The purpose of this research was to assess the potential impact of climate change on the western Newfoundland tourism industry. Western Newfoundland was chosen as it has a variety of recreational activities that attract tourists. To this end, a mixed methods approach was deemed most appropriate. It allowed for the use of the qualitative procedures of interviews and document analysis as well as the quantitative procedures of statistical climate modeling. The qualitative research demonstrated that there was a desire for further growth in the tourism industry and a general lack of concern for the affects of climate change. The quantitative methods projected that three different recreational and tourism activities studied in this thesis could be altered by climate change. Of the tourism industries examined, snowmobiling was projected to suffer shortened seasons, skiing was projected to see slight losses or to maintain its current season length, and golf was projected to extend its season and increase the number of playable rounds. When the two methods were integrated, there was a gap between the potential changes in the tourism industry and the lack of adaptation plans from the province or the tourism sector. Based on these findings, a series of recommendations were made to the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and various tourism operators. This research will contribute a new perspective to the substantial existing literature on tourism, to the growing research on climate change, and to the essential research on Newfoundland and Labrador.

The purpose of this research was to assess the potential impact of climate change on the western Newfoundland tourism industry. Western Newfoundland was chosen as it has a variety of recreational activities that attract tourists. To this end, a mixed methods approach was deemed most appropriate. It allowed for the use of the qualitative procedures of interviews and document analysis as well as the quantitative procedures of statistical climate modeling. The qualitative research demonstrated that there was a desire for further growth in the tourism industry and a general lack of concern for the affects of climate change. The quantitative methods projected that three different recreational and tourism activities studied in this thesis could be altered by climate change. Of the tourism industries examined, snowmobiling was projected to suffer shortened seasons, skiing was projected to see slight losses or to maintain its current season length, and golf was projected to extend its season and increase the number of playable rounds. When the two methods were integrated, there was a gap between the potential changes in the tourism industry and the lack of adaptation plans from the province or the tourism sector. Based on these findings, a series of recommendations were made to the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and various tourism operators. This research will contribute a new perspective to the substantial existing literature on tourism, to the growing research on climate change, and to the essential research on Newfoundland and Labrador.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy in Malawi and accounts for 40% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 90% of the export revenues. Corn (maize) is the major cereal crop grown as staple food under rainfed conditions, covers over 92% of the total agricultural area, and contributes 54% of the caloric intake. Corn production is the principle occupation and major source of income for over 85% of the total population in Malawi. Issues of hunger and food insecurity for the entire nation are associated with corn scarcity and low production. Global warming is expected to cause climate change in Malawi, including changes in temperature and precipitation amounts and patterns. These climate changes are expected to affect corn production in Malawi. This study evaluates the impacts of climate change on rainfed corn production in Malawi. Lilongwe District, with about 1,045 square miles of agriculture area, has been selected as a representative area. First, outputs of 15 General Circulation Models (GCMs) under different emission scenarios are statistically downscaled. For this purpose, a weather generator (LARSWG) is calibrated and validated for the study area and daily precipitation as well as minimum and maximum temperature are projected for 15 GCMs for three time horizons of 2020s, 2050s and 2090s. Probability assessment of bounded range with known distributions is used to deal with the uncertainties of GCMs’ outputs. These GCMs outputs are weighted by considering the ability of each model to simulate historical records. AquaCrop, a new model developed by FAO that simulates the crop yield response to water deficit conditions, is employed to assess potential rainfed corn production in the study area with and without climate change. Study results indicate an average temperature increase of 0.52 to 0.94oC, 1.26 to 2.20oC and 1.78 to 3.58oC in the nearterm (2020s), mid-term (2050s) and long-term (2090s) future, respectively. The expected changes in precipitation during these periods are -17 to 11%, -26 to 0%, and -29 to -3%. Corn iii yields are expected to change by -8.11 to 0.53%, -7.25 to -14.33%, and -13.19 to -31.86%, during the same time periods. The study concludes with suggestion of some adaptation strategies that the Government of Malawi could consider to improve national food security under climate change.

The aim of The Diploma Thesis was to compile a conceptual rainfall-runoff model, that would be eligible to model discharge in conditions of climate changes. After thorough verifications of possible variants, user program Runoff Prophet that is eligible to simulate discharge in closing profile of any river basin was compiled within this paper. Runoff Prophet is deterministic lumped model with monthly computation time step and from the hydrologic phenomena it takes soil moisture, evapotranspiration, groundwater flow and the watercourse flow into account. Its calibration is based on the differential evolution principle with Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient as the calibration criterion. Developed software was tested on Vír I. catchment basin and the results of this probe were evaluated from viewpoints of air temperature, precipitation and discharge characteristics in the Dalečín measurement river cross section in distant future according to A1B SRES climate scenario, implemented in LARS-WG weather generator.