Assessing the economic and environmental consequences of the COVID-19 tourism collapse in Andalusia: what lessons can we draw for South-East Asian regions?

This paper presents a simulation exercise undertaken with a newly available regional general equilibrium model for the Spanish region of Andalusia. The exercise is intended to assess the structural adjustment processes and impacts on the Andalusian economy directly induced by the dramatic fall in tourism expenditure which occurred in the year 2020, due to the prevention measures implemented because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also undertake a preliminary evaluation of the impact on some environmental indicators, such as greenhouse gases emissions and air pollutants. The key insight emerging from our analysis is that the COVID crumbling of tourism demand reduces the environmental pressure but also generates very relevant distributional consequences. We believe that these insights are not peculiar to Andalusia but could be extended to many other regions in the world, especially those similar in terms of magnitude of the shock, economic structure, and labor market. We illustrate the latter point by contrasting Andalusia with a set of South-East Asian countries.

An integrated assessment model for food security under climate change for South Asia.

The present study develops an integrated assessment model (IAM) for food security under climate change for South Asia. For IAM, initially, an econometric model is estimated that identifies the impact of climate change on crop yields, using the historical relationships between temperature, precipitation, and the production of cereals. Subsequently, future projections have been collected for temperature and precipitation from climate models of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), and the previous econometric model is applied to obtain the implied future cereal yields changes. Then, the yield variations are fed into a multiregional Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, calibrated to the GTAP 9 database, taking the form of decreases in factor-augmenting productivity of the grains sector. Further, the present study evaluates the effects of climate change on an individual South Asian country. The results indicate that change in climate decreases food production, increases food prices, decreases food consumption, and thus affects the welfare. Trade and fiscal policy responses are investigated to combat the problem of food security. It is revealed that these two policies fail to compensate climate change damage in all the selected South Asian countries.

Interdisciplinary assessment of sea-level rise and climate change impacts on the lower Nile delta, Egypt.

CLImate-induced changes on WAter and SECurity (CLIWASEC) was a cluster of three complementary EC-FP7 projects assessing climate-change impacts throughout the Mediterranean on: hydrological cycles (CLIMB - CLimate-Induced changes on the hydrology of Mediterranean Basins); water security (WASSERMed - Water Availability and Security in Southern EuRope and the Mediterranean) and human security connected with possible hydro-climatic conflicts (CLICO - CLImate change hydro-COnflicts and human security). The Nile delta case study was common between the projects. CLIWASEC created an integrated forum for modelling and monitoring to understand potential impacts across sectors. This paper summarises key results from an integrated assessment of potential challenges to water-related security issues, focusing on expected sea-level rise impacts by the middle of the century. We use this common focus to illustrate the added value of project clustering. CLIWASEC pursued multidisciplinary research by adopting a single research objective: sea-level rise related water security threats, resulting in a more holistic view of problems and potential solutions. In fragmenting research, policy-makers can fail to understand how multiple issues can materialize from one driver. By combining efforts, an integrated assessment of water security threats in the lower Nile is formulated, offering policy-makers a clearer picture of inter-related issues to society and environment. The main issues identified by each project (land subsidence, saline intrusion - CLIMB; water supply overexploitation, land loss - WASSERMed; employment and housing security - CLICO), are in fact related. Water overexploitation is exacerbating land subsidence and saline intrusion, impacting on employment and placing additional pressure on remaining agricultural land and the underdeveloped housing market. All these have wider implications for regional development. This richer understanding could be critical in making better policy decisions when attempting to mitigate climate and social change impacts. The CLIWASEC clustering offers an encouraging path for the new European Commission Horizon 2020 programme to follow.

Uncertainty in climate change modeling: can global sensitivity analysis be of help?

Integrated assessment models offer a crucial support to decisionmakers in climate policy making. For a full understanding and corroboration of model results, analysts ought to identify the exogenous variables that influence the model results the most (key drivers), appraise the relevance of interactions, and the direction of change associated with the simultaneous variation of uncertain variables. We show that such information can be directly extracted from the data set produced by Monte Carlo simulations. Our discussion is guided by the application to the well-known DICE model of William Nordhaus. The proposed methodology allows analysts to draw robust insights into the dependence of future atmospheric temperature, global emissions, and carbon costs and taxes on the model's exogenous variables.

Integration of research advances in modelling and monitoring in support of WFD river basin management planning in the context of climate change.

The integration of scientific knowledge about possible climate change impacts on water resources has a direct implication on the way water policies are being implemented and evolving. This is particularly true regarding various technical steps embedded into the EU Water Framework Directive river basin management planning, such as risk characterisation, monitoring, design and implementation of action programmes and evaluation of the "good status" objective achievements (in 2015). The need to incorporate climate change considerations into the implementation of EU water policy is currently discussed with a wide range of experts and stakeholders at EU level. Research trends are also on-going, striving to support policy developments and examining how scientific findings and recommendations could be best taken on board by policy-makers and water managers within the forthcoming years. This paper provides a snapshot of policy discussions about climate change in the context of the WFD river basin management planning and specific advancements of related EU-funded research projects. Perspectives for strengthening links among the scientific and policy-making communities in this area are also highlighted.

The economic impact of restricted water supply: a computable general equilibrium analysis.

Water problems are typically studied at the level of the river catchment. About 70% of all water is used for agriculture, and agricultural products are traded internationally. A full understanding of water use is impossible without understanding the international market for food and related products, such as textiles. The water embedded in commodities is called virtual water. Based on a general equilibrium model, we offer a method for investigating the role of water resources and water scarcity in the context of international trade. We run five alternative scenarios, analyzing the effects of water scarcity due to reduced availability of groundwater. This can be a consequence of physical constraints, and of policies curbing water demand. Four scenarios are based on a "market solution", where water owners can capitalize their water rent or taxes are recycled. In the fifth "non-market" scenario, this is not the case; supply restrictions imply productivity losses. Restrictions in water supply would shift trade patterns of agriculture and virtual water. These shifts are larger if the restriction is larger, and if the use of water in production is more rigid. Welfare losses are substantially larger in the non-market situation. Water-constrained agricultural producers lose, but unconstrained agricultural produces gain; industry gains as well. As a result, there are regional winners and losers from water supply constraints. Because of the current distortions of agricultural markets, water supply constraints could improve allocative efficiency; this welfare gain may more than offset the welfare losses due to the resource constraint.