Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-10 (section)

==== 10.4.5.4 Key Drivers to Vulnerability ====

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There is ''high confidence'' that agriculture will continue to be among the most vulnerable sectors in Asia in light of the changing climate ( [[#Mendelsohn--2014|Mendelsohn, 2014]] ; [[#ADB--2017b|ADB, 2017b]] ). Among the more vulnerable areas include mountain agriculture where fluctuation in crop production ( [[#Poudel--2016|Poudel and Shaw, 2016]] ; [[#Hussain--2019|Hussain et al., 2019]] ), and food insufficiency, is more widespread than in lowland areas ( [[#Poudel--2015|Poudel and Shaw, 2015]] ; [[#Kohler--2009|Kohler and Maselli, 2009]] ). Also vulnerable are flood-prone areas like the Vietnam Mekong River Delta where 39% of the total rice area is exposed to sustained flood risks ( [[#Wassmann--2019a|Wassmann et al., 2019a]] ). Increasing temperatures and changing precipitation levels will persist to be important vulnerability drivers that will shape agricultural productivity particularly in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central Asia as well as in selected areas of the region. With the increasing likelihood of extreme weather events, such as strong typhoons in the Philippines, the agriculture sector in the typhoon-prone areas of Southeast and East Asia, as well as the Indus Delta, will be more vulnerable to crop destruction (Mallari and Ezra, 2016). Projections on increasing SLR and flooding, such as those in Bangladesh and the Mekong Delta, will submerge and decrease crop production areas and severely affect agriculture and fishery sectors, but will also trigger outmigration from these areas ( [[#ADB--2017b|ADB, 2017b]] ).

Vulnerability of aquaculture-related livelihoods to climate change was assessed at the global scale using the MAGICC/SCENGEN climate modelling tools, and Vietnam and Thailand were identified as most vulnerable in brackish-water aquaculture production ( [[#Handisyde--2017|Handisyde et al., 2017]] ). China, Vietnam and the Philippines are also ranked highly vulnerable in marine production. Moreover, a recent vulnerability assessment of Korean aquaculture based on predicted changes in seawater temperature and salinity according to RCP8.5 indicated that vulnerability was highest for seaweed, such as laver and sea mustard, while fish, shrimp and abalone are relatively less vulnerable as they are less sensitive to high water temperature and their farming environments are controllable to a large extent ( [[#Kim--2019a|Kim et al., 2019a]] ). In Indonesia, farming of whiteleg shrimp ( ''Litopenaeus vannamei'' ) has been found to be vulnerable to increased rainfall and temperature decrease ( [[#Puspa--2018|Puspa et al., 2018]] ).

Climate-change-induced vulnerability, however, is complicated by non-climate drivers. In Thailand, for instance, a 38% reduction (from 21,486 to 13,328 million at the present value (1 USD = 33.54 THB) in the export values of rice and products in the last quarter of 2011 has been attributed not only to the impact of tropical cyclone Nock-Ten on Thai rice export but also the economic slowdown in Thailand during 2011–2012 ( [[#Nara--2014|Nara et al., 2014]] ).

Considering the high vulnerability of Asia to climate change as a whole, there is a need to look at the drivers of vulnerability in an integrated and comprehensive manner. The increasing interest on nexus studies that links climate-change impacts on agriculture with the other sectors like water, energy, land-use change, urbanisation, poverty, economic liberalisation and others (see, for example, [[#Takama--2016|Takama et al., 2016]] ; [[#Aich--2017|Aich et al., 2017]] ; [[#Eslamian--2017|Eslamian et al., 2017]] ; [[#Duan--2019b|Duan et al., 2019b]] ) could contribute to a systemwide vulnerability reduction and an important initial step towards a more climate-resilient future.

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