Visualising cross-sector climate change impacts on health to support local decision-making

The Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. All rights reserved. The management of island water systems in highly developed tourism destinations of developing countries presents many challenges in the face of climate change. Such systems are high levels of uncertainty and complexity driven by dynamic interactions amongst multiple climatic and non-climatic drivers with many feedbacks. Understanding complex interactions and feedbacks in the systems is, therefore, critical to develop a long-term strategy for safeguarding a growing water demand from socio-economic development. In this study, an integrated approach was applied to improved management of scarce water resources in Cat Ba Island under high levels of climate change and socio-economic stressors. Specifically, a range of relevant historical data was collected and examined to identify interrelations among climatic and non-climatic drivers on the island water resources. In addition, 961 households in six communes and one town in the Cat Ba Island were interviewed to understand respondents' perspectives on threats and adaptation options for the management of the island's scarce water system. Results of relevant historical data analysis and respondents' perspectives were used together with focus group discussions to develop a causal loop diagram (CLD) for the Cat Ba Island's scarce water resource system under high levels of climate change and tourism development. The CLD provides a comprehensive representation of the island's scarce water resources driven by multiple relationships and interactions amongst climatic and non-climatic drivers as well as adaptation options, represented by two reinforcing loops (R1 and R2), and ten balancing loops (B1 to B10). These loops provide further information on the potential water scarcity in the island in both current and future conditions. Specifically, water demand has been observed to be significantly increased over time due to high levels of population growth and tourism development, depicted by two reinforcing loops (R1 and R2). However, water supply has been decreasing over time due to sea level rise and precipitation decline. These observations are represented by ten balancing loops (B1 to B10) in which seven balancing loops (B4 to B10) represent a Drifting goals system archetype to seek the stability in water availability in the system. The next stage of this study is to apply a system dynamics model (SDM) to assess the vulnerability of the island water system in 47 years, from 2014 to 2050 under climatic and non-climatic changes. Simulations targets the year 2050 because it provides a long-term perspective from which the long-term dynamic behaviour of the island water system and the consequences of the plausible future scenarios could be assessed to inform adaptation decision-making. The key climatic and non-climatic drivers and adaptation options from the CLD will be incorporated into the SDM to assess the vulnerability of the island water system and effectiveness of adaptation options under climate change and socio-economic stressors over time. The SDM will be calibrated using relevant historical data, and validated by local stakeholders for decision-making supports. A contingent evaluation method is also applied to examine the determinant factors influencing respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) for building reservoirs and increasing water price for improved management of scarce water resources in a highly developed tourism island under climate change. The logistic regression models and Bayesian networks will be used to identify determinants of the respondents' WTP for the management of the island's scarce water system. The results of this study will assist decision-makers and water managers to understand dynamics behaviour of the system over time, and respondents' perceptions, thereby applying more effective practices to the management of scarce water resources under high levels of climate change and tourism development in the Cat Ba Island, Vietnam.

Climate adaptation services

The primary aim of the paper was to identify the impacts and adaptation options of climate variability and change on agricultural production in Limpopo province. The following objectives were identified: to understand the impacts of climate variability and change on agricultural production in Limpopo province ; to assess the impacts of climate variability and change on agricultural production in Limpopo province and to identify adaptation measures that reduces the impacts of climate variability and change on agricultural production in Limpopo province. A representative sample of 300 farmers aged 16 – 65+ years (46 percent males and 54 percent females) participated in the study. The study involved Sekhukhune and Capricorn districts, with 56 percent farmers in Capricorn and 44 percent in Sekhukhune district. The following 11 local municipalities were visited: Elias Motsoaledi, Makhuduthamaga, Fetakgomo, Ephraim Mogale, Tubatse, Lepelle Nkumpi, Blouberg, Aganang, Polokwane, and Molemole. Statistics was used to determine climate variability and change impact on agricultural production. Results indicate that farmers are aware that Limpopo province is getting warmer and drier with increased frequency of droughts, changes in the timing of rains, observed trends of temperature and precipitation. This paper also confirmed that being full time farmer, gender, information on climate change, information received through extension services and adaptation to climate change are some of the important determinants of agricultural production, food scarcity and unemployment. The paper also presented perceived adaptation strategies of selected Limpopo province farmers. Some of their perceived adaptation strategies included: (a) soil management strategies, (b) water management strategies and (c) others like use of subsidies and use of insurance. Other important adaptation options being used by farmers were also discussed in this paper including different adaptation measures against colds, heat, frost, abnormal wind, hail, lack of extension support, nematodes, insecticides, worms, temperature and rainfall. The results of this paper are potentially valuable to the agricultural sector considering the threates that climate change poses across climate sensitive sectors

