so on. With those effects too, we have much further to go.

I don’t think we’ve done enough and I have a feeling what’s going to happen is we’re just going to let things slide, literally, until we get such catastrophic events that then suddenly we’re going to have to stand up and say hey, 200,000 people have died and we have to do something.

In China, on the floods end I think there’s a lot to be done. It’s a really low-hanging fruit. I’d say they should begin with a better understanding of how floods actually affect their populations and based on that develop preparedness and prevention programmes that target real problems.

OB: We’re already seeing extreme events. At what point does something become catastrophic enough to trigger the right reaction?

DGS: Bangladesh is a very good case in point. Bangladesh has done very well with floods. It’s a country that used to get hammered by cyclones, hurricanes and famines. Every three to four years, you would see Bangladeshi children on posters. You don’t see that anymore. Bangladesh has really gone a long way in getting primary flood prevention in place – so very low cost technology to prevent the floods from happening. But they have also gone a long way in having community-based things like small loans to women to help them get back on their feet after they’ve lost everything. And those have worked really, really well. They hardly ever ask for international aid anymore.

There are lessons there for other countries. Bangladesh is a desperately poor country. And politically unstable, but they’ve still managed to do it because of community mobilisation and Red Cross involvement. So it can be done.

Source: 

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5510-China-faces-a-flooding-crisis-as-natural-disasters-triple-in-3-years

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New book: Ecological Economics from the Ground Up, Edited by Hali Healy, Joan Martínez-Alier, Leah Temper, Mariana Walter, Julien-François Gerber

Ecological Economics from the Ground Up

Edited by Hali Healy, Joan Martínez-Alier, Leah Temper, Mariana Walter, Julien-François Gerber

Published 19th December 2012 by Routledge – 568 pages

Description:

Ecological Economics from the Ground Up takes a unique and much-needed bottom-up approach to teaching ecological economics and political ecology, using case studies that focus on a wide range of internationally relevant topics, to teach the principles, concepts, methods and tools of these fields, which are seen as increasingly important in the context of the current triple social, economic and environmental crisis.

This book provides learning materials which are grounded in the experience of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), with case studies chosen by CSOs and developed collaboratively with leading ecological economists. The case studies come from Europe, India, Latin America, and Africa, and are presented thematically along three lines: 1) social metabolism and accounting methods, 2) institutions and participation, and 3) valuation and environmental policy tools. Core tools, concepts and glossary terms are embedded in topics chosen as a matter of urgency by activist organizations, related to mining and fossil fuel extraction, integrated transport infrastructure development, deforestation and agro-fuel production, sustainable tourism, waste management, wetlands and water management, payments for ecosystem services, natural disasters and hazards, and corporate accountability.

Ecological Economics from the Ground Up has been designed to be an accessible learning aid for students of the sustainability sciences and for those CSOs that have recognised the value that ecological economics and political ecology tools and methods hold for their research and advocacy work.

Content:

Preface Introduction 

Part I: Social Metabolism
1. Aid, Social Metabolism and Social Conflict in the Nicobar Islands
2. The Mining Enclave of the Cordillera del Condor
3. The Manta-Manaus Project
4. High Speed Transport Infrastructure in Italy
5. Life and livelihood in Kenya’s Tana Delta
6. South Africa’s Minerals-Energy Complex 

Part II: Participation and Institutions
7. Local Governance and Environment Investments in Hiware Bazar, India
8. Participatory Forest Management in Mendha Lekha, India
9. Forestry and Communities in Cameroon
10. The Waste Crisis in Campania, Italy
11. The Sedentarization of Tibetan Nomads 

Part III: Valuation and Environmental Policy
12. Nautical Tourism Development in the Lastovo Islands Nature Park
13. Local Communities and Management of the Djerdap Protected Area in Serbia
14. Payments for Ecosystem Services in India from the Bottom-Up
15. The Potential of Redd and Legal Reserve Compensation in Mato Grosso, Brazil
16. Environmental Justice and Ecological Debt in Belgium
17. Multidimensional valuation for socio-ecological conflict analysis in Costa Rica
18. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity
19. Conclusion

For more information: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781849713993/

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