Review Land Cover Changes and Their Biophysical Effects on Cliamate

Abstract

A systematic review was conducted of biological and physical climate alter impacts in iii hotspot regions in Africa and Asia. Specifically, the review focused on identifying the nature and extent of biophysical impacts in semi-barren zones, mega-deltas and glacial-fed river basins. In total 139, peer-reviewed articles were reviewed, with a steady increase in relevant manufactures reported since 2006. Publications on the South Asian glacial-fed river basins were the near numerous followed past semi-arid areas and and then deltas, with Central Asia and some African countries existence the almost under represented. The nature and extent of impacts varied for each hotspot surface area and were largely determined by the geographical context and intrinsic characteristics of each region. River basin publications were dominated by impacts concerning hydrology, highlighting the importance of glacial-fed water resource to downstream populations. Semi-arid regions were dominated past impacts to climate processes and impacts to livestock and vegetation highlighting the importance of rainfall to the ecosystems and the livelihoods of communities in these regions. In contrast, delta studies were dominated by a focus on hazards, predominantly coastal inundation, reflecting the concentration of populations and assets in these areas. Uncertainties associated with the biophysical impacts on these regions under a irresolute climate are documented and represent key cognition gaps. Common information gaps for all hotspot regions were the need for improved hydro-meteorological monitoring systems. The development of climate change accommodation strategies and policies should be supported by a sound knowledge and agreement of the full range of biophysical impacts, which are characteristic to each geographical location.

Introduction

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) (IPCC 2007) identified low-lying deltas in Africa and Asia (Nicholls et al. 2007), glacial-fed river basins in South Asia (Cruz et al. 2007) and semi-arid regions of Africa, South and Cardinal Asia (Boko et al. 2007; Cruz et al. 2007; Kundzewicz et al. 2007) as particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. These climate change 'hotspots' and their people have circuitous and overlapping vulnerabilities with their geographical location and exposure to climatic pressures being an intrinsic element of these vulnerabilities (De Souza et al. 2015). The serial of papers for this special issue business concern climatic change accommodation in these hotspot areas, which are the focus of a new research plan called the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) being adult by the Uk'south Department for International Development and Canada'southward International Development Research Heart. This newspaper forms part of this special result, identifying and characterising the country of noesis of biophysical impacts from climate alter in these hotspot areas (for a map of these areas, run into Ford et al. 2014).

Physical and biological systems tin can be affected by both climate and non-climate drivers (Rosenzweig and Neofotis 2013). A mutual link in all three hotspot areas is the manner in which climate and non-climate drivers interact to generate pressures and impacts on these different environments with consistent impacts for communities and their livelihoods. The degradation of these environments, of their ecosystems and their services result in multiple human impacts including changes to primary productivity affecting food security, disruption of hazard regulation capacity and reduction in the availability and quality of water. It is this link betwixt biophysical impacts and consistent impacts on vulnerable communities (run across Tucker et al. 2014) who depend on these services that should ultimately drive adaptation efforts. A audio understanding of the characteristics and noesis gaps of these biophysical impacts is therefore required. The event of attribution of anthropogenic climate change, compared to other drivers, is important to bring almost societal alter in addressing these impacts (Rosenzweig et al. 2008). However, such attribution was beyond the telescopic of this review. The accent here, and principal aim of this paper, is on identifying the nature and extent of observed and predicted biophysical impacts that tin can at least partially be attributed to climate modify. To this finish, a systematic review approach was undertaken to identify the nature and extent of biophysical impacts from climatic change in the 3-hotspot regions, their relative significance, and the key cognition and data gaps to guide future research needs and support adaptation planning.

Methodology

Characteristics of the hotspot regions

Under the Köppen Climate Classification Arrangement, arid climate zones (including semi-barren) correspond 57.ii % of land area in Africa and 23.ix % of state area in Asia (Peel et al. 2007). These dryland regions, with their characteristic depression and highly variable precipitation and high evapotranspiration brand them peculiarly vulnerable to global change drivers with potential impacts on the ecosystem services important for homo development and well-existence (Maestre et al. 2012; Bizikova et al. 2015). Increasing aridity and drought are likely to increase essentially in many developing state regions specially those located in tropical and subtropical areas (World Bank 2012).

