Best of our wild blogs: 19 Nov 11

Look what a fruiting tree attracted
from Life's Indulgences

New articles on Nature in Singapore website
from Raffles Museum News

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Philippines government recommends mangrove plantations to solve flooding

Philippines Information Agency 18 Nov 11;

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte, Nov. 18 (PIA) -- The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) called on local government units to consider the setting up of mangrove plantations as natural and nonstructural blockade to flooding during heavy rains and typhoons.

“To mitigate the effects of natural disasters, it is significant that the local government units should consider going “green” by planting mangroves along coastal areas and riverbanks which will provide communities protection from runoffs and flooding,” MGB-8 Director Roger A. De Dios underscored.

The pronouncement was made in relation to the report of the Geohazard Mapping and Assessment Team (GMAT) of the MGB after the conduct of rapid geohazard mapping and assessment survey in a 1:10,000 scale map of the 44 built-up barangays of Borongan City in Eastern Samar.

The team led by MGB-8 Chief Geologist James S. Leones observed that flood generally occurs during inclement weather and high tide on most communities of Borongan City due to flat and lowland topography and its being surrounded by major rivers that include Can-obing, Loom, Borongan, Maypangdan and Tabunan.

The team’s recommendation was that aside from dikes, retaining walls, groins and breakwaters, officials should also consider mangrove plantations as natural and nonstructural blockade to flooding during heavy rains and typhoons.

The mangrove plantations help in stabilization of banks and prevent soil erosion during floods and reduce sedimentation of ponds during flood. Field, laboratory and numerical studies show that mangrove forest and other coastal vegetation of certain density can reduce wave height considerably and protect the coast from erosion, as well as effectively prevent coastal sand dune movement during strong winds.

Healthy coastal forests such as mangroves and saltmarshes can serve as a coastal defense system where they grow in equilibrium with erosion and accretion processes generated by waves, winds and other natural actions.

Geologist Leones encouraged local officials to address the indiscriminate cutting of trees, improper solid waste disposal and the provision of adequate and efficient drainage system.

As a coastal community proximate to the Pacific Ocean, Borongan City is not spared from the threat of tsunami, Leones said.

The report stated that destructive tsunami waves are likely to surface should an earthquake of 7.0 or more magnitude will occur at the Philippine Trench east of Eastern Visayas.

The GMAT also provided landslide threat advisory to inform barangay officials on areas vulnerable to landslides with its corresponding recommendations. (PIA 8)

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Thai floods could be costliest in decade

* Floods, supply disruptions, to cost billions -Allianz
* Disaster to trigger risk rethink for industry, insurers
* Climate-change significant threat to manufacturers
David Fogarty and Kevin Lim Reuters 18 Nov 11;

SINGAPORE, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Insured losses arising from the Thai floods could be in double-digit billions, a senior official from global insurer Allianz said, in a disaster that will lead to a re-assessment of weather risks to industry in Asia and to global supply chains.

Calculating the true cost of the floods could take years in terms of working out the lost business to Thailand from investors who might now choose to invest in other countries, said Lutz Fullgraf, Allianz's regional CEO for global corporate and specialty.

He said the losses comprise compensation to building owners in Thailand as well as manufacturers around the world who have suffered disruptions arising from the closure of Thai factories.

"This for Thailand is definitely the costliest event, in terms of the insured values, even if you take into consideration the tsunami of 2004 and last year's riots. The loss here is much bigger," said Lutz. He pointed to an estimate by Thailand's insurance commissioner of more than $30 billion, although it was too early to verify the figure.

"People did not have that (wealth and asset) accumulation expectation for risks in Thailand. Even if it is $20 billion, I think it will top the list of insured flood losses over the past 10 years," he said in an interview in Singapore. (Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Insurers braced for Thai flood bill topping $10bln
* Mitsui, Tokio Marine see losses of 130 bln yen, 100 bln yen respectively
* Lloyd's of London asks Singapore syndicates to assess exposure
* Thailand "critical" in global supply chain - Marsh
Myles Neligan Reuters 18 Nov 11;

LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Insurers are bracing themselves for claims in excess of $10 billion after floods in Thailand disabled major foreign-owned manufacturing operations there, adding to an already record-breaking natural catastrophe bill this year.

Analysts and industry executives say it is too soon to gauge the full impact of the floods, Thailand's worst in 50 years, as the waters have only just started to recede more than three months after they first rose.

But Thailand's Office of Insurance Commission, the industry regulator, has provisionally estimated an insured loss of about $6.5 billion, according to Standard & Poor's, while insurers and brokers informally put the impact at closer to $10 billion.

"It sounds like it's going to be that sort of magnitude,, maybe even a little bit more," said Execution Noble analyst Joy Ferneyhough.

"It's still ongoing, it's still developing every day and I don't think anyone can get there to assess what's going on."

Reinsurers such as Munich Re and Swiss Re are expected to pick up a proportion of the losses from Thai and Japanese primary insurers, heavily exposed because many of their domestic corporate customers have set up operations in Thailand to escape the strong yen.

Japanese insurers Mitsui and Tokio Marine on Friday said the floods could cost them 130 billion yen ($1.7 billion) and 100 billion yen respectively.

Business interruption claims are likely to account for a big chunk of the costs to insurers, with companies worldwide hit by a shortage of components after the floods knocked out many foreign-owned makers of hi-tech gear.

RIPPLE EFFECT

"Thailand is such a critical cog in the global supply chain for some of these industries," said Gary Lynch, head of supply chain risk at Marsh Risk Consulting, part of insurance broker Marsh.

"The concentration of organisations and support organisations affected is probably greater than we've seen in any other event."

British TV decoder maker Pace on Thursday issued a profit warning, blaming uncertainty over the cost of computer hard drives after the Thai operations of its main supplier, U.S. group Western Digital, succumbed to the floods in October.

Seven major Thai industrial estates have been affected, disrupting the operations of Japanese manufacturers including Nissan, Sony, Canon, Panasonic and Honda, while across the country, a total of 14,000 businesses have closed, according to reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter.

"Flood damage can be rather severe because Thailand is not really an emerging market when it comes to industrial facilities," Ulrich Wallin, Chief Executive of reinsurer Hannover Re said last week, estimating the company's own exposure at about 100 million euros ($135 million).

The Thai floods come on top of a spate of catastrophes, including the March 11 Japanese earthquake, which inflicted a record $70 billion in losses on the insurance industry in the first half of 2011 alone, according to Swiss Re.

The Lloyd's of London insurance market has asked syndicates at its Singapore outpost to assess their exposure, a Lloyd's spokeswoman said on Friday, adding that it was too early to provide a loss estimate for the market.

One consequence of the floods has been an unexpected increase in insurance claims related to the March earthquake from Japanese manufacturers who moved to Thailand to minimise disruption after the earth tremor, according to law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC).

"Moving production from Japan to Thailand was a 'Plan B,'" said RPC Legal Director in Reinsurance Daniel Saville.

"The question now is whether those businesses have a 'Plan C'"

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Extreme weather will strike as climate change takes hold, IPCC warns

Heavier rainfall, storms and droughts could wipe billions off economies and destroy lives, says report by 220 scientists
Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk 18 Nov 11;

Heavier rainfall, fiercer storms and intensifying droughts are likely to strike the world in the coming decades as climate change takes effect, the world's leading climate scientists said on Friday.

Rising sea levels will increase the vulnerability of coastal areas, and the increase in "extreme weather events" will wipe billions off national economies and destroy lives, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body of the world's leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations.

Scientists have warned of these effects for years, but yesterday's report – the "special report on extreme weather" compiled over two years by 220 scientists – is the first comprehensive examination of scientific knowledge on the subject, in an attempt to produce a definitive judgment. The report contained stark warnings for developing countries in particular, which are likely to be worst afflicted in part because of their geography, but also because they are less well prepared for extreme weather in their infrastructure and have less economic resilience than developed nations. But the developed world will not be unscathed – heavier bursts of rainfall, heatwaves and droughts are all likely to take their toll.

Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group that produced the report, said the message was clear – extreme weather events were more likely. "Some important extremes have changed and will change more in the future. There is clear and solid evidence [of this]. We also know much more about the causes of disaster losses."

He urged governments to take note – many of the economic and human impacts of disasters can be avoided if prompt action is taken: "We are losing way too many lives and economic assets in disasters."

The report was timed just before crucial talks taking place later this month in Durban, South Africa, where the world's governments will discuss a new global agreement to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Europe's climate chief, Connie Hedegaard, said the report should galvanise governments to act, especially when added to the stark warnings last week from the International Energy Agency that the world has only five years to take the emissions-cutting measures needed to prevent catastrophic global warming. She said: "Last week, the serious warnings from the International Energy Agency. Today, this IPCC report … With all the knowledge and rational arguments in favour of urgent climate action, it is frustrating to see that some governments do not show the political will to act. In light of the even more compelling facts, the question has to be put to those governments in favour of postponing decisions: for how long can you defend your inaction?''

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, said the report meant the science was now clear: "This expert review of the latest available scientific evidence clearly shows that climate change is already having an impact in many parts of the world on the frequency, severity and location of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts and flash floods.

"This is remarkable because extreme events are rare and it is difficult to detect statistically significant trends in such small sets of data. What is more, these trends have been identified over the last few decades when the rise in global average temperature has been just a few tenths of a centigrade degree.

"The report shows that if we do not stop the current steep rise in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, we will see much more warming and dramatic changes in extreme weather that are likely to overwhelm any attempts human populations might make to adapt to their impacts."

But the summary report was also hedged with caveats, reflecting the difficulty in tying specific extreme weather events to human-induced global warming. Attributing economic losses – such as the damage from storms and floods – is also tricky, because of other factors involved. Rising urbanisation and wealth mean that losses today are higher than in the past.

This point is likely to become particularly contentious in the future, as developed country governments are called upon to provide funding to the poor world to help people adapt to the effects of climate change.

