Climate change and water resources in the Lower Mekong River Basin: putting adaptation into the context

Abstract

Adaptation to climate change has become one of the focal points of current development discussion. This article summarises the findings from a multidisciplinary research project looking at climate change impacts and adaptation in the Mekong River Basin in Southeast Asia. The research highlights the central role that the hydrological cycle has in mediating climate change impacts on ecosystems and societies. The findings indicate that climate change should not be studied in isolation, as there are several other factors that are affecting the hydrological cycle. In the Mekong, the most important such factor is the on-going hydropower development that is likely to induce changes at least as radical as climate change, but with shorter timescales. The article concludes that climate change adaptation should broaden its view to consider environmental changes likely to occur due to different factors at various spatial and temporal scales. It is also important to recognise that climate change adaptation is a dynamic, development-orientated process that should consider also broader socio-political context. To enable this, we propose that an area-based adaptation approach should be used more actively to complement the dominant sector-based approaches.

Adaptation to climate change in the Mekong River Basin: introduction to the special issue

“…Household debts contribute to the pressure to migrate to urban areas (Dun 2011). Similarly, in and around the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, the impacts of repeated floods have contributed to migration Keskinen et al 2010).…”

Water Resource Management in Dry Zonal Paddy Cultivation in Mahaweli River Basin, Sri Lanka: An Analysis of Spatial and Temporal Climate Change Impacts and Traditional Knowledge

“…Spatial and temporal climate scale statuses are crucial factors in river basin management [29][30][31]. The decadal, annual, and seasonal variations and spatial dynamics in climate conditions are vital factors to be considered in the policy-making process of multi-purpose river basin management [11,30,31].…”

“…The decadal, annual, and seasonal variations and spatial dynamics in climate conditions are vital factors to be considered in the policy-making process of multi-purpose river basin management [11,30,31]. In the Mahaweli River Basin, spatial and temporal climatic changes influence the reconfiguration of hydro-social and hydro-political relationships in water resource management.…”

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus and the Transboundary Context: Insights from Large Asian Rivers

“…As the name suggests, the purpose of the comparative analysis is to provide a general comparison of how the nexus manifests itself in different transboundary regions with large river basins. It builds on our previous research in these regions (e.g., [27,30,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]) as well as key literature referred to in the text. Comparative analysis is not intended to provide an in-depth analysis of a nexus situation in any particular region or river basin.…”