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Yemen is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. The water deficit has been aggravated by the rapidly increasing demands for both surface and groundwater resources that are being unsustainably exploited. To address the country’s severe water scarcity, the government has adopted long-term intervention policies as stated in ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’. These policies are aimed at restoring the balance between water demand and availability, and at reducing the existing water deficit. Although 11 years have passed since this vision was adopted, the water deficit is still on the rise. The present situation raises questions about the efficiency of the intervention policies adopted by ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’ and about the effectiveness of implementing these policies. Another fundamental question pertains to the availability of a strategic assessment tool in the water resources sector that can be used to assess strategically future and current policies, strategies and plans, in order to ensure their efficiency in supporting water resources and in producing the positive impacts for which these strategic initiatives were developed in the first place. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an assessment tool designed to function at a strategic level and help to bring aspects of environmental sustainability into the decisionmaking process. This research aims to demonstrate the potential of SEA in enhancing environmental sustainability in water policies for achieving sustainability of water resources in Yemen. In order to show the potential of SEA in the Yemeni water resources sector, this research has applied SEA methodologies and adopted a scenario-building approach for assessing the intervention policies adopted by ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’ to support augmentation of water resources. Qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used in this research. Quantitative historical data on water availability, water demand and water savings by interventions have been collected from the databases of national institutions and international organizations concerned. Statistical analyses have been used to project future trends until 2025. Qualitative analyses of relevant studies and reports covering the environmental, administrative, sociocultural and political-economic aspects of water resources management in Yemen have been implemented as well. In addition, 13 semi-structured key informant interviews have been conducted with decision-makers, managers and leading experts in the water and irrigation sectors. The research produced three future scenarios for the total water balance that may play out until 2025 in Yemen. These scenarios provide impact assessment and alternatives’ comparison of the existing intervention policies. The resulting scenarios are as follows: the ‘Business as Usual’ scenario, which forms an assessment of currently applied interventions and provides an image for the future, if current interventions are maintained at the same pace; the ‘Do-nothing’ scenario representing the situation if no interventions are implemented; and the ‘Sustainability’ scenario, which represents the potential future of the total water balance if existing interventions are to be scaled up and out. The findings confirm the significant potential of currently adopted intervention policies to support water resources. They also reveal that the current level of implementing the intervention policies has hindered the potential of these intervention policies in achieving the expected positive impact on the water balance by 2025. In order to achieve a significant decrease in the water deficit, the strategic quantitative targets that need to be implemented were identified. The methodology followed in implementing the research and achieving the findings demonstrates the potential of SEA in enhancing environmental sustainability in water policies for achieving integrated and sustainable water resources management in Yemen. The recommendations of the research covered improving the existing water balance as well as improving the assessment and planning context in the water resources sector. In order to improve the water balance situation, the research recommends implementing quantitative targets for water savings and augmentations, such as those developed by this research. These targets have been identified based on the capacities of sectors implementing these interventions. The research also recommends further decentralization of planning and management of water resources and the establishment of Water User Associations (WUAs) as the main vehicles for ensuring sustainable planning and management of water resources, including the scale out of interventions, subject to assessment in this research. In order to improve assessment and planning of water resources, the research recommends the adoption of SEA, the updating of water resources data and conducting regular assessments of policies, plans and programmes as part of monitoring their impact and providing a chance for amending these policies and strategies, if required, to achieve sustainability of water resources.
