Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change has triggered an increase in extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. As the effects become increasingly tangible, vulnerable and hazard-prone communities face growing, complex, and worsening challenges.

At Practical Action, we work with communities who are most vulnerable to disasters brought on by the impacts of climate change. We’re helping people adapt to existing changes and prepare for future ones. We work closely with communities to develop simple, practical solutions that can help minimise the impacts of floods, droughts and extreme weather on their lives and opportunities.

What is climate change adaptation?

Climate change adaptation encompasses all human actions to adjust to current or expected climate change impacts in a rapidly warming world. This involves adjusting our economic, social, and ecological systems so that they can avoid harm and explore new opportunities that the climate crisis creates.

Adaptation actions can vary from reforestation to building seawalls against rising sea levels to selectively breeding crops that resist drought.

Why is climate change adaptation important?

Climate change has triggered an increase in extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. It’s also causing long-term changes to weather patterns that are destroying livelihoods.

Poorer areas are often hardest hit. Poverty forces people into disaster-prone regions where making a living is almost impossible. And it means they’re ill-equipped to adapt to the changing climate, leaving them even more vulnerable to future disasters.

Adaptation is especially critical in countries that are most vulnerable and are already feeling the impacts of climate change on a daily basis.

What is Practical Action doing?

We’re helping people adapt to existing changes and prepare for future ones. We work closely with communities to develop simple, practical solutions that can help minimise the ways in which floods, droughts and extreme weather affect their lives and opportunities.

Our teams around the world are seeing with their own eyes the impact of climate change on people in poor areas. But we’re also demonstrating that ingenuity can help them adapt and thrive.