The potential impacts of climate variability and change on water resources and food security are receiving growing attention especially in regions that face growing challenges meeting water demands for agricultural, domestic and environmental uses. Rainfed agriculture regions exhibit higher vulnerability to climate variability and change, where aquifer storage and food security are under stress. Little research has attempted to investigate the consequences of climate variability and change on water availability and social livelihoods jointly. Employing available data on precipitation, farm budget data, and aquifer characteristics, a dynamic nonlinear optimization framework that maximizes the economic likelihoods of irrigation activities and food security under several climatic assumptions is developed and applied for Barbados as a numerical example. Our framework accounts for technological adaptation measure, drip irrigation, with the context of variable yield and cost of water demand under governmental subsidy schemes. Results indicate significant negative impacts of climate variability, change, and double exposure on future water resources and food security. However, some climate assumptions provide opportunity for some food producers who respond positively to technological adaptation programs, while consumers could face the major negative consequences by experiencing higher food prices. Our findings provide policymakers and stakeholders a comprehensive tool for economically efficient and sustainably reliant policy design, implementation, and evaluation facing the potential climate variability and change impacts.

Over the coming decades, global change will have an impact on food and water security in significant and highly uncertain ways, and there are strong indications that developing countries will bear the brunt of the adverse consequences, particularly from climate change. This is largely because poverty levels are high, and developing-country capacity to adapt to global change is weak. Furthermore, the rural populations of developing countries—for whom agricultural production is the primary source of direct and indirect employment and income—will be most affected due agriculture’s vulnerability to global change processes. The agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water resources, and variability in water supply has a major influence on health and welfare in poor areas. With water scarcity and extreme weather events expected to increase under climate change, water security could decline significantly in rural areas. Consequently, it is important to understand the impacts of global change (in terms of climate, demography, technology, and so on) on agriculture and natural resources in developing countries and to develop adaptive capacity to respond to these impacts. Moreover, there is a need to develop informed and effective adaptation measures and investment options that can be taken now to alleviate adverse impacts of global change in the future. | Non-PR | IFPRI1; GRP38 | EPTD

Ringler Claudia, 'How can African agriculture adapt to climate change: The impact of climate variability and climate change on water and food outcomes A framework for analysis', , IFPRI, 2008 | IFPRI1; GRP38