Managing flood risks in a changing climate

Management of freshwater supply and demand systems in coastal areas faces many challenges given the high levels of uncertainty and complexity which follow from dynamic interactions and feedbacks amongst multiple climatic and non-climatic drivers such as sea level rise, changes in precipitation and river flows, and socio-economic development. Temporal and spatial variation among these driving factors further contributes to the highly complex management challenge. These issues are prevalent in coastal areas of developing countries which typically experience high rates of population growth and urbanization. To help inform management of coastal freshwater systems under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity, this thesis developed a coupled top-down and bottom-up modelling framework for a case study setting in close consultation with local stakeholders. A system dynamics (SD) model was applied as a top-down approach to assess the vulnerability of the system under climatic and non-climatic changes, and a Bayesian decision network (BDN) model was employed as a bottom-up approach to identify cost-effective adaptation options in the face of the same climatic and non-climatic changes. This decision-making framework was developed with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of top-down and bottom-up approaches, and SD and BDN models as well as in the light of the dynamics and uncertainties inherent in coastal freshwater supply and demand systems. A global systematic quantitative literature review found that Bayesian networks (BNs) have rarely been coupled with SD models in water resource management, and also that BNs have rarely been applied to prioritize cost-effective adaptation measures for managing water supply and water demand under climate change in developing countries and tropical regions. Equally importantly, the literature view found that only in very few instances has the performance of BN models been tested against other modelling approaches for cross-examining model types and outputs. The freshwater supply and demand system in the Da Do Basin in Hai Phong City, Vietnam was used as a case study in this thesis to develop the coupled top-down and bottom-up modelling framework. In addition to historical data collection, causal loop diagrams (CLDs) for the system were constructed during workshops with local stakeholders to better understand how interactions among climatic and non-climatic drivers affect system operation. Stakeholder consultations at these workshops were also used to identify key climatic and non-climatic drivers for inclusion in SD and BDN models of the system, and to select a short list of potential adaptation options to counteract adverse changes in these key drivers. The SD model was developed, calibrated and tested using historical data and stakeholder knowledge. SD simulations indicated that freshwater availability is sufficient to meet existing domestic, industrial and agricultural demands during the six-month dry season under representative current conditions, but that freshwater availability could collapse under some plausible future scenarios. Upstream flow decline was identified as the strongest threat to the system‘s vulnerability, with the consequent reduction in river water level and increase in salinity level severely restricting opening hours for the sluice gates which supply freshwater to the system. The BDN model was developed in close consultation with stakeholders to identify cost-effective adaptation options to counteract climatic and non-climatic changes in key drivers. The BDN model indicated that the cost-effectiveness of adaptation options differed depending on which future scenarios were considered. Building pumping stations individually, or in conjunction with increasing water prices, were identified as the most cost-effective adaptation options to counteract climatic and non-climatic changes in combination. Subsequent simulation of these options in the SD model showed that they should be effective and robust in increasing water availability and recovering system collapse during the dry season. The ultimate objective of this coupled top-down SD and bottom-up BDN modelling approach was to provide a learning tool for stakeholders to assess system vulnerability and identify appropriate adaptation options for this complex coastal freshwater supply and demand system subject to multiple threats. Subsequent applications of this approach are likely to be highly relevant for water resource management in other basins in Hai Phong City, as well as in urban estuarine settings elsewhere in the developing and developed world.

