ADAPTATION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

Given the importance of implementing a sound adaptation strategy, key points made by the white paper authors

are synthesized below with insight and advice provided by workshop participants.

A number of common-sense win-win adaptation options were identified, for example:

•

Improved watershed management will reduce flood and drought damage and protect water quality and

human health.

•

Removal of incentives for practices that place people, investments, and ecosystems in “harm’s way.”

•

Improved water pricing to increase efficient water use.

•

Continued adaptation in agriculture.

However, if such actions are so sensible to reduce risk and take advantage of opportunities, why have they not

been implemented?  In reality, there are numerous barriers to adaptation.  A formidable challenge, then, is to

improve the integration of adaptation to climate change into decision-making, policy formulation, and program

implementation.  In addition, information and knowledge gaps - such as the impact of climate change on

beneficial uses - point out the need for research into impacts and potential adaptations, in order to establish or

strengthen linkages.  Effective linkages require communication and dialogue, which lead to education, outreach,

and marketing.

A number of approaches and tools are available.  For example, in 1997 the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin

Project undertook consultations via a binational conference on adapting to the impacts of climate change and

variability.  More recently, the U.S. Great Lakes Regional Assessment Team and the Canadian Climate Impacts

and Adaptation Research Network have hosted a series of sector-specific workshops and consultations (Table

3).  Another approach is Ouranos, a Québec-based consortium of major stakeholders who have pooled finan-

cial, technical, and scientific resources to quantify climate change impacts and propose adaptation scenarios

suited to their respective needs (see Part 5).

Table 3.

C-CIARN Sectors and U.S. Great Lakes Assessment Workshops

C-CIARN Sectors

U.S. Great Lakes Regional Assessment Workshops

Health

Water levels - shipping, recreation boating, safety, infrastructure

Water resources

Lake ecology - productivity, fishing

Coastal zone

Agriculture - farming, insurance, adaptation

Forest

Terrestrial ecology - forests, wildlife, timber industry

Agriculture

Recreation - winter recreation and economy

Landscape hazards

Fisheries

Such initiatives, targeted at interested stakeholders and their constituencies, are intended to:

•

Identify decision makers.

•

Ascertain issues of concern.

•

Identify stakeholder perceptions of risk, whether these perceptions are scientifically sound, and how

the perceptions were formed.

These initiatives, in turn, provide an avenue to:

•

Characterize uncertainties and explain implications for outcomes of concern to decision makers.

•

Communicate climate change impact assessment findings.

•

Identify research needs.

•

Develop decision support tools.

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