@article{ŠedovaKalkuhl2020, author = {Šedov{\´a}, Barbora and Kalkuhl, Matthias}, title = {Who are the climate migrants and where do they go?}, series = {World development}, volume = {129}, journal = {World development}, publisher = {Elsevier Science}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0305-750X}, doi = {10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104848}, pages = {19}, year = {2020}, abstract = {In this paper, we move from the large strand of research that looks at evidence of climate migration to the questions: who are the climate migrants? and where do they go? These questions are crucial to design policies that mitigate welfare losses of migration choices due to climate change. We study the direct and heterogeneous associations between weather extremes and migration in rural India. We combine ERAS reanalysis data with the India Human Development Survey household panel and conduct regression analyses by applying linear probability and multinomial logit models. This enables us to establish a causal relationship between temperature and precipitation anomalies and overall migration as well as migration by destination. We show that adverse weather shocks decrease rural-rural and international migration and push people into cities in different, presumably more prosperous states. A series of positive weather shocks, however, facilitates international migration and migration to cities within the same state. Further, our results indicate that in contrast to other migrants, climate migrants are likely to be from the lower end of the skill distribution and from households strongly dependent on agricultural production. We estimate that approximately 8\% of all rural-urban moves between 2005 and 2012 can be attributed to weather. This figure might increase as a consequence of climate change. Thus, a key policy recommendation is to take steps to facilitate integration of less educated migrants into the urban labor market.}, language = {en} } @misc{SenBoginMondaletal.2021, author = {Sen, Jaydip and Bogin, Barry and Mondal, Nitish and Dey, Sima and Roy, Shreysai}, title = {Groundwater arsenic contamination in the Bengal Delta Plain is an important public health issue}, series = {Human Biology and Public Health}, volume = {2021}, journal = {Human Biology and Public Health}, number = {1}, editor = {Scheffler, Christiane and Koziel, Slawomir and Hermanussen, Michael and Bogin, Barry}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, issn = {2748-9957}, doi = {10.52905/hbph.v1.7}, pages = {1 -- 31}, year = {2021}, abstract = {There is a close association between human biology, epidemiology and public health. Exposure to toxic elements is one area of such associations and global concerns. The Bengal Delta Plain (BDP) is a region where contamination of ground water by arsenic has assumed epidemic proportions. Apart from dermatological manifestations, chronic exposure to arsenic causes a heavy toll through several carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic disorders. This article provides a global overview of groundwater arsenic contamination in the BDP region, especially the sources, speciation, and mobility of arsenic, and critically reviews the effects of arsenic on human health. The present review also provides a summary of comprehensive knowledge on various measures required for mitigation and social consequences of the problem of arsenic contaminated groundwater in the BDP region.}, language = {en} } @article{SedovaKalkuhlMendelsohn2020, author = {Sedova, Barbora and Kalkuhl, Matthias and Mendelsohn, Robert}, title = {Distributional impacts of weather and climate in rural India}, series = {Economics of disasters and climate change}, volume = {4}, journal = {Economics of disasters and climate change}, number = {1}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, issn = {2511-1280}, doi = {10.1007/s41885-019-00051-1}, pages = {5 -- 44}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Climate-related costs and benefits may not be evenly distributed across the population. We study distributional implications of seasonal weather and climate on within-country inequality in rural India. Utilizing a first difference approach, we find that the poor are more sensitive to weather variations than the non-poor. The poor respond more strongly to (seasonal) temperature changes: negatively in the (warm) spring season, more positively in the (cold) rabi season. Less precipitation is harmful to the poor in the monsoon kharif season and beneficial in the winter and spring seasons. We show that adverse weather aggravates inequality by reducing consumption of the poor farming households. Future global warming predicted under RCP8.5 is likely to exacerbate these effects, reducing consumption of poor farming households by one third until the year 2100. We also find inequality in consumption across seasons with higher consumption during the harvest and lower consumption during the sowing seasons.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{SantosBruss2020, author = {Santos Bruss, Sara Morais dos}, title = {Feminist solidarities after modulation}, publisher = {punctum books}, address = {Brooklyn, NY}, isbn = {978-1-68571-146-7}, doi = {10.53288/0397.1.00}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiii, 380}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Feminist Solidarities after Modulation produces an intersectional analysis of transnational feminist movements and their contemporary digital frameworks of identity and solidarity. Engaging media theory, critical race theory, and Black feminist theory, as well as contemporary feminist movements, this book argues that digital feminist interventions map themselves onto and make use of the multiplicity and ambiguity of digital spaces to question presentist and fixed notions of the internet as a white space and technologies in general as objective or universal. Understanding these frameworks as colonial constructions of the human, identity is traced to