Although the scientists said they were still unsure whether a warming climate would result in an increase in the frequency of hurricanes and other tropical cyclones, there was a stark warning for the northern hemisphere, and areas of Europe and North America where currently hurricanes hardly ever happen. There has been a "poleward shift" in the pattern of the storms, which will mean severe storms are more likely to strike areas such as New York and the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Scientific models also show that it is "very likely" – a term that denotes, in IPCC parlance, a 90% to 100% probability – that the "length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells or heat waves will increase over most land areas". This means that record hot days, which previously could be expected once in 20 years, are now likely every other year. This could have a serious impact on old people and the very young in particular, who are more vulnerable to changes in temperature.

The report said: "It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase in the 21st century over many areas of the globe. This is particularly the case in the high latitudes and tropical regions, and in winter in the northern mid-latitudes. Heavy rainfalls associated with tropical cyclones are likely to increase with continued warming." This means that cloudbursts that could have been expected once in 20 years will now become a one-in-five-year occurrence. The scientists were reluctant to translate this into concrete warnings over the frequency of floods, because floods depend on local factors such as topography, but said floods, mudslides and landslips are associated with stronger rainfall punctuated by drier spells.

The scientists said there was "medium confidence" that "droughts will intensify in the 21st century in some seasons and areas, due to reduced precipitation and/or increased evapotranspiration". They pinpointed the most vulnerable areas as southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, north-east Brazil, and southern Africa.

Simon Brown, climate extremes research manager at the Hadley Centre, the climate research unit of the UK's Met Office, said: "This focus of the IPCC on extremes is very welcome as less emphasis has traditionally been given to these phenomena which are very likely to be the means by which ordinary people first experience climate change. Human susceptibility to weather mainly arises through extreme weather events so it is appropriate that we focus on these which, should they change for the worse, would have wide-ranging and significant consequences. This review will be very helpful in progressing the science by bringing together a wide range of studies – not just on the physical weather aspects of climate extremes but also on how we might adapt and respond to their changes in the future."

Development campaigners urged swift action from governments meeting at the end of this month in Durban, South Africa, to continue negotiations on a global agreement to tackle climate change. Tim Gore, Oxfam climate change adviser, said: "[This] is a warning bell for world leaders to act now on climate change to save lives and money. The link between climate change and an increase in the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events is becoming ever clearer, and it is the world's poorest and most vulnerable people who are being hit the worst. Floods and droughts like those which recently hit east Asia and the Horn of Africa can wipe out whole harvests, contributing to soaring food prices and driving poor people into hunger."

He added: "Estimates suggest that every dollar invested in adaptation to climate change could save $60 in damages. Governments must find the new money needed to invest now, and avoid the far higher costs of clean-up and lives lost later."

Fierce Heat Waves & Stronger Storms Coming, Climate Report Warns
Wynne Parry LiveScience.com Yahoo News 19 Nov 11;

Humans' activities appear to have brought on more extreme weather — including more hot days, heat waves and heavy precipitation — and we can expect this to worsen in decades to come, according to a report being prepared by the leading international climate change organization.

A summary report, released today (Nov. 18), states that since 1950, cold days and nights have decreased, while warm ones have become more frequent globally, as has heavy precipitation. There is also evidence droughts have increased in some places, but decreased in others, the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says.

The rest of the century will bring more extremes, according to this scientific assessment, which predicts:

At least a 99 percent likelihood of more frequent and intense daily temperature highs, as well as declines in daily lows.
Heat waves that will become more frequent, longer as well as more intense.
An increase in heavy precipitation, particularly in the high latitudes, the tropics and during winters in the northern mid-latitudes.
More intense droughts in some places. [Photos Reveal Devastating Texas Drought]
The wind speed of tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes, is expected to increase, at least in some places, but there may be fewer or no change in the number of cyclones.
Extremely high coastal waters thanks to sea level rise
More landslides and other events associated with high mountains

Predictions like these bring to mind disastrous events like the European heat wave of 2003, droughts that crippled Russian agriculture in 2010 and hit the U.S. hard this summer, as well as the heavy rains that flooded Pakistan in September.

However, climate change did not create these events. Rather, it sets up a situation that enables naturally occurring weather extremes to become more severe. So, the effect of climate change is visible only over the long term.

The situation is like a baseball player on steroids, according to Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. If that player hits one home run, it's not clear if that home run is due to the steroids. To see how the steroids affected the player, it's necessary to compare his performance during the steroid-enhanced season with that from a previous one when he was not using steroids, Meehl said.

"Greenhouse gases are the steroids of the climate system," said Meehl, who served as a reviewer for part of the climate change report. "Greenhouse gases have changed the background state of climate such that the changes of setting heat records are much greater than (those of setting cold records)."

Some changes are more easily observed and predicted than others.

By looking back 50 years at temperature records from across the continental U.S., Meehl and colleagues found that the ratio of days when temperatures exceeded their record high for that date to days when temperatures dropped below their record low for that date shifted in favor of record warmth. Between 2000 and 2010, the ratio of record highs to lows grew to 2 to 1.

That shift continued into the future, in their computer models, with warm days outnumbering cold ones as much as 50 to 1 by the end of the century. It is significant, Meehl points out, that the extreme cold days did not go away.

While it's intuitive that global warming would cause more extreme heat, the report suggests there's also a 66 percent or greater likelihood it will lead to more heavy rain and snowfall in many areas. That's because global warming means warmer air in some places, and the warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold, providing more water for a storm to dump, he explained.