Densely populated deltas, particularly African and Asian ones, are cardinal societal hotspots of coastal vulnerability, occurring where the stresses on natural systems coincide with low human adaptive capacity and high exposure (Nicholls 2007). Stresses include reduction in sediment load due to upstream dams, diversion of freshwater flows for consumptive use, groundwater and hydrocarbon abstraction, and the compounding factors of increasing and predicted eustatic bounding main-level rise and an intensification of tropical and extra-tropical cyclones (Ericson et al. 2006). This puts at risk the vast range of ecological services, and dependent livelihoods, provided by these deltas including nutrients for agriculture, habitat for fisheries and protection from floods.

Glacial-fed river basins in South Asia, originating in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region and Tibetan plateau, provide goods and services to some one.5 billion people, particularly the dependent and densely populated areas in the floodplains downstream (Singh et al. 2011; Sud et al. 2015). These 'water towers' (Bocchiola et al. 2011) help sustain downstream populations past providing water for consumptive (e.k. drinking h2o, irrigation) and non-consumptive uses (e.one thousand. hydropower) as well as providing environmental flows. Yet, the diverse topography, young geological formations, loftier degree of glaciation and strong monsoon influence make these basins particularly prone to erosion/sedimentation and natural hazards including glacial lake burst floods (GLOF), landslide and droppings flow, droughts and floods (Shrestha et al. 2010). However multiple uncertainties, climate change is expected to exacerbate these hazards and touch on on water availability for downstream populations (Eriksson et al. 2009).

Systematic review methodology

Systematic reviews, long employed in the medical sciences, are increasingly being used to address global environmental modify-related inquiry questions (Berrang-Ford et al. 2011; Lesnikowski et al. 2011; Pearce et al. 2011; Ford et al. 2014). Berrang-Ford et al. (2015) provide a detailed examination of systematic reviews, their limitations and application to global environmental modify research. They define systematic reviews as "a focused review of the literature that seeks to answer a specific inquiry question using a prepare of standardised techniques and explicitly outlined methods".

This review aimed to address the following central research questions:

1. i.

   What is the range of biophysical impacts from climate change being experienced or predicted in the three-hotspot regions?

2. 2.

   What is the relative importance of these impacts across the hotspot regions?

3. 3.

   What are the key knowledge and data gaps for these regions?

Given the breath of regions, countries and topics comprising these biophysical impacts, some restrictions were required to identify a representative but manageable subset of literature. This review only used the search engine ISI Web of Knowledge (WoK), which is 1 of the comprehensive and widely used search engines available for analysis of interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed literature (Jasco 2005). The review focused on peer-reviewed literature documenting climate change biophysical impacts published since 2006. Literature prior to 2006 was not reviewed every bit this is covered by IPCC AR4 (IPCC 2007). Grayness literature was not included in the analysis simply was used in some cases for commendation tracking to identify additional peer-reviewed literature (eastward.thou. Singh et al. 2011; World Banking concern 2012; IPCC 2012). The post-obit search terms were practical to capture each hotspot region:

• ("climatic change" OR "global warming") AND

• (impact*) AND

• (delta*) OR (semiarid OR semi-arid OR steppe OR dryland*) OR (Indus OR (Ganges OR Ganga) OR Brahmaputra) OR (Himalaya* OR "Hindu Kush" OR (Karakoram OR Karakorum))

The inclusion and exclusion criteria applied to the selected documents are presented in Tabular array 1. The review was limited to impacts that are manifested in biophysical phenomena. This extends to the condition (or health) of ecosystems, which support homo systems and how humans perceive changes to these ecosystems merely non how humans exploit them or deal with changes in the condition of these ecosystems. For case, this study includes agronomical impacts from climate such as crop yields but does non include food security. Health issues were excluded except for disease-related hazards influenced past climatic change. All human responses to climate change impacts are excluded, including changes in management of natural resource and adaptation/mitigation strategies, policies and practices. The search was limited to countries in Africa, Fundamental and South asia. One exception was a minor number of publications from the Tibet Democratic Region of Prc, which form the headwaters of some of the Due south Asian river basins.

