Integrated Watershed Governance and its Role in Sustainable Adaptation to Climate Change

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Reclamation of Arid and Mountainous Regions, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.

Abstract

Comprehensive management of soil and water resources of a watershed is important due to its complexity, spatial and temporal dimensions, connection with natural laws, government, non-government and private organizations, and connection with the food security. In other words, integrated watershed management is a balanced governance of physical, biological, social and economic systems which provides conditions that minimize the negative impacts on resources while providing the benefits for the society. The purpose of  current study is to investigate the effects of climate change in the three sectors including water resources, soil erosion and sedimentation and environmental problems. The research tries to provide a targeted management approach in order to achieve the priciples of good governance of natural resources in order to adaptab to climate change. For this purpose, strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats caused by climate change were identified in different vulnerable parts of the world, then the SWOT matrix and quantitative strategic planning were developed to prioritize  the strategies. According to the results, gradual change strategies were accepted, which shows the superiority of strengths over weaknesses and the difference of opportunities over threats, which is of course very close to defensive or mitigation strategies. Therefore, the strategies extracted from the SWOT matrix provided a systematic approach, and the main goals of these strategies are the development of integrated watershed management in order to adapt to climate change impacts.

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