Reducing the adverse effects of climate change with integrated adaptation measur es and participatory approaches Suruchi Bhadwal,

Catharien Terwisscha, Annemarie Groot, Sneha Balakrishnan, G J Lingaraj, Sreeja Nair, Sambita Ghosh, Christian Siderius, Ashok Mishra, Ajay Bha ve Abstract Changes in rainfall patterns and temperatures are likely to affect water resourc es in India. Also, changes in the extreme events might have direct implications on life and property. Adapting to the adverse effects of climate change becomes critical to avoid huge damages. This paper discusses the need to develop integra ted adaptation responses to deal with related risks in a manner that contributes to stakeholder engagement, understanding of the risks, identification of the ad aptation responses as well as prioritization and risk reduction. It highlights t he importance of the use of participatory processes in decision making, making t he entire process demand driven along with development of a sense of local owner ship on the various choices made and discussed leading to the identification of adaptation measures that are ecologically and technologically sound and have soc ial and economic acceptability.

Key words: multi-level adaptation, Ganges basin, participatory approach, climate change, local level 1. Introduction (objectives, main questions addressed, set up paper) AG, SnB (SB , CTS) Is there an optimal level for dealing with climate change? For a long time, clima te change has been predominantly been perceived as a global issue calling for a global concerted and orchestrated processes to deal with it. Development scienti sts started to question the dominant focus on the international level and calle d for decentralized processes and actions that focus on what can be done at the local level. Scaling down climate change adaptation was seen as a more effective approach as knowledge on the local impact of climate change and on local circum stances, capacities and interests will improve the detail of understanding and h ence can lead to more effective response strategies ( Gupta, 2007). Nowadays, as climate change is increasingly seen as a glocal problem that operates simultaneou sly at several interacting hierarchical levels, adaptation is considered to be a ddressed at the local, national and international level (Adger, 2005). Here the local level can exceed the local administrative levels as communities, firms and markets are all adapting to climate change within the boundaries of available s ources and regulatory systems. The emphasize the multiple level feature of climate change and the recognition t hat responsibilities for adaptation needs to be divided between different actors in society the concept of multilevel governance is commonly used. Multilevel gov ernance acknowledge/.... current ongoing changes in state power and control that is taking place in many countries all over the world. It forms a reaction to th e restrictions of a hierarchical method of steering by national state government s providing rules that have to be implemented at the local level. Governance is interpreted as a process of continuous interactions among governments and privat e entities, operating at, and between, several administrative levels and ultimat

ely aiming at the realization of collective goals (Termeer et al, 2010). As the term multilevel governance implies, the concept of levels is central and includes the international, national, regional, and local and sub local levels. Recentl y the notion of scales has been added to the multilevel governance discourse to address mismatches between administrative levels and ecological scales in climat e change adaptation. The concept of scale is not limited to spatial and jurisdi ctional scales only. Temporal, institutional, management, network, and knowledge scales are also considered (Cash et al. 2006, Gupta 2008). Multilevel governance , with its focus on activating relevant cross-level interactions, is considered to have potential to deal with complex multi scale problems (Termeer et al., 201 0). However, till now the discussion on the multilevel and multi scale perspecti ve on climate change remains rather abstract and, based on a few examples, the a pproach is criticized for its high demand for coordination and perceived ineffec tiveness. While the chief benefit of multilevel governance lies in its scale fle xibility, its chief cost lies in the transaction costs of coordinating multiple actors at multiple levels (Scharpf 1997, Hooghe and Marks 2003). The involvement of many government, business, and civil society actors is often referred to in a negative sense in terms of administrative fuss, fragmentation, or meaningless compromises. Especially regarding urgent matters such as food safety crises, som e plead for a reduction of complexity to accelerate decision-making processes. S ome scholars argue that large-scale changes, such as climate change, are difficu lt to govern via multilevel approaches and networks (Termeer et al., 2010; Duit and Galaz 2008). This paper aims to critically discuss the use of multilevel and multi scale governance approach in practice in India: a context characterized b y a large population that is considered to be amongst the most vulnerable to cli mate change due to a high dependence on agriculture and limited resource base. T he Indian context in which the multilevel and multi scale governance approach fr amed by the HighNoon project. The HighNoon project assesses the impact of Himal ayan glaciers retreat and possible changes of the Indian summer monsoon on the s patial and temporal distribution of water resources in the Ganges basin as a who le (include figure). The HighNoon project also aims to assist actors at the comm unity, district and state level to identify and assess effective response strate gies. Driven by development scientists and practitioners, the need for the use of part icipatory approaches to climate change adaptation has also recently entered the debate and enriched the multilevel and multi scale governance discourse (Hinkel, ..). Although many of the participatory, rapid appraisal methods have not been specifically designed for climate change adaptation, they are often applied by NGOs with the aim to increase local communities understanding about climatic haza rds and their vulnerability and to assist them in drawing action plans, mobilise resources and enact appropriate policies, laws and strategies to reduce their v ulnerability to disaster (e.g., Chiwaka and Yates, 2005). This emergence of part icipatory approaches fits as partly overlaps the discussion on the distinction b etween two basic approaches that are in use to support adaptation to climate cha nge, the predictive top- down approach and the resilience bottom-up approach (De ssai and Hulme, 2004). The top down approach is the widely applied by IPCC (e.g. , Adger et al., 2007) and uses a range of scenarios of world development, whose greenhouse gas emissions serve as input to global climate models, whose output s erves as input to impact models. Based on this, adaptation measures are then ide ntified and evaluated with the use of multi-criteria, cost-effectiveness or cost -benefit analysis methods (Carter et al. 1994, 2007, Adger et al. 2007).The bottom -up approaches focus on vulnerability by examining the adaptive capacity and adap tation measures required to the resilience and robustness of a system exposed to climate change. The bottom-up approaches are guided by preferences and values o f actors operating at different levels for which use is made of participatory me thods. /Figure 1. Top-down and bottom-up approaches used to inform climate adaptation (Dessa i and Hulme, 2004). Dessai and Hulme (2004) suggested to consider the top down and bottom up approac hes not as contradictory but as complementary in terms of informing the developm

