Identifying low risk climate change adaptation in catchment management while avoiding unintended consequences
Authors: Anna Lukasiewicz, C. Max Finlayson and Jamie Pittock
Year: 2013
The ‘Climate Change Adaptation Catchment Assessment Framework’ tool – an ecosystems-based approach to climate change adaptation – was developed for use by regional management bodies to assess natural resource management (NRM) actions in the context of climate change adaptation, thus focusing on interventions to improve environment health as a way of ameliorating climate change impacts. A range of experts and Catchment Management Authority (CMA) representatives from three catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin – the Goulburn-Broken, Lachlan and NSW Murray catchments – were brought together to assist in the development and testing of the method to promote. The Framework consists of six sections: 1) catchment relevance; 2) climate change adaptation benefit (including effectiveness under different climate change scenarios and the potential for maladaptation); 3) ecosystem services benefits; 4) implementation constraints; 5)socio-economic outcomes; and 6) risk assessment. This report also identifies challenges to an approach of adaptive management, as well as explanation of how the Framework can assist in catchment decision-making.
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