Mainstreaming adaptation in regional land use and water management

This chapter examines the constraints and opportunities for mainstreaming adaptation to climate change in land use and water management in three study regions of the ADAM project: the Guadiana River Basin in Spain and Portugal, the Tisza River Basin in Hungal and the Alxa region in western Inner Mongolia, China. We analyse the conditions that either facilitate or limit adaptation according to six analytical dimensions: biophysical, technical, financial, institutional, social and cognitive (the latter including infornlational aspects). Our research suggests that all six aspects are needed to capitalise on opportunities for successfully planning and implementing adaptation. Institutional and cognitive aspects have been identified as particularly important, but the relative weight of each aspect depends on location and will value over time. Furthennore, we argue that, in the long term, building capacity to adapt to climate change will depend on the extent to which climate concerns are integrated into the planning and implementation of land use and water management. Based on our empirical findings, we provide recommendations that could facilitate such climate mainstreaming. We find that adaptation is enhanced by (i) adaptation pilot projects that test and debate a diverse set of new ideas in a collaboration of civil society, policy and science; (ii) open and easy access to information on climate impacts, policy and adaptation options; (iii) integration of (traditional) agro-environmental land use systems that regulate climate impacts at the local and regional scale, with new technologies, policies, organisational responsibilities and financial instruments; and (iv) flexible financial instalments that facilitate benefit and burden sharing, social learning and support a diverse set of potentially better-adapted new activities rather than compensate for climate impacts on existing activities.