Nexus between Climate Change, Displacement and Conflict: Afghanistan Case

Spatiotemporal changes in future precipitation of Afghanistan for shared socioeconomic pathways

Global warming induces spatially heterogeneous changes in precipitation patterns, highlighting the need to assess these changes at regional scales. This assessment is particularly critical for Afghanistan, where agriculture serves as the primary livelihood for the population. New global climate model (GCM) simulations have recently been released for the recently established shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). This requires evaluating projected precipitation changes under these new scenarios and subsequent policy updates. This research employed six GCMs from the CMIP6 to project spatial and temporal precipitation changes across Afghanistan under all SSPs, including SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5. The employed GCMs were bias-corrected using the Global Precipitation Climatological Center's (GPCC) monthly gridded precipitation data with a 1.0° spatial resolution. Subsequently, the climate change factor was calculated to assess precipitation changes for both the near future (2020-2059) and the distant future (2060-2099). The bias-corrected projections' multi-model ensemble (MME) revealed increased precipitation across most of Afghanistan for SSPs with higher emissions scenarios. The bias-corrected simulations showed a substantial increase in summer precipitation of around 50%, projected under SSP1-1.9 in the southwestern region, while a decline of over 50% is projected in the northwestern region until 2100. The annual precipitation in the northwest region was projected to increase up to 15% for SSP1-2.6. SSP2-4.5 showed a projected annual precipitation increase of around 20% in the southwestern and certain eastern regions in the far future. Furthermore, a substantial rise of approximately 50% in summer precipitation under SSP3-7.0 is expected in the central and western regions in the far future. However, it is crucial to note that the projected changes exhibit considerable uncertainty among different GCMs.

Analysis of the livelihood and health of internally displaced persons due to riverbank erosion in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to natural calamities such as flooding, cyclones, droughts, and severe riverbank erosion as a deltaic country. Riverbank erosion brings about terrible consequences such as loss of land, human displacement, social isolation, and physical and mental well-being problems. The study used a mixed-method research approach and a multi-method data collection procedure to analyse the impact of riverbank erosion on livelihood and health. Households of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) due to riverbank erosion in Bangladesh's Lakshmipur district were surveyed using a structured questionnaire and an unstructured interview schedule to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Thematic content analysis, and descriptive statistics were applied to identify how riverbank erosion is inextricably linked to the IDPs' socio-economic conditions and well-being vulnerability. The findings show that riverbank erosion is responsible for the IDPs' livelihood uncertainty and substantial health concerns. Uncertainty about livelihood gives rise to socio-economic instability, poverty, diseases, and medical expenses. On top of that, the displaced people faced several difficulties, including no land ownership, living in substandard housing, no access to power, use of unhygienic toilets, social isolation, and anxiety. The research also finds inadequate government or non-governmental master plans for IDPs to overcome miserable conditions. The study results will help policymakers in Bangladesh and elsewhere to better understand the needs of vulnerable riverine communities and to design and implement policies and programmes to improve those communities' capacity to withstand shocks and recover quickly.

Drought adaptive microbes as bioinoculants for the horticultural crops

Drought stress is among the most destructive stresses for agricultural productivity. It interferes with normal metabolic activities of the plants resulting, a negative impact on physiology and morphology of the plants. The management of drought stress requires various adaptive and alleviation strategies in which stress adaptive microbiomes are exquisite bioresources for plant growth and alleviation of drought stress. Diverse drought adaptive microbes belonging to genera Achromobacter, Arthrobacter, Aspergillus, Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Penicillium and Streptomyces have been reported worldwide. These bioresources exhibit a wide range of mechanisms such as helping plant in nutrient acquisition, producing growth regulators, lowering the levels of stress ethylene, increasing the concentration of osmolytes, and preventing oxidative damage under water deficit environmental conditions. Horticulture is one of the potential agricultural sectors to speed up the economy, poverty and generation of employment for livelihood. The applications of drought adaptive plant growth promoting (PGP) microbes as biofertilizers and biopesticides for horticulture is a potential strategy to improve the productivity and protection of horticultural crops from abiotic and biotic stresses for agricultural sustainability.