Key words: crop production, maize, millet, sorghum, cotton, fertilizer, rainfall, temperature, APSIM, Mali, In the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa (SSWA) agricultural production remains the main source of livelihood for rural communities, providing employment to more than 60 percent of the population and contributing to about 30% of gross domestic product. Smallholder agricultural production is dominated by rain-fed production of millet, sorghum and maize for food consumption and of cotton for the market. Farmers experience low and variable yields resulting in increasing uncertainty about the ability to produce the food needed for their families. Major factors contributing to such uncertainty and low productivity are climate variability, climate change and poor agricultural management. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate through experimentation, modelling and participatory approaches the real and perceived characteristics of climate variability and change and their effects on crop production in order to identify opportunities for enhancing the adaptive capacity of farmers in the Sudano - Sahelian zone. The general approach was based on, first, understanding the past trend of climate and its effect on the yield of main crops cultivated in southern Mali; second, evaluating together with farmers different adaptation options in the field; third, evaluating climate adaptation options through experimentation on station; and fourth, evaluating the consequences of different adaptation options under different long term scenarios of climate change. Minimum daily air temperature increased on average by 0.05oC per year during the period from 1965 to 2005 while maximum daily air temperature remained constant. Seasonal rainfall showed large inter-annual variability with no significant change over the 1965 – 2005 period. However, the total number of dry days within the growing season increased significantly indicating a change in rainfall distribution. There was a negative effect of maximum temperature, number of dry days and total seasonal rainfall on cotton yield. Farmers perceived an increase in annual rainfall variability, an increase in the occurrence of dry spells during the rainy season, and an increase in temperature. Drought tolerant, short maturing crop varieties and appropriate planting dates were the commonly preferred adaptation strategies to deal with climate variability. Use of chemical fertilizer enhances the yield and profitability of maize while the cost of fertilizer prohibits making profit with fertilizer use on millet. Training of farmers on important aspects of weather and its variability, and especially on the onset of the rains, is critical to enhancing adaptive capacity to climate change. A field experiment (from 2009 to 2011) indicated that for fertilized cereal crops, maize out yielded millet and sorghum by respectively 57% and 45% across the three seasons. Analysis of 40 years of weather data indicated that this finding holds for longer time periods than the length of this trial. Late planting resulted in significant yield decreases for maize, sorghum and cotton, but not for millet. However, a short duration variety of millet was better adapted for late planting. When the rainy season starts late, sorghum planting can be delayed from the beginning of June to early July without substantial reductions in grain yield. Cotton yield at early planting was 28% larger than yield at medium planting and late planting gave the lowest yield with all three varieties. For all four crops the largest stover yields were obtained with early planting and the longer planting was delayed, the less stover was produced. Analysis of predicted future climate change on cereal production indicated that the temperature will increase over time. Generally stronger increases occur in the rcp8.5 scenario compared to the rcp4.5 scenario. The total annual rainfall is unlikely to change. By mid-century predicted maize grain yield losses were 45% and 47% with farmer’s practice in the rcp4.5 and rcp8.5 scenarios respectively. The recommended fertilizer application did not offset the climate change impact but reduced the yield losses to 38% of the baseline yield with farmer’s practice. For millet median yield loss was 16% and 14% with farmer’s practice in the rcp4.5 and rcp8.5 scenario. If the recommended fertilizer rates are applied to millet, the predicted yield losses with farmer’s practice due to climate change are reversed in both climate scenarios. Under future climate change, food availability will be reduced for the all farm types, but that large farm will still achieve food self – sufficiency in terms of energy requirement. The medium and small farm types see a further decrease in food self-sufficiency. Addressing smallholder food self-sufficiency depends upon the capacity of each farm type to appropriately choose the planting date while taking into account the acceptable planting date window for each individual crop.

Testing a participatory integrated assessment (PIA) approach to select climate change adaptation actions to enhance wetland sustainability: The case of Poyang Lake region in China

