Colin Polsky

Adaptation to climate variability and change in the US Great Plains:: A multi-scale analysis of Ricardian climate sensitivities

Abstract The Ricardian approach to estimating climate change impacts is an important technique for incorporating how adaptations modulate the overall effect. Past Ricardian work expresses climate sensitivities in terms of local effects only, ignoring the influence on adaptation of broader-scale social, environmental and economic factors. This paper extends the Ricardian approach to account for influences at multiple spatial scales. Results from multi-level modeling support the hypothesis that a county’s Ricardian climate sensitivity is influenced not only by its climate but also by social factors associated with the climate of the agro-climatic zone in which it is located. The model estimates a non-linear, hill-shaped relationship between July maximum temperatures and agricultural land values, with initial increases beneficial in all counties but more beneficial in districts of high interannual temperature variability. Farmers and institutions in districts of high variability have therefore adapted to be more resilient to variability than farmers in areas of comparatively stable climate. However, the underlying reasons for this lessened vulnerability are unclear and may be associated with unsustainable land-use practices. Future research should investigate the precise form of these local and extra-local adaptations to determine if implementing the adaptations elsewhere would compromise agricultural system sustainability.

Changing places, changing emissions: the cross-scale reliability of greenhouse gas emission inventories in the US

Abstract Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories, which currently inform abatement policy discussions, are developed mostly from national scale data. Nevertheless, although the policy debate tends to take place in global and national arenas, action to abate GHG emissions is inherently within the provenance of local institutions and communities. The purpose of this paper is to examine how much information is lost by not estimating GHG emissions data at scales finer than the whole US. Such information may be critical in bridging global and local policy. Differences in the composition of GHG emission sources based on GHG emission inventories at three nested spatial scales (national, state, local) for four study sites (in Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania) are analysed, drawing upon initial results of a large collaborative study known as the ‘Association of American Geographers‐Global Change in Local Places (GCLP)’ project. The concept of spatial sovereignty of emissions is developed to test the...

Sustainable communities on a sustainable planet : the human-environment regional observatory project

1. Infrastructure for observing local human-environment interactions Brent Yarnal, John Harrington, Jr., Andrew C. Comrie, Colin Polsky, and Ola Ahlqvist 2. Theory: computing with knowledge to represent and share understanding Mark Gahegan, William A. Pike, and Junyan Luo 3. Infrastructure for collaboration Bill Pike, Alan MacEachren, and Brent Yarnal 4. Representing and reasoning with conceptual understanding Ola Ahlqvist and Chaoqing Yu 5. Establishing vulnerability observatory networks to coordinate the collection and analysis of comparable data Colin Polsky, Rob Neff, and Brent Yarnal 6. Comparative assessment of human-environment landscape change John Harrington, Jr., Brent Yarnal, Diana Liverman, Billie Lee Turner II and Brandi Nagle 7. Landsat mapping of local landscape change: the satellite-era context Rachel M. Kurtz, Robert Gilmore Pontius, Jr., John Harrington, Jr., and Cynthia L. Sorrensen 8. Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts Colin Polsky, Cynthia Sorrensen, Jessica Whitehead, and Rob Neff 9. Rapid vulnerability assessments of exposures, sensitivities, and adaptive capacities of the HERO study sites Colin Polsky, Andrew Comrie, Jessica Whitehead, Cynthia Sorrensen, Lisa M. Butler Harrington, Max Lu, Rob Neff, and Brent Yarnal 10. Evaluating vulnerability assessments of the HERO study sites Colin Polsky, Cynthia Sorrensen, Jessica Whitehead, Lisa M. Butler Harrington, Max Lu, Rob Neff, and Brent Yarnal 11. The mounting risk of drought in a humid landscape: structure and agency in suburbanizing Massachusetts Colin Polsky, Sarah Assefa, Kate Del Vecchio, Troy Hill, Laura Merner, Isaac Tercero, and Gil Pontius 12. A diverse human-environment system: traditional agriculture, industrial agriculture, and service economy in central Pennsylvania Brent Yarnal 13. Fossil water and agriculture in southwestern Kansas Lisa M. Butler Harrington, Max Lu, and John A. Harrington, Jr. 14. Urbanization and hydroclimatic challenges in the Sonoran Desert border region Cynthia L. Sorrensen and Andrew C. Comrie 15. Lessons learned from the HERO project Brent Yarnal, John Harrington, Jr., Andrew C. Comrie, Colin Polsky, Ola Ahlqvist, and the HERO Team References Index.