Climate change impacts and adaptation in South · PDF fileClimate change impacts and adaptation in South Africa ... biophysical and socio-economic impacts of climate ... tude of ensemble-mean

Overview

Climate change impacts andadaptation in South Africa

Gina Ziervogel,1∗ Mark New,2 Emma Archer van Garderen,3

Guy Midgley,4 Anna Taylor,5 Ralph Hamann,6 Sabine Stuart-Hill,7

Jonny Myers8 and Michele Warburton9

In this paper we review current approaches and recent advances in research on cli-mate impacts and adaptation in South Africa. South Africa has a well-developedearth system science research program that underpins the climate change sce-narios developed for the southern African region. Established research on thebiophysical impacts of climate change on key sectors (water, agriculture, and bio-diversity) integrates the climate change scenarios but further research is neededin a number of areas, such as the climate impacts on cities and the built environ-ment. National government has developed a National Climate Change ResponseWhite Paper, but this has yet to translate into policy that mainstreams adapta-tion in everyday practice and longer-term planning in all spheres and levels ofgovernment. A national process to scope long-term adaptation scenarios is under-way, focusing on cross-sectoral linkages in adaptation responses at a national level.Adaptation responses are emerging in certain sectors. Some notable city-scale andproject-based adaptation responses have been implemented, but institutional chal-lenges persist. In addition, a number of knowledge gaps remain in relation to thebiophysical and socio-economic impacts of climate change. A particular need isto develop South Africa’s capacity to undertake integrated assessments of climatechange that can support climate-resilient development planning. © 2014 The Authors.WIREs Climate Change published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2014, 5:605–620. doi: 10.1002/wcc.295

∗Correspondence to: [email protected] of Environmental and Geographical Science, Univer-sity of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa2African Climate and Development Initiative, University of CapeTown, Cape Town, South Africa3CSIR/School of Geography, Archaeology & Environmental Stud-ies, University of the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, South Africa4South African National Botanical Institute, Kirstenbosch ResearchCentre, Cape Town, South Africa5African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, Cape Town,South Africa6Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, CapeTown, South Africa7School for Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Univer-sity of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, South Africa8School of Public Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town,South Africa

INTRODUCTION

Climate change is a key concern within SouthAfrica. Mean annual temperatures have increased

by at least 1.5 times the observed global average of0.65∘C over the past five decades and extreme rainfallevents have increased in frequency. These changes arelikely to continue: the 2013 South African Long TermAdaptation Scenarios and the Fifth Assessment Reportof the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

9School for Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Univer-sity of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, South Africa

Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts ofinterest for this article.

Volume 5, September/October 2014 605© 2014 The Authors. WIREs Climate Change published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproductionin any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Overview wires.wiley.com/climatechange

(IPCC AR5) for Representative Concentration Path-way (RCP) 8.5 suggest warming relative to 1986–2005of 3–6∘C by 2081–2100 in the interior, yet less cer-tain precipitation changes in terms of both directionand magnitude.a Climate change poses a significantthreat to South Africa’s water resources, food secu-rity, health, infrastructure, as well as its ecosystem ser-vices and biodiversity. Considering South Africa’s highlevels of poverty and inequality, these impacts posecritical challenges for national development.2

Like many other parts of the world, early cli-mate change research in South Africa was initiallyframed as an environmental problem, rather than adevelopmental one. Nonetheless, after 2001, publiccommunication of the results of the country’s InitialNational Communication to the UNFCCC drove astrong adaptation and mitigation action agenda bothin national policy development and in UNFCCC nego-tiations. Encouragingly, South Africa’s policymakersand academics have worked together quite closelyon climate change. In 2005 this was evidenced byinterlinked science and policy plenary sessions at theNational Climate Change Summit, ‘Climate ActionNow’. Key policies that resulted include the NationalClimate Change Response White Paper3 and SouthAfrica’s Second National Communication under theUnited Nations Framework Convention on ClimateChange2 (SNC).

South Africa’s per capita emissions are highas compared with other countries on the Africancontinent and even globally, and as a result climatechange mitigation has been a focus for a number ofyears.2,3 For example, the government commissionedresearch, first proposed at the 2005 National Cli-mate Change Summit, that culminated in the LongTerm Mitigation Scenarios.4 Responding to thesescenarios, policies have been developed, includingthe Renewable Energy Independent Power ProducerProcurement Programme and more recently NationalTreasury consideration and planned implementationof carbon taxes.5,6

Increasingly, however, the issue of climate adap-tation is coming to the fore. In the context of SouthAfrica’s urgent socio-economic developmental needsand threatened ecosystem services, adaptive responsesthat reduce vulnerability to current as well as futureclimate variability and change are critical. Reducingthe so-called ‘adaptation deficit’, that is exposureand sensitivity to the present-day climate variabilityand observed change, is an important dimension oflong-term adaptation planning.7 Responses at thenational level have started to focus on integrateddevelopment trajectories more broadly. South Africa’snew National Development Plan 20308 goes some

way toward reframing climate change as a devel-opment challenge. Several government departmentsacross all three spheres of government—national,provincial, and local—are now developing climatechange strategies and/or plans.

To develop a coherent national adaptationresponse, there is a need to integrate climate sci-ence, impacts and vulnerability studies, as well asresults from assessing various adaptation options,into both sectoral and cross-sectoral decision-makingprocesses. Our aim is to review various approaches toimpacts and adaptation research, and present a briefoverview of some of the key findings, as well as pointto significant knowledge gaps that warrant furtherresearch.

