New strategy to weather the change

SOUTH Africa’s water institutions must incorporate management responses that adapt to climate change when they develop their strategies so they are able to respond to “changing conditions”.

This is cited in South Africa’s new draft national adaptation strategy, which acts as the primary guidance document for climate change adaptation efforts, providing “direction” for all levels of government, and which is intended to link adaptation efforts “more coherently” to South Africa’s national development goals.

“Even if global warming were limited to 1.5ºC… South Africa would require effective climate change adaptation responses,” warns the document.

“This is because adverse effects on people and the economy are already becoming apparent because of sustained warming and increasing rainfall variability. These are likely to continue over the next 20 to 30 years.

“Climate change is projected to affect almost all sectors directly, especially through the damaging extreme weather events in the short term, disruptions in water and food security, adverse effects on human settlements and human health in the short to medium terms and ecological and biodiversity impacts in the medium to long term.”

Climate change directly affects sectors in which the poor are most dependent, states the document, listing human settlements, agriculture, water, biodiversity and ecosystems.

“While uncertainty over the scale and frequency of climate change impacts should influence how adaptation measures are prioritised and applied, uncertainty over the impact of climate change should not stand in the way of taking immediate steps to improve climate resilience,” it states.

The strategy highlights researching climate impacts on all species and climate-resilient alternative crops and livestock; understanding the impact of climate change and extreme weather events on invasive species, diseases and pests; understanding how temperature changes affect the migration of fish species and prioritising climate change research into biodiversity and ecosystem services.

There should, too, be an understanding of the trends of heat stress because of exposure to elevated temperatures. “There needs to be an improvement of the national water resource strategy with regards to adaptation and climate change,” advises the document, which was published by the Department of Environmental Affairs for public comment in September.

The strategy states that South Africa’s “aspirational goal” is to build resilience and adaptive capacity to respond to climate change risk and vulnerability.

National and provincial disaster management centres must be better equipped to develop early warning systems to prevent major impacts from climate-related disasters, and should establish short-term drought solutions.

The strategy also speaks of developing guidelines and implementing retrofitting of existing housing settlements to build adaptive capacity, such as rainwater tanks and compositing toilets.

Land and agricultural policy and legislation must increase the climate resilience of land users. The strategy supports biodiversity stewardship approaches to extend protected areas and areas under formal or informal conservation.

There should be measures implemented for communities that are most vulnerable to climate-change health impacts such as floods or heat waves.