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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Heat And Observed Economic Activity In The Rich Urban Tropics, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming. Liu, Alberto. Salvo, Rhita P B. Simorangkir Dec 2023

Heat And Observed Economic Activity In The Rich Urban Tropics, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming. Liu, Alberto. Salvo, Rhita P B. Simorangkir

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We use space-and-time resolved mobility data to assess how heat impacts Singapore, a rich city-state and arguably a harbinger of what is to come in the urbanizing tropics. Singapore’s offices, factories, malls, buses, and trains are widely air conditioned, its public schools less so. We document increased attendance and commuting to workplaces, malls, and the more air-conditioned schools on hotter relative to cooler days, particularly by low-income residents with limited use of adaptive technologies at home. Investment by rich cities may attenuate heat’s pervasive negative consequences on productive outcomes, yet this may worsen the climate emergency in the long run.


What The Latest Science On Impacts, Adaptation And Vulnerability Means For Cities And Urban Areas, I Adelekan, A. Cartwright, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al See Comments For Full List Of Authors Nov 2022

What The Latest Science On Impacts, Adaptation And Vulnerability Means For Cities And Urban Areas, I Adelekan, A. Cartwright, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al See Comments For Full List Of Authors

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) Volume II focuses on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in cities and urban areas. Drawing on latest research, this volume summarises key findings of the IPCC Working Group II Report for urban policy makers. The scale, reach, and complexity of contemporary urbanization compounds climate risks and conditions adaptation. While cities are embedded in diverse regional contexts and differentially exposed to climate risks, they present key opportunities for a more rapid transition to equitable and climate-resilient development. This volume highlights how cities and regions are a primary locus for innovation and societal choices towards adaptation solutions …


Outdoor Thermal Comfort Research In Transient Conditions: A Narrative Literature Review, Yuliya Dzyuban, Graces N. Y. Ching, Sin Kang Yik, Adrian J. Tan, Shreya Banerjee, Peter Jay Crank, Winston T. L. Chow Oct 2022

Outdoor Thermal Comfort Research In Transient Conditions: A Narrative Literature Review, Yuliya Dzyuban, Graces N. Y. Ching, Sin Kang Yik, Adrian J. Tan, Shreya Banerjee, Peter Jay Crank, Winston T. L. Chow

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In recent years, urban planners and designers are paying greater attention to Outdoor Thermal Comfort (OTC) studies due to the imminent threat of the Urban Heat Island and climate change on human health. Historically, indoor thermal comfort research assumed steady-state conditions, centralizing on the concept of thermal neutrality to determine optimal environmental parameters. Such research pivoted to investigating how non-steady-state, transient environmental conditions influence comfort. Recent studies underscore the usefulness of positive alliesthesia in providing a productive framework for OTC evaluation. In this article we first clarify the concepts related to thermal comfort-related terms, scales, and models in the literature. …


Five Key Points In The Ipcc Report On Climate Change Impacts And Adaptation, Lisa Schipper, Vanessa Castan Broto, Winston T. L. Chow Mar 2022

Five Key Points In The Ipcc Report On Climate Change Impacts And Adaptation, Lisa Schipper, Vanessa Castan Broto, Winston T. L. Chow

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) looks at the impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities associated with the climate crisis, and we are three of the 270 scientists and researchers who wrote it. The document reports stark new findings on the way current global warming of 1.1℃ is impacting natural and human systems, and on how our ability to respond will be increasingly limited with every additional increment of warming.


Commentary: Coastal Cities Like Singapore Face Outsized Risks – And Opportunities – In A Warming World, Winston T. L. Chow Mar 2022

Commentary: Coastal Cities Like Singapore Face Outsized Risks – And Opportunities – In A Warming World, Winston T. L. Chow

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Many Southeast Asian cities are at the frontline for rapid, concerted and effective climate action, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report's lead author Winston Chow.


Cities, Settlements And Key Infrastructure, David Dodman, Bronwyn Hayward, Mark Pelling, Vanesa Castan Broto, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al. Feb 2022

Cities, Settlements And Key Infrastructure, David Dodman, Bronwyn Hayward, Mark Pelling, Vanesa Castan Broto, Winston T. L. Chow, Et Al.

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In all cities and urban areas, the risk faced by people and assets from hazards associated with climate change has increased (high confidence1 ). Urban areas are now home to 4.2 billion people, the majority of the world’s population. Urbanisation processes generate vulnerability and exposure which combine with climate change hazards to drive urban risk and impacts (high confidence). Globally, the most rapid growth in urban vulnerability and exposure has been in cities and settlements where adaptive capacity is limited, especially in unplanned and informal settlements in low- and middle-income nations and in smaller and medium-sized urban centres (high confidence). …


Fact Sheet - Human Settlements: Climate Change Impacts And Risks, Winston T. L. Chow, Richard Dawson, Bruce Glavovic, Marjolijn Haasnoot, Mark Pelling, William Solecki Feb 2022

Fact Sheet - Human Settlements: Climate Change Impacts And Risks, Winston T. L. Chow, Richard Dawson, Bruce Glavovic, Marjolijn Haasnoot, Mark Pelling, William Solecki

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This regional factsheet on cities and human settlements gives a snapshot of the key findings of the Sixth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2022 - Impacts. Adaptation and Vulnerability, distilled from the relevant Chapters and Cross-Chapter Papers, the Technical Summary and the Global to Regional Atlas.


Declining Discount Rates In Singapore's Market For Privately Developed Apartments, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming Liu, Alberto Salvo Sep 2021

Declining Discount Rates In Singapore's Market For Privately Developed Apartments, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming Liu, Alberto Salvo

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Singapore's market for new privately developed apartments exhibits wide quasi-experimental variation in ownership tenure. We develop an empirical model in which prices are decomposed into the utility of housing services and a factor that shifts with asset tenure and the discount rate schedule, which we discipline to vary smoothly over time. We estimate discount rates that decline over time and, to accommodate the observed price differences, fall to 0.5-1.5% p.a. by year 400. The finding that households making sizable transactions do not entirely discount benefits accruing centuries from today is relevant, with the appropriate risk adjustment, for evaluating climate-change investments.


Declining Discount Rates In Singapore's Market For Privately Developed Apartments, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming Liu, Alberto Salvo Sep 2021

Declining Discount Rates In Singapore's Market For Privately Developed Apartments, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming Liu, Alberto Salvo

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Singapore's market for new privately developed apartments exhibits wide quasi-experimental variation in ownership tenure. We develop an empirical model in which prices are decomposed into the utility of housing services and a factor that shifts with asset tenure and the discount rate schedule, which we discipline to vary smoothly over time. We estimate discount rates that decline over time and, to accommodate the observed price differences, fall to 0.5-1.5% p.a. by year 400. The finding that households making sizable transactions do not entirely discount benefits accruing centuries from today is relevant, with the appropriate risk adjustment, for evaluating climate-change investments.


Indigenous Perceptions Of Climate Anomalies In Malaysian Borneo, Terry Van Gevelt, H. Abok, M. M. Bennett, S. D. Fam, F. George, N. Kulathuramaiyer, C. T. Low, T. Zamane Sep 2019

Indigenous Perceptions Of Climate Anomalies In Malaysian Borneo, Terry Van Gevelt, H. Abok, M. M. Bennett, S. D. Fam, F. George, N. Kulathuramaiyer, C. T. Low, T. Zamane

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Local perceptions of climate anomalies influence adaptation behaviour. Specifically, perceptions that are more accurate and homogenous at the community-level are more likely to facilitate the collective action required to adapt to the local effects of climate anomalies experienced by many indigenous communities. We combine primary data on perceptions of climate anomalies from 200 individuals in six Penan villages in Sarawak, Malaysia with instrumental climate data. We find that perceptions of climate anomalies vary substantially in terms of occurrence and magnitude, and do not generally correlate with instrumental climate data. We operationalise the Penan forest sign language (Oroo’) as a measure …


Liquid Futures: Water Management Systems And Anticipated Environments, Sayd Randle, Jessica Barnes Mar 2018

Liquid Futures: Water Management Systems And Anticipated Environments, Sayd Randle, Jessica Barnes

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Climate change and its impact on hydrological dynamics have become key topics of concern among water managers and policy makers in many parts of the world. Yet while practitioners often frame adaptation to a climate-changed future as a novel issue, ideas about future environments have long influenced systems of water management. Reviewing ethnographic and historical accounts of waterscapes across the globe, this article examines the relationship between imagined environmental futures and the policies, practices, infrastructures of water management and legal frameworks. We show, first, how conflicting ideas about environmental stasis and perturbation have been built into water networks across space …