Many of the key findings are drawn from theLong Term Adaptation Scenarios (LTAS) process thatreleased first phase reports for comment in mid 2013,and the second phase of which will be finalized during20141 (see Box 1). The LTAS process pulls togethermuch of South Africa’s existing climate science andimpacts work and offers new analysis that highlightsways in which the country should be approachingclimate adaptation in the context of its developmentpriorities.

THE STATUS OF CLIMATE SCIENCE INSOUTH AFRICA

South Africa arguably has the most advanced research,observation, and climate modeling program on theAfrican continent. This expertise is situated across anumber of universities and science councils and cov-ers most aspects of earth system science (ESS), includ-ing atmosphere, oceans, land surface, biogeochem-istry, and hydrology. The number of South Africanresearchers leading and participating in internationalglobal-change research programs and scientific bod-ies, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC), is relatively high, as is the count ofjournal articles published by South African authors.b

South Africa has co-led major regional earth systemscience initiatives such as Safari 94 and Safari 2000,and the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystemprogram. Under the SA Global Change programme,significant support for ESS has been provided throughnational programs such as South African Environmen-tal Observation Network (SAEON) and Applied Cen-tre for Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS).c

Within the broader SA ESS research, climateprocess studies have mostly focused on mechanismsthat control inter-annual and decadal variability and,in recent years, on understanding how these mecha-nisms might be affected by climate change. Another

606 © 2014 The Authors. WIREs Climate Change published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Volume 5, September/October 2014

WIREs Climate Change Climate change impacts in South Africa

BOX 1

LONG TERM ADAPTATION SCENARIOS(LTAS) PROJECT

South Africa’s 2011 national policy position onclimate change emphasizes that socio-economicrisks resulting from a range of emission scenar-ios need to be better understood and quanti-fied in order to inform planning and practice.3

In an effort to address the problem, in 2013, theNational Department of Environmental Affairscommissioned the Long Term Adaptation Scenar-ios (LTAS) project.1

The objectives of LTAS are to developnational and sub-national adaptation scenariosunder a range of plausible future climate con-ditions and development pathways, so as toenable the incorporation of ‘climate resilience’in future development planning. Underpinningthe LTAS process is new research in which theCSAG and CSIR downscaling approaches wereintended to provide an internally consistent suiteof high-resolution climate projections.2 Theseprojections were downscaled from the two mostrecent generations of GCMs (CMIP3 and CMIP5)and emissions scenarios (SRES and RCP) that wereused in the Fourth and Fifth IPCC assessments,respectively. LTAS represents the first common,dynamical as well as statistical suite of high res-olution projections for South Africa, as well as acomparison between two generations of globalclimate models, resulting in an ensemble of 78individual projections.e

The LTAS climate scenarios result in a widerange of projected changes, both in extent ofwarming, but also in the direction and magni-tude of ensemble-mean precipitation changeacross different approaches (Table 1). Evengreater ranges in precipitation change emergewhen individual projections in the ensemble areinvestigated (not shown).

An additional set of climate scenarios,developed by Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (MIT), has also been included in LTASbecause it had been applied in a parallel projectsponsored by National Treasury to quantify eco-nomic impacts of climate change at the nationalscale. The MIT process generates a very widerange of potential outcomes by design, in orderto address uncertainty, but the methodology islimited in mechanistic realism order to allow forthe many thousands of scenarios it generates.31

The inherent uncertainty in the LTAS cli-mate projection data is an aspect that has yet to

be robustly examined, but is common to all multimethod and/or multi-model ensemble-based sce-narios worldwide. This issue is emerging as a keychallenge for the global climate services commu-nity as evidenced by the science agenda of WorldClimate Research Programme (WCRP) and similarorganizations, and the call for a more rigorousframework to generate and assess downscaledinformation as outlined in Hewitson et al.32

Although these new scenarios do not pro-vide any strong and consistent message regard-ing precipitation, they do represent a significantadvance in the representation of the uncertainty.The implication is that scientists engaged in vul-nerability and impacts assessments will need toconsider a wider range of potential climate sce-narios in order to assess risk fully.

In an attempt to capture this spread ofresults, the LTAS scenarios report suggeststhe use of four contrasting scenarios for SouthAfrica: Hot-Dry, Hot-Wet, Warm-Dry and Warm-Wet futures. The ‘Hot’ and ‘Warm’ scenarioscorrespond to high and mid-level emissionsrespectively, while the ‘Dry’ and ‘Wet’ permu-tations capture the spread of uncertainty inprecipitation projections. Impact modelers arecurrently researching ways to robustly use thefour scenarios, although this is not without chal-lenges, especially because at a sub-national levelrainfall scenarios may diverge from the nationalaverage change.

key focus has been the links between local and remoteocean drivers of rainfall variability.9,10

South Africa has some of the best terrestrialvegetation, geology, and soils data in the region, andis developing greater capacity in the area. The SouthAfrican research community’s understanding of thefunctioning of the natural ecosystems and hydrologyare well developed, and its modeling capacity isstrong (see for example Refs11–14). The South AfricanWeather Service and other agencies have coordinatedrelatively good quality and numerous meteorologicalobservations compared to other African countries.These data have enabled a number of climate changedetection studies15–19 and a good understanding ofnatural variability. They have also supported modelevaluation and model forecast development.20–22

