Brain Storming Climate Change Adaptation Measures

Monday 23rd April 2012.

Climate change impacts are likely to affect societies in complex and broad-ranging ways as technological, economic, social and ecological changes take place across regions, groups and sectors. Climate Change impacts have cascading effects on social and health concerns.

Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable development are often developed separately at the local as well as community levels. Recognition of the need to integrate climate risks and adaptation measures into development priorities and decision making is the principal driving force behind sustainable development. A number of methods are possible for the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the context of sustainable development.

Many governments of the world have already begun working on decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the regional and local levels. Recently, a growing number is also examining ways to adapt to climate change. The need of the hour is looking for ways to reduce the impacts of climate change which include increasing heat waves, water shortages, intense storms and sea-level rise; while decreasing GHG emissions and ensuring sustainable development for communities.

Several different methods could be suggested to adapt to climate change impacts. Some of these methods throw in to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing long-term sustainability. Expanding the Forest Cover in urban centers, for example, helps to reduce the blow of an increasing number of hot days and heat waves. It also curbs the need for air conditioning, and so reduces greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fueled electricity generation. Healthy tree canopy also decrease the impact of intense rainfall, storm water runoff and pollution, and increases sustainability for our communities.

Pakistan is presently amongst the most vulnerable regions of the world, which are likely to face the climate change disaster. Climate change impacts on the fragile ecosystem of the country are already evident through several studies. A recent study by Climate Change Impact Study Center, selected fourteen crops for assessing the impacts of climate change. All the selected crops were found to be suffering due to heat stress. Besides this, an eminent raise of the Degree Days is observed, where the growing season length for the major crops has reduced. An alarming state of the raising heat spells is also of a great concern where an increase of 8% to 15 % in the Growing Degree Days is found. Besides this, an important factor is rainfall which has substantially reduced to 6%, increasing the net irrigation water requirements to 29%.

The existing situation of climate change adaptation is not satisfactory. There are several parameters that need to be scrutinized in order to ensure a sustainable climate change scenario through effective adaptation measures in the country. There is an urgent necessity to adopt measures to improve the system efficiency. Watershed management is also an important need to reduce the scarcity of water in the water tables. The national water management authority should ensure a balanced urban water use, especially storing the water during the monsoons, and building up damn to store the water for domestic consumption. A significant system efficiency is a requisite to be developed for weather forecasting and enlargement of information networks for the farmers, in order to protect the food crops and dealing with the crisis of food shortage. The grass root level initiatives promoting the climate change adaptation schemes would be the adaptations in policy making and effective implementation of action plans.

This Article is Written by “Anusha Sherazi” Senior Author and Subject Specialist at Envirocivil.com