Adam French

Technologies to Support Community Flood Disaster Risk Reduction

Abstract Floods affect more people globally than any other type of natural hazard. Great potential exists for new technologies to support flood disaster risk reduction. In addition to existing expert-based data collection and analysis, direct input from communities and citizens across the globe may also be used to monitor, validate, and reduce flood risk. New technologies have already been proven to effectively aid in humanitarian response and recovery. However, while ex-ante technologies are increasingly utilized to collect information on exposure, efforts directed towards assessing and monitoring hazards and vulnerability remain limited. Hazard model validation and social vulnerability assessment deserve particular attention. New technologies offer great potential for engaging people and facilitating the coproduction of knowledge.

Adapting to Uncertain Futures

Throughout the tropics, glaciers are receding at a rapid pace and during the latter half of the 20th century a number of tropical glaciers vanished completely due to melting. As harbingers of a warming planet, the recession rates of tropical glaciers will likely continue to increase in the near future according to leading scientific research that indicates global greenhouse emissions are growing faster than even the worstcase scenarios considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Raupach et al 2007) and that abrupt and irreversible impacts from climate change may occur over shorter time scales than previously predicted (IPCC 2007). As the recession rates of tropical glaciers have increased, discharges from glacier-fed streams have also been increasing. However, once glacial replenishments disappear, streams and rivers throughout the tropics will have smaller dry season flows and will exhibit increasing hydrologic variability (Mark and Seltzer 2003). Since glacier-fed discharges currently provide a continual supply of meltwater that serves as a buffer during the tropical dry season and drought years, accelerating glacial recession and its impacts on the hydrologic regime are predicted to lead to significantly diminished water supplies during these periods with potentially grave consequences for the people of the region (Bradley et al 2006).

Precision Agriculture and Food Security in Africa

Background and Significance of the topic: The chapter gives an overview of precision agriculture and its impacts on food security in Africa. Methodology: Methods and concepts of precision agriculture are described including crop, soil and position sensors; which include global positioning and remote sensing applications in detection of crop stress, monitoring variability, soils, weeds, and diseases. Machine controls and computer based systems are also briefly described. Application/Relevance to systems analysis: There are a number of operations that can benefit from precision agriculture at field level, including soil preparation, fertilisation, irrigation and weed management. In Africa, the benefits of precision agriculture include improved food security through increases in water and nutrient use efficiency, and timely management of activities such as weed control. Precision agriculture has saved costs of inputs in both commercial and smallholder farming in Africa. Pollution control of ground and surface water sources has slowed down where fertiliser and agrochemical applications are now more efficient. Policy and/or practice implications: Two examples of precision agriculture application in Africa are presented; FruitLook which is used by farmers in the Western Cape in South Africa as a state-of the art information technology that helps deciduous fruit and grape farmers to be water efficient and climate-smart. The Chameleon and Wetting Front Detector Sensors have enabled small scale farmers in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe to cut down irrigation frequency fifty times and double productivity. Discussion and conclusion: It is clear that precision agriculture has played a major role in improving food security in Africa through the efficient use of inputs such as fertiliser and water, while also reducing environmental pollution and degradation.

Trace-metal contamination in the glacierized Rio Santa watershed, Peru

The objective of this research is to characterize the variability of trace metals in the Rio Santa watershed based on synoptic sampling applied at a large scale. To that end, we propose a combination of methods based on the collection of water, suspended sediments, and riverbed sediments at different points of the watershed within a very limited period. Forty points within the Rio Santa watershed were sampled between June 21 and July 8, 2013. Forty water samples, 36 suspended sediments, and 34 riverbed sediments were analyzed for seven trace metals. The results, which were normalized using the USEPA guideline for water and sediments, show that the Rio Santa water exhibits Mn concentrations higher than the guideline at more than 50% of the sampling points. As is the second highest contaminating element in the water, with approximately 10% of the samples containing concentrations above the guideline. Sediments collected in the Rio Santa riverbed were heavily contaminated by at least four of the tested elements at nearly 85% of the sample points, with As presenting the highest normalized concentration, at more than ten times the guideline. As, Cd, Fe, Pb, and Zn present similar concentration trends in the sediment all along the Rio Santa.The findings indicate that care should be taken in using the Rio Santa water and sediments for purposes that could affect the health of humans or the ecosystem. The situation is worse in some tributaries in the southern part of the watershed that host both active and abandoned mines and ore-processing plants.