Drought in South Asia: A Review of Drought Assessment and Prediction in South Asian Countries

South Asian countries have been experiencing frequent drought incidents recently, and due to this reason, many scientific studies have been carried out to explore drought in South Asia. In this context, we review scientific studies related to drought in South Asia. The study initially identifies the importance of drought-related studies and discusses drought types for South Asian regions. The representative examples of drought events, severity, frequency, and duration in South Asian countries are identified. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was mostly adopted in South Asian countries to quantify and monitor droughts. Nevertheless, the absence of drought quantification studies in Bhutan and the Maldives is of great concern. Future studies to generate a combined drought severity map for the South Asian region are required. Moreover, the drought prediction and projection in the regions is rarely studied. Furthermore, the teleconnection between drought and large-scale atmospheric circulations in the South Asia has not been discussed in detail in most of the scientific literature. Therefore, as a take-home message, there is an urgent need for scientific studies related to drought quantification for some regions in South Asia, prediction and projection of drought for an individual country (or as a region), and drought teleconnection to atmospheric circulation.

Flood hazards, human displacement and food insecurity in rural riverine areas of Punjab, Pakistan: policy implications

Rural communities inhabited on riverbank areas are frequently facing the ever-increasing psychological, social and economic distress due to negative effects of riverbank erosion. This study focused to investigate the impact of climate-based hazards particularly riverbank erosion on human displacement, food security and livelihood of rural riverine households and how vulnerable households act in response. The survey data of 398 households of erosion-prone riverbank area were collected, and group discussions connecting household heads from this area were also used for this study. In human displacement scenario of the last ten years due to riverbank erosion, almost 60% households lost their homestead once while 38% more than three times and forced to displaced. Empirical estimates of households' food security status indicated the value of Food Security Index 2.11, highlighting households face issue of food security all over the year. Food security issue of vulnerable households is highly related with migration because these households have insufficient employment chances, and coupled with limited or no farming land, they are highly prone to migration. In conclusion, this study estimated that riverbank erosion risk is a co-exist reason of population displacement, increasing rural environmental vulnerability and obstacles to psychological, cultural and socioeconomic development. Implications of local-based proper policy interventions such as developing advance research regarding infusion of agro-based technology packages for emerging Bait areas for developing resilience, human capital development, credit access and institution service are necessary for improving livelihood and food security of these riverbank erosion households. State-based institutions and local community mutually need to focus increasing forestry specifically in riverbank areas to save fertile land from riverbank erosion and reducing environmental pollution. Convalescing livelihood and food security for erosion riverbank households, more employment opportunity needs to provided, investing more in training and education programmes to promoting income-generating activities that subsequently will develop livelihood and food security of households.

Impacts of Climate Change on the Water Resources of the Kunduz River Basin, Afghanistan

The Kunduz River is one of the main tributaries of the Amu Darya Basin in North Afghanistan. Many communities live in the Kunduz River Basin (KRB), and its water resources have been the basis of their livelihoods for many generations. This study investigates climate change impacts on the KRB catchment. Rare station data are, for the first time, used to analyze systematic trends in temperature, precipitation, and river discharge over the past few decades, while using Mann–Kendall and Theil–Sen trend statistics. The trends show that the hydrology of the basin changed significantly over the last decades. A comparison of landcover data of the river basin from 1992 and 2019 shows significant changes that have additional impact on the basin hydrology, which are used to interpret the trend analysis. There is considerable uncertainty due to the data scarcity and gaps in the data, but all results indicate a strong tendency towards drier conditions. An extreme warming trend, partly above 2 °C since the 1960s in combination with a dramatic precipitation decrease by more than −30% lead to a strong decrease in river discharge. The increasing glacier melt compensates the decreases and leads to an increase in runoff only in the highland parts of the upper catchment. The reduction of water availability and the additional stress on the land leads to a strong increase of barren land and a reduction of vegetation cover. The detected trends and changes in the basin hydrology demand an active management of the already scarce water resources in order to sustain water supply for agriculture and ecosystems in the KRB.