The two key centers for climate modeling inSouth Africa are: (1) the University of Cape Town,where global and regional atmospheric, ocean andcoupled modeling is undertaken by the Climate Sys-tem Analysis Group (CSAG) and the Department ofOceanography, with a focus on ocean-atmosphere

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process studies, seasonal forecasting and climatechange projections and (2) the Council for Scientificand Industrial Research (CSIR), which focuses onglobal and regional modeling for seasonal forecastsand decadal to centennial projections, as well ascoupling to land surface dynamics. The two cen-ters have slightly different foci.23 CSAG has a longhistory of statistical downscaling using neural netapproaches,24 but has also produced a limited set ofscenarios with regional climate models (RCMs), mostnotably MM5 and Weather Research and Forecast-ing model25 (WRF). The CSIR has focused on theuse of the variable-resolution CCAM model, whichruns globally but at much higher resolution (downto km scale in some experimental simulations) overthe southern African region.20,26 The advantage ofthis in-country modeling expertise and experience isthat substantial evaluation, tuning and developmentof the statistical and dynamical modeling tools thatproduce climate change projections has occurred (e.g.,Refs27,28). This contrasts with many African countrieswhere climate projection data products tend to besourced from international centers.

Despite this relative abundance of locally devel-oped scenario expertise, only a limited number ofimpacts studies have made use of both statistically anddynamically downscaled data. For example, an analy-sis of the impacts studies cited in South Africa’s SNC,shows that only 5 of 35 studies (in which the sourcesfor climate change projection were described) usedboth statistical and RCM scenarios driven by morethan a single global circulation model (GCM). Whilemost impact studies in South Africa have depended onCSAG and CSIR scenarios, other studies have madeuse of GCM outputs from the international Cou-pled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) archives,using simple change factor approaches to obtainhigher spatial resolution. A few studies have madeuse of RCM downscaled products from interna-tional centers.d A consequence of this ‘pick and mix’approach to the use of climate scenarios is that it hasbeen difficult to compare and to synthesize the resultsof different impacts studies.

BIOPHYSICAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTSAND VULNERABILITY

In this section we summarize the main approachesthat have been used to assess climate impacts andvulnerabilities in five sectors, namely biodiversity,agriculture, water, cities and health. We then discusssome of the key results from the LTAS process for eachsector.

TABLE 1 Summary of the Ensemble Mean Projected Changes inPrecipitation in the 2080s for Differing Emissions Scenarios andDiffering Downscaling Methods

SON, September, October, November; DJF, December, January, February;MAM, March, April, May; JJA, June, July, August.Single arrow implies consistent direction of change across the summer orwinter rainfall region respectively, with upward and downward arrowsindicating increases and decreases respectively; large and small arrows indicatestrong and weak responses, and upwards and downwards arrows togetherindicate areas of both increase and decrease in the rainfall region.Source: extracted via analysis of the projection maps within SA LTAS.

BiodiversityWithin the biodiversity sector, species and ecosystemmodeling has been prioritized to reveal potentialchanges in key biodiversity indicators.33 SouthAfrican researchers have made significant contri-butions to models of climate and CO2 impacts onvegetation structure and function, such as net pri-mary productivity,34 ecosystem-based adaptationapproaches35 as well as conservation adaptationplans. Many of the data sets required to apply thesemodels are available in South Africa, but the veryhigh levels of species richness and rarity, and thechallenges of unique ecosystem types, make theapplication of these approaches particularly testing.Despite this, a wide range of impacts assessmentshave been undertaken.34,36–43 In order to developinsights beyond those of conservation interest, inte-grated assessment approaches are needed to enhancerelevance for policy formulation and implementationrelated to land-use and infrastructure planning, andinvestment decision-making.

The latest findings from South Africa’s LTASshow that for the wettest and coolest climate scenar-ios for ∼2050, minor impacts on most biomes areindicated. The biome most under threat of signifi-cant structural change, independent of which climatescenario is used, the grassland biome, which couldface significant encroachment by woody vegetationdue to increased temperatures and rising atmosphericCO2. A further four biomes assessed to be signifi-cantly threatened by climate change include the Nama



Karoo biome, the Indian Ocean coastal belt, the Fyn-bos biome, and the Forest biome.

AgricultureImpact assessments in the agricultural sector havefocused on staple crops and key commodities, such asmaize and plantation forestry, using a range of cropmodeling approaches. One common approach incor-porates process based mechanistic modeling such asDecision Support System for Agrotechnology Trans-fer (DSSAT) and Agricultural Production SystemsSimulator44–46 (APSIM). Another common approachuses climate envelope distribution modeling to esti-mate any changes in crop or plantation forestrysuitability.47–49 The latter approach uses observedempirical relationships between abiotic variables suchas climate, and current distribution or crop presencepoints to estimate suitable areas under future climate.Further studies have investigated the economics ofclimate change impacts on crops,50–53 yield and soilnitrogen level interactions,54 changes in pest and dis-ease distribution48 and the impact of climate changeon the livestock sector.55–60

The Agricultural Technical Report of LTASdetails a series of both risks and opportunities. Resultsof concern include a possible projected increase inirrigation demand (see also the water sector findings)since most parts of the country may experience anincrease in average annual irrigation demand in theorder of 4–6%. LTAS indicates largely negative pro-jected impacts for key cereal crops, including maizefor the summer rainfall region, and wheat for the win-ter rainfall region. The sugarcane industry seems toshow no substantive losses in area suitability. Viticul-ture is projected to shrink, although ‘niche’ producersmay benefit through innovation, for example, throughadoption of organic or fair trade certification. Impactson key agricultural pest species are a critical concern,with a number of key pests and pathogens projectedto increase net range suitability in South Africa and onthe continent more broadly.61–63

