Abstract
The need for credible, salient and legitimate climate change adaptation options in the water sector, which target location specific adaptation requirements, is well recognized. In developing countries, the low-hanging fruit; no-regret options, should be identified with stakeholders and assessed against future changes in water availability and demand, for comparing effectiveness and robustness. Such integrated basin-scale assessments, including reservoir catchment and command areas, can suitably inform adaptation decision-making. In this study, we integrate participatory and modelling approaches for evaluation of reservoir catchment and command area no-regret options addressing water availability and demand in the Kangsabati river basin. Through multi-level stakeholder workshops we identify and prioritize options, followed by evaluation of two reservoir catchment options; check dams and increasing forest cover and three reservoir command options; changing cropping pattern, traditional ponds and waste water reuse, using the Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) model. We use four high resolution (~25 km) regional climate model simulations of future climatic factors, along with non-climatic factors affecting water demand, for forcing WEAP. We find that options have varied ability in addressing adaptation requirements. Amongst catchment options, increasing forest cover addresses adaptation requirements more suitably than check dams, while in the command areas we observe mixed abilities of options, leading to the inference that combining complementary options may be a more useful strategy. We conclude by discussing our experiences with this approach in a developing country context, in terms of benefits, limitations, lessons learnt and future research directions.
Highlights
Adapting to climate change is the major challenge humanity faces in the coming decades (Giupponi 2014; Eisenack et al 2014)
These simulations, based on the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario were derived by forcing Regional Climate Models (RCMs) REMO and HadRM3 with two Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 3 (CMIP3) Global Climate Models (GCMs) ECHAM5 and HadCM3
Nine suitable check dam (CD) locations were prioritized with a total catchment area of 845 km2 and they reduce streamflow compared to the Business As Usual (BAU) scenario
Summary
Adapting to climate change is the major challenge humanity faces in the coming decades (Giupponi 2014; Eisenack et al 2014). Observed and predicted changes in climatic and non-climatic factors inform the process of ascertaining adaptation requirements and are valuable inputs for the modelling process which provides credible quantitative information for comparative analyses of options These approaches provide complementary benefits, and their harmonization in adaptation research can produce actionable and policyrelevant results. We include future projections of climatic as well as non-climatic factors to better represent future changes in water availability and demand This facilitates a comparative assessment of ability of options to satisfy specific adaptation requirements across catchment and command areas. The thematic novelty of this study is the integration of participatory and modelling techniques for holistic assessment of catchment and command areas Since such an assessment has never been applied in a developing country context, lessons learnt and future research directions could fuel and guide future studies across river basins in the developing world. Following sections on the bottom-up and top-down approaches and discussion of evaluation results, we discuss benefits, limitations and lessons learnt, future research directions based on our research experiences
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