| 1. |
- Bhowmik, Avit K., et al.
(author)
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Powers of 10 : Seeking 'sweet spots' for rapid climate and sustainability actions between individual and global scales
- 2020
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In: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 15:9
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of global greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformations and novel governance solutions. Here we present a new 'Powers of 10' (P10) logarithmic framework and demonstrate its potential as a practical tool for decision makers and change agents at multiple scales to inform and catalyze engagement and actions, complementing and adding nuance to existing frameworks. P10 assists in identifying the suitable cohorts and cohort ranges for rapidly deploying climate and sustainability actions between a single individual and the globally projected ~ 10 billion persons by 2050. Applying a robust dataset of climate solutions from Project Drawdown's Plausible scenario that could cumulatively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1051 gigatons (Gt) against a reference scenario (2190 Gt) between 2020 and 2050, we seek to identify a 'sweet spot' where these climate and sustainability actions are suitably scaled. We suggest that prioritizing the analyzed climate actions between community and urban scales, where global and local converge, can help catalyze and enhance individual, household and local practices, and support national and international policies and finances for rapid sustainability transformations.
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| 2. |
- Falk, Johan, et al.
(author)
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Exponential Roadmap: Scaling 36 Solutions to Halve Emissions by 2030
- 2019
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The 2019 Exponential Roadmap focuses on moving from incremental to exponential climate action in the next decade. It presents 36 economically- viable solutions to cut global greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030 and the strategies to scale this transformation. The roadmap is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep global average temperature “well below 2°C” and aiming for 1.5°C above pre- industrial levels. The 2019 roadmap is the second in the series. Each new roadmap updates solutions that have proven potential to scale and charts progress towards exponential scaling. The roadmap, based on the carbon law (see box) is a collaboration between academia, business and civil society. The roadmap is complemented with a high-ambition narrative, Meeting the 1.5°C Ambition, that presents the case why holding global average temperature increase to just 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is important. Since the first roadmap, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its special report on 1.5°C. The report concluded that the economic and humanitarian risks of a 2°C world are significantly higher than 1.5°C. The remaining emissions budget for 1.5°C is small, and will be exceeded within ten to fifteen years at current emission rates. The window of feasibility is closing rapidly. The global economic benefit of a low-carbon future is estimated at US$26 trillion by 2030 compared with staying on the current high-carbon pathway. The scale of transformation – halving emissions by 2030 – is unprecedented but the speed is not. Some cities and companies can transform significantly faster. Developed nations with significant historic emissions have a responsibility to reduce emissions faster. Greenhouse gas emissions, and the solutions to reduce them, are grouped by six sectors: energy, industry, transport, buildings, food consumption, nature-based solutions (sources and sinks). Meeting the 1.5°C goal means implementing solutions in parallel across all sectors. The solutions must scale exponentially. The roadmap identifies four levers required to scale the transformation as well as necessary actions for each: policy, climate leadership and movements, finance and exponential technology. Implementation must be fair and just or risk deep resistance.
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| 3. |
- Padmanaban, Rajchandar, et al.
(author)
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A Remote Sensing Approach to Environmental Monitoring in a Reclaimed Mine Area
- 2017
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In: ISPRS international journal of geo-information. - : MDPI AG. - 2220-9964. ; 6:12
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mining for resources extraction may lead to geological and associated environmental changes due to ground movements, collision with mining cavities, and deformation of aquifers. Geological changes may continue in a reclaimed mine area, and the deformed aquifers may entail a breakdown of substrates and an increase in ground water tables, which may cause surface area inundation. Consequently, a reclaimed mine area may experience surface area collapse, i.e., subsidence, and degradation of vegetation productivity. Thus, monitoring short-term landscape dynamics in a reclaimed mine area may provide important information on the long-term geological and environmental impacts of mining activities. We studied landscape dynamics in Kirchheller Heide, Germany, which experienced extensive soil movement due to longwall mining without stowing, using Landsat imageries between 2013 and 2016. A Random Forest image classification technique was applied to analyze land-use and landcover dynamics, and the growth of wetland areas was assessed using a Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA). We also analyzed the changes in vegetation productivity using a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We observed a 19.9% growth of wetland area within four years, with 87.2% growth in the coverage of two major waterbodies in the reclaimed mine area. NDVI values indicate that the productivity of 66.5% of vegetation of the Kirchheller Heide was degraded due to changes in ground water tables and surface flooding. Our results inform environmental management and mining reclamation authorities about the subsidence spots and priority mitigation areas from land surface and vegetation degradation in Kirchheller Heide.
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| 4. |
- Padmanaban, Rajchandar, et al.
(author)
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Modelling Urban Sprawl Using Remotely Sensed Data : A Case Study of Chennai City, Tamilnadu
- 2017
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In: Entropy. - : MDPI AG. - 1099-4300. ; 19:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Urban sprawl (US), propelled by rapid population growth leads to the shrinkage of productive agricultural lands and pristine forests in the suburban areas and, in turn, adversely affects the provision of ecosystem services. The quantification of US is thus crucial for effective urban planning and environmental management. Like many megacities in fast growing developing countries, Chennai, the capital of Tamilnadu and one of the business hubs in India, has experienced extensive US triggered by the doubling of total population over the past three decades. However, the extent and level of US has not yet been quantified and a prediction for future extent of US is lacking. We employed the Random Forest (RF) classification on Landsat imageries from 1991, 2003, and 2016, and computed six landscape metrics to delineate the extent of urban areas within a 10 km suburban buffer of Chennai. The level of US was then quantified using Renyi's entropy. A land change model was subsequently used to project land cover for 2027. A 70.35% expansion in urban areas was observed mainly towards the suburban periphery of Chennai between 1991 and 2016. The Renyi's entropy value for year 2016 was 0.9, exhibiting a two-fold level of US when compared to 1991. The spatial metrics values indicate that the existing urban areas became denser and the suburban agricultural, forests and particularly barren lands were transformed into fragmented urban settlements. The forecasted land cover for 2027 indicates a conversion of 13,670.33 ha (16.57% of the total landscape) of existing forests and agricultural lands into urban areas with an associated increase in the entropy value to 1.7, indicating a tremendous level of US. Our study provides useful metrics for urban planning authorities to address the social-ecological consequences of US and to protect ecosystem services.
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| 5. |
- Padmanaban, Rajchandar, et al.
(author)
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Satellite image fusion to detect changing surface permeability and emerging urban heat islands in a fast-growing city
- 2019
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 14:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Rapid and extensive urbanization has adversely impacted humans and ecological entities in the recent decades through a decrease in surface permeability and the emergence of Urban Heat Islands (UHI). While detailed and continuous assessments of surface permeability and UHI are crucial for urban planning and management of landuse zones, they mostly involve time consuming and expensive field studies and single sensor derived large scale aerial and satellite imageries. We demonstrated the advantage of fusing imageries from multiple sensors for landuse and landcover (LULC) change assessments as well as for assessing surface permeability and temperature and UHI emergence in a fast growing city, i.e. Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu, India. IRS-LISSIII and Landsat-7 ETM+ imageries were fused for 2007 and 2017, and classified using a Rotation Forest (RF) algorithm. Surface permeability and temperature were then quantified using Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) index, respectively. Finally, we assessed the relationship between SAVI and LST for entire Tirunelveli as well as for each LULC zone, and also detected UHI emergence hot spots using a SAVI-LST combined metric. Our fused images exhibited higher classification accuracies, i.e. overall kappa coefficient values, than non-fused images. We observed an overall increase in the coverage of urban (dry, real estate plots and built-up) areas, while a decrease for vegetated (cropland and forest) areas in Tirunelveli between 2007 and 2017. The SAVI values indicated an extensive decrease in surface permeability for Tirunelveli overall and also for almost all LULC zones. The LST values showed an overall increase of surface temperature in Tirunelveli with the highest increase for urban built-up areas between 2007 and 2017. LST also exhibited a strong negative association with SAVI. Southeastern built-up areas in Tirunelveli were depicted as a potential UHI hotspot, with a caution for the Western riparian zone for UHI emergence in 2017. Our results provide important metrics for surface permeability, temperature and UHI monitoring, and inform urban and zonal planning authorities about the advantages of satellite image fusion.
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