This book addresses the issue of climate change risks and hazards holistically. Climate change adaptation aims at managing climate risks and hazards to an acceptable level, taking advantage of any positive opportunities that may arise. At the same time, developing suitable responses to hazards for communities and users of climate services is important in ensuring the success of adaptation measures. But despite this, knowledge about adaptation options, including possible actions that can be implemented to improve adaptation and reduce the impacts of climate change hazards, is still limited. Addressing this need, the book presents studies and research findings and offers a catalogue of potential adaptation options that can be explored. It also includes case studies providing illustrative and inspiring examples of how we can adapt to a changing climate.

Climate change policy has typically emphasized mitigation, calling for reducing emissions and shifting away from fossil fuels. Yet while these efforts have floundered, floods, wildfires, droughts, and other disasters are becoming more frequent and potent. As the risks escalate, we must ask how to adapt to a changing climate. How might farmers modify their practices to maximize food security? Can coastal cities protect their infrastructure from rising seas? Are there strategic ways for developing countries to combine climate resilience with economic growth and poverty reduction? For people and societies around the world, these questions are not theoretical: adaptation is already underway. This book offers a concise overview of climate adaptation governance. In clear, accessible language, Lisa Dale describes key strategies that governments, communities, and the private sector are now deploying. She presents the theory and practice that underlie climate adaptation efforts at local and global scales, providing illuminating case studies that foreground the problems facing developing countries. Dale analyzes the effectiveness of a range of policy interventions, drawing out principles of good governance and discussing how practitioners can navigate complex tradeoffs. She emphasizes equity and inclusion, considering how climate adaptation policy can account for the needs of historically disadvantaged groups. Written for a wide audience, this book is an invaluable introduction for all readers interested in how societies can meet the challenges of an altered climate.

This volume presents eighteen case studies of natural disasters from Australia, Europe, North America and developing countries. By comparing the impacts, it seeks to identify what moves people to adapt, which adaptive activities succeed and which fail, and the underlying reasons, and the factors that determine when adaptation is required and when simply bearing the impact may be the more appropriate response. Much has been written about the theory of adaptation and high-level, especially international, policy responses to climate change. This book aims to inform actual adaptation practice - what works, what does not, and why. It explores some of the lessons we can learn from past disasters and the adaptation that takes place after the event in preparation for the next. This volume will be especially useful for researchers and decision makers in policy and government concerned with climate change adaptation, emergency management, disaster risk reduction, environmental policy and planning.

This book discusses the identification of, solutions to, and management of threats to high population coastal cities and their seaports from global warming, climate change and endemic hazards. These include prevention of sea water intrusion of freshwater coastal aquifers, emplacement of barriers that mitigate the threats from sea level rise, and inundation of urban centers plus those from storm surges that cause flooding and salination of inshore terrain. The book assesses mitigation of the effects of extreme weather events such as drought, and major flooding from heavy rainfall on coastal urban centers, or on associated drainage basins. It also considers how coastal cities can counter vulnerabilities from other physical hazards (e.g., earthquakes - building codes) and health hazards (e.g., pollution, public health response - preparedness) that may be related to a city’s geological/geographical location and service as a port of entry for goods and travelers (regional and international). The book also cites the high costs of safeguarding citizen and municipal assets, but notes possible sources of potential funding especially from less developed and developing nations. The book is written to give strong background information to students majoring in environmental sciences or those in other majors with interests in the effects of global warming/climate change, and will be of interest to social scientists, think tank personnel, government planners, and lay persons in environmentally oriented organizations. /div

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.

Toward Resilience: A Guide to Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation is an introductory resource for development and humanitarian practitioners working with populations at risk of disasters and other impacts of climate change.

This book explores economic concepts related to disaster losses, describes mechanisms that determine the economic consequences of a disaster, and reviews methodologies for making decisions regarding risk management and adaptation. The author addresses the need for better understanding of the consequences of disasters and reviews and analyzes three scientific debates on linkage between disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change. The first involves the existence and magnitude of long-term economic impact of natural disasters on development. The second is the disagreement over whether any development is the proper solution to high vulnerability to disaster risk. The third debate involves the difficulty of drawing connections between natural disasters and climate change and the challenge in managing them through an integrated strategy. The introduction describes economic views of disaster, including direct and indirect costs, output and welfare losses, and use of econometric tools to measure losses. The next section defines disaster risk, delineates between “good” and “bad” risk-taking, and discusses a pathway to balanced growth. A section entitled “Trends in Hazards and the Role of Climate Change” sets scenarios for climate change analysis, discusses statistical and physical models for downscaling global climate scenarios to extreme event scenarios, and considers how to consider extremes of hot and cold, storms, wind, drought and flood. Another section analyzes case studies on hurricanes and the US coastline; sea-level rises and storm surge in Copenhagen; and heavy precipitation in Mumbai. A section on Methodologies for disaster risk management includes a study on cost-benefit analysis of coastal protections in New Orleans, and one on early-warning systems in developing countries. The next section outlines decision-making in disaster risk management, including robust decision-making, No-regret and No-risk strategies; and strategies that reduce time horizons for decision-making. Among the conclusions is the assertion that risk management policies must recognize the benefits of risk-taking and avoid suppressing it entirely. The main message is that a combination of disaster-risk-reduction, resilience-building and adaptation policies can yield large potential gains and synergies.