Some changes are more difficult to predict than others.

While the summary report offers some predictions about tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes, looking ahead at these types of events can be tricky. Hurricanes are problematic because ideally they require global ocean-atmosphere models run for a century or more with higher spatial resolution than what current computers make feasible. Also, the observational record of hurricanes is spotty prior to the 1970s, when satellites began tracking them, so the historical record before then is more uncertain. [Images: Hurricane Hunters in Action]

The full IPCC report, "Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation," also addresses the human dimension, discussing the impacts of natural disasters caused by extreme weather events and how risk and losses can be mitigated. The full report is expected to be released in February 2012.

Climate change key driver of extreme weather: UN
AFPBy Max Delany AFP Yahoo News 18 Nov 11;

Man-made climate change has already boosted heatwaves and flood-provoking rainfall and is likely to contribute to future natural disasters, according to a report by UN scientists unveiled Friday.

But the toll from these extreme weather events will depend as much on the measures taken to protect populations and property as the violence of Nature's outbursts, it warned.

The report, released 10 days before climate talks in Durban, South Africa, is the UN's first comprehensive review of global warming's impact on weather extremes and how best to manage them.

"We can actually attribute the increase of hot days in the past few years to an increase in greenhouse gases," said Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which approved a summary of the report at a meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

"And it is virtually certain that increases in the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes, and decreases in cold extremes, will occur in the 21st century," he said at a press conference.

"Heavy precipitation will become more frequent in many regions of the world," he added.

Heat and rain extremes under three projections -- a sharp reduction in carbon emissions, a modest one, and current "business-as-usual" levels -- were reviewed in the report.

All three scenarios see a roughly similar trajectory of increased extremes up to mid-century.

But towards the end of the century the pathways diverge dramatically, with far higher and more frequent heatwaves and rainfall peaks in the worst-case scenario of a world saturated with greenhouse gases.

For the high-emission scenario -- the path the world is on now -- one-in-20-year heat peaks would occur every five years by about 2050, and every year or two by the end of the century. Precipitation extremes increase in a similar fashion, the report showed.

Qin Dahe, also an IPCC co-chair, said the panel was likewise "more confident" that climate change is boosting glacier retreat, a major concern for nations in Asia and South America dependent on glaciers for water.

But for other extreme weather events such as cyclones, scientists are still unable to pin down the impact of climate change, due to lack of data and the "inherent variability and variations in the climate system," Stocker said.

"Uncertainty cuts both ways. Events could be more severe and more frequent than projections suggest, or vice versa."

Some studies have suggested that warmer air and sea surface temperatures combined with greater moisture in the air will intensify tropical storms.

The 20-page document released Friday summarises the conclusions of an underlying 800-page report, three years in the making, that reviews thousands of recent peer-reviewed scientific articles.

It was written by some 200 scientists, and approved this week by the 194-nation IPCC, which gathers government representatives as well as experts.

Climate-fuelled extremes will hit the globe unevenly, it says: the 2003 heatwave that left 70,000 dead in Europe may be a template for future peaks in southern Europe and northern Africa; swathes of Africa where millions already live at hunger's edge face more drought; small island states could become unliveable due to storm surges enhanced by rising seas.

"The key message is the way the interaction of the extremes, exposure and vulnerability create disaster risk," said Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group II, which focuses on adaptation.

"It goes without saying that this [report] is yet another wake-up call," the European commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, said in a statement issued in Brussels.

"With all the knowledge and rational arguments in favour of urgent climate action, it is frustrating to see some governments do not show the political will to act."

"This report should leave governments in no doubt ... that climate change is, through its impact on extreme weather, already harming the lives and livelihoods of millions of people," said Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.


Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX)

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Best of our wild blogs: 18 Nov 11

Toddycats Engage is Recruiting Volunteers!
from Toddycats!

Even kingfishers migrate
from Life's Indulgences

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PUB rolls out flood-prevention works

Ng Puay Leng Channel NewsAsia 17 Nov 11;

SINGAPORE: National water agency PUB is carrying out drainage improvement works in about 20 locations islandwide, including Shenton Way.

This comes as the stretch encountered two flooding incidents last month, with a similar situation occurring in September.

Improvement works along the Shenton Way stretch aim to increase the speed at which rain water joins the main drainage system.

Work started about two weeks ago, but PUB said the drain is a temporary solution.

In the long term, it will widen Shenton Way's existing underground drain, from 60 centimetres, to 75 centimetres.

PUB has also installed a CCTV along the stretch, as well as along Claymore Road.

This is to monitor the flooding situation in real-time.

It said by mid-December, it would have installed 61 CCTVs islandwide.

PUB Catchment & Waterways Department assistant director Choy Wai Kwong said: "The flooding situation (along Shenton way) is not very serious.

"Actually, the flooding incident here two weeks ago only went up to 10cm, and the water receded within 10 to 15 minutes.

"The drainage system here was built in the 70s, so some areas might not be able to handle such a large volume of rain water. So we'll need to improve the drainage system here."

