6.9B Adaptation Strategies

• Adaptation Strategies:

  • Even if all carbon emissions stopped today, we would still have enhanced global warming due to past emissions and the length of time it takes for greenhouse gases to disperse from the atmosphere
  • There are two types of climate change adaptation strategies:
  • Hard strategies which require technology e.g., wind farms
  • Soft strategies which involve legislation e.g., land use zoning 
• Water conservation and management:

  Benefits

  • Less resources used
  • Less groundwater abstraction
  • Changing attitudes e.g., use of more grey water


  Risks

  • Efficiency and management cannot match any increases in demand for water
  • Promotion and enforcement of strategies by the government needed to change habits e.g., smart meters
• Resilient agricultural systems:

  Benefits

  • High-tech, drought-tolerant species help resistance to climate change and increased diseases
  • Low-tech methods and better practices lead to healthier soils which may help carbon sequestration and water storage
  • More ‘indoor’ intensive farming


  Risks

  • Expensive technology, seeds and breeds unavailable to subsistence farmers in developing countries
  • Indoor and intensive farming has high energy costs
  • Genetic modification is used to create resistant strains of rich and soya
  • Increasing food insecurity leads to countries looking for quick fixes
• Land-use planning:

  Benefits

  • Land-use zoning, building restrictions in areas vulnerable to flooding
  • Enforcing strict run-off controls and soakaways


  Risks

  • Public dislike
  • Abandoning high-risk areas is often impossible as they are often megacities
  • Would need strong governance, enforcement and compensation
• Flood-risk management:

  Benefits

  • Hard management often used e.g., river dredging, flood defences
  • Simple changes can reduce flood risk e.g., permeable tarmac
  • Reducing deforestation and increasing afforestation upstream to absorb water and reduce flood risk downstream


  Risks

  • Funding sources are often debated
  • Land owners will often demand compensation
  • Constant maintenance is required for hard management e.g., dredging 
• Solar radiation management:

  Benefits

  • Geoengineering involves ideas and plans to intervene to counteract global warming
  • Idea to use orbiting satellites to reflect some radiation back into space like a giant sunshade which would cool the Earth within months and be relatively cheap compared to mitigation strategies


  Risks

  • These are untried and untested
  • Would not eliminate the worst effects of greenhouse gases such as acidification
  • Involves a complex system which could have consequences
  • Would need to continue geoengineering for decades or centuries