Philipp Schmidt-Thome - Böcker

Climate change adaptation is increasingly recognized as complementary part to climate change mitigation.  Climate change affects sea level, the extent of flood prone areas and precipitation patterns among many others. To adapt to these changes, the tasks of municipalities and cities are to implement policies and strategies for changes in land use and coastal management as part of their future development.  It is of vital importance to address the uncertainties of climate change scenarios when proposing adaptation measures that are socially viable and economically reasonable.  The decision making process, promoted here, is based on scientific excellence as well on an integrated communication process.This book provides a comprehensive overview of key elements required for effective analysis and assessment of climate change impacts, economic cost-benefit analysis, communication processes and creation and transfer of knowledge, governance issues and implementation of related policies. It describes the results achieved by the BaltCICA (www.baltcica.org) project whose contributors come from the scientific and public administration communities. The regional cooperation has led to the implementation of climate change adaptation in several case studies. The BaltCICA project developed concepts, methodologies and tools for climate change adaptation that can be translated across other global regions. Scientists and students working on the development of climate change and adaptation strategies;  public administrators in the related fields on local, regional and state level including environment, water management, civil defense; as well as professionals working with adaptation technologies, including engineering, technological solutions, urban planning agencies and construction, will value this innovative book.

This book describes the iterative steps that were successfully undertaken to develop adaptation measures to climate change in two Vietnamese provinces. The methodology used to develop the scientific basis and the societal agreement of the need to adapt to climate change is applicable also to other regions in Vietnam, Asia and worldwide.The uncertainties of climate change models make it difficult to justify investments to finance protection from uncertain impacts. Setting out with the projected climate change impacts in Vietnam, which is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, the book describes a methodological approach to assess and evaluate local vulnerabilities of natural resources to climate change and socio-economic impacts, engaging local stakeholders in the development of locally acceptable and economically feasible adaptation measures. The methodological approach to understand the vulnerabilities and to develop climate change adaptation measures was scenario workshops that supported the communication between scientists and stakeholders.The development of climate change adaptation strategies is nearly state-of-the-art in many countries, but often there is still a large step towards implementing climate change adaptation measures on the local level. The challenge in the development of adaptation measures lies in their acceptability by local stakeholders and decision makers. Climate change adaptation measures also usually demand investments. To understand potential future risks the communication methodology was to first get a good understanding of the natural resources (mainly surface and groundwater) and their potential vulnerabilities (current and future). This was followed by developing a common understanding of current risk patterns, as well as underlying vulnerabilities and hazards. Socio-economic developments have an equally strong, and in the short term mostly even stronger, impact on the living environment and natural resources as long-term climate change impacts. The scenario workshops developed a holistic approach on current and potential future risk patterns, with a special focus on surface and groundwater quantities and qualities, natural hazards and sea level rise. Land-use planning was identified as playing a decisive role in minimizing current and future risks. Finally, first adaptation measures for two Vietnamese provinces were developed and shall be implemented over the next years. The methodology that led to these adaptation measures shall be applied in other Vietnamese provinces.