Table 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria for this systematic review

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Four steps were adopted to implement the systematic review:

1. ane.

   Search of Web of Noesis.

2. 2.

   Awarding of inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine an initial list of documents.

3. 3.

   Search of cited references from the initial listing of documents to identify whatsoever additional key documents and make up one's mind the last list of documents for data extraction.

4. four.

   Data extraction based on the cardinal research questions.

The fundamental enquiry questions were used to guide the extraction of data from the final group of documents that run into all selection criteria. All references retrieved from the searches were collated in Zotero, a bibliographic software package, prior to cess against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. An Excel spread sheet was used to systematically extract data from the final list of documents and to allow some statistical analysis for graphical presentation, as per Lesnikowksi et al. (2011). Metrics extracted included the blazon of research undertaken (review or original research), the geographical focus (countries and hotspot addressed), the scale of analysis (local, regional/sub-bowl, ecoregion/landscape/basin), the primary climate impacts reported (fundamental observed and projected trends), the main thematic impact category addressed (hydrology, climate, hazards, environmental and agriculture) and the specific impact sub-category examined (e.k. glacial melt, precipitation, coastal inundation, ecological shifts and crop yields). Finally, reported data or noesis gaps in the publications were extracted to guide an exploration of future inquiry needs in the hotspot areas.

Results

General trends

The application of these search criteria for peer-reviewed literature resulted in i,170 records subsequently duplicates was removed. An initial assessment of the titles and abstracts against the inclusion and exclusion criteria reduced this to 322. A subsequent more thorough assessment of this subset, including review of the full article, reduced this number to 130 articles. Of these, 13 publications could not be sourced reducing the number of available full manufactures to 117. Afterwards reviewing these articles and other grey literature reviews, and in particular their cited references, an boosted 22 publications were identified. This yielded a total of 139 peer-reviewed publications for information extraction—73 for river basins, 48 for semi-arid areas and 18 for deltas. These 139 publications are listed in the supplementary data.

The number of papers identified using the selection criteria for biophysical impacts of climate change in the hotspot areas has risen steadily since 2006 (Fig. one). Just nether half of the publications selected (47 %) focused on observed biophysical impacts of climatic change with the rest (53 %) involving modelled projections of future impacts. Nigh of the selected documents were original inquiry periodical articles with only fifteen % (21) being review papers. Publications were greatest in number for S Asian countries, followed by African countries, with least numbers for Primal Asian countries (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1

Number of publications reviewed past twelvemonth. Data for 2013 (six publications) are not presented as it merely includes publications upward until 30 March 2013

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Fig. 2

Number of publications by region for each hotspot

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Figure 3 provides a summary graph of the master thematic impact categories for each hotspot region. Each hotspot differed in the nature and extent of observed or predicted impacts. River basin publications were dominated by hydrological and climate-related impacts. Publications on deltas were limited to take a chance and ecological impacts. Semi-arid publications focused mainly on climate-related, ecological and agricultural impacts. Hydrological impacts covered a range of components of the river hydrograph including glacier and snow melting, river run-off and groundwater. Climatic studies focused on changes observed or predicted in the hotspot regions climate systems, mainly temperature and precipitation with consequential impacts for all other impact categories, e.g. drought, floods. Ecological impacts were dominated past studies on various ecological shifts across latitudinal and altitudinal gradients and phenological impacts. Studies on hazards varied for each hotspot region. Hazards in deltas focused on impacts related to sea-level rise, and in river basins mainly concerned flood impacts including glacial lake outburst floods. Hazards specific to semi-barren regions included fire, only there was besides a strong emphasis on climate-related hazards such equally drought, which were captured in the climate category peculiarly in studies on temperature, precipitation and evapotranspiration. Agricultural impacts were reported mainly for the semi-arid regions dealing mostly with crop yields and livestock. Table 2 provides a more detailed characterisation of the publications for each hotpot including specific impact sub-categories, which are described in more detailed beneath.