Subaltern forms of knowledge are required to boost local adaptation

Coastal communities are becoming increasingly aware of the risks to local infrastructure from more frequent and severe flooding, more extreme storm surges, and sea-level rise. As local governments are responsible for the lion’s share of land use decision-making and infrastructure development in coastal communities in the United States, local governments in the coastal zone will play a key role in adapting to the changing climate. Local decision-makers are facing hard questions about whether to build new infrastructure, adapt existing infrastructure to new standards, continue maintaining existing infrastructure as is, or abandon infrastructure altogether. Monroe County, Florida, for example, has begun to factor sea-level rise considerations into decisions related to road improvement projects, creating specific design standards addressing elevation and working to weigh the benefits and costs of different adaptation options such as elevating roads. Local governments are making these decisions in the context of increasingly unreliable and aging road systems, all while meeting current stormwater criteria which may require drainage improvements. Local decision-makers also are recognizing that crucial infrastructure decisions that directly affect their adaptation success are sometimes out of their control. In the case of the City of Tybee Island, Georgia, for example, tidal flooding restricts access to U.S. Highway 80 on an ever-increasing basis—yet the highway, the only road leading to the island, is not under the city’s jurisdiction but that of the Georgia Department of Transportation. To further complicate matters for local governments, both taking action and failing to act could result in either tort or “takings” liability in cases where a poorly maintained road results in harm to life or loss of property value from diminished access. Using the duty of state and local governments to maintain roads as a focus, this Article explores the complexity of adaptation at the local level as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced. Specifically, this Article presents an analysis of coastal communities in four South Atlantic states—Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina—that are currently facing questions about how to protect property and infrastructure as sea levels rise and flooding increases. This Article distills the findings of an interdisciplinary research project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”), Florida Sea Grant, Georgia Sea Grant, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, and North Carolina Sea Grant. It also consists of a regional analysis comparing how tort and local government law can both further and hinder climate change resilience planning and climate adaptation efforts across these four states. Given that the federal government has offered little in terms of legislation, policy, or funding to direct or support climate adaptation activities, local efforts—and the litigation that inevitably results—are on the forefront of establishing the framework for defining adaptation policy more broadly and influencing the contours of tort and land use law. This Article, therefore, fills an important research gap in existing climate change literature, as it discusses how increased flooding at the local level is putting pressure on traditional conceptions of government duties, immunities, and authorities. This Article also uses roads as a case study to explore how sea-level rise is altering planning, maintenance, and funding for public infrastructure. This discussion focuses on local duties and responsibilities to build, rebuild, modify, or maintain existing roads for two primary reasons: (1) it is a widely shared function among jurisdictions and is the most obvious and visible type of infrastructure to the public, and (2) roads and highways, which are crucial to trade, defense, and nation-building, have long been under the purview of government regulation and funding in the United States. Recently, roads have also become a focal point in local government efforts to address rising sea levels and increased flooding. While sea-level rise may seem like a distant threat, many of its effects are being felt now, as low-lying coastal areas such as Norfolk, Virginia; Brunswick, Georgia; and Monroe County, Florida are experiencing increased nuisance or “sunny day” flooding occurring during seasonal or average high tides. Such flooding typically affects roads, temporarily closing them and increasing maintenance and repair costs. Residents who rely on these roads, often find themselves cut off from their homes, businesses, workplaces, schools, and local hospitals. In this way, sea-level rise and the flooding associated with it have become increasingly familiar and imminent, making roads the “climate change canary in the coal mine” for local governments. Part I of this Article briefly discusses recent sea-level rise issues and coastal science most relevant to the South Atlantic states—North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Part II analyzes and compares each state’s road ownership and maintenance duties, first by addressing the threshold question of ownership and jurisdiction, and then by explaining the multi-step analysis that governments must take to evaluate their duties to maintain roads in order to avoid liability. Part II also outlines the wide differences among the four states in our study area and observes a common thread, namely, that in almost each instance, local governments are faced with conflicting pressures that are likely to reward inaction over action and favor short-term political compromises over strategic investments in adaptation. This Part then details how counties and municipalities can discontinue their duties to maintain roads through the process of abandonment and how abandonment can lead to takings liability. Part III offers three proposals for encouraging coordinated adaptation action and protecting local governments that take action to address climate impacts: (1) redefining the scope of the duties that define reasonable conduct for governments in making decisions about public infrastructure in an era of rising sea levels; (2) defining the scope of sovereign immunity protections in a way that encourages innovative and creative decision-making in an era of climate uncertainty; and (3) calling for consistent adaptation duties and authorities at the state level as a crucial first step in mending the regulatory patchwork that currently exists at the state, county, and city levels in our four-state study area. Part IV concludes with a summary of observations and recommended next steps.

Genetics of local adaptation in salmonid fishes

Climate change is considered one of the most challenging current Ethiopian issues. Adaptation strategies are important to deal with climate change. The study assessed farmers’ adaptation strategies of climate change and identified their determinants. The survey was taken 2065 households in 2013 from SIMLESA, and DIIVA projects data considering Maize-Legume Based Farming System in Amhara, Oromiya, and SNNP and Benshangul Gumuz regions of Ethiopia. Six adaptation strategies (crop rotation, intercropping, SWC, stubble, planting trees and mulching) were considered as dependent variables; all strategies are found to be dependent on each other suggests to use MVP. Climate adaptation strategies of MHH and FHH were different that might be due to access to resources, skill, and knowledge, hence, MVP analysis was used for the entire sample and FHHs separately. HHH characteristics, gender role, availability of resource and access to service were organized as explanatory variables. The result of the marginal effect of the explanatory variables in the whole sample indicated that MHHs had more probability to use stubble and SWC than FHHs. The education level of HHHs enhanced t o use stubble and SWC and negatively associated with mulching. Old farmers were not convinced to use stubble; because the old might not see the benefit of the new strategy. These need designing policies to make gender-responsive, training based and demand-driven adaptation strategies. Due to gender roles and responsibilities, the availability of men and women labour affected different adaptation options in different ways. Hence keeping social norm and values, and farmers’ capability and interests are important to improve the specialization and sustainability of adaptation options. Men and women labour were less likely to participate in tree planting by fear of birds attack; this suggests promoting tree planting with chopping and trimming the trees during crop planting and maturity period. Resource ownership (farm size, livestock, oxen and asset value) affected adaptation options in different ways; policy interventions suggest providing location-specific, affordable and appropriate adaptation options for the best chance of success and sustainability of the strategies. Access to membership in women groups, improved varieties, and extension affected different adaption options in different ways. These results underline the need to strengthen and support extension service and social groups to include appropriate adaption strategies as one of the technology packages. Access to market enabled to choose adaptation options suggests strengthening and establishing an early warning system at the village level to forecast and farmer’s preparedness. Living in different regions suggests providing agro-ecology and research-based adaptation options to manage risks and maximize opportunities from climate change. Gender differential adaptation strategies were observed in the farming system. FHHs more adopted stubble, crop rotation, and SWC than MHHs did. Due to a long time using age and education of FHHs significantly and negatively affected crop rotation. Due to gender roles, more women labour discouraged to engage in SWC. Policies should give better attention to investing and availing women-specific alternative adaptation options. Collecting firewood is the responsibility of women; hence being a member of women in cooperative negatively affected stubble. There is a need to avail of alternative options or renewable energy sources. FHHs with more farmland less likely to choose SWC due to high cost and different characteristics of plots, however FHHs with high assets value able to choose stubble and SWC because they can cover related costs. The policy should be designed extension system to avail appropriate and affordable options. Using more improved crop variety increases the probability of women farmers’ choosing SWC; the government requires improving the number of packages by including appropriate climate adaptation options. Keywords: Climate adaptation, gender, mulch, stubble, MVP DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-6-02 Publication date: June 30 th 2020

Cities worldwide face multiple social and ecological challenges, such as climate change and its impacts. Adapting and transforming our urban environments is urgent to improve their resilience to uncertain scenarios. These challenges require renewed urban solutions and force us to rethink their design processes. Multiple actors are involved in such processes, coming from different sectors, and sometimes having conflicting agendas and knowledge backgrounds. Many of these processes can be considered co-design processes, with actors interacting to improve the design quality, legitimacy, and feasibility. Many conceptualise cities as social-ecological systems and public spaces are their subsystems. A collaborative approach to designing public spaces contributes to integrating the social-ecological knowledge from the public, private, and citizen actors. The question remains: How is sometimes conflicting social-ecological knowledge integrated into public space co-design processes? We study two large-scale urban parks in Chile. We framed them as social-ecological systems and analysed their co-design processes. This study aims to provide insights into the difficult-to-grasp phenomena of knowledge integration in co-design processes. We analysed these cases in previous studies. Now we provide insights into social-ecological knowledge integration in co-design processes. Although framed in Latin America, the findings may be helpful elsewhere.

Water sprays from an open fire hydrant in Brooklyn, New York, in the midst of a July 2010 heat wave that affected much of the eastern United States.In 2007 the New York City Department of Environmental Protection first teamed up with Alianza Dominicana, a Washington Heights community organization, to educate city residents about the appropriate use of fire hydrants and other ways

Building on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) review of how to make its Assessment Reports (ARs) more accessible in the future, the research reported here assesses the extent to which the ARs are a useful tool through which scientific advice informs local decision-making on climate change in the United Kingdom. Results from interviews with local policy representatives and three workshops with UK academics, practitioners and local decision makers are presented. Drawing on these data, we outline three key recommendations made by participants on how the IPCC ARs can be better utilized as a form of scientific advice to inform local decision-making on climate change. First, to provide more succinct summaries of the reports paying close attention to the language, content, clarity, context and length of these summaries; second, to better target and frame the reports from a local perspective to maximize engagement with local stakeholders; and third, to work with local decision makers to better understand how scientific advice on climate change is being incorporated in local decision-making. By adopting these, the IPCC would facilitate local decision-making on climate change and provide a systematic review of how its reports are being used locally. We discuss implications of these recommendations and their relevance to the wider debate within and outside the IPCC as to the most effective way the IPCC can more effectively tailor its products to user needs without endangering the robustness of its scientific findings. This article is published as part of a collection on scientific advice to governments.

Agriculture is one sector of the economy which is highly vulnerable to climate change because of the natural relationship between environment, particularly temperature and water availability, and agricultural productivity. Changing climate is increasingly affecting high-value perennial plantation crops such as tea, rubber, coconut, palm oil, and coffee which generate significant export revenues and provide a major source of employment for rural populations in developing countries. Many studies in the literature have focused on climate change impacts on major annual crops; however, to date, there have been very few assessments of the economic impacts of climate change on perennial plantation agriculture. This thesis therefore seeks to estimate the impacts of climate change on two important aspects of plantation agriculture - crop production and labour demand - for the case of the tea plantation sector in Sri Lanka, as an example of a high-value perennial plantation crop in a developing country. The thesis also aims to identify enablers and barriers of adaptation to climate change for this sector of Sri Lanka’s economy. The impacts of climate change on production in Sri Lanka’s tea plantations are studied at estate-level (the primary decision making production unit) across all of the country’s tea growing regions using monthly resolution primary data for the period 2000-2014. The study employs a novel two-stage panel data approach to analyse weather and climate change effects on tea production and then to estimate production impacts for the short-, medium- and long-term future under three different global emissions scenarios. These analyses indicate that a hotter and wetter climate will have a detrimental effect on production. In high, medium and low emissions futures, the predictions show a negative proportional impact on production from increased rainfall and increased average temperature. On average across the data sample, a 12% decline in annual tea production is predicted under a high emissions scenario by 2050. The impacts of climate change on labour demand in tea plantations in Sri Lanka are investigated by implementing a panel structural model of profit maximisation based on a normalised quadratic functional form. The analysis uses historical primary data on estate profits, input prices and output prices, together with monsoonal rainfall, temperature and wet days for years between 2002-2014 to quantify climate impacts on estates’ demand for labour. Anticipated changes in rainfall are predicted to reduce annual labour demand by 2.6% across the tea plantation sector. This could have considerable social and welfare implications, particularly for the Indian Tamil women who comprise the majority of the sector’s workforce. Plantation agriculture is likely to be highly vulnerable to climate change because of its reliance on rain-fed production, long economic life span and the inability to easily switch crops due to high upfront capital costs. These distinct differences between annual and perennial agriculture, and the important role which plantation cropping plays in developing world agriculture, suggest that it is important to identify factors which affect choice of climate adaptation options in perennial crop production. Comprehensive knowledge of available adaptation options is of utmost importance if Sri Lanka’s tea estate managers are to counteract production losses from climate change and maintain their competitiveness in the international market. This is also vital for efficient and effective channeling of society’s resources to address the consequences of climate change. Employing data derived from face-to-face interviews with 50 tea estate managers in Sri Lanka, this study examines factors affecting choice of preferred adaptation options, barriers to adaptation and associated policy implications for tea production in Sri Lanka, as an example of a perennial tree crop system in a developing country. Tea estate managers are already adapting to a changing climate; however, particular adaptation methods are only adopted in some situations and locations. Multinomial logit analysis of data from estate manager interviews indicates that availability of information on climate change, company size, tea growing elevation, and observed increases in temperature and rainfall are key factors influencing the choice of preferred adaptation option. Analysis also finds that barriers such as a lack capital, inadequate access to near-term and medium-term climate knowledge, and poor governmental and institutional support may prevent estate managers from experimenting with new adaptation options. Policies should, therefore, be aimed at promoting new adaptation options through information exchange between stakeholders and integrating climate change adaptation with Sri Lanka’s national sustainable developmental goals. The primary message of the adaptation analysis in this study is that governmental and institutional support and involvement are critical requirements for facilitating effective adaptation. Findings from the thesis will help inform decision makers of the likely impacts of climate change on plantation cropping systems, and provide insights into barriers to adaptation and potential policy responses to improve the effectiveness of adaptation.