- CNA/wk

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Keeping Bangkok dry in future

Options are to build tunnel or dyke; or move the capital
Nirmal Ghosh Straits Times 18 Nov 11;

BANGKOK: Even before the swirling waters have receded from the streets of Bangkok, experts are working out how to prevent a repeat of Thailand's worst floods in 50 years.

Construct a huge tunnel under Bangkok from north to south. Erect a giant dyke out at sea. Move the capital city.

If there is one bright side to the massive floods that have killed more than 550 people and cost over US$5 billion (S$6.5 billion) in estimated damages, it is the huge wake-up call to finally make long-overdue investments in the city's drainage system.

'If we have to do something, we have to do it now,' said Dr Smith Dharmasaroja, a meteorologist who sits on a committee tasked with overhauling Thailand's water management system. 'Five years later, it will be too late.'

The city is also sinking, thanks to natural subsidence and the draining of underground aquifers to provide water to its population of around 10 million.

Much of Bangkok is already below sea level, and depends on its system of dykes, canals and pumps to keep dry. The city is also at risk from the south, as rising sea levels in the Gulf of Thailand steadily erodes the coast.

Experts like Dr Anond Snidvongs, a climate change scientist at Chulalongkorn University, have long warned that if nothing changes, large parts of the capital could be under water in 50 years.

Dr Smith, the meteorologist who famously predicted the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 - 17 years before it happened - has an even starker prognosis.

'I think it will take less than 50 years to lose Bangkok, maybe 15 years at the most,' he said in an interview with The Straits Times.

He blamed the floods on mismanagement, adding: 'We know exactly what is going on; we have a 50-year record of storms coming into Thailand. We have the data, but nobody takes it seriously.'

One problem is that many government departments are involved in water management, but 'they don't talk to each other', he said.

The options before the committee are far from easy.

One is to build a huge tunnel to channel flood waters from north to south under Bangkok, pushing the deluge out to sea.

Another is a 'floodway' - a sort of super canal, possibly with an expressway running above it. But land would have to be acquired for that, and because Bangkok is flat, with no slope towards the sea, the water would still have to be driven out to the Gulf.

Another option is to dredge low-lying wetlands north of the city, converting them into huge lakes that can hold large volumes of water. But Suvarnabhumi International Airport is located there.

To address the threat from the south, experts are considering a dyke out at sea that will hold back the erosion of the coastline.

Yet another option is to move the capital. But that is probably no longer possible, because Bangkok's urban infrastructure - especially in terms of transport - has improved in recent years and attracted even more people.

The most that could be done to relieve the density of the city is to move government offices to the nearby province of Nakhon Nayok - a plan that has been mooted before but, like many others, has been left sitting on the shelf.

But now, the devastating flood is pushing the government to finally find a solution - and soon.

King's advice on water management largely unheeded
Straits Times 18 Nov 11;

FEW people have thought as much about water management in Thailand as King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who in his youth trained as an engineer.

But few have heeded his constant warnings.

As far back as 1971 the King flagged widespread logging in the north as a trigger for future floods.

Forty years later, as Thailand battles epic floods, deforestation is being blamed for the rushing flow of rain water that filled northern dams to capacity a few months ago. That, combined with a decision to hold water in the dams in anticipation of a dry season drought, led to the reservoirs swelling to capacity - forcing the release of huge volumes of water from several dams all at once.

In a 1990 speech, the King, commenting on the kingdom's frequent floods, said: 'The major cause... is the fact that we built our houses on wetlands. My point is that humans have changed nature so much from what it used to be.'

The wetland is a key absorber of water. Conversion of wetlands to other uses - especially to large urban infrastructure - reduces that capacity.

Five years later, speaking to a roomful of officials discussing drainage plans for Bangkok, he said: 'In the future, we will face more problems from sea water rising up.'

He emphasised the importance of wider canals, and pumps to propel the water out to sea.

Some of his advice was heeded; Bangkok depends on a battery of close to 200 pumping stations. But in the current crisis, all the pumps have been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are not designed for such prolonged use, and many have burned out.

Thankfully, there were no heavy storms and sudden electricity failures, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) engineer Supachai Tantikom said. Otherwise, the city would have been submerged.

But some of the King's advice was also ignored - an odd phenomenon in a country where the King is the ultimate moral authority and Thais from all walks of life hang on to his every word.

'People didn't think it was such a serious threat, I suppose,' said Dr Supachai.

Veteran meteorologist Dr Smith Dharmasaroja also said: 'People didn't believe this could happen.'

King Bhumibol is known to have been unhappy with the choice of location of the city's international airport, which took years to build and was finally commissioned in late 2008. But successive governments went ahead anyway.

In an interview in an office at the BMA, Dr Supachai pored over a map of Bangkok's drainage system and brought his palm down on an area east of the city which once was a vast wetland called Cobra Swamp and now features the sprawling Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

'It shouldn't be there,' he said.

NIRMAL GHOSH

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Sumatran tigers vanishing with the once-sacred forests

Bruce Gale Straits Times 18 Nov 11;

IT WAS a Saturday morning and five-year-old Fitria Judin was playing with her two older sisters outside their house on a plantation in Bengkulu's Kepahiang regency. Suddenly a tiger emerged from the nearby woods and attacked her. Terrified, Fitria's two siblings ran 7km to the nearest village to seek help.

