Abstract
We estimated vulnerability to climate change in the coastal municipalities of Mexico through an interdisciplinary approach using an index model with three components: (1) Exposure to dryness and climate change (Lang’s dryness index), (2) socioeconomic sensitivity, and (3) adaptation capacity. Data input were national census data and general circulation model outputs (2045–2069 scenario). Scenarios were compared to reference climatology through Lang’s aridity index, which was found to be practical as an aridity indicator and foresee its future change in value. This methodological approach allowed to set priorities by identifying groups of more threatened and less prepared municipalities in the territories, which show more differences between the present climatological parameter values and the values predicted assuming future climatic scenarios, have less climate change related institutional instruments, present social weaknesses (poverty and inequality), or show environmental degradation. Our results showed the presence of arid zones in 43% of Mexico’s 266 coastal municipalities, comprising more than half of the total coastal population. Comparing present and future scenarios allows differentiating regions already arid that will remain in this situation (Northern Pacific) from regions that are currently humid but will shift to an arid (Caribbean Sea) or desert category (Northern Gulf of Mexico). Both used models predicted a future shift of all categories towards dryness and a worrisome number that will turn to desert and arid categories. We found regional heterogeneity and a complex contribution of each subindex to the total coastal vulnerability index. We concluded that our results can be used as an input to guide the current coastal policies to promote a development model that decreases the vulnerability of coastal municipalities and advance towards a model that includes the complexities of the Mexican coastal dryland socio-ecological systems, its challenges, and its opportunities.
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Notes
- 1.
Climate change projections have been developed at a global scale considering different scenarios. General Circulation Models (GCM) and are used to predict climate change for different future time periods under different CO2 emission scenarios and related atmospheric heat transfer processes. In this work we choose the highest emissions pathways (Representative Concentration Pathways RCP 8.5), which assumes that greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise throughout the current century, so that we could distinguish larger change. Two models from the world available GCM considered to represent the best climate regime for Mexico were analyzed: GFDL_CM3 (developed by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), and MPI_ESM_LR (developed by the Max-Plank Institute).
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Acknowledgments
The present research is part of the characterization and regionalization of the coastal zones of Mexico that includes methods of Geographic Information Systems and biophysical and socioeconomic statistics in current conditions and with climate change project of the 2013–2016 Collaborative Platform on Climate Change and Green Growth between Canada and Mexico.
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Seingier, G., Jiménez-Orocio, O., Espejel, I. (2020). Vulnerability to the Effects of Climate Change: Future Aridness and Present Governance in the Coastal Municipalities of Mexico. In: Lucatello, S., Huber-Sannwald, E., Espejel, I., Martínez-Tagüeña, N. (eds) Stewardship of Future Drylands and Climate Change in the Global South. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22464-6_17
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