ent of adaptation options. Here again, there are hardly any examples that discus s a combined top down-bottom approach in practice. This paper highlights how the bottom approach can be enriched by climate change data and climate date impact data, but it also discusses some difficulties and mismatches when combining both approaches in practice. The practical context is provided by the Highnoon proje ct which attempts to combine the top down and bottom up approaches. However, in this paper we focus mainly on the bottom up approach and where it meets/interac t with the top down approach as most of the papers in this special issue highlig ht different aspects of the latter (references..). More specifically, to add to the scientific debate on multi-level - multi scale governance approach to climate change adaptation as well as to highlight opportu nities and barriers when combining top down and bottom up approaches this paper addresses the following questions * To what extent do perceptions of climate change impact, adaptive capacity, vul nerability and the need for climate change adaptation measures differ between le vels and scales? * To what extent does the prioritization of adaptation measures differ between levels and scales due to differences in interests and physical and socio-economic conditions? * What are opportunities and barriers when combining top down and bottom up appro aches? Set up of the article: - Chapter 2 further justifies the questions that are addressed in this paper. It clarifies our interpretation of underpinning concepts such as impact, vulnerabi lity and adaptation. It provides a typology to classify different adaptation opt ions. It also discusses the need for alternative approaches to climate change ad aptation (multi level multi scale governance approaches, combination of top dow n and bottom up approaches - Chapter 3: describes the methodology used in this paper The nature of climate change problem mandates multi-scalar responses. The impact s of climate change are manifested at various scales, so are the vulnerabilities . Further, complexity multiplies when we attempt to assess vulnerabilities and a daptation of a large basin such as Ganga. Recent literature (Ostrom 2010, Termer et al 2010) recognise the need to acknowledge and involve these diverse players at all scales for a sustainable adaptation interventions. The methodological fr amework employed in the study draws from this perspective and intended to evolve a participative assessment of vulnerabilities and adaptation. Further the parti cipatory approach was extended to the ???????????????????ss-sectoral adaptation measures. M???????????????????? were??????????????????ion to climate change. Participatory Learning and Action 60. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). UK ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????? notion? This figure is for information . We can leave it out in the final version. We sho uld not copy the mismatch paper To ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????? An iterative step-wise approach was followed for the consultation process at sta te, district and community levels. The consultation process was dispersed over a period of 25 months. An attempt was made to link the outputs of scientific mode lling exercise with stakeholder perceptions /

- Chapter 4 presents the results of the use of a multi level multi scale governa nce approaches to climate change adaptation in the Highnoon project. It also hig hlights the attempts to combine the top down and bottom up approach. - Chapter 5: critically reflects on the results of the used approaches - Chapter 6: provides answers to the questions this paper aims to address and di scusses the conclusions and some conclusions.

References (not complete) Adger, W. N., N. Arnell, and E. Tompkins (2005). Adapting to climate change-persp ectives across scales. Global Environmental Change 15(2):77-86. Chiwaka, E. and R. Yates (2005). Participatory vulnerability analysis: a step-by -step for field staff. Action Aid (Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.actiona id.org.uk/doc_lib/108_1_participatory_vulnerability_analysis_guide.pdf" http://ww w.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/108_1_participatory_vulnerability_analysis_guide.pdf) IIED. (2009). Community-based Adaptation to climate change. Participatory Learni ng and Action 60. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) . UK Regmi, B., Morcrette, A., Paudyal, A., Bastakoti, R. and Pradha, S. (2010). Part icipatory Tools and Techniques for assessing climate change impacts and exploring adaption Option. A community based tool kit for practitioners. Livelihood and Forestry Programmes (LFP) and UK Aid from the Department of International Development. More precise A statement that highlight the local manifestation of impacts could be useful be fore the next statement. Will we be able to do something with this notion? I think the top down and bottom up hee are approaches for vulnerability assessmen ts. Our study in a very limited way employed town methods but in a very narrow w ay. This figure is for information . We can leave it out in the final version. We sho uld not copy the mismatch paper I think as a conceptual issue it is still one question ? Variation in perception s across scales of governance on issues of hazard, impacts, vulnerability, adapt ation We did not use any specific top down vulnerability and adaptation assessments. W e used the outputs of climate models as the base for eliciting responses and als o to share our findings. But it ends there, while we did use them but only as a part of a bottom up To broad still To broad still