Urban morphology is used in many developed countries to classify and manage the dis-tribution of urban functions. In urban planning, it helps to identify the emerging prob-lems and solve the disorder of urban functions. The megacity Ho Chi Minh City has faced many problems with uncontrollable urbanization, urban management and plan-ning. It has received increasing tropical storms and cyclones which caused more heavy rains in recent decades. Rapid urbanization has caused the increase of built-up coverage with disordered typologies, incomplete infrastructure and urban-peripheral instability. In the flooding context, these problems have increased more seriously with flooding impacts and caused uncontrollable planning and management in the city. This study applies the urban morphology method to measure flood impacts on urban functions and develop the adaptive solutions for flooding adaptation for Ho Chi Minh City. The methods in this study are based on applying fractal geometry, GIS and Remote Sensing on large-scale maps for measuring the urban morphology. The land-use map and the building footprints map of 2010 were founded to analyze the distribution of urban areas by high resolution of satellite images and large scale GIS data. The fractal geometry was a setting based on Avenue program of Arcview GIS to measure the urban morphology. This formed a key input for the multi-criteria analysis (MCA) method that investigated the cause of flood impacts and suggested the solution for flooding adapta-tion. In addition, alterations of lakes, ponds and watercourse from 1995 to 2009 were explored. The study showed HCMC had problems on irrational development in residential densi-ties areas and urban functions, and the uneven development of population and residen-tial density between the urban areas: too much in the urban districts (about 300 to 500 persons per hectare per block and coverage ratio 0.7 - 0.9). This pushed the increasing demand on built-up area and filled-up rivers and canals (About 80 percent of original ponds and lakes in inner-center were filled-up in the past; and 63 percent of ponds and lakes have been filled-up in Sub-Districts and new-urban-development areas). It made the imbalance between the permeability of land surface and the run-off water flows; then leads the inundation to increase. This is the main reason for reducing the water-storage capacity in rainy season. Flooding in urban residential area was more im-pacted than in rural residential area, higher level and longer flood time; while flooding in the rainy season due to high tides, heavy rains or both was the emerging and uncon-trollable problems. For flooding adaptation, urban morphology analysis helped to figure out the potential areas in the city could be used for reducing flooding impacts in urban areas. There are many low-density residential areas in above 1.5 meter AMSL areas in the North, Northwest and Northeast areas of the city which could be developed with complete infrastructure and urban services to attract people from high-density residential areas impacted deeply by floods in the center. These potential areas could be the long-term strategic solution to flooding adaptation for HCMC. The results also suggested that some current flooded areas would be re-planned or returned to be the water-storage and permeable areas (such as green parks, ponds and lakes). This re-planning would improve the city landscape and increase the permeable surface, green spaces and open spaces to HCMC. More green spaces, lakes and ponds will also help to reduce the temperature of urban center in the dry season. This adaptation solution would reduce at least 25 percent of current flooded areas in urban center. The protection and constructed restriction of current agricultural areas in peri-urban Districts would maintain the infil-tration and green-tree areas. Furthermore, the complete drainage system would help to reduce better flood for these areas. Finally, fully dredging river and canal system of the city would reduce about 25 to 30 percent of current flooded areas.
Historically as a city situated in a low-lying area a Ho Chi Minh City has been exposed to floods. Ho Chi Minh City is a megacity with uncontrollable urbanization and dynam-ic economies. In recent years, flood has become a serious problem with a multitude of follow-on impacts. It received more heavy rains affected by tropical storms and cy-clones. Further urbanization and future changes in climate are likely to increase flood risks. People have faced the flood impacts on the socioeconomic aspects in recent dec-ades. This study researched on 450 households in different spaces of the inner center (old districts), developed center (urban districts) and new-developing areas (peri-districts) and in different geographical elevations to identify the impacts of flooding in various space and time; and various problems on households’ socioeconomic aspects in flood residential areas. The multi-criteria analyses in GIS and with of the combination SPSS analysis, the sur-veyed households were identified by their location on the topographic map to clarify the flooding reasons and the types of flood in the areas. The 450 households were chosen in flood residential areas and selected in three categories of characteristics: (1) 150 poor households in flood housing areas; (2) 150 poor households in non-flood housing areas; and (3) 150 higher-income households in non-flood housing areas. This disparity was to analyze the different flood impacts on socioeconomic aspects and on household capitals amongst them. The linear regression in SPSS analysis was used to clarify the relation-ships between flood types with space factor (geographical elevation) and time factors (flood months in year, and flood years in residential areas). This test gave the supports to the reliability of the study results. By geographical elevation analysis, flood impacted on the areas in three main types: (1) flood by rain; (2) flood by tide; and (3) flood by both rain and tide. The tidal flood oc-cupied the low-elevation areas; flood by rain invaded the widespread higher-elevation areas; and the mix type of flood occupied the transition areas between flood areas by rain and by tide. Lower land had the deeper flood level, however; many of high-land areas were flooded in this city. Flood in residential areas had caused flood problems on streets, sidewalks (housing pavements), residential drainage system, water supply and electric power. In the poor households of Group One, flood in residential areas impacted their housing areas. To protect housing from flooding, many households had to invest their income for house rising or rebuilding or pavement rising, etc. They also privately invested for repairing or new buying their housing facilities, furniture and other appli-ances. Their income was lost and deficit. To the household capitals analysis, households were impacted more on physical, financial, natural and human capitals. The poor households in Group One had the most vulnerabilities amongst three groups, whilst there was no support from social organizations and government at levels. The household strategies developed in this study are to support people in flood and flood-prone areas conserving their capabilities to achieve the strategic outcome for sustainable develop-ment.
