Economics of climate change adaptation: a case study of Ceres - South Africa

Climate change and its impact on already scarce water resources are important issues being publicly debated in the world today. Water resources are of more concern because changes in the water supply will affect the water availability for household use, agricultural practices, and for the vast industrial water demand. With the view of helping famers to adapt to climate change, the Ceres Dynamic Integrated Model was developed to simulate the impacts and evaluate different adaptation strategies thereof. The results show that a substantial change can be expected in the profile of the farming community. However, with adaptation the welfare of the farmers can be improved. Depending on the availability of funds to make farm dams available for farmers, access to farm dam capacity and winter water allocations as well as increasing water use efficiency are potential adaptation options for the farmers. Improved water management practices that increase the productivity of irrigation water use may provide a significant adaptation potential under future climate. Therefore, farmers must be equipped with a collection of management or adaptation tools to overcome slight climatic differences.