Fig. iii

Number of publications for the main biophysical bear upon categories

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Table 2 Number of publications by biophysical impact categories and sub-categories

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River basins

The Hindu-Kush Himalaya (HKH) and Karakoram mountain region have been described as the h2o tower of Asia (Immerzeel et al. 2010; Bocchiola et al. 2011). This was borne out in the fact that hydrological impacts were the virtually common for the river basin publications (Fig. 3). The impacts on water can be broadly grouped into those apropos the cryosphere (melting glaciers, glacial lakes, snowfall and permafrost) in the headwaters of these basins and those concerning changes to run-off in rivers to densely populated areas downstream. In the cryosphere, nearly publications indicate, to varying degrees, retreating glaciers in most of the Himalayas with the exception of some glaciers in the Karakorum region, which are advancing or stable (e.chiliad. Scherler et al. 2011; Bolch et al. 2012). Miller et al. (2012) written report that glacier shrinkage and the relative contribution of glacier melt to the region's river belch are lower than reported in the AR4. Permafrost degradation and increased snow melt have likewise existence reported on the Tibetan Plateau (the source of many Himalayan rivers) with consequences for downstream flows (Cui and Graf 2009). More generally for India'south basins, a reduction in future water yields is projected (Gupta et al. 2011; Gosain et al. 2011). More localised furnishings downstream include drying up of springs—of import h2o sources in the mid-hills of the Himalaya (Tiwari and Joshi 2012; Tambe et al. 2012). Concerning run-off to the downstream plains, snow and ice melt is extremely important for the Indus Basin, and, merely to a bottom degree, for the Brahmaputra basin, merely only moderately important for the Ganges (Immerzeel et al. 2010; Miller et al. 2012).

Climate-related impacts, in particular changes in the variability of temperature and precipitation, were the second most common reported. Impacts reported include increasing temperatures particularly in the HKH (Karki et al. 2011) and Tibetan Plateau (Xu et al. 2008). Rainfall trends were less conclusive (Kumar and Jain 2011; Dimri and Dash 2012; Karki et al. 2011; Nandargi and Dhar 2011) although increases in the frequency and intensity of farthermost rain were reported (Goswami et al. 2006). An aerosol-related impact was reported concerning the prevalence of black carbon and organic carbon on Tibetan glaciers (Xu et al. 2009a, b), and Himalayan glaciers (Bonasoni et al. 2012) resulting in enhanced melting. Community awareness and perception of climate modify were also reported, in a number of the publications for river basins, which generally agreed with observed climatic changes (Biggs and Watmough 2012; Chaudhary and Bawa 2011; Gentle and Maraseni 2012; Manandhar et al. 2011).

The tertiary most mutual impact category was hazards. Fundamental issues included glacial lake flare-up floods (GLOF) in the Himalayas (Gardelle et al. 2011; Shrestha et al. 2010; Chen et al. 2007), increasing sediments loads (Wulf et al. 2012; Lu et al. 2010) and downstream flooding on the plains (Mirza 2011; Immerzeel 2008; Ghosh and Dutta 2012). Malaria and other diseases were too predicted for South Asian river basins (Dhiman et al. 2011; Ebi et al. 2007). Additional impacts focused on diverse ecological shifts of habitats and species through upwardly displacement in the Himalaya (Forrest et al. 2012; Telwala et al. 2013; Nasim and Shabbir 2012), in addition to changes in ingather yields (Ruane et al. 2013) and soil carbon (Martin et al. 2010).

Deltas

Studies on deltas were dominated by hazards related to body of water-level rise (SLR). Publications mainly focused on the impacts from coastal flooding as a consequence of bounding main-level rise (SLR), tempest surges and projected diminished upstream flows. Ecological impacts, including changes to freshwater–seawater interactions and biotic composition, were mainly covered in publications apropos the Sundarbans in Republic of india and Bangladesh (Gopal 2013; Gopal and Chauhan 2006; Mitra et al. 2009) or fisheries (Raha et al. 2012). Saline intrusion of aquifers was mentioned every bit a potential bear on of SLR in a number of studies but was not subject to whatever detailed analysis.

