Environment and Adaptation to Climate Change
The increasing variability of climate is having a dramatic impact on people in some of the poorest countries. Areas of change may include unpredictable rainfall patterns, increased frequency and intensity of storms, or sea level rise. Communities are being forced to change their ways of living in order to adapt: growing different crops, making better use of scarce water resources, using different production methods, or preparing for more frequent weather-related disasters. The technologies that will be useful to one community may not apply to another: adaptation to climate change must be rooted in the local context and people's knowledge culture and values, as these will determine how they can best cope with change. The few technologies described offer some relevant solutions to the challenges that communities will increasingly find themselves having to face.
General Resources
Adapting Rice to Saltier Conditions
This brief outlines the approach of using indigenous verities of rice to develop salt tolerant crops for areas where...
Adapting to Climate Change in Sri Lanka
A presentation highlighting the key problems and solutions with a focus on salinity affected paddy.
Artificial Reefs
People are destroying coral reefs at an unprecedented rate. One part of a solution could be for the community to...
Artificial Reefs - Recifes Artificiais E A Sua Instalação
As pessoas estão a destruir os recifes de coral a um ritmo inaudito. Parte da solução poderia passar pela construção...
Assessment of Vulnerability to Climate Change and Adaptation Options for The Coastal People of Bangladesh
The Bangladesh coastal zone is faced with a plethora of hydro-geographical constraints, coupled with unsustainable...
Building Small-scale Water-harvesting Dams
North Darfur faces acute deficit in its water. The need for water has forced farmers to try and adapt their...
Community Cereal Banks
Steps involved in setting up and running a cereal bank, based on the experience of Nthunguni Community Managed...
Community Cereal Banks - Benki Nafaka Ya Jamii
Steps involved in setting up and running a cereal bank, based on the experience of Nthunguni Community Managed...
Defining the Community's Role in Disaster Mitigation
This brief shows how addressing the increased vulnerability of people in the South is the only way to manage disasters.
Floating Gardens in Bangladesh
A floating garden is built using aquatic weeds as a base on which vegetables can be grown.
Flood Resistant Housing
Bangladesh has regular floods putting people at risk. This brief describes some flood resistant housing options.
Integrated Soil Fertility
This Technical Brief describes various methods of countering soil degradation in semi-arid regions.
Integrating Approaches
Sustainable livelihoods, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation emissions.
Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation in Agricultural Extension
A training manual on use of climate information and vulnerability and capacity assessment for agricultural extension...
Preparation of Risk Maps
This document looks at risk map usage in the emergency preparedness project in Peru, recognising that more...
Renewable Energy: Climate Change and Carbon Funding
A look into climate change and the displacement of carbon.
Run-off Rainwater Harvesting
Run-off rainwater harvesting developed in Sri Lanka to enhance rural livelihoods.
Soil Desalination for Vegetable Cultivation
A small-scale approach to soil desalination for cultivating vegetables from Bangladesh.
Technologies for Climate Change
This guidebook is intended to assist developing country governments, agriculture practitioners, and stakeholders in...
Titles available on climate change from Practical Action Publishing
Understanding Climate Change Adaptation
This book combines eight case studies from south Asia, Africa and Latin America with an overall framework. The analysis demonstrates that although communities’ adaptation strategies may be varied and depend on local context, social networks play a pivotal role in accessing appropriate climate knowledge and resources and communicating useful approaches to other communities.
Uncertain Futures
This book proposes that community-based adaptation must also address inevitable future uncertainty by supporting the ongoing ability to change. It invites readers to rethink development policy and practice in terms of how adaptive capacity can be best supported.
Climate Change and Threatened Communities
This book presents 15 case studies and a variety of approaches to document the capacities and constraints to be encountered among communities facing changing climates in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru, South Africa, Sudan, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. It explores human interactions in environments ranging from subarctic tundra to equatorial rain forest, from oceanic lagoons to inland mountains.
More People, More Trees
This book accompanies a film produced in Kenya and Burkina Faso which looks at land conservation and current challenges of soil conservation in the context of climate change.
Just One Planet
This book is for anyone who wants to get behind the scare stories to reach a well-informed and detailed understanding of climate change, and to find out what action needs to be taken, now.
Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocols Clean Development Mechanism
This book shows how the elegant creativity of science can be combined with the delightful unpredictability of politics and human behaviour. These stories come to life through a kaleidoscope of colour photographs and children's artwork.
Living with Drought
This book is about understanding and planning and implementing drought mitigation
Climate Change and Gender Justice
This book examines how gender-equality concerns should be integrated into international negotiations and agreements on climate change mitigation and adaptation to ensure that new policies do not disadvantage poor women, but rather deliver them some benefits.