Ellen Hanak

Adaptation to Climate Change: A Review of Challenges and Tradeoffs in Six Areas

Problem: Even if significant reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions are achieved, some amount of climate change appears to be inevitable. Local, regional, state, and federal planning and regulation should begin to address how to adapt to these changes. Purpose: This article presents a policy synthesis of adaptation planning issues, using California as a case study. We examine the institutional and regulatory challenges and tradeoffs that climate change poses in six particularly vulnerable areas: water resources, electricity, coastal resources, air quality, public health, and ecosystem resources. We discuss obstacles to adaptation planning and successes overcoming these barriers, and suggest how planning can incorporate adaptation. Methods: This article presents a policy synthesis of adaptation planning issues, drawing on our recent research on Californias experience and related literature. We summarize the results of six studies that draw on quantitative and qualitative information gathered through surveys, interviews, and literature review. Results and conclusions: Planners should use forward-looking climate data that include higher water and air temperatures, sea-level rise, and increased numbers of extreme events like heat waves, floods, and wildfires when making decisions about future development, infrastructure investments, open-space protection, and disaster preparedness. Climate change will exacerbate conflicts between goals for economic development, habitat protection, and public safety, requiring stronger interagency coordination and new laws and regulations. Takeaway for practice: Local and regional planners can help society adapt to a changing climate by using the best available science, deciding on goals and early actions, locating relevant partners, identifying and eliminating regulatory barriers, and encouraging the introduction of new state mandates and guidelines. Research support: Partial support for this research was provided by Pacific Gas and Electric, The Nature Conservancy, and Next 10.

Adapting California’s water management to climate change

California faces significant water management challenges from climate change, affecting water supply, aquatic ecosystems, and flood risks. Fortunately, the state also possesses adaptation tools and institutional capabilities that can limit vulnerability to changing conditions. Water supply managers have begun using underground storage, water transfers, conservation, recycling, and desalination to meet changing demands. These same tools are promising options for responding to a wide range of climate changes. Likewise, many staples of flood management—including reservoir operations, levees, bypasses, insurance, and land-use regulation—are available for the challenges of increased floods. Yet actions are also needed to improve response capacity. For water supply, a central issue is the management of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where new conveyance, habitat investments, and regulations are needed to sustain water supplies and protect endangered fish species. For flood management, among the least-examined aspects of water management with climate change, needed reforms include forward-looking reservoir operation planning and floodplain mapping, less restrictive rules for raising local funds, and improved public information on flood risks. For water quality, an urgent priority is better science. Although local agencies are central players, adaptation will require strong-willed state leadership to shape institutions, incentives, and regulations capable of responding to change. Federal cooperation often will be essential.

Linking Housing Growth to Water Supply: New Planning Frontiers in the American West

Abstract Faced with rapid population growth and the increasing difficulty of obtaining new sources of water, many western states now condition the approval of residential development on the adequacy of long-term water supplies. Although planners have generally supported these laws as means of linking water and land use decisions, their implementation is proving challenging. Drawing on the experiences in five western states, we evaluate whether water adequacy laws effectively meet the dual objectives of protecting the resource base and encouraging the development of supplies to support growth.

Incremental Water Market Development: The California Water Sector 1985-2004

The paper surveys the incremental development of water markets in California over the past two decades. California water markets differ from others in the western United States in that they facilitate the transfer of large amounts of annual water, but very few permanent water rights. In addition, marketable water is subject to several restrictions to minimize environmental and third party impacts. The data from the developing spot and option water markets suggest that in a situation of fluctuating supplies and changing demands, water markets based on leasing rather than permanent transfer can reconcile the need for water reallocation between uses and sectors. The effects of local controls on water exports, and the growing demand for environmental water, are demonstrated in the paper.

Preparing California for a changing climate

California has ambitious plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But the state also needs an integrated policy to prepare for--and adapt to--climate change. This report finds that some institutions, such as water agencies and electrical utilities, have already begun planning for change. But other areas have yet to prepare effectively for the challenges of a changing California.

California Water Management Challenges

This paper summarizes a comprehensive examination of the current and likely future of California’s water resource system, as well as promising long-term directions for policy and management. Longterm challenges include declining state and federal resources, climate changes, population growth, and continued disruptions of native ecosystems. Improvements in technology and in local water management capabilities are likely to be helpful, but changes in state and federal regulatory and management institutions and policies will be needed to manage such changes and opportunities well. The work was done by a team of distinguished scholars from economics, engineering, law, biology, and geology.