AR5 identified a number of adaptation challenges and options facing the stakeholders in the wake of climate-change-induced vulnerabilities, uncertainties and risks in the freshwater sector, and underlined the importance of an integrated management approach as well as acknowledging diverse socioeconomic contexts, differentiated capacities and the uneven pace of impacts. Further validated by recent research in terms of their usefulness, these adaptation options include building and improving capital-intensive physical water infrastructure such as irrigation channels, flood-control dams and water storage . Drawing upon customary institutions and combining Indigenous knowledge systems with scientific knowledge, innovative structures, including artificial glaciers, ice stupas and snow barrier bands, have been built by local communities in Ladakh, Zanskar and Himachal Pradesh in India . Communities in Solukhumbu, Nepal, in response to depleting water flow in snow-fed rivers, have chosen adaptation through changing practices by collecting water from distant sources for domestic consumption . Taking the IPCC concept of climate risk as a basis for adaptation planning, a pilot study of flood risk in Himachal Pradesh, India , integrating assessment of hazard, vulnerability and exposure in the complementary domains of CCA and DRR, has identified stakeholder consultation, knowledge exchange and institutional capacity building as key steps in adaptation planning. Aquifer storage and recovery has been proposed as an 'alternative climate-proof freshwater source' for deltaic regions in Asia, particularly those with a history of saline groundwater aquifers . It is further argued  that water, sanitation and hygiene objectives would need to be addressed as a component of a wider integrated water resource management  framework.
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report