Demonstration of groundwater pumping during a community workshop in the arid North East Brazil

Mott MacDonald's climate change adaptation services cover the following areas:

Agriculture and rural development

Local climate change impacts are uncertain, but will include desertification, reduced crop yields, and competition between food, fodder and biofuel crops. Such uncertainty has always been present in many communities, but the speed and extent of change may defeat natural resilience, resulting in rural poverty and population migration to urban areas or to richer countries. We deliver projects for:

• irrigation and drainage systems
• water resources management
• rural livelihood studies and programmes
• capacity building and institutional strengthening

Biodiversity and conservation

While habitats are always affected by short-term seasonal uncertainties, climate change may occur faster than they can respond. Such pressures are aggravated by humans seeking, for example, to develop biofuels, such as palm oil, which create areas of monoculture, reducing biodiversity and breaking down habitat interconnections. Our staff have hands-on experience in:

• palm oil plantation management for conservation
• biodiversity mapping
• conservation action plans
• protected species management

Coastal zone management

Man’s response to sea level rise ranges from defence of urban areas and high-value assets to 'managed retreat' from ill-defended rural coastlines. There is concern that both flood engineering and sudden abandonment alike have adverse effects on valuable marine life and coastal environments. We are frequently called on to:

• design integrated coastal zone management plans
• integrate conservation into coastal defence schemes
• assess the impacts of rapid shoreline development
• survey endangered reefs and other scarce habitats

Infrastructure engineering

Future buildings and infrastructure will have to be designed to cope with, for example, higher temperatures, more intensive rainfall and greater flooding risks. In many countries, guidelines for construction are not yet available but must be prepared from a holistic understanding for likely local climate change. Our services, therefore, typically include:

• guidelines for building and infrastructure design
• stormwater and sewerage systems
• energy-efficient building design
• soil erosion protection

Flood risks and land drainage

In many regions, climate change will result in more intense rainfall events. Some developed areas may be expensive to render ‘floodproof’, especially where the underlying cause is a permanently higher groundwater table. We have long experience in:

• flood risk mapping and long term forecasting
• river engineering and flood defence systems
• use of river habitat enhancements for runoff retention
• urban stormwater drainage systems

Human health and social development

Climate change will present challenges to communities all over the world; in the worst cases there will be subject to such stresses of land, water and food resources or disease that pressures will grow for migration or emigration. Our health and social specialists are experts in:

• social impact assessment
• community and stakeholder consultation and engagement
• integrated health, education and water programme management
• management of NGO/community support programmes

Landscape planning

All landscapes are essentially dynamic systems and, in highly populated areas, strongly influenced by man, and particularly by agriculture. Climate change will affect the landscape directly and as a result of changes in land use and cultivation. We have been commissioned for assignments to:

• plan and manage future landscapes around new infrastructure
• exploit flood defence systems to improve riverine landscapes
• study landscape history in response to man and climate
• restoration and management of rivers suffering from low flows

Natural disaster planning

All communities are vulnerable to natural disasters, whether from extreme flood or tidal events, intense droughts or wildfires. Our staff have exceptional worldwide experience in:

• flood refuge and shelter design
• post-conflict reconstruction
• emergency water supplies and infrastructure
• management of NGO/community support programmes

Water resource planning

The expectation of climate change has grown in parallel with greater demand for scarce water supplies, and concern at the impact on the natural environment of water supply and wastewater infrastructure, such as dams, river abstractions and wastewater treatment plant. However, there is also recognition that much can be done to use existing supplies more efficiently and to reuse wastewater. Mott MacDonald staff are acknowledged experts in:

• strategic planning of water resources under climate change
• prediction of future rainfall, run-off and infiltration patterns
• community schemes for efficient storage and use of water
• water conservation and re-use of grey water
• long distance inter-basin water transfer
• transnational water resource management