Abstract
Debate and deliberation surrounding climate change has shifted from mitigation toward adaptation, with much of the adaptation focus centered on adaptive practices, and infrastructure development. However, there is little research assessing expected impacts, potential benefits, and design challenges that exist for reducing vulnerability to expected climate impacts. The uncertainty of design requirements and associated government policies, and social structures that reflect observed and projected changes in the intensity, duration, and frequency of water-related climate events leaves communities vulnerable to the negative impacts of potential flood and drought. The results of international research into how agricultural infrastructure features in current and planned adaptive capacity of rural communities in Argentina, Canada, and Colombia indicate that extreme hydroclimatic events, as well as climate variability and unpredictability are important for understanding and responding to community vulnerability. The research outcomes clearly identify the need to deliberately plan, coordinate, and implement infrastructures that support community resiliency.
Highlights
Water-related infrastructure employed and constructed in rural and agricultural communities often emerge from the necessity to improve availability, predictability, and timeliness of water access for producing high yield crops and livestock (Loucks and van Beek 2017)
By comparing the use and management of water resources in selected agricultural regions in Argentina, Canada, and Colombia, our objective is to evaluate current agricultural infrastructure as adaptations—or maladaptations —in terms of capacity and flexibility to maintain and protect agricultural economic activities, livelihoods, and communities in a changing climate (Table 1)
We employ a vulnerability assessment model, whereby exposure and sensitivity to climate extremes and adaptive capacity are investigated for selected rural agricultural communities, and reevaluated in the context of projected climate changes (Sauchyn et al 2016)
Summary
Water-related infrastructure employed and constructed in rural and agricultural communities often emerge from the necessity to improve availability, predictability, and timeliness of water access for producing high yield crops and livestock (Loucks and van Beek 2017). Such systems reduce vulnerability to water-related climate extremes in that they serve as both storage of, and access to, water in times of droughts and as protection in times of floods. In addition to changes and trends in IDF for a given geographical space, the extent of precipitation events, that is how large and wide spread a rain or snow storm may be, affects the scale and potential impacts that water may have
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