A vast number of measures can be realized to adapt to climate change. They can be implemented by private or public actors on all levels, long- or short-term. As the field is relatively young there are hardly any standardized procedures and the community is open for exploration and innovations. Here's an overview of a choice of adaptation measures.
Definition
IPCC defines adaptation as ‘adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment. Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned adaptation’ [1].
Governance and Management
Contributions to climate change adaptation must strengthen the capabilities of the affected population groups and countries in such a way as to make them less vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. International cooperation can support adaptation in two ways: partly through dedicated climate change adaptation projects, and partly by systematically inte-grating climate change adaptation into ongoing and new rural development projects. The article on Adaptation strategies gives further information.
One central step governments can take to adapt to climate change is adapting their Infrastructure.Another measure to adapt to climate change is to check on the mutual interdependencies of one's doing and the climate. This is called Climate proofing.
The article Framework planning and coordination introduces a model that serves as a guide for developing adaptation priorities at a national level. Key concepts include Vulnerability, Exposure, Sensitivity, Adaptation andAdaptive capacity.
It is absolutely crucial to be in touch with the local population as well as other individuals, groups or companies that can affect or are affected by an organisations activity: Stakeholder dialogue and conflict management can help to detect irregularities or problems early enough to prevent or at least manage them responsibly.
Knowledge management has become a standard issue in private and public organisation to reduce uncertainty and manage risks. Many have also started to collect data and information on the environment, climate change and their impacts on the organisation's projects.
Ecosystem services are benefits that people acquire from ecosystems. Today, many ecosystems are already influenced or even damaged by human interference and unsustainable land use. The Ecosystem services approach pays regard to the potential of using ecosystem services for better adaptation to climate change threats.
Technical adaptation measures
A range of projects, research institutes and knowledge hubs have been set up and established over the last few years that deal with the Measurement and monitoring of climate related data.
The attention must further be drawn to climate projections/ assessments/ scenarios and their interpretation. A further challenge consists in the translation of the interpretation into policies and legislation.
In regard to water scarcity and food security, FAO provides an overview of possible adaptation measures with the following structure: within and outside of the water domain and the agricultural sector focusing on the supply and demand side of water for agriculture[2].
Adapation measures at the water supply side
Within the water domain, options at the water supply side are:
- Increasing storage (through Water harvesting)
- Groundwater development
- Water recycling and reuse
- Pollution control
- Desalination
- Importing water (inter-basin transfer, desalination)
Within the agricultural water management domain, options at the water supply side are:
- Supply enhancement through on-farm water conservation or small scale water harvesting measures
- urban waste water reuse for crop production
- Control of pollution from agriculture
Options at the water demand side
Options at the water demand side are:
Options at the demand side for agricultural water can be found in:
Adaptation measures outside of the water domain
Outside of the water domain, adaptation options to water scarcity in regard to food security can be
- Reducing losses in the value chain
- Reducing demand for irrigated products and services
- Reducing water use per capita
Economics and Finance
The third section of this portal refers to economic issues. Developed countries agreed to financially support developing countries in their climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. The UNFCCC calls this kind of monetary support Climate funding or Climate finance.
Private sector engagement
Fourth, climate change can also be consideres as a filed of action and window of opportunity for organisations of the private sector. This refers to the newly-arising branch of companies that are active in climate-related technologies, e.g. energy efficiency: production of solar-driven desalination plants. A second field is the provision of Insurances and micro-insurances for farmers and agribusiness enterprises, e.g. in the case of extreme weather events.
