摘要：Despite growing recognition of the importance of climate change adaptation, few global
estimates of the costs involved are available for the water supply sector. We present a
methodology for estimating partial global and regional adaptation costs for raw industrial
and domestic water supply, for a limited number of adaptation strategies, and apply the
method using results of two climate models. In this paper, adaptation costs are
defined as those for providing enough raw water to meet future industrial and
municipal water demand, based on country-level demand projections to 2050. We first
estimate costs for a baseline scenario excluding climate change, and then additional
climate change adaptation costs. Increased demand is assumed to be met through a
combination of increased reservoir yield and alternative backstop measures. Under
such controversial measures, we project global adaptation costs of $12 bn p.a., with
83–90% in developing countries; the highest costs are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, adaptation costs are low compared to baseline costs ($73 bn p.a.), which
supports the notion of mainstreaming climate change adaptation into broader policy
aims. The method provides a tool for estimating broad costs at the global and
regional scale; such information is of key importance in international negotiations.