a socio-material condition that emerges with the modernity/colonialism binary. In the colonial moment, race and gender become the reasons for, as well as the effects of, technologies of identification, and thus need to be understood as and through technologies. What Deleuze has called modulation is not a present modality of control, but is placed into a longer genealogy of imperial division, which stands in opposition to feminist, queer, and anti-racist activism that insists on non-modular solidarities across seeming difference. At its heart, Feminist Solidarities after Modulation provides an analysis of contemporary digital feminist solidarities, which not only work at revealing the material histories and affective ""leakages"" of modular governance, but also challenges them to concentrate on forms of political togetherness that exceed a reductive or essentialist understanding of identity, solidarity, and difference.}, language = {en} } @article{MaheswaranAgarwalSivakumaretal.2019, author = {Maheswaran, Rathinasamy and Agarwal, Ankit and Sivakumar, Bellie and Marwan, Norbert and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Wavelet analysis of precipitation extremes over India and teleconnections to climate indices}, series = {Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment}, volume = {33}, journal = {Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment}, number = {11-12}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {1436-3240}, doi = {10.1007/s00477-019-01738-3}, pages = {2053 -- 2069}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Precipitation patterns and extremes are significantly influenced by various climatic factors and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. This study uses wavelet coherence analysis to detect significant interannual and interdecadal oscillations in monthly precipitation extremes across India and their teleconnections to three prominent climate indices, namely, Nino 3.4, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Further, partial wavelet coherence analysis is used to estimate the standalone relationship between the climate indices and precipitation after removing the effect of interdependency. The wavelet analysis of monthly precipitation extremes at 30 different locations across India reveals that (a) interannual (2-8 years) and interdecadal (8-32 years) oscillations are statistically significant, and (b) the oscillations vary in both time and space. The results from the partial wavelet coherence analysis reveal that Nino 3.4 and IOD are the significant drivers of Indian precipitation at interannual and interdecadal scales. Intriguingly, the study also confirms that the strength of influence of large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns on Indian precipitation extremes varies with spatial physiography of the region.}, language = {en} } @article{Lederer2011, author = {Lederer, Markus}, title = {Practicing agrifood governance}, series = {Food policy : economics planning and politics of food and agriculture}, volume = {36}, journal = {Food policy : economics planning and politics of food and agriculture}, number = {6}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0306-9192}, doi = {10.1016/j.foodpol.2011.07.009}, pages = {756 -- 759}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The conclusion to the special section has three objectives: First, it argues that a focus on "practice" implicitly connects all the articles in the special section and thereby reinforces the core points of the analytical framework introduced by Fuchs and Glaab. Second, the paper summarizes the main messages of the articles by identifying three red threads that are dominant in all four contributions. These are the strong focus of all authors on ideational forces, an emphasis on the role of academics and the description of complexities of local-global interdependencies. Third, some common blind spots are identified that merit future research.}, language = {en} } @article{KozickaWeberKalkuhl2019, author = {Kozicka, Marta and Weber, Regine and Kalkuhl, Matthias}, title = {Cash vs. in-kind transfers}, series = {Food Security}, volume = {11}, journal = {Food Security}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {1876-4517}, doi = {10.1007/s12571-019-00942-x}, pages = {915 -- 927}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Historically, India has relied on subsidizing staple food as a major instrument in improving food security. Recently, however, cash transfers have entered the debate as an alternative, as they are associated with lower market distortions, leakages and fiscal costs. This study contributes to this debate by analyzing India's Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). Our main objective was to explain the under-purchase, or low take-up, from the TPDS, which is typically attributed to 'leakage', i.e. the diversion of food grains from eligible consumers. We provide an alternative solution based on self-targeting; while poorer households increase their consumption from the TPDS, wealthier households restrain from consuming subsidized commodities. Using a large household dataset, we estimated that such a voluntary opt-out system, based on income, would save a minimum of 6.5\% of grains released through the TPDS. Besides these demand-driven aspects, our analysis indicates that poor regions perform better at lowering the diversion of grains and that large targeting errors exist among female-led households. Finally, we find substantial regional price differences that would benefit the poor and rural population under a uniform cash-transfer system that does not correct for regional price levels.