Water Resources Planning Principles and Evaluation Criteria for Climate Change: Summary and Conclusions

Abstract

The prospect of anthropogenically-induced climate change presents water planners with a variety of challenges. Drawing on work presented in this volume, these challenges are summarized and conceptual issues surrounding strategies for adapting water planning and project evaluation practices to this prospect are examined. The six-step planning process detailed in the Economic and Environmental Principles and Guidelines for Water and Related Land Resources Implementation Studies (P&G) is described; its ability to incorporate consideration of and responses to possible climate impacts is assessed. The methods of sensitivity analysis, scenario planning, and decision analysis that are encouraged by the P&G are found to be generally appropriate for planning and project evaluation under the prospect of climate change. However, some important planning and evaluation criteria require review and possible adaptation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) impact assessment procedures are found to be particularly useful as a framework for climate change impact and sensitivity analyses, and would fulfill the requirements for future environmental impact statements. The ideas and principles are compatible with those found in the PandG. The water resources guidelines in the P&G deal explicitly with the specific comparison, appraisal, and selection of project alternatives based on normative decision rules associated with benefit cost analysis and maximizing national welfare. These basic rules and normative decision criteria for evaluating alternative adaptation measures were validated to a large degree by the IPCC Working Group III report (1996c) on economic and social dimensions of climate change. Neither IPCC guidelines nor general environmental impact procedures possess comparable prescriptive decision criteria. The paper concludes with guidance to planners as to: (1)climate-related factors that are of concern and should be monitored; (2) conditions under which climate change should receive particular attention; and (3) adaptation opportunities.