Regional Workshop on Strategic Assessment for Climate Change Adaptation in Natural Resource Management

A four-day Regional Workshop on Strategic Assessment for Climate Change Adaptation in Natural Resource Management was held in Colombo from 8 to 11 June 2010 for senior level officials. It looked at risks posed by climate change and assessment methods used to evaluate adaptation measures in natural resource management.

The workshop was organized in collaboration with University of Peradeniya - Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture (PGIA), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ).

Representatives from governments, mostly senior officials attached to the ministries of agriculture and environment from 13 economies as well as representatives from knowledge institutes, non-governmental organizations and international organizations attended the workshop.

The program consisted of a series of thematic sessions covering the following topics and issues.

• Impacts of climate change and adaptation frameworks
• Assessment of climate information and applicability of assessment tools
• Assessing the climate change adaptation strategies for natural resource management
• Adaptation Roadmaps
• Mainstreaming climate change adaptation into sectoral planning

The production and activities within agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector are inherently affected by variability in climate. While climate change may generate economic opportunities in some parts of world, accepting it and adapting to it is an urgent issue for developing economies of Asia. This region is more vulnerable to climate change due to its exposure to the forces of nature, weak institutions and the poverty of considerable fraction of farming households.

Assessing the exposures is the first step in the strategic assessment for climate change adaptation and draws on the outputs of global and downscaled regional models of predicted climate change impacts across a country. These impacts are often expressed in terms of expected patterns of temperature and rainfall, frequency of extreme events and sea level rise.

Assessing the sensitivity is a two step process. The first step is to assess the likely impact on natural resources by using climate model outputs. The second step is to examine the follow-on impacts of changes in human economic and social systems and important eco-systems. Changes in agricultural production of various kinds have impacts on human welfare in many countries. Once sensitivity assessment is made, it is possible to highlight those areas where harmful impacts are occurring.

Options for adaptation to climate change in natural resource management include developing new crop varieties, maximizing water use efficiency, formulating new standards for infrastructure design, exploitation of co-benefit approaches, institutional capacity building and also changing the policy making environment under which all other adaption activities typically occur. However, there are formidable informational, attitudinal, technological, economical barriers to implementation of adaptation measures.

Specifying particular set of adaptive actions either structural or non-structural depends on the adaptive capacity. Assessing the adaptive capacity at sectoral level is most difficult. Practically it is easy to identify a group of possible adaptive measures and to assess the capacity of the sector or society to apply these specific measures. The most suitable measures for mainstreaming adaptation can be selected via an interactive process based on potential impact and ability to implement. In practice, it involves a series of gradual steps, beginning with scientific capacity building, assessing the no regret options, followed by effective communications between line agencies, and finally up scaling pilot projects.

Country experiences and international support programs suggest that planning for the impacts of climate change alone is not nearly as useful as integrating climate change considerations into more comprehensive planning routines. This is an important action item in terms of enhancing national level adaptive capacity. Doing this effectively will necessitate several measures. An important one is to link the various analysts and institutions working on natural resources management across institutional boundaries.

The main recommendations that emerged from the workshop include the following:

1. Assessing adaptation strategies is being done in the face of many uncertainties in the underlying scientific, financial, social and political drivers. Basic requirement to plan for adaptation is being able to forecast and assess the actual and potential impacts of climate change. In order to make necessary sectoral level actions, policy makers must have adequate capacity to assess various aspects of climate information to transform them into effective adaptation policy responses. Enhanced adaptive capacity comes with various types of costs and overheads that often need careful evaluation to reflect in the budgetary frameworks.
2. Investment in climate change information and right assessment methods have not yet become high priority policy issue in most part of the Asia-Pacific, as policy makers are preoccupied with other developmental priorities. Improbability is often cited as a reason for inaction and could be interpreted as the case of limited knowledge on cost effective best practices. Adaptation strategies are also largely being dealt in isolation from other developmental issues. There is a need to link existing policies on climate risk with others such as drought management, structural adjustments, crop insurance schemes, subsidies, etc, for better targeted and coordinated actions. Policies that support research, system analysis, extension capacity, and regional networks that provide this information has to be strengthened.
3. Adaptation strategies need to focus on developing more resilient food production systems, to cope with a broader range of possible changes in natural resources. Many barriers to adaptation exist; overcoming them requires a comprehensive and dynamic policy approach, covering a range of scales and issues, from individual farmer awareness to the establishment of more efficient markets.
4. Additionally, given uncertainties, policy agendas will have to be flexible and effectively adjust to actual interactive climate changes that will be experienced in coming decades. Consequently assessment of climate change adaptation measures has to be much more systematic and strategic than simply a project level activity.
5. Policy makers must maintain the capacity to make continuing adjustments and improvements to adaptation measures through learning by doing and international cooperation. Where existing technical options are inadequate, investment in new structural and structural measures may be required. In some cases old assessment methods can be revived, if found suited to new climate challenge. Line agencies should include climate change impacts in their planning process and report regularly on adaptation measures being undertaken and their impact.

See the summary of proceedings.