The climate scenarios of the IPCC suggest that adaptation to future climate change will be required. The North Sea Region, a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, is particularly affected due to rising sea level and a changing water balance. Water management plays a key role in sustainable management of natural and societal resources. This paper presents a participatory study of community approaches to regional adaptation to climate change. Water management adaptation options to regional climate induced changes until 2050 were developed together with stakeholders for the Wesermarsch County (Northern Germany). Available information on expected regional climate change and a modelling study on hydrological change suggested that adaptation of water management will be required until 2050. A regional stakeholder forum formulated a vision on how the Wesermarsch should look like in 2050. Following the holistic approach of collaborative planning, two stakeholder groups developed an adaptation portfolio on how urban and rural areas could adapt their water management to cope with the expected changes. Since most of the stakeholders do not want the county to undergo significant changes in terms of landscape and land use, they proposed technical measures to enforce flood protection and enhance the performance of the existing water management system. Adaptation in terms of land use change was not proposed although information on comparable examples from similar regions was available. To justify the proposed adaptation options, available information on expected climate change impacts was used selectively. Uncertainty in model projections was partly ignored to legitimate suggesting inflexible (technical) adaptation measures. However, collaborative planning proved to be helpful for a joint adaptation to climate change at the regional scale. Stakeholders as well as scientists took active part in the participatory learning process as required by EU directives. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Bormann, H; Ahlhorn, F; Klenke, T
Adaptation of water management to regional climate change in a coastal region - Hydrological change vs. community perception and strategies
Journal Of Hydrology