The global average SLR from 1880 to 2009 is about 21 cm (Church building and White 2011). A study of SLR on the African continent project SLR impacts ranging from 64 to 126 cm by 2100 (Hinkel et al. 2012). A global written report of SLR (Ericson et al. 2006) noted that effective sea-level rise (ESLR) is a net rate, defined past the combination of eustatic sea-level ascension, the natural gross charge per unit of fluvial sediment degradation and subsidence, and accelerated subsidence due to groundwater and hydrocarbon extraction and sediment trapping by upstream dams. In all seven African deltas, studied sediment trapping was the dominant factor due to large upstream reservoirs. In Asia, accelerated subsidence due to groundwater extraction was the dominant factor in the Ganges–Brahmaputra delta, whereas sediment trapping dominated in the Indus delta.

A global study of alluvion take a chance to cities identified Dhaka and Kolkata with loftier natural exposure due to a combination of identified take a chance factors including tempest surges, coastal length and river discharge (Balica et al. 2012). River belch may be a critical gene, since, in the instance of Dhaka, modelling of the Brahmaputra River predicts a precipitous increase in boilerplate and farthermost downstream discharges, specially during the monsoon, with a significant threat of flooding in the densely populated floodplain (Immerzeel 2008). Bangladesh and the Nile delta are among the nigh threatened due to low-lying terrain (Nicholls 2011).

Many of the studies were concerned with using GIS to estimate of the areal extent of inundation [Krishna Godavari delta, Rao et al. (2011); Bangladesh delta, Karim and Mimura (2008)] and a study in the Lagos coastal zone highlights potential overestimates of publically available digital acme models in comparison to loftier-precision LiDAR surveys (Van de Sande et al. 2012).

Semi-arid areas

Climate-related impacts were dominant for semi-barren publications. For drylands globally, a warming of greater than 3 degrees Celsius and a 100 % increase in the frequency of extremely warm years is expected by the cease of century (Maestre et al. 2012), and increased aridity is expected over well-nigh of Africa (Dai 2011) with the associated risks of drought. Even so, there is full general uncertainty over precipitation projections (Maestre et al. 2012) and in detail in the Sahel and Due west Africa (Giannini 2010; Marshall et al. 2012; Haussmann et al. 2012; Jung and Kunstmann 2007). Terink et al. (2013) project decreases in annual rainfall for well-nigh North African countries, especially in southern Egypt, Morocco, and key and coastal Algeria. Observed trends in Southern Africa over the final xxx years are more often than not towards drier weather condition (Batisani and Yarnal 2010). A warming trend for warm days in summer has been observed in the interior peninsular region of India (Dash and Mamgain 2011). Key Asia is projected to become warmer with increased aridity especially in western parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (Lioubimtseva and Henebry 2009).

The adjacent most common impacts, closely related to climate drivers, focused on ecological shifts in rangelands (both to vegetation and animals, mainly ungulates) and impacts to agricultural systems (impacts to livestock and crop yields). In the Sahel, declines in tree density have been observed (Gonzalez et al. 2012), while in Western Africa mostly grasslands are projected to expand into desert by an expanse of two million km² by 2050 (Heubes et al. 2011). In Nambia, irrespective of the direction of atmospheric precipitation modify, Lohmann et al. (2012) project reduced shrub inroad (an important livestock feed) due to increased mean temperatures, leading to increased costs for supplemental feeding or the need to reduce livestock numbers. In South Africa, models projection that a 10 % reduction in mean almanac rainfall will lead to a 35 % reduction in livestock numbers (Richardson et al. 2007). In W Africa, projected changes in the timing of rainfall and a reduction in the length of growing period are a particular concern for agricultural production (Sarr 2012). Concerning crops, over again notwithstanding uncertainties associated with rainfall projections, impacts on yield are forecast—a systematic review by Knox et al. (2012) report a projected mean change in yield of all crops of minus eight % by the 2050s in Africa and Due south Asia. In Africa, mostly, reduced food product is forecast if global climate changes to more El Nino like conditions (Stige et al. 2006), with particular implications for maize yields in Southern Africa (Blignaut et al. 2009).

