Adaptation of water resources management to climate change

Adaptation to climate change will require improving water-conflict managementand strengthening other relevant skills.Climate change will intensify water-stress and hazards and the conflicts associated in dealing withthese. Adaptation to climate change will therefore need to pay explicit attention to managingwater conflicts and assisting water users and managers to find agreeable solutions for sharingtheir common resource. Building these assets requires special attention as it is often overlookedwhen discussing adaptation to climate change.5. Meeting the ChallengeNational Adaptation Coalitions will need to be set-up to bring together therelevant water-actors and develop a society-wide process of adaptation.Water professionals cannot define strategic priorities for adaptation to climate change alone. Theywill need to work with all interested groups and stakeholders brought together through NationalAdaptation Coalitions. These coalitions will need the capacity to innovate, adapt and manageconflicts.Coalitions will need to make adaptation work for people and involve themthrough national and local forums.Determining what people want through dialogues, consultations, and other forums is critical if aNational Adaptation Coalition is to work. These Coalitions need to care for people by designingactions that promote short-term benefits for those involved. To have lasting impact, stakeholderswill need to see benefits from investing in the adaptation process.Coalitions will need to catalyse innovation through a series of experiments thatkick-start adaptation in the water sector.Encouraging innovative water users and water professionals to experiment with new ideas formsa critical element in getting adaptation started. By learning through experimentation, all wateractors can contribute to delivering on progress and innovation in an incremental and sustainableway.Coalitions will need to engage political leaders to support the adaptation processand instil the underlying core values.A critical first step for National Adaptation Coalitions is to identify and agree on a set of corevalues that underlies the way they want to deal with climate change. Communicating these valuesand the actions required to a wider audience is the main task of leaders of government, businessand civil society. Making adaptation a success requires generating political buy-in from key interestgroups, and using political opportunities to move forward.viii