6.9.B Adaptation

Question 1

Adaptation strategies

Answer 1

• Water conservation and management
• Land-use planning and flood-risk management
• resilient agricultural systems
• solar radiation management.

Question 2

Water conservation and management

Answer 2

• benefits = less resources used and less groundwater abstraction
  use more grey water(recycled)
• costs and risks = cannot meet increase demands for water
  changing cultural habits of large water footprint need promotion and enforcement by governments

Question 3

Land-use planning and flood-risk management

Answer 3

-Benefits = soft management although can be hard management if employing flood defences
can be simple changes to reduce flood risk
- costs and risks = often unfeasible in megacities,needs strong governance and enforcement,constant maintenance is needed in hard management.

Question 4

resilient agricultural systems

Answer 4

• benefits = high tech drought tolerant crops help resistance to climate change and increased diseases,more indoor ‘intensive’ farming.
• Costs and risks = more expensive - unavailable to poor subsistence farmers,high energy costs,genetic modification is still debated,need for a quick fix due to food insecurity.

Question 5

solar radiation management.

Answer 5

• benefits = deliberately intervene to counteract global warming,satellites reflect some inward radiation like giant sunshade and could cool earth in months and be relatively cheap compared to mitigation.
• costs and risks = untried and untested,wouldn’t eliminate worst effects of GHG (acidification),involves tinkering with complex system - unintended consequences and would need to be continued for decades or centuries.