Hydrological impacts were closely related to issues raised under climate concerning precipitation, with the associated doubtfulness challenges. Projections of hydrological changes are largely inconclusive for studies reported in West Africa (Druyan 2011), the Nile Basin (Booij et al. 2011) and the Okavango (Hughes et al. 2011). In Fundamental Asia, the densely populated, arid lowlands depend heavily on the buffering capacity of upstream glacial-fed rivers for irrigation, industry and hydropower (Sorg et al. 2012). In Tajikistan river, discharge is projected to increase due to snowfall/ice melt to mid-century followed by a decrease in discharge (Kure et al. 2012).

Information and knowledge gaps

Table 3 lists the main data and knowledge gaps prevalent in each of the hotspot regions. Hotspot-specific issues are described below.

Table three Information and cognition gaps

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A key information deficit for river basins is a lack of observed data, particularly in the upper reaches, on glacier melting, rainfall and river discharge (Miller et al. 2012; Akhtar et al. 2008; Bocchiola et al. 2011; Rees and Collins 2006; Liu et al. 2012). Climate projections for South Asia, which are also highly variable, have been based on fibroid resolution and therefore limit their usefulness for adaptation planning (Wulf et al. 2012; Karki et al. 2011). Uncertainties concerning glaciers are mainly due to a lack of measurements of climatic forcing agents, mass budgets of the glaciers themselves and the utilise of unsuitable or uncertain data (Bolch et al. 2012). Improving the atmospheric precipitation and discharge monitoring network, more than comprehensive glacier (mass residue) and glacial lake monitoring are central areas that need to be addressed. Given the transboundary nature of this region, greater cooperation on information and knowledge sharing is needed (Karki et al. 2011). At that place was a general absence of papers dealing with climatic change impacts on groundwater and in particular groundwater recharge.

The principal commuter in the selected publications for studies on deltas was to address the human and economic impacts of coastal flooding and inundation. Ericson et al. (2006) in their study of effective SLR highlight the need for future inquiry to examine both the ocean and terrestrial perspectives, including anthropogenic factors such equally groundwater over-brainchild and upstream dams. The ecological repercussions of SLR are generally understudied. Long-term continuous SLR data in Africa are express compared to other regions (Hinkel et al. 2012), and Africa overall is in need of much amend coverage of tidal gauges (Church and White 2011).

In semi-arid regions, climate and hydrological uncertainties dominate and mainly focus on challenges with atmospheric precipitation projections and are largely due to data deficits, downscaling problems and the fact that global circulation models do non include land comprehend changes (Marshall et al. 2012; Kenabatho et al. 2012; Terink et al. 2013, Hughes et al. 2011). There is also a need to integrate inter-annual variability with longer-term patterns of climate modify (Gaughan and Waylen 2012; Vetter 2009). Long-term monitoring together with new grazing and ecosystem models is needed to amend assess climate change impacts on livestock and vegetation (Duncan et al. 2012; Tews et al. 2006; Tietjen and Jeltsch 2007).

Study limitations

Table four provides a list of countries covered by the 139 selected publications. The prevalence of publications from Southern asia could reflect the large downstream populations in these river basins, estimated to be over 1.3 billion people (Xu et al. 2009a, b; Immerzeel et al. 2010), as well as the controversy over Himalayan Glaciers in AR4, which may have driven more research in these regions. Studies identified in Africa omitted many of the countries listed in the CARIAA programme (See Ford et al. 2014, for list of countries). The low number of papers on deltas, particularly in Africa, was a business organisation and prompted a farther analysis of the search criteria. The original 1,170 records were revisited and specifically searched for the deltas identified in a companion commodity by Lwasa (2014) focusing on deltas in these hotspot regions. While no new papers were identified dealing with deltas and biophysical climate impacts, at that place were some instances in Africa where publications were identified dealing with upstream portions of rivers captured under the semi-arid searches (due east.g. Hoffman and Rohde 2011, which deals with changes to riparian vegetation on the Orange river). This tends to signal a realistic number of peer-reviewed publications dealing specifically with biophysical impacts from climate change in African deltas. However, information technology also highlights a disconnect betwixt the upstream river basins and downstream deltas and represents a shortcoming of the methodology for African rivers, which were only discipline to semi-barren and delta hotspots assay. This issue may warrant more focused reviews for specific deltas or basins in Africa. This was less of a problem for Southward Asian rivers, being subject to river bowl and delta hotspots assay and therefore capturing better upstream–downstream bug. The calibration of approach adopted for each publication varied widely. Studies on deltas were obviously focused on the coastal zones. River basin studies tended to follow natural hydrological boundaries. Semi-arid studies had a more than regional focus roofing 2 more or countries or large contiguous areas like the Sahel.