Exploring Connections—Environmental Change, Food Security and Violence as Drivers of Migration—A Critical Review of Research

Migration, whether triggered by single events, such as violent conflict, or by long term pressures related to environmental change or food insecurity is altering sustainable development in societies. Although there is a large amount of literature, there is a gap for consolidating frameworks of migration-related to the interaction and correlation between drivers. We review scientific papers and research reports about three categories of drivers: Environmental Change (EC), Food Security (FS), and Violent Conflict (VC). First, we organize the literature to understand the explanations of the three drivers on migration individually, as well as the interactions among each other. Secondly, we analyse the literature produced regarding Colombia, Myanmar, and Tanzania; countries with different combinations of the driving factors for migration. Although we find that many correlations are explained in the literature, migration is mostly driven by structural vulnerabilities and unsustainable development paths in places that have a low resilience capacity to cope with risk. For example, food insecurity, as a product of environmental changes (droughts and floods), is seen as a mediating factor detonating violent conflict and migration in vulnerable populations. The paper contributes to the literature about multi-driven migration, presenting an overview of the way in which different driver combinations trigger migration. This is important for determining the best governance mechanisms and policy responses that tackle forced migration and improve the resilience of vulnerable communities as well as sustainable development.

Migration under Climate Change in Southern Africa: A Nexus Planning Perspective

Population increase is exacerbating resource insecurities due to increased demand for already depleted resources. Coupled with climate change, they are the main drivers of both intra-(rural-urban and urban-urban) and inter-migration (from one country to the other). We carried out a systematic review of literature, focusing on available options to ensure water and food security, as well as improve the socio-economic environment, highlighting the drivers of migration in southern Africa. The aim was to develop informed adaptation strategies and build resilience in the advent of accelerated migration. We developed a migration conceptual framework based on the nexus between water, food and socio-economic interlinkages. Urban areas in southern Africa are under immense pressure to accommodate climate refugees from resource stressed rural areas, a situation that is impacting on agricultural production. Most urban areas are exceeding their ecological thresholds to support the built environment, causing some socio-ecological challenges. Nexus planning can inform adaptation planning on permissible migration that are aligned with regional goals such as regional integration, poverty reduction and improved livelihoods. This would also contribute to the region's achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, through the identification of synergies and trade-offs, nexus planning can inform regional adaptation strategies for positively managing migration leading to sustainable outcomes.

Human–Environment Natural Disasters Interconnection in China: A Review

This study aimed to assess the interrelationship among extreme natural events and their impacts on environments and humans through a systematic and quantitative review based on the up-to-date scientific literature. Namely, the main goal was to add additional knowledge to the existing evidence of the impacts related to floods, droughts, and landslides on humans and the environment in China; this in order to identify knowledge gaps in research and practice to aid in improving the adaptation and mitigation measures against extreme natural events in China. In this study, 110 documents were analyzed in the evaluation of several impacts triggered by extreme events. Records were obtained from Scopus and Web of Science and examined with a text mining instrument to assess the pattern of publications over the years; the problems linked to extreme weather events were investigated, and the study gaps were discussed. This paper extends work by systematically reviewing recent evidence related to floods, droughts, and landslides in China. We listed the critical studies that focused on the impact of extreme events on both humans and the environment described in current reviews. The findings revealed that goods safety, social safety, and financial losses are of significant concern to the scientific community due to extreme natural events, which from our analysis resulted in being more frequent and intense. It is still underdeveloped to implement distant sensing and imaging methods to monitor and detect the impact of severe weather occurrences. There are still significant study gaps in the fields of the effects of extreme weather events. The analysis result shows that extreme events are increased during the time, so more in-depth investigation and efforts on adaptation, mitigation measures, and strategical governance plans are desperately required.