Human and natural systems will, to some degree, adapt autonomously to climate change. Planned adaptation imply decisions and measures within society that help to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change. On the other hand has adaptation also the potential to realise new economic opportunities. Though, many climate-sensitive decisions are directly driven by the need to reduce or otherwise manage anticipated climate risks (Willows & Connel, 2003). The acceptable risks are determined to which risk a society or economy wish to accept or to pay for precautionary measures. As a result major differences can be found between countries.
Objectives
The CcSP programme introduces a ‘climate proofing’ approach for adaptation. Climate proofing does not mean reducing climate based risks to zero; an unrealistic goal for any country. The idea is to use a combination of infrastructural, institutional, social and financial adaptation strategies to reduce risk and optimalise opportunities for large scale innovations to a quantified level accepted by society (Kabat et al., 2005). Projects are realised in a multidisciplinary network jointly assessing impacts and developing adaptation strategies. Climate scenarios developed under theme Climate scenarios and evaluation techniques under theme Integration are an important input.
Special focus will be paid to climate proofing:
The Rhine river basin: CcSP develops a coupled atmospheric-hydrological model describing both the energy and water balance for the whole Rhine basin.
The coastal zone (including housing and infrastructure): CcSP research aims to improve the implementation of long-term policy regarding flood protection in the coastal zone.
The rural area: The CcSP programme explores at national and regional scale the opportunities and risks of adaptation to climate change in the rural area for agriculture and the national ecological network with special attention to multi-functional land use.
The National Ecological Network (ecosystems and nature conservation): CcSP research aims to improve our understanding about the resilience of the EHS taking into account the effects of climate change on meta populations, habitat distribution and land use change.
Three risk groups can be defined (Cormont, 2006):
Species that will disappear under all climate scenario’s;
Species for which the Netherlands will become suitable due to climate change but landscape fragmentation is too high to shift to the North;
Species vulnerable for extreme weather events.
The North Sea: CcSP aims to enhance the complex relationships between marine food chains, abiotic factors such as nutrient loading, anthropogenic influences and climate change by developing indicators of ecosystem performance.
Transport: CcSP aims to do develop different adaptation strategies for the transport sector (freight and passengers) under different climate scenario’s (project A8). Impacts will be identified, also based upon research in other countries, and used to estimate the implications for generalised costs of transport under various climate change scenario’s.
Financial arrangements (i.e. insurance as adaptation): The general approach followed within the CcSP programme is to develop sets of financial arrangements for flood related risk sharing in the Netherlands that take climate change into account.
Practically orientated projects (for adaptation).
In a latter stage also projects will be commissioned regarding urban planning, tourism, recreation and human health.
