TY - JOUR A1 - Barthold, Frauke Katrin A1 - Wiesmeier, Martin A1 - Breuer, L. A1 - Frede, Hans-Georg A1 - Wu, J. A1 - Blank, F. Benjamin T1 - Land use and climate control the spatial distribution of soil types in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia JF - Journal of arid environments N2 - The spatial distribution of soil types is controlled by a set of environmental factors such as climate, organisms, parent material and topography as well as time and space. A change of these factors will lead to a change in the spatial distribution of soil types. In this study, we use a digital soil mapping approach to improve our knowledge about major soil type distributing factors in the steppe regions of Inner Mongolia (China) which currently undergo tremendous environmental change, e.g. climate and land use change. We use Random Forests in an effort to map Reference Soil Groups according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) in the Xilin River catchment. We benefit from the superior prediction capabilities of RF and additional interpretive results in order to identify the major environmental factors that control spatial patterns of soil types. The nine WRB soil groups that were identified and spatially predicted for the study area are Arenosol, Calcisol, Cambisol, Chernozem, Cryosol, Gleysol, Kastanozem, Phaeozem and Regosol. Model and prediction performances of the RF model are high with an Out-of-Bag error of 51.6% for the model and a misclassification error for the predicted map of 28.9%. The main controlling factors of soil type distribution are land use, a set of topographic variables, geology and climate. However, land use and climate are of major importance and topography and geology are of minor importance. The visualizations of the predictions, the variable importance measures as result of RF and the comparisons of these with the spatial distribution of the environmental factors delivered additional, quantitative information of these controlling factors and revealed that intensively grazed areas are subjected to soil degradation. However, most of the area is still governed by natural soil forming processes which are driven by climate, topography and geology. Most importantly though, our study revealed that a shift towards warmer temperatures and lower precipitation regimes will lead to a change of the spatial distribution of RSGs towards steppe soils that store less carbon, i.e. a decrease of spatial extent of Phaeozems and an increase of spatial extent of Chernozems and Kastanozems. KW - Random Forests KW - Soil-environmental relationships KW - Steppe KW - Inner Mongolia KW - Land use change KW - Climate change Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2012.08.004 SN - 0140-1963 VL - 88 IS - 1 SP - 194 EP - 205 PB - Elsevier CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hundecha, Yeshewatesfa A1 - Sunyer, Maria A. A1 - Lawrence, Deborah A1 - Madsen, Henrik A1 - Willems, Patrick A1 - Bürger, Gerd A1 - Kriauciuniene, Jurate A1 - Loukas, Athanasios A1 - Martinkova, Marta A1 - Osuch, Marzena A1 - Vasiliades, Lampros A1 - von Christierson, Birgitte A1 - Vormoor, Klaus Josef A1 - Yuecel, Ismail T1 - Inter-comparison of statistical downscaling methods for projection of extreme flow indices across Europe JF - Journal of hydrology N2 - The effect of methods of statistical downscaling of daily precipitation on changes in extreme flow indices under a plausible future climate change scenario was investigated in 11 catchments selected from 9 countries in different parts of Europe. The catchments vary from 67 to 6171 km(2) in size and cover different climate zones. 15 regional climate model outputs and 8 different statistical downscaling methods, which are broadly categorized as change factor and bias correction based methods, were used for the comparative analyses. Different hydrological models were implemented in different catchments to simulate daily runoff. A set of flood indices were derived from daily flows and their changes have been evaluated by comparing their values derived from simulations corresponding to the current and future climate. Most of the implemented downscaling methods project an increase in the extreme flow indices in most of the catchments. The catchments where the extremes are expected to increase have a rainfall dominated flood regime. In these catchments, the downscaling methods also project an increase in the extreme precipitation in the seasons when the extreme flows occur. In catchments where the flooding is mainly caused by spring/summer snowmelt, the downscaling methods project a decrease in the extreme flows in three of the four catchments considered. A major portion of the variability in the projected changes in the extreme flow indices is attributable to the variability of the climate model ensemble, although the statistical downscaling methods contribute 35-60% of the total variance. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Flooding KW - Statistical downscaling KW - Regional climate models KW - Climate change KW - Europe Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.08.033 SN - 0022-1694 SN - 1879-2707 VL - 541 SP - 1273 EP - 1286 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tekken, Vera A1 - Costa, Luís Fílípe Carvalho da A1 - Kropp, Jürgen T1 - Increasing pressure, declining water and climate change in north-eastern Morocco JF - Journal of coastal conservation : planning and management N2 - The coastal stretch of north-eastern Mediterranean Morocco holds vitally important ecological, social, and economic functions. The implementation of large-scale luxury tourism resorts shall push socio-economic development and facilitate the shift from a mainly agrarian to a service economy. Sufficient water availability and intact beaches are among the key requirements for the successful realization of regional development plans. The water situation is already critical, additional water-intense sectors could overstrain the capacity of water resources. Further, coastal erosion caused by sea-level rise is projected. Regional climate change is observable, and must be included in regional water management. Long-term climate trends are assessed for the larger region (Moulouya basin) and for the near-coastal zone at Saidia. The amount of additional water demand is assessed for the large-dimensioned Saidia resort; including the monthly, seasonal and annual tourist per capita water need under inclusion of irrigated golf courses and garden areas. A shift of climate patterns is observed, a lengthening of the dry summer season, and as well a significant decline of annual precipitation. Thus, current water scarcity is mainly human-induced; however, climate change will aggravate the situation. As a consequence, severe environmental damage due to water scarcity is likely and could impinge on the quality of local tourism. The re-adjustment of current management routines is therefore essential. Possible adjustments are discussed and the analysis concludes with management recommendations for innovative regional water management of tourism facilities. KW - North-eastern Morocco KW - Climate change KW - Coastal zone KW - Luxury tourism KW - Water demand KW - Adaptation Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-013-0234-7 SN - 1400-0350 VL - 17 IS - 3 SP - 379 EP - 388 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hudson, Paul A1 - Botzen, W. J. Wouter A1 - Poussin, Jennifer A1 - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H. T1 - Impacts of flooding and flood preparedness on subjective well-being BT - a monetisation of the tangible and intangible impacts JF - Journal of Happiness Studies N2 - Flood disasters severely impact human subjective well-being (SWB). Nevertheless, few studies have examined the influence of flood events on individual well-being and how such impacts may be limited by flood protection measures. This study estimates the long term impacts on individual subjective well-being of flood experiences, individual subjective flood risk perceptions, and household flood preparedness decisions. These effects are monetised and placed in context through a comparison with impacts of other adverse events on well-being. We collected data from households in flood-prone areas in France. The results indicate that experiencing a flood has a large negative impact on subjective well-being that is incompletely attenuated over time. Moreover, individuals do not need to be directly affected by floods to suffer SWB losses since subjective well-being is lower for those who expect their flood risk to increase or who have seen a neighbour being flooded. Floodplain inhabitants who prepared for flooding by elevating their home have a higher subjective well-being. A monetisation of the aforementioned well-being impacts shows that a flood requires Euro150,000 in immediate compensation to attenuate SWB losses. The decomposition of the monetised impacts of flood experience into tangible losses and intangible effects on SWB shows that intangible effects are about twice as large as the tangible direct monetary flood losses. Investments in flood protection infrastructure may be under funded if the intangible SWB benefits of flood protection are not taken into account. KW - Flooding KW - Subjective well-being KW - Intangible losses KW - Tangible losses KW - Climate change KW - Adaptation KW - Climate change adaptation Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9916-4 SN - 1389-4978 SN - 1573-7780 VL - 20 IS - 2 SP - 665 EP - 682 PB - Springer Science CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Oguntunde, Philip G. A1 - Lischeid, Gunnar A1 - Abiodun, Babatunde Joseph T1 - Impacts of climate variability and change on drought characteristics in the Niger River Basin, West Africa JF - Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment N2 - West Africa has been afflicted by droughts since the declining rains of the 1970s. Therefore, this study examines the characteristics of drought over the Niger River Basin (NRB), investigates the influence of the drought on the river flow, and projects the impacts of future climate change on drought. A combination of observation data and regional climate simulations of past (1986-2005) and future climates (2046-2065 and 2081-2100) were analyzed. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SPEI) were used to characterize drought while the standardized runoff index (SRI) was used to quantify river flow. Results of the study show that the historical pattern of drought is consistent with previous studies over the Basin and most part of West Africa. RCA4 ensemble gives realistic simulations of the climatology of the Basin in the past climate. Generally, an increase in drought intensity and frequency are projected over NRB. The coupling between SRI and drought indices was very strong (P < 0.05). The dominant peaks can be classified into three distinct drought cycles with periods 1-2, 2-4, 4-8 years. These cycles may be associated with Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). River flow was highly sensitive to precipitation in the NRB and a 1-3 month lead time was found between drought indices and SRI. Under RCP4.5, changes in the SPEI drought frequency range from 1.8 (2046-2065) to 2.4 (2081-2100) month year(-1) while under RCP8.5, the change ranges from 2.2 (2046-2065) to 3.0 month year(-1) (2081-2100). Niger Middle sub-basin is likely to be mostly impacted in the future while the Upper Niger was projected to be least impacted. Results of this study may guide policymakers to evolve strategies to facilitate vulnerability assessment and adaptive capacity of the basin in order to minimize the negative impacts of climate change. KW - Drought indices KW - Water management KW - Climate change KW - River flow KW - Niger River Basin Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-017-1484-y SN - 1436-3240 SN - 1436-3259 VL - 32 IS - 4 SP - 1017 EP - 1034 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Oguntunde, Philip G. A1 - Abiodun, Babatunde Joseph A1 - Lischeid, Gunnar T1 - Impacts of climate change on hydro-meteorological drought over the Volta Basin, West Africa JF - Global and planetary change N2 - This study examines the characteristics of drought in the Volta River Basin (VRB), investigates the influence of drought on the streamflow, and projects the impacts of future climate change on the drought. A combination of observation data and regional climate simulations of past and future climates (1970-2013, 2046-2065, and 2081-2100) were analyzed for the study. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration (SPEI) were used to characterize drought while the Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) were used to quantify runoff. Results of the study show that the historical pattern of drought is generally consistent with previous studies over the Basin and most part of West Africa. RCA ensemble medians (RMED) give realistic simulations of drought characteristics and area extent over the Basin and the sub-catchments in the past climate. Generally, an increase in drought intensity and spatial extent are projected over VRB for SPEI and SPI, but the magnitude of increase is higher with SPEI than with SPI. Drought frequency (events per decade) may be magnified by a factor of 1.2, (2046-2065) to 1.6 (2081-2100) compared to the present day episodes in the basin. The coupling between streamflow and drought episodes was very strong (P < 0.05) for the 1-16-year band before the 1970 but showed strong correlation all through the time series period for the 4-8 -years band. Runoff was highly sensitive to precipitation in the VRB and a 2-3 month time lag was found between drought indices and streamflow in the Volta River Basin. Results of this study may guide policymakers in planning how to minimize the negative impacts of future climate change that could have consequences on agriculture, water resources and energy supply. KW - Drought indices KW - Water management KW - Climate change KW - Streamfiow KW - Volta Basin Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2017.07.003 SN - 0921-8181 SN - 1872-6364 VL - 155 SP - 121 EP - 132 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Öztürk, Ugur A1 - Bozzolan, Elisa A1 - Holcombe, Elizabeth A. A1 - Shukla, Roopam A1 - Pianosi, Francesca A1 - Wagener, Thorsten T1 - How climate change and unplanned urban sprawl bring more landslides JF - Nature : the international weekly journal of science N2 - More settlements will suffer as heavy rains and unregulated construction destabilize slopes in the tropics, models show. KW - Geophysics KW - Engineering KW - Climate change KW - Policy Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02141-9 SN - 0028-0836 SN - 1476-4687 VL - 608 IS - 7922 SP - 262 EP - 265 PB - Nature portfolio CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Olonscheck, Mady A1 - Walther, Carsten A1 - Lüdeke, Matthias K. B. A1 - Kropp, Jürgen T1 - Feasibility of energy reduction targets under climate change: The case of the residential heating energy sector of the Netherlands JF - Energy N2 - In order to achieve meaningful climate protection targets at the global scale, each country is called to set national energy policies aimed at reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. By calculating the monthly heating energy demand of dwellings in the Netherlands, our case study country, we contrast the results with the corresponding aspired national targets. Considering different future population scenarios, renovation measures and temperature variations, we show that a near zero energy demand in 2050 could only be reached with very ambitious renovation measures. While the goal of reducing the energy demand of the building sector by 50% until 2030 compared to 1990 seems feasible for most provinces and months in the minimum scenario, it is impossible in our scenario with more pessimistic yet still realistic assumptions regarding future developments. Compared to the current value, the annual renovation rate per province would need to be at least doubled in order to reach the 2030 target independent of reasonable climatic and population changes in the future. Our findings also underline the importance of policy measures as the annual renovation rate is a key influencing factor regarding the reduction of the heating energy demand in dwellings. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Climate change KW - Heating energy demand KW - Reduction targets KW - Residential building stock KW - Renovation KW - The Netherlands Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.07.080 SN - 0360-5442 SN - 1873-6785 VL - 90 SP - 560 EP - 569 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vormoor, Klaus Josef A1 - Lawrence, Deborah A1 - Schlichting, Lena A1 - Wilson, Donna A1 - Wong, Wai Kwok T1 - Evidence for changes in the magnitude and frequency of observed rainfall vs. snowmelt driven floods in Norway JF - Journal of hydrology N2 - There is increasing evidence for recent changes in the intensity and frequency of heavy precipitation and in the number of days with snow cover in many parts of Norway. The question arises as to whether these changes are also discernable with respect to their impacts on the magnitude and frequency of flooding and on the processes producing high flows. In this study, we tested up to 211 catchments for trends in peak flow discharge series by applying the Mann-Kendall test and Poisson regression for three different time periods (1962-2012, 1972-2012, 1982-2012). Field-significance was tested using a bootstrap approach. Over threshold discharge events were classified into rainfall vs. snowmelt dominated floods, based on a simple water balance approach utilizing a nationwide 1 x 1 km(2) gridded data set with daily observed rainfall and simulated snowmelt data. Results suggest that trends in flood frequency are more pronounced than trends in flood magnitude and are more spatially consistent with observed changes in the hydrometeorological drivers. Increasing flood frequencies in southern and western Norway are mainly due to positive trends in the frequency of rainfall dominated events, while decreasing flood frequencies in northern Norway are mainly the result of negative trends in the frequency of snowmelt dominated floods. Negative trends in flood magnitude are found more often than positive trends, and the regional patterns of significant trends reflect differences in the flood generating processes (FGPs). The results illustrate the benefit of distinguishing FGPs rather than simply applying seasonal analyses. The results further suggest that rainfall has generally gained an increasing importance for the generation of floods in Norway, while the role of snowmelt has been decreasing and the timing of snowmelt dominated floods has become earlier. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Peak flow trends KW - Peak-over-threshold KW - Flood generating processes KW - Rainfall floods KW - Snowmelt floods KW - Climate change Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.03.066 SN - 0022-1694 SN - 1879-2707 VL - 538 SP - 33 EP - 48 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lawrence, Mark A1 - Schäfer, Stefan A1 - Muri, Helene A1 - Scott, Vivian A1 - Oschlies, Andreas A1 - Vaughan, Naomi E. A1 - Boucher, Olivier A1 - Schmidt, Hauke A1 - Haywood, Jim A1 - Scheffran, Jürgen T1 - Evaluating climate geoengineering proposals in the context of the Paris Agreement temperature goals JF - Nature Communications N2 - Current mitigation efforts and existing future commitments are inadequate to accomplish the Paris Agreement temperature goals. In light of this, research and debate are intensifying on the possibilities of additionally employing proposed climate geoengineering technologies, either through atmospheric carbon dioxide removal or farther-reaching interventions altering the Earth’s radiative energy budget. Although research indicates that several techniques may eventually have the physical potential to contribute to limiting climate change, all are in early stages of development, involve substantial uncertainties and risks, and raise ethical and governance dilemmas. Based on present knowledge, climate geoengineering techniques cannot be relied on to significantly contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement temperature goals. KW - Atmospheric chemistry KW - Atmospheric dynamics KW - Atmospheric science KW - Climate change KW - Environmental impact Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05938-3 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 9 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Buter, Anuschka A1 - Heckmann, Tobias A1 - Filisetti, Lorenzo A1 - Savi, Sara A1 - Mao, Luca A1 - Gems, Bernhard A1 - Comiti, Francesco T1 - Effects of catchment characteristics and hydro-meteorological scenarios on sediment connectivity in glacierised catchments JF - Geomorphology : an international journal on pure and applied geomorphology N2 - In the past decade, sediment connectivity has become a widely recognized characteristic of a geomorphic system. However, the quantification of functional connectivity (i.e. connectivity which arises due to the actual occurrence of sediment transport processes) and its variation over space and time is still a challenge. In this context, this study assesses the effects of expected future phenomena in the context of climate change (i.e. glacier retreat, permafrost degradation or meteorological extreme events) on sediment transport dynamics in a glacierised Alpine basin. The study area is the Sulden river basin (drainage area 130 km(2)) in the Italian Alps, which is composed of two geomorphologically diverse sub-basins. Based on graph theory, we evaluated the spatio-temporal variations in functional connectivity in these two sub-basins. The graph-object, obtained by manually mapping sediment transport processes between landforms, was adapted to 6 different hydro-meteorological scenarios, which derive from combining base, heatwave and rainstorm conditions with snowmelt and glacier-melt periods. For each scenario and each sub-basin, the sediment transport network and related catchment characteristics were analysed. To compare the effects of the scenarios on functional connectivity, we introduced a connectivity degree, calculated based on the area of the landforms involved in sediment cascades. Results indicate that the area of the basin connected to its outlet in terms of sediment transport might feature a six-fold increase in case of rainstorm conditions compared to "average " meteorological conditions assumed for the base scenario. Furthermore, markedly different effects of climate change on sediment connectivity are expected between the two sub-catchments due to their contrasting morphological and lithological characteristics, in terms of relative importance of rainfall triggered colluvial processes vs temperature-driven proglacial fluvial dynamics. KW - Functional connectivity KW - Graph theory KW - Climate change KW - Geomorphic systems Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2022.108128 SN - 0169-555X SN - 1872-695X VL - 402 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - THES A1 - Scherler, Dirk T1 - Climate variability and glacial dynamics in the Himalaya T1 - Klimavariabilität und Gletscherdynamik im Himalaya N2 - In den Hochgebirgen Asiens bedecken Gletscher eine Fläche von ungefähr 115,000 km² und ergeben damit, neben Grönland und der Antarktis, eine der größten Eisakkumulationen der Erde. Die Sensibilität der Gletscher gegenüber Klimaschwankungen macht sie zu wertvollen paläoklimatischen Archiven in Hochgebirgen, aber gleichzeitig auch anfällig gegenüber rezenter und zukünftiger globaler Erwärmung. Dies kann vor allem in dicht besiedelten Gebieten Süd-, Ost- und Zentralasiens zu großen Problem führen, in denen Gletscher- und Schnee-Schmelzwässer eine wichtige Ressource für Landwirtschaft und Stromerzeugung darstellen. Eine erfolgreiche Prognose des Gletscherverhaltens in Reaktion auf den Klimawandel und die Minderung der sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen erfordert fundierte Kenntnisse der klimatischen Steuerungsfaktoren und der Dynamik asiatischer Gletscher. Aufgrund ihrer Abgeschiedenheit und dem erschwerten Zugang gibt es nur wenige glaziologische Geländestudien, die zudem räumlich und zeitlich sehr begrenzt sind. Daher fehlen bisher grundlegende Informationen über die Mehrzahl asiatischer Gletscher. In dieser Arbeit benutze ich verschiedene Methoden, um die Dynamik asiatischer Gletscher auf mehreren Zeitskalen zu untersuchen. Erstens teste ich eine Methode zur präzisen satelliten-gestützten Messung von Gletscheroberflächen-Geschwindigkeiten. Darauf aufbauend habe ich eine umfassende regionale Erhebung der Fliessgeschwindigkeiten und Frontdynamik asiatischer Gletscher für die Jahre 2000 bis 2008 durchgeführt. Der gewonnene Datensatz erlaubt einmalige Einblicke in die topographischen und klimatischen Steuerungsfaktoren der Gletscherfließgeschwindigkeiten in den Gebirgsregionen Hochasiens. Insbesondere dokumentieren die Daten rezent ungleiches Verhalten der Gletscher im Karakorum und im Himalaja, welches ich auf die konkurrierenden klimatischen Einflüsse der Westwinddrift im Winter und des Indischen Monsuns im Sommer zurückführe. Zweitens untersuche ich, ob klimatisch bedingte Ost-West Unterschiede im Gletscherverhalten auch auf längeren Zeitskalen eine Rolle spielen und gegebenenfalls für dokumentierte regional asynchrone Gletschervorstöße relevant sind. Dazu habe ich mittels kosmogener Nuklide Oberflächenalter von erratischen Blöcken auf Moränen ermittelt und eine glaziale Chronologie für das obere Tons Tal, in den Quellgebieten des Ganges, erstellt. Dieses Gebiet befindet sich in der Übergangszone von monsunaler zu Westwind beeinflusster Feuchtigkeitszufuhr und ist damit ideal gelegen, um die Auswirkungen dieser beiden atmosphärischen Zirkulationssysteme auf Gletschervorstöße zu untersuchen. Die ermittelte glaziale Chronologie dokumentiert mehrere Gletscherschwankungen während des Endstadiums der letzten Pleistozänen Vereisung und während des Holzäns. Diese weisen darauf hin, dass Gletscherschwankungen im westlichen Himalaja weitestgehend synchron waren und auf graduelle glaziale-interglaziale Temperaturveränderungen, überlagert von monsunalen Niederschlagsschwankungen höherer Frequenz, zurück zu führen sind. In einem dritten Schritt kombiniere ich Satelliten-Klimadaten mit Eisfluss-Abschätzungen und topographischen Analysen, um den Einfluss der Gletscher Hochasiens auf die Reliefentwicklung im Hochgebirge zu untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse dokumentieren ausgeprägte meridionale Unterschiede im Grad und im Stil der Vergletscherung und glazialen Erosion in Abhängigkeit von topographischen und klimatischen Faktoren. Gegensätzlich zu bisherigen Annahmen deuten die Daten darauf hin, dass das monsunale Klima im zentralen Himalaja die glaziale Erosion schwächt und durch den Erhalt einer steilen orographischen Barriere das Tibet Plateau vor lateraler Zerschneidung bewahrt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit dokumentieren, wie klimatische und topographische Gradienten die Gletscherdynamik in den Hochgebirgen Asiens auf Zeitskalen von 10^0 bis 10^6 Jahren beeinflussen. Die Reaktionszeit der Gletscher auf Klimaveränderungen sind eng an Eigenschaften wie Schuttbedeckung und Neigung gekoppelt, welche ihrerseits von den topographischen Verhältnissen bedingt sind. Derartige Einflussfaktoren müssen bei paläoklimatischen Rekonstruktion und Vorhersagen über die Entwicklung asiatischer Gletscher berücksichtigt werden. Desweiteren gehen die regionalen topographischen Unterschiede der vergletscherten Gebiete Asiens teilweise auf klimatische Gradienten und den langfristigen Einfluss der Gletscher auf die topographische Entwicklung des Gebirgssystems zurück. N2 - In the high mountains of Asia, glaciers cover an area of approximately 115,000 km² and constitute one of the largest continental ice accumulations outside Greenland and Antarctica. Their sensitivity to climate change makes them valuable palaeoclimate archives, but also vulnerable to current and predicted Global Warming. This is a pressing problem as snow and glacial melt waters are important sources for agriculture and power supply of densely populated regions in south, east, and central Asia. Successful prediction of the glacial response to climate change in Asia and mitigation of the socioeconomic impacts requires profound knowledge of the climatic controls and the dynamics of Asian glaciers. However, due to their remoteness and difficult accessibility, ground-based studies are rare, as well as temporally and spatially limited. We therefore lack basic information on the vast majority of these glaciers. In this thesis, I employ different methods to assess the dynamics of Asian glaciers on multiple time scales. First, I tested a method for precise satellite-based measurement of glacier-surface velocities and conducted a comprehensive and regional survey of glacial flow and terminus dynamics of Asian glaciers between 2000 and 2008. This novel and unprecedented dataset provides unique insights into the contrasting topographic and climatic controls of glacial flow velocities across the Asian