Improvement of flood risk assessment under climate change in Ho Chi Minh City with GIS applications
(2014)
Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in VN. The city is the most important center of economy, society and culture in the southern region of Vietnam. However, due to characteristics of natural conditions with low topography and borders touch the sea so that since the late 20th century with the rapid economic and urban development there are environmental problems have arisen. One of the problems is flooding issue caused by high tide. With these natural conditions and sea level rise of climate change in the future, Ho Chi Minh City is considered as one of the most affected and damaged cities in the world.
Therefore, many policies have been set out from the national to local levels in Vietnam to prepare for adaptability of impacts and risks of the sea level rise and the climate change. And this has also been considered in Ho Chi Minh City as the development policies of the city authorities have to consider in the context of the sea level rise and the climate change. A number of researches have been conducted to assess the impact of climate change to Ho Chi Minh City in the future. However, these researches are still need to be enhanced further.
The flooding problem is a major issue of the sea level rise in Ho Chi Minh City. And to make a good result, the flood model needs a lot of requirements that ensure fine quality of input data, suitable model and a relied procedure. In the available research, the input data is not really the highest quality in the available context in Ho Chi Minh City. As the flood model is implemented, one of the input data requirements of the model is information detail of elevation in the flooded area. And this is more necessary than in geophysical urban areas such as Ho Chi Minh City. And to assess fully flood risk issues for flooding caused by tidal phenomenon in Ho Chi Minh City, the determination of many characteristics of flood model is very useful for users who need to apply the results of the model for the planning development in Ho Chi Minh City in the future. Besides adopting a uniform environment as GIS for managing all the data of flooding problem and making conditions for the development of decision support systems is very necessary for flood management in the future.
The research has been carried out and its results have been generated on the flood risk assessment associated context of the sea level rise due to climate change with high emissions scenario A1FI in 2030 for the current houses, the population and the land use types. The results have shown a lot of the areas where are inundated in the future with the increasing flooding duration, depth and frequency even though they are not flooded at the current because there are some protective structures. This will be helpful for suggesting a forecast of the development direction to decision makers in Ho Chi Minh City for next time period.
And the last part is the proposal for decision and policy makers, authorities and planners as well. Moreover, the results of this research can be used as the references and the foundations for further researches and so that the problems that Ho Chi Minh City may be encountered due to flood risk caused by climate change to the economic and social aspects of the development in Ho Chi Minh City will encounter. And the problem of adaptation to climate change will be more completed and more thoroughly so that it is to minimize the damage of climate change for the city.
Owing to its unique strategic position on the northern coast of the Black Sea, Crimea has, since Antiquity, been a highly diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-religious location. Throughout history, the peninsula’s landscapes were shaped and transformed under the influence of its ever-changing populations. In this process, religion played a crucial role. Nowadays, Crimea abounds in sacred sites in the same way as it abounds in culturally and religiously diverse inhabitants.
Rebirth in the 1990s of the religious and cultural life that had been repressed for over seventy years of the Soviet rule gave a powerful impetus to the revival of Crimea’s sacred landscapes and enabled the different ethno-religious groups residing in the peninsula to re-establish the bond with the home of their ancestors. The notion of landscape as a memoryscape became central in this context, since it is the landscape that records, as well as reflects, the events in history. The sites communally regarded as sacred unite the people as much as common memories transmitted from one generation to the other do.
The objectives of the theoretical part of this thesis are twofold. On the one hand, it aims to grasp the connection between religion, landscape and memory, whereby sacred sites are seen as landscapes of memory and anchors of people’s cultural and religious identity. On the other hand, it seeks to explore the specific issues pertinent to the Crimean socio-cultural context, such as the peninsula’s history and the evolving ethno-religious relationships among the diverse local population, which have impacted the development and protection of Crimea’s sacred sites overtime. Method employed is the comparative literature review, whereby for each chapter a selection of authors was made, whose contributions towards the discussion of the aforementioned issues have been particularly relevant.
Based on the theoretical background described above, the empirical section of the research targets two main groups of actors: the state on the one side, and the organizations representing local religious groups on the other. In relation to the state, the objective is to explore how the religious revival of the post-Soviet period correlates with Ukraine’s current policies towards the safeguarding of Crimea’s sacred landscapes, namely, to what extent they are being protected under the existing legislation, and which of the aspects are given most attention in the process. In relation to the organizations representing local religious groups, the task is to investigate to what degree the sacred sites under study remain relevant for various groups, and to establish how the knowledge about the local sacred places and their importance is being disseminated both within these groups and beyond.
In order to fulfill these tasks, the set of indicators has been developed, which takes into consideration the specific Crimean socio-cultural context, and a selection of case studies has been made, which in their totality reflect the viewpoints of Crimea’s prominent religious groups. The case studies are: (1) the Assumption Monastery, (2) the cave town of Chufut Kale with Balta Tiymez Karaite cemetery, and (3) the old town of Bakhchisaray with Salachiq historic district and Gazy Mansur cemetery. All of the three case studies are located on the territory of Bakhchisaray Historical and Cultural Preserve (BHCP).
The evaluation of the Ukrainian state’s policies with regards to safeguarding of the selected sacred sites revealed that while many of their elements are recognized as cultural heritage of high significance, protection activities are impeded by substantial obstacles of administrative nature, as well as by the lack general planning. Moreover, conservation and day-to-day management is carried out with little consideration for the opinions of the local people and with the insufficient involvement of the latter.
The indicator-based assessment of relevance of the selected sacred locations for various local religious groups and the ways, in which the knowledge about these sites is being spread exposed a number of clear tendencies, as well as highlighted the existing challenges and deficiencies which need to be urgently addressed, so as to ensure the safeguarding of the studied sites for the future generations.
Cameroon’s forest is one of the richest ecosystems in the Congo Basin and in Africa as a whole in terms of its biodiversity. These forest types are currently subjected to multiple categories of threats. By enacting a new forestry law in 1994, the government of Cameroon intended to intensify efforts toward the protection and conservation of this rich biodiversity. This study aimed to compare two forest management systems, a state management system (the case of Takamanda National Park) and a community-based management system (the case of Bimbia- Bonadikombo Community Forest), to determine which management system better conserves and protects the forest against biodiversity loss. The study applied a methodological framework that made use of selected indicators and criteria to evaluate the extent of sustainability of the two forest management systems and challenges faced in implementing them. Both quantitative and qualitative results were realized through the administration of questionnaires, semi-structure interview and in-depth contents analysis of Law No.94-1 of 20th January 1994 that lays down forestry, wildlife and fisheries regulations and the 1996 Environmental Management Law that directs Cameroon’s compliance to the international standard of protecting the environment.Results indicated that community-based system of forest management is a much more sustainable approach of forest management than a state management system. Based on the criterion of cultural values attributed to natural resources in the community-based management zone (Bimbia- Bonadikombo Community Forest), 78.2% of the local communities were more willing to protect biodiversity as opposed to 48.3% from state management zone (Takamanda National Park). This study found that the level of participation in the community-based management system was much more inclusive and transparent. On the other hand, in the state management system, a high level of corruption, lack of transparency, delayed and irregular salaries of forest guards and minimal participation of local communities in forest management decision-making was noted and likely responsible for the ineffectiveness and unsustainable management efforts in this system. The study recommends the adoption and implementation of a more inclusive, transparent and accountable management in the state managed system (Takamada national park), particularly the full involvement of respected Elites, Chiefs and Traditional Councils.
Urban adaptation is a critical issue for many of the developing countries of Southeast Asia. Vietnam is likely to be among the countries most adversely affected by climate change. Moreover, its largest city, Ho Chi Minh City is considered worldwide as one of most vulnerable to a multitude of climate-related hazards, including flooding, sea-level rise and extreme heat events. Similar to other rapidly developing megacities in Southeast Asia, Ho Chi Minh City has undergone enormous changes in recent decades and has rapidly developed into an emerging megacity shaped by global processes and local settlement patterns. Recently, the need to adapt to the multiple stressors of rapid urbanisation and climate change has become increasingly evident. Adaptation to climate change in urban areas depends on decision-makers’ understanding of the current and future impacts of climate change. Land-use planning as a place-based and problem-solving strategy has been recognised as a key tool in this respect, to mainstream climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into urban development. Yet a key challenge is a lack of relevant information on exposed populations and assets at risk to planners and policymakers. The dissertation outlines the development of an integrated framework predominantly based on an urban structure type approach. This approach was used to manually interpret high resolution, remotely sensed imagery in order to portray and understand patterns of settlement and urban structure layout of the current and emerging landscapes of Ho Chi Minh City. The approach is able to capture the highly dynamic spatiotemporal, social and structural changes associated with rapid urbanisation. The overall findings show the applicability of the developed framework to produce important input indicators for risk adapted land-use planning. These are ultimately useful to determine hotspots for administrative interventions and to assist prioritising in spatial and urban planning decision-making.
Despite the continuous effects of natural hazards on cultural heritage and growing body of research on disaster risk assessment, cultural heritage still suffers from the lack of integrated risk assessment methodologies. Within the context of natural hazards, earthquakes need to be differently considered mainly due to the sudden massive destruction without warning and the unpredictability of the exact occurrence time and place. So far, limited sources have been adequately dedicated to developing risk assessment methodologies for cultural heritage. The challenge is to integrate the principles and methods of risk assessment in heritage conservation on one side, and to incorporate particular characteristics of cultural heritage and World Cultural Heritage properties (e.g. the Outstanding Universal Values and associated conditions of authenticity and integrity) into the risk assessment procedure, on the other.
There are numerous cultural properties that have been extremely affected by seismic events, such as the historic city of Bam in Iran. The World Heritage site of ‘Bam and its Cultural Landscape’, as a unique example of a traditional human settlement, is investigated in this research. Because Bam and its Cultural Landscape is located in a high-probability earthquake region and appeared to be highly vulnerable to seismic events, an integrated risk assessment for the property needs to be developed in response to potential earthquakes.
Recognising the challenge, a Cultural Heritage Risk Index for Bam is performed to measure the level of risk by aggregating the risk components, which are ‘hazard’ (earthquakes), ‘exposure’ (significance of the site elements), and ‘vulnerability’ (susceptibility and coping capacity). According to the risk index, an earthquake risk map is generated by applying Geographic Information System (GIS) to demonstrate a common understanding of the level of potential impacts on the property. Furthermore, a multiple impact identification matrix supports determining the potential impacts of an earthquake as well as its related secondary hazards and human-induced threats that need to be addressed in a risk preparedness plan.
The findings of the research emphasis that in addition to the hazard itself, diverse factors associated with the heritage significance, structural susceptibility, and institutional capacity highly influence the level of risk. The outputs of the risk assessment allows determining site-specific risk reduction strategies, particularly seismic susceptibility reduction and coping capacity building. This provides specialists and practitioners from multiple sectors engaged in the protection of (World) cultural heritage with a practical tool to facilitate risk communication and appropriate risk management planning.
