Different Perspectives on the Responses to the Climate Change Impacts and Water Security

Abstract

Climate change is likely to have a large impact on water management. For example, there is a need to reconsider the assumption of stationarity in climate and hydrology. The assumption of stationarity implies that the long-term variability in water resources availability (including precipitation, evaporation and run-off) remains between historical boundaries. However, under climate change, key climate and hydrological variables will change, as will water demand. The magnitude of the expected changes in climatic and hydrological variables is temporally and spatially uncertain. Their uncertainty poses a set of new and additional challenges for water managers on how to cope with these uncertainties in planning, design and operations to enhance future water security. Although climate change information has improved over the last decades and many impact studies have been carried out, water managers still struggle with how to cope with the impacts of climate change. The author reflects of this article, mainly is to description of the main impacts of climate change on water and the needs for adaptation. Subsequently, different perspectives on the responses to the impacts are discussed. These perspectives include a section on the need to cope with the climate change impacts, paying special attention to decision-making processes and the need for improved economics. The next perspective presents and discusses the dialogue process that raised attention to water-related climate adaptation under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. Through these different perspectives this article introduces the broadranging playing field for water security and climate change.