highlands. The data document disparate recent glacial behavior between the Karakoram and the Himalaya, which I attribute to the competing influence of the mid-latitude westerlies during winter and the Indian monsoon during summer. Second, I tested whether such climate-related longitudinal differences in glacial behavior also prevail on longer time scales, and potentially account for observed regionally asynchronous glacial advances. I used cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating of erratic boulders on moraines to obtain a glacial chronology for the upper Tons Valley, situated in the headwaters of the Ganges River. This area is located in the transition zone from monsoonal to westerly moisture supply and therefore ideal to examine the influence of these two atmospheric circulation regimes on glacial advances. The new glacial chronology documents multiple glacial oscillations during the last glacial termination and during the Holocene, suggesting largely synchronous glacial changes in the western Himalayan region that are related to gradual glacial-interglacial temperature oscillations with superimposed monsoonal precipitation changes of higher frequency. In a third step, I combine results from short-term satellite-based climate records and surface velocity-derived ice-flux estimates, with topographic analyses to deduce the erosional impact of glaciations on long-term landscape evolution in the Himalayan-Tibetan realm. The results provide evidence for the long-term effects of pronounced east-west differences in glaciation and glacial erosion, depending on climatic and topographic factors. Contrary to common belief the data suggest that monsoonal climate in the central Himalaya weakens glacial erosion at high elevations, helping to maintain a steep southern orographic barrier that protects the Tibetan Plateau from lateral destruction. The results of this thesis highlight how climatic and topographic gradients across the high mountains of Asia affect glacier dynamics on time scales ranging from 10^0 to 10^6 years. Glacial response times to climate changes are tightly linked to properties such as debris cover and surface slope, which are controlled by the topographic setting, and which need to be taken into account when reconstructing mountainous palaeoclimate from glacial histories or assessing the future evolution of Asian glaciers. Conversely, the regional topographic differences of glacial landscapes in Asia are partly controlled by climatic gradients and the long-term influence of glaciers on the topographic evolution of the orogenic system. KW - Gletscher KW - Himalaya KW - Klimawandel KW - Fernerkundung KW - Kosmogene Nuklide KW - Glaciers KW - Himalaya KW - Climate change KW - Remote sensing KW - Cosmogenic nuclides Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-49871 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hudson, Paul T1 - A comparison of definitions of affordability for flood risk adaption measures BT - a case study of current and future risk-based flood insurance premiums in Europe JF - Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change : an international journal devoted to scientific, engineering, socio-economic and policy responses to environmental change N2 - Risk-based insurance is a commonly proposed and discussed flood risk adaptation mechanism in policy debates across the world such as in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. However, both risk-based premiums and growing risk pose increasing difficulties for insurance to remain affordable. An empirical concept of affordability is required as the affordability of adaption strategies is an important concern for policymakers, yet such a concept is not often examined. Therefore, a robust metric with a commonly acceptable affordability threshold is required. A robust metric allows for a previously normative concept to be quantified in monetary terms, and in this way, the metric is rendered more suitable for integration into public policy debates. This paper investigates the degree to which risk-based flood insurance premiums are unaffordable in Europe. In addition, this paper compares the outcomes generated by three different definitions of unaffordability in order to investigate the most robust definition. In doing so, the residual income definition was found to be the least sensitive to changes in the threshold. While this paper focuses on Europe, the selected definition can be employed elsewhere in the world and across adaption measures in order to develop a common metric for indicating the potential unaffordability problem. KW - Flood risk KW - Insurance KW - Affordability KW - Climate change KW - Adaptation KW - Public policy Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-017-9769-5 SN - 1381-2386 SN - 1573-1596 VL - 23 IS - 7 SP - 1019 EP - 1038 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER -