Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies for Coastal Communities by Walter Leal Filho

Author:Walter Leal Filho
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Project Background

Reviving Traditional Croplands to Improve Community Climate Resilience is a project funded by USAID and is being implemented by the Palau Conservation Society (PCS). The timeline for this project is from August 2016 to June 2018. This project focuses on three of the 10 states of Babeldaob, Palau, namely Melekeok, Ngarchelong and Ngaremlengui.

These three project sites were selected based on climate related impact to community landscapes and the community and local government’s existing capacity to respond and address those impacts. The village of Ngerubesang in the state of Melekeok was selected because this village is located along the shoreline and taro farms are susceptible to salt water intrusion and inundation, making them vulnerable to rising sea levels associated with climate change. The village of Imeong in Ngaremlengui State was selected as a project site because a number of taro farms in this village are susceptible to flooding making them vulnerable to projected intense rainy events associated with Palau’s climate change profile. The villages of Ngebei and Ngriil in Ngarchelong State were selected because they have taro farms that have consistently been cultivated in the traditional manner and can serve as a control site for project field investigations. Finally, all the three states are rural communities with very little development and minimal institutional structures to manage natural resources or to address impacts of climate change on those resources and as such would benefit from the lessons in storm water management best practices work arising from this project.

Project activities are composed of strategies and actions to “enhance adaptation and resilience” (objective 1, Palau Climate Change Policy) with specific emphasis focused on the development of climate change-resilient agriculture and watershed management strategies and interventions. In other words, we are looking to the past to inform the development of solutions that can be applied now and into the future.

Palauans rely heavily on ecosystem services and goods for their livelihoods and cultural practices therefore ecosystem degradation and its associated impact on water quality and biodiversity poses a major threat to communities as it leads to Palau’s food, environmental and economic insecurity. This project will address the climate associated drivers of food, environmental and economic insecurity. However, project efforts will be focused on mitigating inadequate agriculture and watershed management and institutional weaknesses of state governments to effectively manage natural resources necessary for a resilient community.

These challenges will be addressed by utilizing a mixture of traditional and modern resource management in an effort to improve watershed management and agriculture in Babeldaob. The major objective of this project is to increase the adaptive capacity of Palau’s rural communities by strengthening community and ecosystem resilience to the impacts of climate change. Achieving this objective comprise actions to revive traditional landscapes into productive agricultural landscapes. This includes efforts to document associated traditional ecological knowledge of soil and water conservation derived from a long tradition of taro farming into best practices that can be integrated into existing watershed and resource management regimes. Reviving traditional croplands and sustainably managing watersheds are

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