Dujardin, S., Jacques, D., Steele, J., & Linard, C. (2020). Mobile Phone Data for Urban Climate Change Adaptation: Reviewing Applications, Opportunities and Key Challenges. Sustainability, 12(4), 1501. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041501
The authors’ main idea in this work is that geospatial data from mobile phones can be used to facilitate urban adaptation to the effects of climate change. The main developmental problem the authors address is vulnerability and adaptive capabilities of urban communities to climate change disasters. In addition, the authors address the need for better urban governance so that the limitations of mobile phone data can be properly addressed, and that knowledge accrued by other means can be integrated into the development of adaptive capabilities to climate change. Complexity in regards to evaluating the risk from climate disasters arises in that populations, natural disasters, and changes in land use are dynamic and highly unpredictable in the long-run. As a result, evaluating susceptibility to climate disasters requires a high-degree of spatial and temporal accuracy, which is not possible by traditional censes. The authors tackle this complexity by describing how the collection of mobile phone data offers a more continuous picture of population movement, allowing for government agencies to determine in real-time who is most at risk.
Because of its focus on the decrease of vulnerability, the risk of urban populations to climate change and the integration of different types of knowledge, this article connects to Amartya Sen’s definition of human development. If a population is susceptible to the ramifications of climate change, then the people are less able to live in security, which shows that the vulnerability discussed in this article can be viewed as Sen’s idea of an unfreedom. Additionally, the authors’ discussion of the importance of urban governments incorporating different types of knowledge for allowing adaptive capabilities quintessentially exemplifies Sen’s idea that freedoms themselves play a role in driving human development (in this case the freedom to share knowledge).
The article particularly focuses on the population safety aspect of human development, as it is about assessing vulnerability to climate change and adapting in order to improve preparation and response. A sustainable developmental goal that can be considered in relation to the article is establishing a network of free-flowing information to urban government organizations from not only big data, but also from scientific experts. For one, this will help account for the limitations of using mobile phone data. Also this will bolster the adaptive capabilities of urban centers to climate change, improving population resilence and reducing risk.
The geospatial datasets explored by the authors are Call Detail Records (CDR’s). They explain that CDR’s are obtained by localizing a caller to a Base Transceiver Station, and that movement of an individual can be determined through the activity through different antennas. CDR’s are useful for real-time measurements of population densities and human activity across different areas, allowing for a more accurate assessment of who is most at risk from climate disasters. Additionally, it is much easier to localize victims of climate disasters, allowing for much more efficient response and aid. In order to show the robustness of using CDR’s to make estimations about populations, the authors discuss a study by Csáji et al. titled “Exploring the Mobility of Mobile Phone Uers” which shows that the estimations from CDR’s had a correlation of 0.92 with those made from census data. Following, other data science methods the authors discuss are the use of several indices such as the dynamic vulnerability index for the purpose of facilitating risk assessment, as well as the urban dilatation index for the purpose of examining activity and land use.
The process of human development that the authors investigate is the incorporation of new methods of data collection to enhance adaptive capabilities. Specifically, it’s the incorporation of CDR’s in order to enhance climate disaster vulnerability assessment and response, as well as the consolidation of different knowledge types for better urban planning, improving the adaptive capacity and resilience of urban communities to climate change. Scientifically, the researchers examine the viability of CDR’s as a method for evaluating and studying populations. Through the correlation mentioned earlier, using CDR’s as a means of evaluation is supported by traditional measures.
Azzarri, C., & Signorelli, S. (2019). Climate and poverty in Africa South of the Sahara. World Development, 125, 104691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104691
The main ideas explored in this article are welfare and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as well as the effects of climate change and extreme weather events on SSA expenditure per capita. The article focuses heavily on SSA agriculture, since it provides the vast majority of the SSA food supply, and its vulnerability to climate shocks is a major determinant of extreme poverty in SSA. Complexity in studying SSA welfare and poverty in the context of climate change arises in that there is much heterogeneity in poverty levels within countries, undermining the usefulness of national-level estimates and data since they often fail to account for this. In addition, previous literature has analyzed climate-induced SSA poverty based on agricultural income, but these provided inconsistent results. This can partially be explained by the fact that there are many more factors at play regarding poverty and welfare besides income as discussed by Amartya Sen.
This article relates to Sen’s definition of human development due to its insights on the positive feedback mechanistic nature of poverty. Particularly, the article’s discussion of SSA people being trapped in poverty as a result of the vulnerability of their agriculture embodies Sen’s idea of how poverty is defined by the insecurity of basic resources because the people don’t have the freedom to better the quality of their lives as they have to focus on food and income. The dimensions of human development examined by the article are income and human welfare, as they are the measures that the authors correlate with climate data in order to determine the impact of climate change. In relation to the article, a sustainable development goal in order to reduce poverty and vulnerability to climate shocks among SSA people would be to improve their resilience capacity through better food and income security. This would help combat the rise in poverty rates when climate disasters occur, allowing for a better quality of life.
The datasets used by the authors are household surveys from 24 different SSA countries, as well as Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The household surveys provide information of household consumption expenditure and income per capita at the sub-national level, which accounts for the heterogeneity within countries. This allows for a more accurate picture of the distribution of poverty and welfare across SSA. The SPEI accounts for precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration, which allows for the determination of droughts, heatwaves and floods. In order to determine the spatial correlation between climate change conditions and welfare and poverty, the authors utilize Moran’s I test statistic and Lagrangian multiplier tests, followed by spatial regression analysis. They found that there is a correlation between welfare and the effects of climate change.
The process of human development the authors investigate is how and why people are unable to escape poverty and why poverty increases as a result of climate disasters. The scientific question that the authors investigate is the effect of cliamte change conditions on poverty rates and welfare in SSA. Because the increase in flooding and temperture from climate change negatively affects SSA agriculture, the people have less income and food security, bringing about conditions of poverty.
Eastin, J. (2018). Climate change and gender equality in developing states. World Development, 107, 289–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.021
The principal idea Joshua Eastin in this article is how vulnerability to climate change in developing countries not only highlights gender inequality, but also exacerbates it. The article examines how women are more vulnerable than men to the effects of climate change in such regions because of their comparative lack of ownership of assets as well as the effects on their domestic lives and duties. Specifically, it analyzes how women have a more difficult time adapting in the face of climate disasters, as well as how their domestic burdens increase, which results in less socioeconomic stability, security, and individual freedom. There is complexity surrounding the issue of gender inequality in developing regions in that it acts in a positive feedback mechanism. For instance, the author discusses how because of climate change’s negative effect on women’s ability to maintain a high socioeconomic status, they have less employment opporunities and in turn less domestic bargaining power. The greater inequality not only makes it harder for women to maintain a high individual status, but also deincentivizes their participation in policy-making decisions, facilitating systematic gender discrimination. As a result, it is increasingly difficult to resolve gender inequality in such regions.
The fact that unequal vulnerability to climate change sets off a positive feedback mechanism of gender inequality embodies Amartya Sen’s idea of how in a situation of poverty, one unfreedom can result in the exacerbation of others. Additionally, the article discusses how women in Africa own much less land than do men, which decreases their ability to deal with reductions in harvests, resulting in less food and economic security. Because of its relation to the paradigm of unfreedoms leading to others, this situation exemplifies Sen’s description of development patterns.
Eastin mainly focuses on women’s rights and gender equality for the purpose of his research. More specifically, he examines women’s social and economic rights as the dependent variables when correlating climate change conditions and inequality. One development goal that Eastin describes in the article is increasing the participation of women in policy decisions for improving climate change adaptation and resilience, since this would help decrease the disproportionality of climate change vulnerability between the genders.
The datasets that Eastin uses are the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset for quantifying women’s rights, and estimates based on the “Terrestrial Air Temperature and Precipitation: Monthly and Annual Time Series Dataset” by the researchers Burke, Hsiang and Miguel in their publication, “Global Non-Linear Effect of Temperature on Economic Production,” for the purpose of examining temperature and precipitation. In order to determine the correlation between climate change effects and women’s rights in developing countries, Eastin uses ordered-logistic regressions, followed by ordered-probit regressions and ordered-logistic regressions with random effects in order to verify the validity of his assessment. He found that increases in temperature do appear to negatively affect women’s rights, but that there was no statistically significant effect from precipitation.
The development process that Eastin investigates is how resilience (or lack thereof) to the effect climate change impacts gender equality and adaptive capabilities of women in particular. In his research, the two scientific questions Eastin explores are whether or not the environmental effects of climate change negatively impact women’s rights in developing areas, and if the effects exert a greater negative influence on women’s rights in places that are more underdeveloped, dependent on agriculture and have less democratic governments.
Pugatch, T. (2019). Tropical Storms and Mortality Under Climate Change. World Development, 117, 172–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.01.009
The main idea that Todd Pugatch explores in this article is the degree to which climate change adversely affects human health. In particular, he studies how hurricanes and tropical storms as a result of climate change result in death in Mexico. The development problem that Pugatch investigates is public health in the face of climate-change-born natural disasters. Pugatch addresses how in studying the effect of such climate change conditions, there is much complexity due to the innate uncertainty in climate science as well as the limitations of studying the ramifications of climate disasters. In addition, there is often bias in storm damage data obtained from governments and the media due to them trying to further their own agendas, so accurately assessing the impact of severe storms is fraught with difficulty.
Because of its focus on public health which can be viewed as a societal freedom, this article relates to Sen’s idea of human development. Pugatch describes how impoverished communities see higher mortality when struck by severe storms due to their lack of robust infrastructure, which exemplifies Sen’s idea that a greater amount of unfreedom in one facet exacerbates other unfreedoms. Additionally, Pugatch mentions that a higher amount of economic development helps mitigate the mortality from tropical storms, which quintessentially shows Sen’s idea of how different kinds of freedom are related to one another in the context of development.
Public health and mortality are the dimensions of human development explored by Pugatch in this article. In order to mitigate these unfreedoms, Pugatch discusses some sustainable development goals, namely that there should be a greater amount of preparation and evacuations when a storm is imminent, and an increase in the use of resources for the purpose of mitigating death.
The datasets that Pugatch uses in his investigation are tropical storm windspeed data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tropical Prediction Center, and data on Mexican mortality from Mexican Vital Statistics records. In order to quantify the severity of various tropical storms, Pugatch creates a storm index that takes into account the windspeed and population density of the affected regions. He then estimates the effect of the storms on mortality with a regression.
The process of human development that Pugatch investigates is increasing the accuracy of storm forecasts using knowledge of the storms’ intensity and trajectory in order to improve the adaptive capabilities of vulnerable populations. The main question he investigates in this article is the effect of climactic storm conditions on mortality. Additional questions he investigates are the relationship between adaptive capacity of regions and previous storm exposure, and whether or not mortality from storms changes over time.