Villagers later found the young victim dead, about 20m from where the attack had taken place. Her left leg was missing, believed to have been eaten by the tiger. It was not immediately clear where Fitria's parents were at the time of the attack, which took place on Nov 5.

Although tragic, the incident was not really surprising. Villagers in the province had been reporting sightings of tigers near human settlements for months. In December last year, for example, residents of a housing complex near the Kaur regency administration office woke up to the remains of three goats that had been mauled by at least two Sumatran tigers the previous night.

Tigers found wandering near human settlements are generally trapped by forest rangers and then released into more remote conservation areas. Government officials have responded to recent incidents by calling on the local population to avoid hunting deer, warning that the practice was forcing the tigers to enter residential areas to look for cattle.

However, with tiger habitats being progressively destroyed by illegal logging, the number of such encroachments is increasing. Reports of attacks on humans like the one involving Fitria also give villagers a powerful motive to hunt and kill the protected animals rather than cooperate with conservationists.

The Indonesian government estimates that more than one million hectares of forest are cleared in Indonesia every year. At this rate, conservationists argue, the Sumatran tiger could soon follow its Javanese and Balinese cousins into extinction. Only about 400 Sumatran tigers are believed to exist in the wild. The Balinese tiger became extinct in the 1950s, and the Javanese tiger in the 1970s.

Illegal logging is not the only culprit, however. Earlier this month, Interpol launched a new campaign to coordinate the global fight against tiger poaching, arguing it was imperative that the nations where tigers can still be found work together to combat wildlife crime.

Tiger poaching is rampant in Asia, where tiger parts are used in traditional medicine. The estimated 100,000 tigers that roamed Asia in 1900 have now dwindled to fewer than 3,500 across the so-called tiger-range countries. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), tigers will be extinct globally by 2022 if left unprotected. Countries that constitute the global tiger range include Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Named 'Project Predator', the World Bank-supported campaign was unveiled at the 80th Interpol General Assembly in Hanoi on Nov 2. The initiative seeks to provide capacity building to law enforcement agencies by strengthening their ability to work with wildlife officials using advanced investigation techniques. A press release issued by Interpol described the illegal trade as 'one of the most high-profile, destructive and urgent forms of wildlife crime'.

A meeting of senior police and Customs officials from tiger-range countries is scheduled to be held in Bangkok in February next year to identify and implement a plan of action.

Whether the campaign will make much difference in Indonesia, however, remains to be seen. A recent incident in which a trader was a fined just 3 million rupiah (S$430) after being caught red-handed with a Sumatran tiger skin in Payakumbuh, West Sumatra, has cast doubt on Indonesia's commitment to conservation efforts. Reports say that the trader was planning to sell the skin for 150 million rupiah.

The judgment appears to be part of a depressing pattern. According to the WWF, at least 40 tigers are known to have been killed in Riau between 2005 and last year. But the authorities have made only five arrests in the province since 2001, and only one of these cases made it to court.

Cooperation with local populations is also critical. The plantation Fitria's family was working on, for example, was reportedly located inside a protected forest area.

Rather than wait for forest rangers, villagers have sometimes taken matters into their own hands. Two young female tigers currently living in a conservation park in Bogor, for example, have each had a paw amputated. They were caught in traps set by villagers inside palm-oil plantations. Though accused of being man-eaters, the accusations were never proven.

Greenpeace's Indonesia branch has demanded an end to all illegal logging activities. Noting that Indonesians once regarded forests as sacred, a spokesman told the Antara news agency that 'if we destroy the forests, it means we also destroy the traditions and beliefs of our ancestors'.

The tigers, along with a great deal of other Indonesian wildlife, will disappear as well.

But is anyone listening?

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A food crisis will feed instability in Asean

Yang Razali Kassim, For The Straits Times 18 Nov 11;

THE unusually heavy floods in Thailand and other South- east Asian countries are having one major impact - a growing sense of urgency in Asean over natural calamities and possible food scarcity. Indeed, the 19th Asean Summit and related meetings in Bali this week may well have to morph into a de facto crisis meeting of regional leaders. Apart from the region's strategic, political and economic priorities, no issues can be more pressing.

Erratic weather caused probably by climate change brought about the current dire situation in Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. In Thailand, the floods have severely affected rice production. Given its position as the world's largest exporter of rice, Thailand's woes are also affecting its capacity to feed the Asean region. If the situation gets out of hand, there could be repercussions on economic and political stability.

The growing sense of urgency in Asean can be detected in the group's recent official pronouncements. On Oct 12, Indonesia, as the current Asean chair, issued a special statement 'on the floods in South-east Asia', expressing concern over the deluge in some member states. But it also 'emphasised the importance of strong cooperation and coordination' and the 'need for full implementation' of two key mechanisms to deal with food emergencies.

The first mechanism is the Asean Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response or AADMER. The second is the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management, or AHA Centre. However, the message is laced with concern whether AADMER and AHA are fully ready to play their roles to tackle the looming challenges in human security, especially a possible food crisis in the region where rice is a major staple.