Table 4 Number of publications directly covering countries in the CARIAA programme

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There is inevitably bias and error associated with any literature review. One of the objectives of a systematic review is to be transparent and explicit in the methodology so that any inherent bias tin be identified. For example, restricting the review to papers since 2006 may introduce bias for particular topic or geographical areas. In their study, attributing biophysical impacts to anthropogenic climate change, Rosenzweig et al. (2008) noted a lack of documented observed changes in a number of regions, including Africa, citing a lack of information and published studies amongst the reasons for this deficit. Thompson et al. (2010) in their systematic review of climate change and food security in sub-Saharan Africa only identified fourteen publications for review and reported on the shortcomings of exclusively using WoK, which may nether-correspond non-English papers from Due west and Central Africa. Linguistic communication may too have been an event for publications in Fundamental Asia, which was under represented for semi-arid regions. Lioubimtseva et al. (2005) note that most publications on climate and ecology modify in Central Asia are in Russian and therefore generally omitted from international researches. Berrang-Ford et al. (2015) note that some systematic reviews address topics that are 'not ready for review'. This is unlikely in this study given the prevalence of climate change research globally; all the same, the specific research questions could accept been disaggregated to ameliorate focus on specific geographical regions.

Overall, this review was broadly representative of peer-reviewed literature on biophysical impacts from climate change on these hotspot regions. However, there is clearly scope for more than focused systematic reviews targeting particular topics and areas inside these hotspot regions but also adopting a more expansive suite of multi-lingual literature including, grey literature, books, theses, multilateral and bilateral reports, government reports and consultancy reports.

Give-and-take

This systematic review aimed to identify the nature and extent of biophysical impacts from climate change in the 3-hotspot regions, to examine their relative significance, and to identify the key knowledge and information gaps to guide future enquiry needs and support adaptation planning. A disquisitional test of potential bias in the methodology tends to indicate that the review was broadly representative of peer-reviewed literature on biophysical impacts from climatic change on these hotspot regions. However, at that place is scope for more focused systematic reviews adopting a more expansive suite of literature sources.

The biophysical impacts identified in the selected publications varied in nature and extent both between the hotspots and inside each hotspot surface area. Geographical context was an of import determinant of the range of biophysical impacts reported for each hotspot. These intrinsic characteristics are a cardinal requirement to establish an area's exposure to various pressures and an important component of vulnerability assessments for particular communities and populations.

In the river basin, studies in South Asia impacts on hydrology, climate and hazards were the chief threat from climatic change. Studies on the cryosphere and in particular retreating glaciers were an important topic, and some key reviews (Scherler et al. 2011; Bolch et al. 2012; Miller et al. 2012) go a significant way to drawing consensus on the behaviour of glaciers in this complex region, while too identifying several cardinal cognition gaps that need to exist addressed. Upstream and downstream linkages were besides ascendant themes in the river basin studies, although these linkages were not always adequately addressed. The lack of studies examining climate impacts on groundwater recharge downstream was a notable absence. There is clearly an opportunity for more whole-basin approaches, with greater emphasis on upstream–downstream linkages. In this context, greater transboundary cooperation through sharing cognition and data represents an important challenge and opportunity within this region.

The dominant theme in the delta studies concerned hazards, mainly focussing on the impacts from coastal flooding and flood as a consequence of sea-level rising, storm surges and projected diminished upstream flows. The concentration of populations and assets in these deltas (Nicholls 2011) is a likely reason for this overwhelming emphasis on coastal inundation. Upstream sediment trapping by dams was a compounding anthropogenic factor in African deltas, while groundwater over-abstraction was a dominant homo factor in the many South Asian deltas. Exploration of these seaward and landward factors is an important consideration in climate touch assessments of these deltas and exploration of accommodation options (Ericson et al. 2006, Nicholls 2011). Saline intrusion impacts on ecosystems and saline intrusion of coastal aquifers were generally under represented.

