Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Mitigation Policy (mitigation + policy)
Selected AbstractsCharacteristics of river floods and flooding: a global overview, 1985,2003,,IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE, Issue S1 2006Klaas-Jan Douben inondation; victims; dommages; stratégies de protection contre les inundations Abstract Since ancient times people have settled in flood-prone areas due to favourable geographic conditions which facilitate economic growth, such as accessibility (transportation) and food production (fertile land). This fact forces societies all over the world to protect valuable assets against flooding. Nevertheless flooding is still the most damaging of all natural disasters. One-third of the annual natural disasters and economic losses and more than half of all victims are flood related. Flood mitigation policies and measures have been implemented, enabling societies to increase their resilience to flood hazards. With increasing population densities, often associated with improved living standards and consequently higher values of property and infrastructure, flood defence receives more importance and the consequences of flooding become less acceptable. Trends in flood frequencies and flooding damage seem to be increasing, primarily due to a growing vulnerability arising from societal changes such as interference by occupation, developments, investments and land-use changes in flood-prone areas. The Asian continent was particularly affected by floods and flooding between 1985 and 2003. It recorded nearly half of all flooding events; together with Europe and North America it was confronted with the majority of flooding damage and it incurred nearly three-quarters of all casualties. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Depuis toujours les populations se sont installées dans les zones à risque d'inondation du fait de conditions géographiques favorables à la croissance économique, telles que l'accessibilité (transport) et la production de nourriture (terre fertile). Ceci oblige les sociétés partout dans le monde à protéger les biens contre les inondations. Mais celles-ci sont toujours les plus préjudiciables de tous les désastres naturels. Chaque année, un tiers des désastres naturels et des dommages économiques ainsi que plus de la moitié des victimes sont liés aux inondations. Des politiques et des actions de protection contre les inondations ont été mises en oeuvre, permettant aux sociétés d'augmenter leur résistivité aux risques d'inondation. Avec l'augmentation des densités de population, souvent liée à la progression des niveaux de vie et donc à la valeur plus élevée des habitations et des infrastructures, la protection contre les inondations devient plus importante et leurs conséquences moins acceptables. La fréquence des inondations et de leurs dommages semble en augmentation, principalement en raison d'une vulnérabilité croissante résultant de changements sociaux tels que les interférences des activités, aménagements, investissements et occupation de l'espace dans les zones à risque. Le continent asiatique a été particulièrement affecté entre 1985 et 2003. Il a enregistré presque la moitié de tous les événements d'inondation, a dû faire face à la majorité des dommages avec l'Europe et l'Amérique du Nord et a compté presque trois quarts de toutes les victimes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Destocking as a Drought,mitigation Strategy: Clarifying Rationales and Answering CritiquesDISASTERS, Issue 3 2002John Morton The idea of externally assisted emergency destocking of pastoralists has gained currency in recent years: increasing the incentives for pastoralists to sell animals, or removing the constraints to selling animals in the early stages of drought. We identify two separate rationales put forward by proponents of destocking: environmental benefits and purchasing power/welfare benefits. We consider whether specific recent critiques of ,new range ecology' and specifically of ,tracking policies' do in fact provide arguments against emergency destocking in pastoralist areas. We illustrate some of these themes with a case study of a successful destocking exercise in northern Kenya where a very specific form of support was requested and received by pastoralists themselves. The sorts of destocking that work are likely to have significant effects on pastoralist purchasing power at key points of the drought cycle, but minimal effects on the environment. Clarifying these points will make it easier to promote destocking as a drought,mitigation policy. [source] Policy Framework for Transition to a Low-Carbon World EconomyASIAN ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Ross GARNAUT Q5; F5 Climate change mitigation policy is the most difficult to come before our polity in living memory. There can be no solution without international agreement involving all substantial economies, and yet each country has an incentive to free ride on others. The international agreement must have five parts: agreement on the objective in terms of concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, agreement on allocation of an emissions entitlements budget among countries, agreement on rules for international trade in entitlements, agreement on developed countries taking the lead on development of low-emissions technologies, and agreement on assistance from developed countries for climate change mitigation in developing countries. Two sources of market failure must be corrected to achieve emissions reduction targets efficiently: the external costs of emitting greenhouse gases and the external benefits of private investment in innovation in relation to low-emissions technologies. [source] Evaluating off-site environmental mitigation using choice modelling,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008Geoffrey N. Kerr Evaluation of off-site mitigation entails comparison of utility changes between two sites. Choice modelling has been used to identify community willingness to trade-off attributes for two different types of stream in New Zealand. Estimated utility functions are used to derive marginal rates of substitution and stream attribute part worths which can be used to design or evaluate both on-site and off-site mitigation policy. Latent class multinomial logit models identified classes of citizens who valued stream attributes quite differently. Significant differences in values for some attributes on different stream types imply heterogeneous mitigation ratios across environmental attributes. [source] Importance of addressing National Electrical Code® violations that result in unusual exposure to 60 Hz magnetic fieldsBIOELECTROMAGNETICS, Issue 2 2004Jack Adams Abstract We evaluated wiring in multifamily developments containing National Electrical Code® (NEC®) violations as a source of unusual exposure to 60 Hz magnetic fields. Two methods were used in this evaluation: measurement and modeling. We measured the building wiring as a source of magnetic fields in six multifamily developments in Michigan. In this small sample, building wiring proved to be an important source of exposure in four of the six cases. In all four cases with exposure from building wiring, one or more NEC violations were involved. To supplement our measurement efforts, we used computer modeling to compare magnetic field exposure due to building wiring with magnetic field exposure from external power lines. Our calculations showed that where the building wiring has a NEC violation leading to net current loops, the exposure due to wiring is likely to be more important than that from external power lines. Our results support the results obtained in a recent study of the exposure of Californian K-12 students to magnetic fields, where building wiring with one or more NEC violation was found to be the single most important exposure source. If 60 Hz magnetic fields are important to avoid, then improved enforcement of the NEC, as required by law, is perhaps the single most important mitigation policy to adopt. Bioelectromagnetics 25:102,106, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||