Climate Change Resilience - Down to Earth Consult

…there is growing consensus in the scientific community that uncertainties in climate projections and related impact assessment are unlikely to decrease in the near future (…). Given the extreme uncertainties (…) this raises the question as to whether model predictions can inform decision-making at all (…).“ „A more effective way of dealing with unpredictability perhaps (…) consists in the development of strategies that are robust under the full range of possible future scenarios…
(Wouter Buytaert, 2012)

Enhancing Climate Change Resilience

Many land currently applied management systems are poorly adapted even to today´s climate and climate variability. Already experienced and/or anticipated changes of the climate regime pose a combination of additional challenges and opportunities to rural communities.

Particularly in already highly destabilized and vulnerable areas, climate change induced alterations –e.g. in form of more pronounced droughts or occasional torrential rains – might further accelerate land degradation or in other ways negatively impact on agricultural production and food security.

A solid strategy to address challenges related to climate change cannot be based on applying some isolated adjustments for example in the field of seed breeding or through the construction of physical barriers to reduce the destructive potential of flash-floods.

Enhancing climate change resilience instead essentially requires the existence of a sound concept and approach for the (re-)establishment/ (re-)enforcement of diversified, stable and robus land management systems, which including count with the ability to continue functioning under extreme weather conditions such as prolonged droughts or heavy precipitaton. The re-introduction of a sufficient number of medium- to deep rooting plant species is of particular importance.