Significantly, five days earlier, on Oct 7, the Asean 10 signed an emergency rice reserve pact with its three North-east Asian dialogue partners - China, Japan and South Korea - also known as the Asean+3. Called the Asean Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (Apterr), the speedy signing of the rice pact underscored the growing collaboration between Asean and its North-east Asian dialogue partners. It also reflects the increasing influence of the three countries on Asean.

Asean officials say that under Apterr scheme, the 13 countries in the Asean+3 will stock 787,000 tonnes of rice to be used in the event of sudden instabilities in supplies caused by natural calamities. The phrase 'sudden instabilities' reflects the growing nervousness within the region over environmental uncertainties. Indeed, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on Asean at the last summit in May in Jakarta to consider using the group's rice reserve not only in the event of natural disasters but also economic upheaval.

A senior Asean official has suggested that in the long term, Apterr could expand to other staple foods to help the region deal with volatility in food prices. Indonesian Vice-President Boediono has said food cooperation is to become more urgent in the coming years. The United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation has noted that the current floods have caused devastation across South-east Asia, including severe damage to padi fields.

But will floods and food shortage paradoxically bind Asean and North-east Asia closer together?

The growing regional collaboration and cohesion between the two regions within the framework of Asean+3 comes at a time of an evolving strategic landscape. Emerging is a parallel forum called the East Asia Summit (EAS). This involves not only Asean+3 but also Australia, New Zealand and India, as well as two major powers - the United States and Russia. The EAS will have meetings in Bali tomorrow. It would not be a surprise if it addresses food security as well.

Over time, there is a possibility that both diplomatic tracks - Asean+3 and EAS - will emerge to help Asean deal with its growing challenges on the human security front, such as floods and food shortages.

The larger question is one of regional stability. There are very good reasons why Asean is concerned about food security. Rice can be politically sensitive.

Writing online in The Diplomat, a young Filipino political leader, Mr Mong Palatino, observed that rice has the potential to spark an uprising. The precedent cited was Vietnam, when hungry peasants demanding food, rice and independence led the 1945 revolution. Mr Palatino also quoted a leaked security report in the Philippines - denied by the government - warning against possible violent social protests if the government failed to prevent a rice supply crisis this year.

Asean leaders are fully aware of the 'Tunisia effect'. Earlier this year, Tunisia saw a food crisis conspiring with politics to trigger the 'Arab Spring' of revolts that spread quickly across North Africa and the Middle East. South-east Asia is far from being another theatre for such an extreme scenario. But the Asean Summit this week is a timely platform to plan for ways to pre-empt a possible 'South-east Asian Spring'.

The writer is a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

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EU Biofuel Target Seen Driving Species Loss: Study

Charlie Dunmore PlanetArk 17 Nov 11;

A European Union target to promote the use of biofuels will accelerate global species loss because it encourages the conversion of pasture, savanna and forests into new cropland, EU scientists have warned.

The finding raises fresh doubts over the benefits of biofuels, which were once seen as the most effective way of cutting road transport emissions, but whose environmental credentials have increasingly been called into question.

The scale of species loss in areas converted into new cropland could be more than 80 percent, the scientists from the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) said in a newly published report.

"This result shows that the extensive use of bioenergy crops will increase the rate in loss of biodiversity," the report said.

One of the report's authors stressed that the finding was based on a preliminary analysis of the issue and that more research was needed to accurately quantify the likely impact on biodiversity caused by the EU's biofuel mandate.

"This is only a very rough estimation... but at least it raises the issue, and sends a warning that this should be taken into consideration," the JRC's Luisa Marelli told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"If we had found that only 10 percent of biodiversity would be affected, then that would be a very low number considering all the uncertainties, but the number is much higher," she said.

LAND USE CHANGE

The JRC report was based on the findings of another study on the land use impacts of the EU's biofuel target, prepared for the Commission by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

IFPRI calculated that the EU target would lead to a global increase in cropland of more than 17,000 square km -- about half the area of the Netherlands -- primarily in Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa and former Soviet Union countries.

Environmental campaigners warn that cropland conversion in biodiversity hot spots such as Brazil's cerrado -- or savanna -- could increase the pressure on endangered species including the giant anteater and maned wolf.

"The world faces two major environmental disasters -- climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Biofuels, once thought of as a solution, are contributing to making both these crises worse," said Robbie Blake, biofuels campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe.

Modeling exercises carried out by IFPRI and others have also suggested that the land use impacts of the EU target -- both direct and indirect -- could wipe out most of the predicted emissions saving from biofuels.

But such models are intrinsically uncertain, and biofuel producers and other critics have argued that the scientific uncertainties are still too great to use them as the basis for changes to EU policy.

An internal debate is currently raging within the Commission on how to account for land use changes in biofuels legislation, which sets a mandatory EU-wide goal for increasing the share of biofuels in road transport to about 10 percent by 2020.

The Commission was not immediately available for comment.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)

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Get ready for climate change, says UN panel

Marlowe Hood AFP Yahoo News 16 Nov 11;

The toll from ever-more intense floods, drought, and heatwaves will crescendo this century unless humanity anticipates the onslaught, according to a UN report set to be unveiled on Friday.