WaterHydrological models using downscaled climate pro-jections have been the primary means of assessingsectoral impacts.29,64–66 The hydrological system isdynamic, and changes in climate may result in unan-ticipated hydrological responses, possibly beyond theranges for which the models’ ability to represent pro-cesses has been tested.67 Preliminary projections underthe wide range of scenarios generated by the MIThybrid approach (see LTAS side bar) for runoff rangefrom a 20% decrease to a 60% increase by as early as

2050 under an unmitigated emissions pathway, whileunder a constrained emissions scenario projections ofrunoff range from a 5% decrease to a 20% increase. Itis worth noting that a 60% increase in rainfall is a lowprobability outcome from the modeling framework,and is also physically very implausible. Spatially, theeastern seaboard and central interior of the countryare likely to experience increases while much of theNorthern and Western Cape are likely to experiencedecreases in runoff.

Impact studies for the water resources sectorhave begun to look beyond changes in streamflow tochanges in the timing of flows and the partitioningof streamflow into baseflows and stormflows, reser-voir yields, and extreme hydrological events.68 Underall future climate scenarios considered by the LTAS,higher frequencies of flooding and drought eventsare projected. Complexities of the hydrological cycle,influences of land use and management and the link-ages to society, health, and the economy indicate farhigher levels of complexity in the water resources sec-tor than in other sectors. What has emerged is thatland uses that currently have significant impacts oncatchment water resources will place proportionallygreater demands on the catchment’s water resourcesif the climate were to become drier.69 The influenceof climate change on water quality is an emergingresearch field in South Africa, with assessments limitedto water temperature48 and non-point source nitro-gen and phosphorus movement.70 A critical interac-tion that has not been explored is between changes inwater quality and quantity and the combined impacts,such changes might have impact on various types ofwater use, e.g., irrigation, domestic consumption, oraquatic ecosystems support.

Cities and the Built EnvironmentThe built environment has not been assessed in LTAS,which represents a significant gap, given the growingimportance of cities as locations of particular expo-sure to climate change. In the big metropolitan centers,broad reviews of projected climate change impactson the city have been undertaken in order to informadaptation planning.71–75 However, limited quantita-tive impacts modeling of climate change exists. Theexceptions are eThekwinif municipality and the Cityof Cape Town.76–79 Integrated approaches that assessobserved or projected impacts of climate change inSouth African cities as a whole are lacking. Most exist-ing work takes a spatial or sectoral subset of the cityas the unit of analysis.

Sector specific research in cities has predomi-nantly focused on sea level rise and the water sec-tor. Impacts of sea-level rise in both eThewkini



and Cape Town have been evaluated using a riskexposure approach based on a combination of statis-tical analysis, geographical information system mod-eling and expert consultation.76,78–81 Possible impactson water supply and demand in cities under climatechange has been assessed in a few studies, rangingfrom semi-quantitative to quantitative.82,83 In mostcases, the spread of precipitation projections, cou-pled with high natural variability of precipitation, leadto considerable uncertainties in the potential climateimpacts on water in cities. In one study, for the cityof Polokwane,82 the most useful adaptation was iden-tified as demand management, with a delayed andphased approach to supply augmentation, should adrying trend emerge over time. These quantitativestudies have been complemented in some instances bymore qualitative approaches to suggest the kinds ofstrain that climate change is likely to place on watermanagement and flood governance in the future84–86

as well as the economic impacts on securing waterunder climate change.87

HealthThe health impacts of climate variability and changeare increasing. Studies in South Africa have focused onclimate sensitive health outcomes including diarrheal,respiratory, cardiovascular health, and vector-borneinfectious diseases such as malaria.88,89 The potentialimpacts of climate change are relevant to a range ofkey health risks, including heat stress, along with highprecipitation and drought have been shown to influ-ence morbidity as measured by hospital admissions90

and mortality.91 Scovronick and Armstrong92 pro-vide evidence for the effects of informal versus formalor traditional housing type in modifying temperaturemortality relationships. Mathee et al.,93 using focusgroups, found decreased productivity among outdoorworkers exposed to high temperatures.

LTAS indicates climate change’s potential impacton vector borne disease,1 although the incidence ofvector-borne infectious diseases, principally malaria,in the South African context, has declined overrecent years. Modeling predicts no overall increase inmalaria incidence for sub-Saharan Africa but a shiftfrom west to south and east as driven by climatechange impacts.94,95 Further key health risks seen aspotentially impacted by climate change include: foodinsecurity; hunger and malnutrition; natural disas-ters; air pollution; communicable diseases, specificallyHIV/AIDS; non-communicable disease; high injuryburden; mental health; and occupational health1 (see,for example, LTAS’s detail on heat stress risks foragricultural workers). Significant limitations in thisfield include the unavailability of data96 especially at

small scale for both climate determinants and healthoutcomes as well as the lack of a clear conceptualmodel for causal pathways from climate exposuresto health outcomes. Although there are key skills inspecific areas of health research in South Africa, alack of interdisciplinary or complex assessment meth-ods is resulting in poorly developed inter-sectoralperspectives.89,95 To date, very little work has beenundertaken on the links between climate change, foodsecurity, nutrition, and health.

