Building Climate Change Adaptation Scenarios with Stakeholders for Water Management: A Hybrid Approach Adapted to the South Indian Water Crisis

Muddu Sekhar,Jacques-Eric Bergez,Mariem Baccar,Laurent Ruiz,Delphine Leenhardt,Stephane Couture

doi:10.3390/su13158459

Abstract

Climate change threatens the sustainability of agriculture and natural resources. Adaptive solutions must be designed locally with stakeholders. We developed the Approach for Building Adaptation Scenarios with Stakeholders (ABASS), which aims to identify adaptation policies and corresponding scenarios of natural resource management in the context of climate change. Its originality is the combination of different existing participatory methods, organized in three phases. In step 1, experts identify local environmental problems on a map and build the assumption tree of local climate change effects. In step 2, experts identify stakeholders. Step 3 leads to the construction of adaptation scenarios with stakeholders in two phases. First, in a participatory workshop gathering numerous stakeholders, the assumption tree is presented to help stakeholders identify potential policies that address the effects of climate change. Then, using the map produced in step 1, each group of stakeholders separately translates each potential policy into a detailed scenario. We applied ABASS to the context of groundwater overexploitation in South India. Two policies at the farm level emerged as consensual: (i) ponds to harvest runoff water and (ii) drip irrigation to conserve water; but their implementation highlights the differences of opinion among stakeholders.

Highlights

Climate change is expected to intensify water scarcity in regions where irrigation sustains agriculture, as is the case in India [1]
The scientific experts involved were specialized in a variety of scientific fields and affiliated with several scientific institutions (Indian Institute of Science, Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences, and the French Institute of Pondicherry) and a non-governmental development organisation (NGO)
Method, which has three phases: (1) brainstorming about (i) the climate change that has occurred or is likely to occur, (ii) the effects on groundwater resources and local agriculture and (iii) the current adaptation strategies farmers use to address these changes; (2) organising the elements that the experts identified into causal chains that connect climate change, its impacts on the watershed and the potential adaptations adopted by farmers and (3) organising these causal chains in an assumption tree with connections between branches

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is expected to intensify water scarcity in regions where irrigation sustains agriculture, as is the case in India [1]. An increasing population means that irrigation is necessary to increase food production Both influence the need for adaptation strategies and for methodological approaches to identify and evaluate these strategies [2]. Approaches such as scenario development, modelling and evaluation are classic ways to explore adaptation strategies in the water resource domain and to address climate change effects [3]. They are associated with participatory approaches, and in recent decades several participatory stakeholder frameworks have been designed and implemented in projects that address adaptation strategies for groundwater management [4].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion