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The influence of climate on economic growth is a topic of growing interest. Few studies have investigated the potential role that climate hazards and their cumulative effects have on the growth prospects for a country. Due to the relatively stationary spatial patterns of global climate, some regions and countries are more prone to climate hazards and climate variability than others. This study uses a precipitation index that preserves the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation and differentiates between precipitation maximums (such as floods) and minimums (such as droughts). The authors develop a year and country fixed effects regression model to test the influence of climate variables on measures of economic growth and activity. The results indicate that precipitation extremes (floods and droughts) are the dominant climate influence on economic growth and that the effects are significant and negative. The drought index is associated with a highly significant negative influence on growth of growth domestic product, while the flood index is associated with a negative influence on growth of gross domestic product and lagged effects on growth. Temperature has little significant effect. These results have important implications for economic projections of climate change impacts. In addition, adaptation strategies should give new consideration to the importance of water resources given the identification of precipitation extremes as the key climate influence on historical growth of gross domestic product.

Annual precipitation --- Calculation --- Climate --- Climate change --- Climate Change Economics --- Climate Change Impacts --- Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases --- Climate effects --- Climate variation --- Climates --- Drought --- Drought severity --- Dust --- Environment --- Fertilizers --- Floods --- GCM --- Global Environment Facility --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Negative impacts --- Palmer drought severity index --- Precipitation --- Precipitation anomalies --- Rainfall --- Science and Technology Development --- Science of Climate Change --- Southern oscillation index --- Temperature

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One of the objectives of a GFDRR funded project in Armenia (Institutional Arrangements on Disaster Risk Management and Reduction) is awareness building among the decision makers, professional engineering and construction community, and local self-governments on the modern, anti-seismic technologies successfully developed and implemented in Armenia. To raise awareness on the seismic isolation technology it was decided to first evaluate the functioning of all seismic isolation systems in the already constructed buildings in Armenia. Then based on the carried out observations to analyze the results, to draw lessons from the findings and to present the conclusions and recommendations to the wider engineering and construction community, as well as to the decision makers in the construction industry. For that purpose monitoring and evaluation of the technical conditions of the seismic isolation systems in the buildings which were seismically isolated for more than a decade ago was carried out. This initiative was very useful, as it helped to answer to the frequently asked questions and concerns on the sustainability and effectiveness of the technology, of the seismic isolators. It also helped to draw lessons and recommend solutions for improving their construction and maintenance practices.

Appliances --- Earthquakes --- Engineering --- Environment --- Flexibility --- Natural Disaster Management --- Natural Disasters --- Precipitation --- Quality Control --- Science and Technology Development --- Social Protection and Risk Management --- Urban Development --- Urban Housing

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This paper summarizes the methods and findings of the hydrological assessment component of the project studying likely impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in Africa. The first phase of the study used a version of a conceptual rainfall-runoff model called WatBal (Water Balance) applied to gridded data to simulate changes in soil moisture and runoff across the whole continent of Africa rather than to any particular catchment or water resource system. The model inputs were the climate variables of the 1961-90 climatology and physiological parameters (such as soil properties and land use) derived from global datasets for each of the 0.5o latitude/longitude cells across the continent. The primary model output comprised a time series (monthly time step) of simulated runoff for all the grid cells for each of the districts in the countries of interest. The second phase of the study extended the hydrology analyses to update the above hydroclimatic series to the year 2000 using updated input data. To ascertain the possible impacts of climate change within the districts being investigated this study used synthetic or GCMbased climate change scenarios as input to the WatBal model. The WatBal model was used to determine the impact of these different scenarios on runoff and actual evaporation and hence flow in the districts under study. The generated hydroclimatic series and scenario analyses were used as inputs into various Ricardian regressions in other analyses measuring likely impacts of climate change on the agricultural economies of Africa.

Agriculture --- Climate --- Climate Change --- Environment --- Hydrology --- Land use --- Precipitation --- Rainfall --- River --- Runoff --- Stream --- Water Resources --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Supply and Systems --- Wetlands

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This paper uses municipality level data to estimate the general relationship between climate, income, and life expectancy in Chile. The analysis finds that incomes are negatively related to temperature, while life expectancy is not significantly related to average temperatures. Both incomes and life expectancy are greater in areas with either very little rain or a lot of rain. The authors use the estimated relationships to simulate the effects of both past (1958-08) and future (2008-58) climate change. The findings indicate that past climate change has been favorable for the central, and most populous, part of Chile, and it has contributed to reduced poverty and reduced inequality of health outcomes. Whereas temperatures in the past have shown a downward trend for most of the Chilean population, climate models suggest that they will increase in the future, and that there will be a reduction in precipitation in the central part of Chile. The analysis simulates the likely effects of these projected climate changes over the next 50 years. The findings suggest that expected future climate will tend to reduce incomes across the whole country, with an average reduction of about 7 percent, all other things equal.

Altitude --- Annual precipitation --- Antarctica --- Climate --- Climate change --- Climate Change Economics --- Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases --- Climates --- Cold winters --- Drought --- Environment --- Global Environment Facility --- IPCC --- Less --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Meteorological data --- Meteorological stations --- No --- Precipitation --- Rain --- Rainfall --- Regional Economic Development --- Science and Technology Development --- Science of Climate Change --- Temperature --- Temperature anomalies --- Temperature change --- Tropics

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This paper quantifies the significance and magnitude of the effect of measurement error in remote sensing weather data in the analysis of smallholder agricultural productivity. The analysis leverages 17 rounds of nationally-representative, panel household survey data from six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. These data are spatially linked with a range of geospatial weather data sources and related metrics. The paper provides systematic evidence on measurement error introduced by (1) different methods used to obfuscate the exact GPS coordinates of households, (2) different metrics used to quantify precipitation and temperature, and (3) different remote sensing measurement technologies. First, the analysis finds no discernible effect of measurement error introduced by different obfuscation methods. Second, it finds that simple weather metrics, such as total seasonal rainfall and mean daily temperature, outperform more complex metrics, such as deviations in rainfall from the long-run average or growing degree days, in a broad range of settings. Finally, the analysis finds substantial amounts of measurement error based on remote sensing products. In extreme cases, the data drawn from different remote sensing products result in opposite signs for coefficients on weather metrics, meaning that precipitation or temperature drawn from one product purportedly increases crop output while the same metrics drawn from a different product purportedly reduces crop output. The paper concludes with a set of six best practices for researchers looking to combine remote sensing weather data with socioeconomic survey data.

Agricultural Productivity --- Agricultural Sector Economics --- Agriculture --- Climate and Meteorology --- Climate Change and Agriculture --- Climate Change Impacts --- Crop Yield --- Crops and Crop Management Systems --- Environment --- Precipitation --- Remote Sensing --- Science and Technology Development --- Temperature --- Weather Impacts