In an 800-page assessment, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says global warming will magnify the frequence and force of extreme weather events, and defences must be prepared now to avoid worse misery in the future.

"The character and severity of impacts ... depends not only on the extremes themselves but also on vulnerability and exposure," notes a draft "summary for policymakers" obtained by AFP.

The 20-page document is being vetting this week at a meeting of the 194-nation body in Kampala, Uganda.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon drove home the "be prepared" message at a climate forum in Dhaka on Monday.

"Natural hazards need not cause human catastrophe," he said. "There are many cost-effective remedies that communities and countries can take to reduce the impact of extreme weather events."

Poor countries with scant margin for manoeuvre will be hit first and hardest.

But the 2003 heatwave that killed 70,000 in Europe and Hurricane Katrina's flooding of New Orleans are deadly reminders that rich countries must brace for impacts too.

And beyond a certain threshold, the report cautions, all efforts to adapt may be overwhelmed unless the underlying carbon emissions that drive global warming are held in check.

Three years in the making, the special report -- based on thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles -- is the IPCC's first dedicated probe of the nexus of climate change and extreme weather events.

It is also the first time the panel has woven climate science and risk management into a single analysis.

Since the IPCC issued its inaugural assessment in 1990, "historically distinct research communities" have worked independently and produced separate reports.

That segregation was probably a mistake, experts on both sides of the divide told AFP.

"Disaster specialists have a world of experience that should be an essential baseline for adaptation to future climate change," said Tom Downing, head of the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership in Oxford and a veteran of the IPCC process.

"It is encouraging to see the IPCC take forward this integration in a groundbreaking assessment."

"One of the key take-home messages of this report is the emphasis on exposure and vulnerability," agreed Will Steffen, head of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute.

"Science is only part of the puzzle here. The others have to do with people's resilience and adaptability."

Neville Nicholls, a professor at Monash University in Melborne and a lead author of the pure-science chapter on how climate change affects weather, said the collaboration "strengthened us both."

"It has made the scientists focus a lot more on what the risk community really needs, and the disaster risk community have a better idea of what we can -- and can't -- give them," he said by phone.

The change in tack follows several reputation-damaging mistakes uncovered in the IPCC's landmark Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

Most of the errors, including a wildly inaccurate estimate of the pace of glacier melt-off in the Himalayas, stem in part from poor coordination between these communities, IPCC scientists acknowledge.

The new, solution-oriented report, identifies relatively easy and cheap "low-regret" actions such as early warning systems in areas likely to be hit by deadly heatwaves or flooding.

Improved building codes and forecasting capacity could likewise help save lives in cyclone-prone regions.

But the longer such measures are put off the more costly or ineffective they become, it cautions.

Many adaptation schemes have already been put in place, especially at the local level.

Newly-planted mangrove forests in Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar help break the destructive force of cyclones jacked up by warmer and rising seas. And new heat-resistant strains of corn, rice and beans could save thousands of lives.

More than 350 million worldwide people face a "perfect storm" of conditions for potential food disaster, according to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Sometimes there may be not "options" at all -- citizens of several small island states face permanent relocation due to rising seas, the report said.

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La Nina returns, but weaker impact seen: UN weather agency

AFP Yahoo News 18 Nov 11;

The UN weather agency said on Thursday that La Nina, a phenomenon linked to flooding and drought, had re-emerged in the tropical Pacific since August but its impact is expected to be weaker this time.

"This La Nina is expected to persist through the end of this year and into early 2012, possibly strengthening to moderate intensity," said the World Meteorological Organisation in a statement.

"However, it is likely to be considerably weaker than the recent episode that was linked to flooding and drought in different parts of the world."

La Nina is characterized by unusually cool ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

It is the opposite of El Nino, which is marked by unusually warm ocean surface temperatures.

Both factor in the fluctuations of the world's climate.

In late 2008 La Nina was blamed for icy conditions that claimed dozens of lives across Europe.

The weather phenomenon can also bring about strong rainfall in Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, as well as drought in South America.

The current La Nina follows closely behind the moderate to strong one that started in September 2010 and ended with neutral conditions established in May this year, the WMO said.

"Historical precedents and the latest outputs from forecast models suggest that peak intensity of this La Nina will be reached in late 2011 or early 2012, and that it is very unlikely to reach conditions as strong as those of the 2010-11 La Nina event," the statement said.


La Nina Weak For Now But Likely To Strengthen: WMO
Stephanie Nebehay PlanetArk 18 Nov 11;

La Nina, a weather phenomenon usually linked to heavy rains and flooding in the Asia-Pacific and South America and drought in Africa, has re-emerged and is likely to persist into early 2012, the World Meterological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.

However, it is "very unlikely" to reach conditions as strong as those of the 2010-2011 La Nina event that ended in May, the United Nations agency said.

"This La Nina is expected to persist through the end of this year and into early 2012, possibly strengthening to moderate intensity," the WMO said in a statement.

El Nino, its opposite weather phenomenon which warms the Pacific, has been ruled out as occurring before April 2012, according to the agency whose assessment is based on input from climate prediction centers and experts around the world.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

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