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Given that climate change is likely to exacerbate drought in certain parts of the world, a critical issue is how appropriate context-relevant drought policy can be developed and implemented. This paper examines how China is developing policies to help local communities in the Lancang River Basin to cope with the problems of climate variability and change. The research process includes (a) content analysis of relevant policies at different levels of administration and (b) stakeholder interviews to examine how effective policies are at the local level along the Lancang River in Yunnan province. The paper concludes that China needs to provide more emphasis on (a) enhancing the adaptive capacity of institutions and individuals, (b) drought risk rather than disaster management, (c) enhancing coordination between different departments and levels of government, (d) decentralization in policymaking as local governments can make context-relevant comprehensive policies more easily and are less hierarchical in their relationships, (e) involving farmers or other stakeholders in decision making, (f) building up grass root organizations to support policy implementation to compensate for the retreat of governmental organizations from the local level and (g) adopting market mechanisms which are still in a nascent stage now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an assessment framework that analyses the impacts of climate change on the water diversion strategies of a water transfer project in China. A water diversion strategy consists of high and low water levels as well as related diversion flows in four operating periods: pre-flood, flood, post-flood and non-flood periods. The optimal water diversion problem is defined as a multi-objective problem with two conflicting objectives: minimising human and ecological water supply shortages, and solved by the popular non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). The derived Pareto- optimal solutions are then evaluated using the predicted runoffs based on an ensemble of three general circulation models under three climate scenarios. Results obtained from the study catchment show that intra-annual distribution of future runoff changes. The optimal solutions on the Pareto front have greatly varying performance under a climate scenario. It is critical to reveal the different impacts of climate change on the water shortages over the four operating periods, in particular when an increase of water shortage in one period is masked by a reduction in one or more periods. This study illustrates that the framework can be used to identify resilient water diversion strategies to mitigate the potential impacts of climate change on the operation of a water transfer project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is facing many challenges in the water sector while implementing integrated water resources management (IWRM). Another daunting task -- adapting to water-related impacts of climate change, is also challenging China's water managers. These challenges have been posing threats to China's economic, social and environmental development. While separate efforts in promoting IWRM and climate change adaptation have been made, the approach of mainstreaming climate change adaptation strategy within IWRM is seldom studied. Attempting to fill the gap, this paper argues that there is great potential in synergizing them after analysing their distinctions and common points. By developing climate-proofing strategies within IWRM, mainstreaming is able to minimize adverse water-related climate change risks and maximize the benefits of policies and plans. In this study, entry points of mainstreaming climate change adaptation in the sustaining environment of IWRM and its process will be identified and analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]