Full Description
Global climatic change will most likely affect natural resources and human living conditions in semiarid regions. This volume presents disciplinary as well as integrative methods to assess these impacts considering the interactions between climate variability and change, water availability, land-use systems, and quality of life. Taking the semiarid northeastern area of Brazil as an example, a wide range of expertise and knowledge (from integrated water analyses to transregional migration) is necessary to understand the complex relationship between natural and socio-economic systems. Tools to integrate this knowledge and make it available for the strategic planning of sustainable development are described. This book is a summary of the main research results and the presentations given at the final conference of the WAVES Program on June 25-26 2001 in Fortaleza (Brazil).
From the reviews:
"This book focuses on results from a joint German-Brazilian program (Water Availability and Vulnerability of Ecosystems and Society, or WAVES) to assess the socioeconomic impacts that global change will have on northeast Brazil. This book, divided into eight parts, describes the many factors that should be included in developing scenarios for future planning purposes. The book provides useful information concerning the complex multidisciplinary task of developing scenarios that can aid decision makers in formulating plans for sustainable development in an area that is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. For someone who is unfamiliar with the semiarid northeast Brazil region, the book provides considerable useful background information." (Vernon E. Kousky, BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEORLOGICAL SOCIETY, December 2004)
Contents
General View of the WAVES Program.- 1: Integrative Methods and Results.- Integrated Scenarios of Regional Development in Ceará and Piauí.- Integrated Modeling of Climate Change Impacts in Northeastern Brazil.- The GIS-Based Model for Sustainable Development of Land Use (MOSDEL).- 2: Natural and Socio-Economic Conditions in the States of Piauí and Ceani.- The Climate of Piauí and Ceani.- Water Resources of Ceani and Piauí.- Physical and Environmental Context in the State of Ceani.- Survey of the Vegetation in the State of Ceani.- Survey of the Vegetation in the State of Piauí.- Degradation Factors in a Risk-Prone Area: the Semiarid Northeast of Brazil.- 3: Climate Scenarios and Climate Modeling.- Climate Analysis and Scenarios for Northeast Brazil.- Dynamic Regional Climate Modeling and Sensitivity Experiments for the Northeast of Brazil.- 4: Water Availability, Water Management and Water Use.- Investigations on Water Management and Water Quality in Picos/PI and Tauá/CE.- Water Quality in the Guaribas River Basin for Irrigation Use.- Groundwater as Indicator for Paleoclimatic Change in the Northeast of Brazil.- Sedimentation of Reservoirs in Semiarid Brazil.- Large-Scale Hydrological Modeling of a Semiarid Environment: Model Development, Validation and Application.- Reservoir Yield Vulnerability Under Global Change.- Modeling of Present and Future Water Use in Piauí and Ceani as a Basis for Water Resources Planning.- Assessment of Water Costs in Semiarid Brazil.- 5: Agricultural Productivity and Soils.- An Information System for Land Resources in Piauí and Ceará.- Effectiveness of Fertilization and Other Agricultural Management Options in Picos and Tauá, NE Brazil.- Seepage and Groundwater Recharge in Sandy/Loamy Chapada Soils of the Picos Region, Piauí.- 6: Vegetation and Landscape Ecology.- Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in the Municipality of Tauá-Ceará.- Cerrado and Caatinga in the Picos Area.- Climate and Desertification in the Picos Region.- 7: Economic and Socio-Cultural Analyses.- Quality of Life and Migration — Concepts and Results of the Socio-economic Survey in Tauá and Picos.- Economic Analysis of Different Farming Systems on the Individual Farm Level in the Northeast of Brazil.- Structure and Possible Development of the Agricultural Sector of Ceará and Piauí.- Groundwater Supply Conditions and Willingness To Pay for Desalinated Water in Tauá (Brazil).- 8: Supporting Mathematical Tools.- Visualization and 3-D Analysis of Sedimentation in Water Reservoirs.- Effectiveness of Parallelization of Solution and Optimization Algorithms Applied to Large-Scale Linear Problems for the WAVES Project.- Authors and Affiliations.
