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INTRODUCTION
1.1 Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation
On average, the rate of warming in Canada since 1948 has been double the global average
1
. Most future warming is expected to occur
in the spring and winter months. However, extreme conditions, such as heatwaves,
droughts, and severe storms, are expected to increase in frequency during the summer
months Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2013. Although these trends
help contextualize potential future changes, there is limited information available regarding
how extreme conditions will change in the future, making it difficult for regions to develop
adaptation plans tailored to their communities and sectoral groups. For instance, how will the
frequency and magnitude of droughts and floods change within and across years? Will
such changes impact regional infrastructure, like roads? And, how will changing conditions
during the growing season affect agricultural production? Will new varieties and practices be
required, and to what extent are our existing systems sufficiently robust resilient to
withstand these changes? To help people and sectors prepare for future change, information
regarding historic, present and future conditions needs to be considered in the context of key
regional drivers, not only climate change. Global economics, tradition, migration and other
factors are also critically important.
Adaptation, simply stated, is defined as an adjustment in natural or human systems in
response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, in order to reduce harm or take
advantage of opportunities. For agriculture, this could include any of a range of activities,
such as raising river or coastal dikes, promoting more temperature-shock-resistant plants
instead of sensitive ones, or improving the effectiveness of pest-management practices
IPCC, 2007. However, responding to climate change adaptation is not just a stand-alone
activity presented as specific climate change adaptation strategies and plans. Crucial to
adaptation planning is ensuring that all necessary adaptation actions, policies and measures are
effectively mainstreamed into sectoral and other planning strategies.
Mainstreaming adaptation will help to further coordinate adaptation planning across scales—
from national, to regional, sectoral and program project levels—and is increasingly recognized
as critical to the implementation of adaptation measures. Mainstreaming is currently regarded
as an innovative instrument replacing stronger— and often ineffective—mechanisms of
coordination Halpern et al., 2008. Further, it is proposed as an effective tool to enhance policy
development by increasing sectoral policy coherence, addressing trade-offs between
different sectoral objectives and capturing the opportunities for synergistic results in a way that
will meet social, economic and environmental priorities Kok de Coninck, 2007. In this
respect, mainstreaming may be seen as a way of integration giving equal importance to
different sectoral properties and finding ways to maximize benefits across the involved sectors.
This is highly relevant for climate adaptation, as it aims to maximize capacities for adaptation
while achieving aims and priorities related to agriculture, environmental protection and others.
In the context of adaptation, mainstreaming helps highlight important developmentclimate
1. See http:www.nrcan.gc.caenvironmentresourcespublicationsimpacts-adaptationreportsassessments2008ch210321.
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change issues and linkages, whether they are sector-specific, or span jurisdictions and
or landscapes. They thus assist in: identifying weaknesses in policy, legal and institutional
frameworks for ensuring resilience; and prioritizing targeted actions, research and
policy regarding potential adaptations.
Lastly, improving national and regional information related to climate change impacts
is critical to building a resilient agricultural system. Gathering and creating information
on vulnerability to climate change and improving collaboration between researchers,
policy-makers and other stakeholders will be instrumental to achieving adaptation outcomes
Gagnon-Lebrun Agrawala, 2007; Howden et al., 2007; OECD, 2009; Swart et al., 2009.
Given these urgent issues in adaptation planning, the objective
of this guidebook is to present an integrated landscape assessment
and decision-support process to aid in mainstreaming climate change
adaptation into regional policy and planning via agriculture policies
and best management practices with a focus on the landscape level.
Addressing climate change at the level of strategic planning, policy design
and implementation across sectors and jurisdictions is becoming an
integral part of the policy and planning process. In this guidebook we focus
on
providing a detailed overview of how to construct such an integrated model
based on the development of scenarios for use as a basis for mainstreaming
climate adaptation.
1.2 Purpose and Potential Users of the Guidebook
Kategori