Semi-barren regions were dominated past studies on the impacts concerning climate, ecology and agriculture. Rain-fed agriculture in these semi-arid regions of Africa is critical to its development (De Souza et al. 2015), with significant impacts to productivity depending on the timing of delivery of this rain (Boulain et al. 2006). There was a consistent concern in the studies over dubiousness in future precipitation projections and associated hydrological modelling efforts, which pose clear challenges for accommodation planning and represents a key knowledge gap. In response, Haussmann et al. (2012) promote the need for precautionary adaptation strategies that embrace a broad range of possible hereafter outcomes. Knox et al. (2012) highlight the modelling challenges for agriculture noting that ultimately the affect of climate change on crops yields volition be a merchandise-off between yield increases due to elevated carbon dioxide and negative effects due to warmer temperatures, due east.grand. phenological responses, extreme temperatures and whatever rainfall limitations to growth. Perhaps more than the two other hotspot regions, semi-barren areas, and in particular their rangelands, highlight the close interplay between climatic events, plant-plant eater interactions and human management interventions (Vetter 2009). Modelling these interactions past linking grazing and ecosystem models too represent an important knowledge gap for semi-arid areas (Tietjen and Jeltsch 2007).

Information gaps common to all regions include a lack of observation data and poor hydro-meteorological monitoring networks. Shared knowledge gaps include climate impacts to groundwater and uncertainty in climate projections, peculiarly for precipitation. Upstream–downstream linkages were as well more often than not not fully investigated or ignored. Addressing these information and noesis gaps is required to develop a sound understanding of the nature and extent of biophysical impacts in each hotspot region. Such understanding is essential to underpin adaptation strategies that are relevant to each hotspot and sensitive to their geographical context and intrinsic characteristics.

Conclusions

A range of biophysical impacts from climatic change was identified in each of the three hotspot regions—semi-barren zones, mega-deltas and glacial-fed river basins in Africa and Asia. The nature and extent of these impacts varied for each hotspot and were largely adamant past the geographical context and intrinsic characteristics of each region. Addressing the knowledge and information gaps on the biophysical impacts of climatic change in semi-arid areas, deltas and river basins are essential foundations to support appropriate adaptation planning in these vulnerable regions. Research interventions and programmes developed to address these gaps should aim to:

• Ensure representative coverage of the major natural systems (basins, ecological landscapes and littoral zones), recognising under studied countries and regions, in particular Central Asia and some African countries.

• Encourage the preparation of targeted reviews, ideally systematic reviews, to harness bachelor knowledge and identify gaps for focussed research interventions.

• In Himalayan river basins, develop studies that aim to reduce uncertainty in climate model projections, improve the hydro-meteorological networks, expand standardised glacier and glacial lake monitoring, meliorate agreement of upstream–downstream linkages, particularly concerning groundwater and hazards, and enhance transboundary cooperation through sharing of knowledge and data.

• In delta areas, develop studies that aim to improve understanding of the ecological consequences of sea-level rise, comprise the combined perspectives of ocean and terrestrial factors that decide sea-level rising, amend understanding of saline intrusion of coastal aquifers and improve the coverage of tidal gauges, particularly in Africa.

• In semi-arid areas, develop studies that aim to reduce uncertainty in precipitation projections, develop enhanced climate models that incorporate country embrace changes, develop new grazing and ecosystem models and improve hydro-meteorological networks.

• Overall, encourage studies that accost the full range of primal biophysical impacts relevant for each hotspot area.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the United Kingdom'southward Department for International Evolution and Canada's International Development Research Center under their initiative Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia.

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1. Department of Geology, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin ii, Ireland

   Garrett Kilroy

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Kilroy, G. A review of the biophysical impacts of climate change in 3 hotspot regions in Africa and Asia. Reg Environ Change 15, 771–782 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0709-6

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• Received: 06 August 2013

• Accustomed: 12 March 2014

• Published: 30 January 2015

• Issue Engagement: June 2015

• DOI : https://doi.org/ten.1007/s10113-014-0709-vi

Keywords

• Biological and concrete impacts
• Climate change
• Semi-arid
• Mega-deltas
• Glacial-fed river basins

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