ALM UNDP

Summary:

Key Vulnerabilities

• Agriculture/Food Security
• Coastal Zone
• Forestry
• Public Health

Potential Adaptation Measures

Agriculture - Options to adapt to climate change in the agriculture sector include:

• (i) development of new high yielding varieties;
• (ii) improvement of crop management and cultural 1 Special Report on Emissions Scenario, A2 family. The SRES scenarios has four qualitative story lines that yield four sets of scenarios called "families": A1, A2, B1 and B2. Reference: Emissions Scenarios, IPCC 2000. xvi practices;
• (iii) development of capacity to adapt to current extreme climate events such as development of early warning systems for flooding and development of maps showing rice growing areas of provinces prone to flood and drought;
• (iv) development of irrigation facilities in low land areas;
• (v) increasing planting index in suitable areas; and
• (vi) diversification of foods.

Forestry. In the forestry sector, three options have been recommended to reduce the impact of

climate change:

• (i) forest plantation establishment,
• (ii) conservation of protected areas, and
• (iii) improvement of forest resource management.

Health - For the health sector, several control measures are being introduced to reduce malaria

cases. These are through early diagnosis and treatment of the diseases, distribution of pyrethroid-treated mosquito nets to communities living in high-risk areas to control the vectors, strengthening programme management and supervisory practices and funding for the provision of mosquito nets and insecticide. Health education programmes are very critical and should focus on low cost preventive measures such as improvement of personal hygiene, use of bed nets and destroying the insect breeding sites.

Coastal Zone - Considering that the possible impacts of sea level rise on coastal zone would be

very significant to the country, the government should:

• Develop a national strategic response to sea level rise for the coastal areas;
• Investigate further potential impacts of sea level rise on biogeophysical, socio-economy, marine resources, freshwater, infrastructure, human settlements, and agricultural production;
• Formulate a comprehensive adjustment and mitigation policy for sea level rise in the context of integrated coastal zone management;
• Develop computer-based information systems covering the results of surveys, assessments and observations in order to minimize the impact of sea level rise resulting from climate change;
• Increase public awareness on the effect of sea level rise on Cambodia’s coast;
• Identify potential donors either multilateral or bilateral sources to assist the country in adaptation to sea level rise; and
• Establish cooperation frameworks, training, technology transfer, surveillance of climate change in case of sea level rise, and the sharing of experiences to assist the government in establishing preparedness response to climate change.

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