DEVELOPING ADAPTATION RESPONSES

In South Africa and internationally there is a growingbody of research that focuses on understanding adap-tation to medium- or long-term changes in the climate.Despite this, most adaptation responses still focus onreducing vulnerability to present-day climate expo-sure, such as through disaster risk reduction, earlywarning systems, and water demand management.There is little practical experience of implementingadaptation programs related to longer-term climatechange except at a rather small (sectoral or local) scale,such as responding to sea level rise.23 There is alsolimited experience with climate adaptation monitor-ing and evaluation internationally and in South Africa,despite it being prioritized by South African govern-ment in many other sectors. South African governmenthas now prioritized this at the national level97 and isengaging in research to explore the design of a systemto evaluate adaptation.

A vulnerability-based approach to develop-ing adaptation responses is a useful complement toimpacts-based approaches. Although some impactsmodels incorporate assessments of future vulnera-bility, there is a far greater certainty about currentvulnerability. In the South African context, the con-cept of vulnerability has been applied in a limitedfashion and generally only mentioned in physicalmodeling studies.46 It has been included in a numberof national level reviews2,98 and sector-specific vulner-ability assessments are starting to emerge. While somestudies have looked at vulnerability to climate in thecontext of multiple stressors, e.g., water, health, cli-mate, economics, etc.,50,99–101 so far, no studies haveassessed vulnerability to different climate impactsacross sectors.

As a first step to assessing adaptation optionsthat best serve the country’s development objectives,it will be important for vulnerability assessments tomove from site- or community-specific to sector wide,with a particular focus on assessing how sectoraland cross-sectoral impacts affect the rural and urbanpoor.



South Africa’s 2011 National Climate ChangeResponse White Paper3 is the first coherent outlineof national government’s responsibilities relating tomitigation and adaptation. The strategy adopts astrongly sectoral approach, but also identifies theneed for coordination of responses between sectors.Although many adaptation options are suggestedacross sectors, fewer examples exist of a move beyondcoping with current variability to adapt to climatechange in practice. Below we illustrate a few of theadaptation responses that have been implemented.

In the biodiversity sector, adaptation planninghas incorporated climate change impacts scenariosinto national plans for expansion of protected areasout to the middle of this century.102 The planningprocess took account of a wide range of considera-tions other than climate change scenarios, and alsoused a multi-model, multi-downscaling set of climatescenarios that provided a range of climate changesthat could be expected, given current climate and bio-diversity modeling skills. Ecosystem service decisiontools have also been applied in this sector to assesstrade-offs resulting from management interventions.Integrated assessments and economic cost benefit ana-lyzes have also been undertaken,103 with substantialprogress in the area of invasive alien species.104 Onestudy showed the benefit of interventions in ecosystemrestoration for increasing resilience to climate changeand broader community benefits,105 such as wet-land restoration. More recently, the implementation ofecosystem based adaptation (EBA) concepts has beenexplored.106 In the Namakwa District Municipality,for example, Conservation South Africa, an affiliate ofConservation International, took the lead in develop-ing pilot projects which show how EBA may work inpractice.107 The Namakwa District Municipality ini-tiative is of particular interest, because it occurs in anarea of significant rural poverty located in a biome ofcritical biodiversity importance.

In the agricultural sector, Benhin51 used a crosssectional (Ricardian) method to measure possibleeconomic impact of climate change on crop farmingin South Africa and suggest adaptation measures.As in the biodiversity sector, agricultural researchershave since undertaken studies assessing adapta-tion options in terms of avoided damages.50,53,108

Participatory modeling approaches and adaptationdesigns directly involving stakeholders have beenused to develop locally relevant adaptation plansfor agriculture and water management.107,30 Imple-menting these plans have highlighted the challengeswith actively mainstreaming climate change intocatchment-management work, given the significantlevels of vulnerability in South Africa.68,109 A key

finding was that uncertainties around organizationaland institutional issues were more important forstakeholders to consider in adaptation planning thanuncertainties around the modeling results.

A handful of examples of adaptation practicego beyond addressing the current adaptation deficit,to explicitly consider changing climate and take alonger-term planning approach.

In the agricultural sector, individual farmers andfarmers’ associations are extremely interested in cli-mate change findings and many have started adapt-ing to their experience of historical changes.110 Forexample, in the Western Cape, apple orchards havebeen replaced by vineyards which are more tolerant ofhigher temperatures; and in the southern Cape com-mercial farmers have changed from crops to pastureand have increased their water-storage capacities.110

In the Suid Bokkeveld, in South Africa’s arid west-ern region, work on understanding impacts of climatevariability and change on rooibos tea farming has beenundertaken in partnership with the emerging agricul-tural sector in this area. Using participatory researchmethodologies, as well as community-based adapta-tion planning, adaptation has become an iterativeco-learning process, rooted in farmers’ existing knowl-edge of what works in practice.111–114 Such ‘rooted’adaptation strategies have included (but are not lim-ited to) soil and water conservation measures, in situbiodiversity conservation measures as well as mea-sures to protect livestock from heat and water stress.

Although the impact of climate change on theprivate sector has not been an explicit focus in nationalassessments, many of the studies mentioned abovehave important implications for the private sectorand have prompted adaptive responses. Within busi-ness, a more innovative response to climate changecan be seen through the case study of a short-terminsurance company, Santam. The company noticedincreasing insurance claims particularly in the EdenDistrict Municipality in the Western Cape Province,associated with extreme weather events—specificallyfires (enhanced by periods of drought and fanned bystrong winds), flooding, and storm surges. Rather thanincrease insurance premiums the company embarkedon a pilot project in collaboration with CSIR andWWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) to assesslandscape-wide measures to reduce such risks.115 Theyidentified ‘proximate drivers’ of climate risks, whichare amenable to direct or indirect intervention by San-tam and its partners (e.g., reducing fire risk throughsupport for the ‘Working for Water’ programme).

Local adaptation strategies have recentlybeen developed for some cities and municipali-ties. These strategies often highlight the need for clear



identification of institutional responsibility for effec-tive implementation of adaptation responses116 (e.g.,Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy).The cities of Cape Town and eThekwini both havemunicipal adaptation plans of action that link currentpriorities with expected future considerations. Keyemerging research questions relate to the extent towhich such response strategies are translated intoaction, and understanding the barriers and enablersto effective local government.116 Recent analyzes haveraised some interesting contrasts between capacityand barriers for adaptation in large cities and smallermunicipalities. Cities generally have the resourcesto develop adaptation responses, but are hamperedwith regarding implementation due to their large sizeand organizational complexity. Smaller municipalitieson the other hand, do not have the human capacityto undertake systemic adaptation planning, but aremore successful implementers because of their smaller,less complex organizational nature, and because keyindividuals across functions are well-networked andhave a history of working together.117

THE WAY FORWARD

At the research and applied level, South Africa is mak-ing significant progress in understanding the impactsof climate change, and in starting to implement andevaluate adaptation responses. Despite this, substan-tial work is still needed in two areas: (1) the knowledgegaps related to inadequate impacts assessment and thequantification of the socioeconomic costs of climatechange and (2) the institutional challenges that makeit difficult for organizations in both the public andprivate sectors to work and collaborate effectively tomeet the country’s adaptation needs.

Addressing Key Knowledge GapsDespite nearly two decades of climate and impactsmodeling in South Africa, many knowledge gapsremain. This affects the predictive chain from climatescenarios and associated biophysical impacts, throughassessing socioeconomic vulnerability and adaptationresponses.118 Gaps are in part due to a lack of climatescenario products; under-synthesized and poten-tially contradictory climate information; incompleteimpacts modeling approaches and inadequate processunderstanding; poor traceability between impactsassessments and the climate scenarios on which theyare based; inadequate socioeconomic and vulnerabil-ity assessments; and lack of cross-sectoral integrationin impacts and adaptation assessments.

The potential impacts of climate change willremain incompletely characterized due to some of

these knowledge gaps being irresolvable within practi-cal timeframes. On top of this, the lack of a consistentapproach that can be adopted as ‘best practice’ makesit difficult to disentangle uncertainties that are dueto fundamental scientific and modeling uncertaintiesfrom those due to the assessment methodology itself.For example, the sectoral impacts studies in the LTASrepresent a synthesis of pre-existing studies, makinguse of a range of approaches and climate scenarios.The LTAS climate change scenarios offer an additionalopportunity for a systematic, consistent approachto new impacts assessments that has yet to berealized.

South Africa lacks a robust national systemthat provides spatially extensive climate data. Themost recent quality controlled and nationally griddedclimate data date back to 2000. Up-to-date nationaldata for hydrology are increasingly difficult and costlyto obtain or generate through modeling. This repre-sents a key constraint for impacts modeling in SouthAfrica, as many sectors, including biodiversity, agri-culture, urban settlements, and even human health,use climate and water as a key resource underpinningtheir impacts modeling.

Over the medium and long term, adaptationassessments are constrained by inadequate impactsmodeling approaches. In the biodiversity sector forexample, it is not clear how insects, animals, wildfire,and dispersal rates of species might respond to chang-ing temperature and rainfall patterns or how CO2 lev-els might interact with climate-yield interactions andwith soil nitrogen and ozone. A growing understand-ing of how current climate impacts on livelihoods andsectors have not been matched with sufficient under-standing of what a change in climate might meanfor future well-being. For example, urbanization isresulting in increased urban densification (in both for-mal and informal settlements); the associated costsof higher concentrations of people and infrastructure,coupled with extreme weather events have not beensufficiently explored. Little work has been done oneffectively costing adaptation measures and identify-ing suitable financing options. This is a major stum-bling block for implementation.

Integrated assessments have been undertaken inonly a limited way in South Africa. These assess-ments are potentially important because they integrateinformation from multiple sources on climate changeimpacts, vulnerabilities, and priorities for adaptation.Such cross-sectoral approaches help to explore someof the linkages between sectors and regional vulnera-bilities. For example, it is important that the agricul-tural and water sectors are considered in tandem formany adaptation responses. One example of research



that integrates these two sectors is a study of thewater-stressed Sandveld in the Western Cape region.The study looked explicitly at implications of climatechange for groundwater recharge, on which the agri-cultural sector is so heavily dependent.107

Integrated assessments could address ways ofincorporating climate change research into broaderdevelopment concerns.84,119 An international exampleof such an approach is the UK’s Climate ChangeRisk Assessment120 (CCRA). The CCRA synthesizedexisting knowledge on climate impacts, related to over100 risks (prioritized from an initial list of over 700).Drawing from disparate sectors, the risks were chosenbased on the magnitude of the impact and confidencein the evidence base. The research highlighted the mostsevere risks, interactions between risks, and how risksvaried regionally. This now forms the evidence basefor the UK government’s policy on adaptation.

Adaptation will inevitably have to deal withuncertainty around both climate and its impacts, andalso the social, political, and economic conditionswithin which the impacts and responses will takeplace.121 As yet this is not reflected in adaptationresearch and practice in South Africa. A critical areafor collaborative research is to develop approachesthat support ‘robust’, ‘resilient,’ or ‘adaptive’ decisionframeworks that take account of uncertainty, andavoid lock-in to particular scenarios.122

The ability to take adaptation findings fromcase study sites generalize them to the national level,and to make recommendations that cut across sec-tors remains constrained. This requires critical atten-tion, particularly in the light of the primacy of‘climate-resilient development’ as outlined in SouthAfrica’s National Climate Change Response WhitePaper. Very little is known about institutional designthat fosters adaptation and the capacity to deal withuncertainty, complex system feedbacks and non-stablestates. The following section explores some of theinstitutional challenges that could be addressed tostrengthen adaptation.

Building on Institutional Strengthsand Addressing BarriersInstitutional barriers for addressing climate changehave been identified across a range of South Africanstudies that include: a lack of capacity (both in termsof numbers of people and expertise), high turnover ofstaff within government departments; limited under-standing of and expertise in tackling climate-relatedissues; the positioning of climate change as anenvironmental issue rather than as a developmentissue; conservative financial management practices;and poor communication and coordination between

departments and between different levels ofgovernment74,84,116,119,123–125 (especially nationalto local and provincial to local).

Internationally, a number of Organisation forEconomic Co-operation and Development (OECD)countries have established dedicated support bodiesto assist with impacts and adaptation assessments.For example the UK Climate Impacts Programme(UKCIP), established in 1997, provides access to suc-cessive generations of climate scenarios. More impor-tantly it has also provided advice to stakeholders onhow to approach impacts and adaptation assessments,to pilot innovative approaches to adaptation, and toreview and reflect on best practice.126 This approachis sorely lacking in South Africa, where expertise andadvice is sought on an ad-hoc basis from a stretchedresearch community. Climate scenario and impactsdata provision is generally provided when and ifexperts have the free time to respond, or through spe-cific consulting contracts. If adaptation is to becomeembedded in South Africa’s development, a mecha-nism similar to UKCIP is required.

Weak relationships exist between many differ-ent stakeholder groups in South Africa (government,civil society, researchers, practitioners, private sector),yet these relationships are critical in driving adap-tation. Authentic deliberation is particularly impor-tant between disparate stakeholders yet this is difficultto achieve especially in a highly unequal society.106

Climate change adaptation, as a complex problem,would benefit from ‘collaborative intermediary orga-nizations’. A comparative study of such intermediariesin the Cape Town metropolitan area identified par-ticular leadership capabilities that are likely to con-tribute to success, with a focus on creative approachesto ambiguity and conflict.106 Another role for inter-mediary organizations is to translate science into mes-sages relevant to policy and different user groups.Many organizations that could act as intermediaries,such as NGOs and extension officers, will need toimprove methods for communicating climate scienceand impacts findings in order to reach a wide audienceeffectively and credibly.

Although local governments do not get muchfinancial or technical support from the nationallevel to undertake climate change adaptation, evi-dence suggests that a number of municipalities andmetros are integrating adaptation into their plansand practice.116,123,127,128 The innovative work insome of the large cities in South Africa showcaseshow adaptation as a process has been prioritized.116

Although there is recognition of climate changeby many smaller municipalities the evidence foraction is limited.129 eThekwini Municipality has



highlighted the importance of versatility, experimen-tation and ‘learning-by-doing’.123,124,127 This has beenin response to high levels of uncertainty associatedwith climate change projections at the local level, thecomplexity of local economic, political and socialcontexts, and the variety of possible climate impacts.They have also recognized the need for new researchpartnerships between municipalities and academicinstitutions and systems for monitoring and evaluatingthe effectiveness of adaptation investments. eThek-wini has also promoted ecosystem-based approachesto climate change adaptation, as a way to addresshuman development needs (e.g., the provision of cleanwater, the creation of employment opportunities, etc.)as well as those of other species.127

One of the challenges that local government facein mainstreaming adaptation is the lack of authorityheld by environmental departments to address climatechange.116 Although national and provincial govern-ments are mandated to address climate change, atmunicipal level it is contested and regularly referredto as an ‘unfunded mandate’. Although new policysuggests that it is a mandate, municipal financing allo-cations do not reflect this yet. Small municipalitieshave almost no capacity to act on climate changeand the larger metros have sought international fund-ing to initiate activities.116 eThekwini, for example,has creatively used government funding for biodiver-sity and from bilateral donors to support its climatechange work.

Lastly, the silo approach of government depart-ments does not support an integrated approach toaddressing climate change adaptation. So althoughrhetoric and policy is changing it is important thatpolitical and bureaucratic infrastructure changes tosupport more integrated cross-sectoral responses.

