From mangrove to milpa: what determines resilience to extreme weather events in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico?

现有的气象记录表明，世界天气正变得更加多变和极端，这些极端天气给基础设施、农作物、住房和自然生态系统造成的保险损失和未保险损失都变得更加昂贵。这些事件的相对影响和脆弱性在发展中经济体中最高。在墨西哥，从1980-1999年到2000-2012年，极端事件造成的经济损失增加了30倍，气候变化预测表明，该国将经历更极端的天气，以及更严重的干旱。在墨西哥境内，尤卡坦半岛被确定为特别容易受到气候变化的影响，部分原因是降雨量少、气温高、热带风暴频繁(包括最强烈的飓风)，但也因为小规模、接近自给的农业和渔业以及经济上处于不利地位的大量土著(玛雅)人口的持续重要性。更好地了解是什么使社区和社区的特定部门在面对极端天气事件时或多或少具有弹性，这将有助于在气候变化的背景下在地方、区域和国家范围内制定有效的适应战略。要做到这一点，就意味着将来自不同学科背景(横跨自然科学、社会科学和人文科学)的研究人员聚集在一起，开发一种共同的研究方法。为了使这项研究在现实世界的问题上具有相关性和实用性，它还需要得到潜在用户和/或工作受益者的投入。该项目汇集了来自英国和墨西哥研究机构的专家团队，他们都有在尤卡坦地区研究天气和气候的不同方面(特别是干旱)的经验，但主要侧重于一个特别的重点(例如，性别在理解和应对极端天气方面的作用，生态系统对干旱的敏感性)。在这里，他们将与我们现有的联邦和州政府机构网络(如环境和自然资源秘书处(SEMARNAT)、性别和环境网络(RGMA)、尤卡坦城市发展和环境秘书处(SEDUMA)和国家保护区委员会(CONANP))以及社区团体(如可持续农业集体U‘yool’che)合作。这项工作将集中在三个具体的研究区域，一个在半岛北海岸，飓风是一个特别严重的问题，另两个更南边，干旱更令人担忧，一个是以自给自足的农业为主，另一个是商业农业更重要。除了这些具体地理研究外，还将开展工作，利用欧空局哨兵2号和3号站台提供的新的高分辨率卫星图像，跟踪土地利用和植被变化，并利用该区域气象站网络提供的数据。综合起来，这些办法将使人们能够更全面地评估半岛哪些地区最容易受到极端事件的影响，以及这些事件对自然和管理环境的影响，以及是什么使社区或多或少地易受影响，以及它们的适应战略。具体目标将是制定一项确定复原力的议定书，以支持政策制定者和社区就如何通过更好地了解和改善沟通，更有效地应对气候变化对经济发展和生活质量的负面影响作出决定。

Available meteorological records show that the world's weather is becoming more variable and more extreme and that these extremes are becoming more costly in terms of both insured and uninsured losses to infrastructure, crops, housing and natural ecosystems. The relative impact of, and vulnerability to, these events is highest in developing economies. In Mexico the economic cost of extreme events increased 30x between 1980-99 and 2000-2012 and climate change projections indicate that the country will experience more extreme weather, as well as more intense droughts. Within Mexico, the Yucatan peninsula has been identified as being unusually vulnerable to climate change in part because of its low rainfall, high temperatures and frequent tropical storms (including the most intense hurricanes), but also because of the continuing importance of small scale, near subsistence farming and fishing and a high indigenous (Maya) population who are economically disadvantaged. Better understanding of what makes communities, and particular sectors of communities, more or less resilient in the face of extreme weather events will help in the development of effective adaptation strategies at local, regional and national scales in a context of a changing climate. Achieving this means drawing together researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (spanning the natural and social sciences and humanities) to develop a common research methodology. For this research to be relevant and practical in terms of real world problems, it also needs to be developed with input from the potential users and/or beneficiaries of the work. This project brings together a team of experts from UK and Mexican research institutions, all of whom have experience of working in the Yucatan on different aspects of weather and climate (especially drought) but largely with a particular focus (e.g. the role of gender in understanding and coping with extreme weather, ecosystem sensitivity to drought). Here, they will work together and with our existing networks of federal and state government agencies (such as the Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), the Gender and Environment Network (RGMA), the Secretariat for Urban Development and Environment Yucatan (SEDUMA) and the National Protected Areas Commission (CONANP)) and community groups (e.g U'yool'che a sustainable agriculture collective). This work will be focused on three specific study regions, one on the north coast of the peninsula where hurricanes are a particular problem and two further south, where drought is more of a concern, one where subsistence farming dominates and one where commercial agriculture is more important. These geographically specific studies will be complemented by work to exploit the availability of new, high resolution satellite imagery from the ESA's Sentinel-2 and -3 platforms to track landuse and vegetation change and work on the data available from the region's network of meteorological stations. Taken together these approaches will allow a fuller assessment of which parts of the peninsula are most vulnerable to extreme events and the impacts these have on the natural and managed environment, of what makes communities more or less vulnerable and their strategies for adaptation. The specific goal will be to develop a protocol for determining resilience which will support policy makers and communities in making decisions about how to cope more effectively with the negative impacts of a changing climate on economic development and quality of life through better understanding and improved communication.