Going with the Flow: Using Water To Link Societies and Ecosystems in a Shifting Climate

The IPCC has identified water as the primary medium through which humans will experience most of the negative impacts of climate change, but CI’s adaptation program believes the reverse is also true: water can serve as the means to help economies, ecosystems, and livelihoods adjust to shifting climate dynamics. Freshwater resources are both highly sensitive to climate change and key to linking agriculture, energy, manufacturing, urban supply and sanitation infrastructure, and terrestrial and near-shore marine ecosystems. However, projections of emerging hydrological conditions contain high levels of uncertainty. New approaches that are robust to uncertainty and institutionally appropriate are necessary for cross-sectoral water planning and management and for the design and operation of resilient water infrastructure. These approaches must integrate existing conservation and sustainability expertise with climate science, policy sensitivity, economics, and engineering. CI’s global efforts to develop and implement new methodologies and build capacity for climate change adaptation are described for local and regional field programs, national- and international-level policy, and global development aid sources.