}, language = {en} } @article{KozickaKalkuhlBrockhaus2017, author = {Kozicka, Marta and Kalkuhl, Matthias and Brockhaus, Jan}, title = {Food Grain Policies in India and their Implications for Stocks and Fiscal Costs}, series = {Journal of Agricultural Economics}, volume = {68}, journal = {Journal of Agricultural Economics}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0021-857X}, doi = {10.1111/1477-9552.12176}, pages = {98 -- 122}, year = {2017}, abstract = {We analyse current and possible future reforms of the Indian food policies for the most important staple grains, wheat and rice, within a two-commodity dynamic partial equilibrium model with stochastic shocks. The model is empirically grounded and reproduces past values well. It uses a new reduced-form approach to capture private storage dynamics. We evaluate the implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) under several policy measures with the current regime as well as two scenarios with a regime change - implementation of cash transfers and deficiency payments. Implications for market fundamentals and fiscal costs are simulated in the medium term - until 2020/21. The NFSA puts a high pressure on fiscal costs and public stocks. Relying on imports with low support prices results in low fiscal costs and stable, but higher domestic and international prices, and a high risk of zero stocks. A policy strategy to manipulate procurement prices in order to maintain public stocks close to the norms leads to slightly higher fiscal costs with lower, but more volatile prices. The highest domestic price volatility occurs under a strategy which uses export bans in order to maintain sufficient public stocks. A cash-based regime can bring considerable savings and curb fiscal costs, particularly if targeted to the poor, and would leave sufficient stocks due to higher private stocks.}, language = {en} } @article{KhurooReshiMaliketal.2012, author = {Khuroo, Anzar A. and Reshi, Zafar A. and Malik, Akhtar H. and Weber, Ewald and Rashid, Irfan and Dar, G. H.}, title = {Alien flora of India taxonomic composition, invasion status and biogeographic affiliations}, series = {Biological invasions : unique international journal uniting scientists in the broad field of biological invasions}, volume = {14}, journal = {Biological invasions : unique international journal uniting scientists in the broad field of biological invasions}, number = {1}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {1387-3547}, doi = {10.1007/s10530-011-9981-2}, pages = {99 -- 113}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The wide knowledge gaps in invasion biology research that exist in the developing world are crucial impediments to the scientific management and global policymaking on biological invasions. In an effort to fill such knowledge gaps, we present here an inventory of the alien flora of India, based on systematic reviews and rigorous analyses of research studies (ca. 190) published over the last 120 years (1890-2010 AD), and updated with field records of the last two decades. Currently, the inventory comprises of 1,599 species, belonging to 842 genera in 161 families, and constitutes 8.5\% of the total Indian vascular flora. The three most species-rich families are Asteraceae (134 spp.), Papilionaceae (114 spp.) and Poaceae (106 spp.), and the three largest genera are Eucalyptus (25 spp.), Ipomoea (22 spp.), and Senna (21 spp.). The majority of these species (812) have no report of escaping from cultivation. Of the remaining subset of 787 species, which have either escaped from intentional cultivation, or spread after unintentional introduction, casuals are represented by 57 spp., casual/naturalised by 114 spp., naturalised by 257 spp., naturalised/invasive by 134 spp., and invasive by 225 spp. Biogeographically, more than one-third (35\%) of the alien flora in India has its native ranges in South America, followed by Asia (21\%), Africa (20\%), Europe (11\%), Australia (8\%), North America (4\%); and cryptogenic (1\%). The inventory is expected to serve as the scientific baseline on plant invasions in India, with implications for conservation of global biodiversity.}, language = {en} } @article{HobbhahnKuechmeisterPorembski2006, author = {Hobbhahn, Nina and K{\"u}chmeister, Heike and Porembski, Stefan}, title = {Pollination biology of mass flowering terrestrial Utricularia species (Lentibulariaceae) in the Indian Western Ghats}, series = {Plant biology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Plant biology}, number = {6}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1435-8603}, doi = {10.1055/s-2006-924566}, pages = {791 -- 804}, year = {2006}, abstract = {The pollination biology of three mass flowering Utricularia species of the Indian Western Ghats, U. albocaerulea, U. purpurascens, and U. reticulata, was studied for the first time by extensive observation of flower visitors, pollination experiments, and nectar analyses. The ephemerality of the Utricularia habitats on lateritic plateaus, weather conditions adverse to insects, lack of observations of flower visitors to other Utricularia spp., and the predominance of at least. facultative autogamy in the few Utricularia species studied so far suggested that an autogamous breeding system is the common case in the genus. In contrast, we showed that the studied populations are incapable of autonomous selfing, or that it is an event of negligible rarity, although P/O was similarily low as in autogamous species investigated by other authors. In all three species the spatial arrangement of the reproductive organs makes an insect vector necessary for pollen transfer between and within flowers. However, U. purpurascens and U. reticulata are highly self-compatible, which allows for visitor-mediated auto-selfing and geitonogamy on inflorescence and clone level. Floral nectar is present in extremely small volumes in all three species, but sugar concentrations are high. More than 50 species of bees, butterflies, moths, hawk moths, and clipterans were observed to visit the flowers, and flower morphology facilitated pollination by all observed visitors. The results are discussed in the context of the phenological characteristics of the studied species, especially the phenomenon of mass flowering, and the environmental conditions of their habitats.}, language = {en} }