Publication

This report scopes out knowledge gaps and unmet needs relating to climate change adaptation in China, and proposesways to address them. It is the product of an international collaboration between Stockholm Environment Institute(SEI) Asia and Beijing Zhi Dao He Xie Management Consulting Co. Ltd., and their work with local and communitydevelopment organisations. A national scoping study on climate change had already been completed in China.Consultations with national policy-makers indicated a need for additional scoping focused on the adaptation needsin specific ecological zones. Accordingly, this report reviews existing climate change assessments and provides casestudies of two ecological zones that have been identified as being particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts:the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the northwest of China and Guizhou province in the southwest.The goal of this review is to identify ways to strengthen the links between scientific and technical knowledge withaction on climate change adaptation.

The study focuses on the impacts of climate change on agriculture and ruraldevelopment, the two sectors thought to be most vulnerable. It draws on a literature review for context, but employscase study research as its main methodology. Data were collected through a review of official documents and relevantresearch publications, stakeholder consultations, and rural household interviews using structured questionnaires(Annex 1). The field data and findings were then mapped according to the climate change impacts analytical frameworkdeveloped by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) and the climate change adaptationframework developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNDP-UNEP, 2010) to identify potential knowledge gaps as well as any actions needed to fill them.