Sub-Saharan African cultural landscapes are adversely impacted by various development pressures, which calls for a holistic and integrated approach in their management. Mining development has been ranked highly by UNESCO World Heritage Centre, as one of the most common factors threatening the conservation and management of World Heritage properties around the world. For instance, out of 141 World Heritage properties which submitted their state of conservation reports in 2015, 18% were affected by mining activities. Out of these, 84% of the properties that were threatened by mining development were either cultural landscapes, natural properties and or mixed properties. African World Heritage cultural landscapes are the ones highly affected and threatened by planned and on-going mining and exploration activities.
Therefore, research was carried out using the Mulanje Mountain Cultural Landscape of Malawi and Mapungubwe Cultural landscape of South Africa. Specifically, the study aimed at examining the existing cultural landscape management theories and concepts in order to understand the key elements to be integrated into the suggested strategic management planning methodological framework. It also aimed at evaluating the impact of mining development on the conservation and management of African cultural landscapes. The study also investigated the stakeholder’s views and perception about the impact of mining activities on cultural and natural heritage values of the landscapes.
To achieve the research objectives, the literature was reviewed, firstly to determine the dimensions of cultural landscapes, and secondly, to determine the dimensions of mining development in World Heritage cultural landscapes. The study used two case studies as an effective comparative research strategy in the investigation of the conflicting issues of mining development against the conservation of the attributes of the two cultural landscapes. A case study research strategy was combined with other research methodologies. These included interviews, focus-group-discussions, observations, field site surveys, qualitative content analysis, and thematic analysis.
The study has revealed that stakeholder participation and inclusion is a key element in the integration of mining development in cultural landscape planning. This research has contributed to the methodological gap in cultural landscape management planning by developing and applying an integrated strategic management planning methodological framework. The application of this framework has shown that the governance in place for Mulanje Mountain cultural landscape conformed to the requirements of a long-term and holistic planning process and the participation and empowerment of multiple stakeholders in that process.
In most studies on flood risk in Nigeria, priority is given to urban flood risk than rural flood risk. Smallholder farmers who mostly inhabit rural areas and flood plains are known to be at great risk of flooding, but to date, there have been no studies on the impacts they experience and how they cope with these impacts.
To establish the existence of significant change in precipitation in the study area, statistical analysis of precipitation data was conducted using linear regression and non-parametric Mann Kendall test. Landsat satellite images for 1986, 2003 and 2016 were obtained from the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) website and used to collect and analyze data related to land use.
To determine flood risk in the context of land use change, the HEC-HMS model version 3.5 was used. Land use maps corresponding to 1986, 2003, and 2016 LULC conditions were analysed and prepared for the calculation of CN values using Soil Conservation Service (SCS-CN) method. CN map was prepared by integrating the maps of hydrologic soil groups and land use in ArcGIS software.
Based on selected morphological parameters, a flood risk map was developed for the study area. The morphologic flood risk showed that most parts of the basin face moderate flood risk. Higher runoff values were observed under 2016 LULC conditions mainly due to intense deforestation relative to those of 1986 and 2003. The results indicated that runoff and peak discharge are significantly affected by deforestation instead of changes in the rainfall pattern. Flood inundation maps of the study area were prepared for the flood events of 2012 and 2015. Maximum depth for the 2012 and 2015 flood events was calculated as 10.58m and 7.39m, respectively.
The socioeconomic aspects of the research were conducted using household survey method. Using snowball sampling techniques, 400 flood-affected households were selected. The results show that the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers in the study area remains very low and hampered by several factors such as poverty and weakened social networks. The synopsis of the examined variables leads to the following conclusion: Instead of climatic factors – as one indicator of vulnerability – it is social inequality and poverty in the region as well as the structural economic differences between various groups that mainly drives vulnerability in the study area.