Environment as infrastructure: Resilience to climate change impacts on water through investments in nature
Impacts of climate change, in combination with other drivers of global change, are compromising our ability to address global economic, security and social priorities. As floods, drought and other impacts of climate change on water become more frequent or intense, economies and livelihood security will weaken. Adapting to such impacts by building resilience is integral to addressing these global priorities.
As water is at the centre of climate change impacts, this demands a focus on resilience to impacts on water. The environment has a critical role in building resilience to climate change and reducing vulnerabilities in communities and economies. Well-functioning watersheds and intact floodplains and coasts provide water storage, flood control and coastal defence. The paper suggests to consider these as ‘natural infrastructure’ for adaptation and put all the infrastructure options on the table.
As an illustration of how climate change adaptation works in practice, the paper also reminds the water and climate change community of the importance of empowerment for adaptation and the need to make institutions fit for uncertainty. In support of these points, it argues how resilience safeguards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and encourages policy makers to ask some critical questions about the environment when developing policy on climate change adaptation:
Content Table
- How can adaptation ensure economic and social resilience?
- What is the critical national natural infrastructure for climate change adaptation?
- What is the full range of infrastructure options for adaptation?
- What packages of actions will be the best choice and need to be encouraged?
- What investment is needed in terms of restoration and management as well as adaptive institutions?
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How can adaptation ensure economic and social resilience?
Healthy ecosystems provide vital services that build social and economic resilience needed to cope with climate change. Well-managed floodplains reduce the vulnerability of cities downstream, intact mangroves buffer coasts against storms and healthy forests and wetlands reduce disaster risk. Integrating environment in development builds resilience needed to climate-proof the MDGs.
What is the critical national natural infrastructure for climate change adaptation?
People and the economy are more vulnerable to impacts of climate change such as floods, drought, storms and sea-level rise where watersheds and coasts are degraded. The environment provides critical ‘natural infrastructure’ for climate change adaptation. Strategies for investment in infrastructure platforms to reduce vulnerability will need to include maintenance and restoration of critical natural infrastructure - watersheds, wetlands, rivers and coasts.
What is the full range of infrastructure options for adaptation?
Policymakers must consider the full range of infrastructure options - whether engineered or natural. They need to determine which are most cost-effective in terms of short-term benefits and long-term resilience and build portfolios of measures for climate change adaptation. Adaptation portfolios need to encompass local actions, development of engineered infrastructure where appropriate and investments in natural infrastructure.
What packages of actions will be the best choice and need to be encouraged?
Knowledge and information, skills and participation in decision-making create capacity to adapt. Effective adaptation strategies will build adaptive capacity by empowering people. Knowledge, capacities and adaptive, participative water governance make communities and societies more resilient and better able to cope with impacts of climate change on water and uncertainties of future events.
What investment is needed in terms of restoration and management as well as adaptive institutions?
In an adapting world, water and natural resource governance that builds flexible, adaptive and coordinated institutions strengthen abilities to cope with unavoidable uncertainty. Development of adaptive institutions accompanies investment in natural infrastructure, as natural infrastructure investments are not top down, they are system based. They deliver water storage, flood control and coastal defence, while building self-organisation and learning that are characteristics of resilience needed to deal with uncertain future events.
Resources
The issues in this article are discussed in the report, Environment as infrastructure: Resilience to climate change impacts on water through investments in nature. To read the report, in full, CLICK HERE.
The report was written by:
D. Mark Smith and Stefano Barchiesi,
Water Programme, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Rue Mauverney 28, 1196 Gland, Switzerland
mark.smith@iucn.org, stefano.barchiesi@iucn.org.