CONCLUSION

In this review of current approaches and recentadvances in South African research on climateimpacts and adaptation, we have shown that SouthAfrica benefits from having a small group of sci-entists who are strongly integrated into climatechange research internationally. Climate scenariosgenerated in South Africa are as good as thoseproduced in many OECD countries and, in someareas, environmental data sets are of high quality.South African researchers have studied the bio-physical impacts of climate change, assessing, forexample, the combined impacts of climate changeand other drivers on biodiversity, and applying theseinsights to spatial-planning processes and the opti-mizing of conservation responses39,102,104,130 and

water management.66–68,131,132 Initiatives under theSA Global Change Programme have injected newmomentum into research, training and monitoringfor earth system science that should enhance SouthAfrica’s existing capacity. The LTAS sectoral assess-ments are helping to identifying key knowledge gapsand priorities for new research.

At the level of national policy, the NationalClimate Change Response White Paper3 makes sub-stantial new demands related to national adaptationplanning in key sectors that are directly linked to eco-nomic development, including agriculture, forestry,marine fisheries, and water. South Africa is mov-ing ahead with sectoral planning at the nationallevel, drawing increasingly on detailed impacts model-ing, and benefiting from national adaptation researchprocesses such as LTAS. However, this planningstill needs to be mainstreamed into sectoral pol-icy in many instances and importantly, followedthrough in practice, i.e., implementing and evaluat-ing actual management interventions. In this regard,while LTAS is designed partly to improve nationalcapacity around climate change, a more comprehen-sive capacity-building program requires the establish-ment of a dedicated national facility for impacts andadaptation support that can also function as an inter-mediary for connecting scientists, policymakers andstakeholder groups.

Focusing specifically on the issue of adap-tation, we outlined a wide range of adaptationactivities that are occurring in South Africa, fromlocal community-based initiatives, often stimulatedby NGOs, through to local, regional and nationalgovernment, and also in the business and paras-tatal (e.g., National Parks) sectors. However, few ofthese activities are well documented by the researchcommunity, reflecting the need for more transdis-ciplinary, action-research oriented approaches, andfor the non-academic community to become moreengaged in documenting and analyzing their activities.Where adaptation research has occurred, it tends tobe sector-based as opposed to cross-sectoral. Fewstudies integrate an understanding of impacts throughto vulnerabilities, adaptation and implementation.Three critical research areas that would strengthenadaptation research and practice include: (1) thedevelopment and testing of approaches that enableintegrated and flexible adaptation strategies; (2) animproved understanding of the social, political, gover-nance and financial barriers or enablers of adaptationin the South African context; and (3) how adaptationcan address the reduction of poverty and inequality,which is one of the key priorities of the NationalClimate Change Response White Paper.3



Adaptation cannot be disentangled from SouthAfrica’s national development objectives. Consid-erable opportunities exist for linking adaptationto development and employment activities thatare already underway, producing multiple benefits.We have suggested that, where possible, adapta-tion responses should focus on multiple synergies—prioritizing activities that fulfill a range of objectives,of which climate adaptation is one. This is specificallyimportant in South Africa where guidelines of goodgovernance are not well implemented and organiza-tional challenges persist. Such an approach also callsfor additional interdisciplinary research that extendsinto a joint framing of questions and exploring ofresponses. Close cooperation between academicsand practitioners in small local projects needs to beexpanded into multi-disciplinary and multi-scalarwork that will require new kinds of partnerships andfunding. The process of envisaging, together withstakeholders, and at least partially quantifying adap-tation scenarios using various modeling approachesappears to hold promise as one of many potentialsolutions.

Climate change adaptation requires forward-looking decision making that marries scientificdiagnoses and technical innovation with social orga-nization and political debate around competing valuesystems. Experimentation, learning and the capac-ity to shift practices in the light of new findingsneed to be seen as part of the adaptation process.Excellent examples of such practices are emerging inparticular instances across government departments,businesses, and civil society, driven by innovative andforward-thinking individuals. The challenge remainshow to enable these innovative approaches to occur at

scales that will make a significant difference to SouthAfrica’s resilience in the face of climate change.

NOTESa Under RCP 4.5, near surface mean temperature isindicated at 1–1.5∘C on the coast and around 3∘Cinland for South Africa (reference period 1986–2005and future period 2081–2100). Under RCP 8.5 (usingthe same reference and future periods), we see around4–6∘C inland and 2–3∘C at the coast.1b For example, between 2006 and 2012, in the fields ofatmospheric science, meteorology and oceanography,authors with South African affiliations produced anaverage of 270 ISI publications per year, whereas thenext most prolific African country was Nigeria, withan average of 50 per year.c ACCESS is a government-funded consortium of over20 universities and research centers that supports arange of coordinated research projects, with a strongfocus on capacity development (www.access.ac.za).d For example, in an assessment of water-relatedimpacts studies, Warburton et al.29 and Anderssonet al.30 used projections from the Swedish Meteo-rological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) down-scaled with the RCA3 regional model from threecoupled atmosphere-ocean global climate models,covering three SRES emissions scenarios, and adjustedusing the distribution-based scaling (DBS) approachfor bias correction.e Between 6 (CSIR; A2 emissions scenario) and 10(CSAG; A2 & B1) CMIP3 models, were downscaled,and by end of 2014, between 10 (CSIR; RCP4.5 &RCP 8.5) and 16 (CSAG; RCP4.5 & RCP 8.5) CMIP5models will have been downscaled.f eThekwini is the name of the City of Durbanmunicipal government.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank an anonymous reviewer, Bob Scholes and Bruce Hewitson for their input onearlier drafts. Support from the NRF is acknowledged as well as funding from the University of Cape Town’sVice Chancellor Strategic Fund and the African Climate and Development Initiative.

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