Abstract

The idea of a special IPCC publication dedicated to water and climate change dates back to the 19th IPCC Session held in Geneva in April 2002, when the Secretariat of the World Climate Programme - Water and the International Steering Committee of the Dialogue on Water and Climate requested that t... Show moreThe idea of a special IPCC publication dedicated to water and climate change dates back to the 19th IPCC Session held in Geneva in April 2002, when the Secretariat of the World Climate Programme - Water and the International Steering Committee of the Dialogue on Water and Climate requested that the IPCC prepare a Special Report on Water and Climate. A consultative meeting on Climate Change and Water held in Geneva in November 2002 concluded that the development of such a report in 2005 or 2006 would have little value, as it would quickly be superseded by the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), which was planned for completion in 2007. Instead, the meeting recommended the preparation of a Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water that would be based primarily on AR4 but would also include material from earlier IPCC publications. An interdisciplinary writing team was selected by the three IPCC Working Group Bureaux with the aim of achieving regional and topical balance, and with multiple relevant disciplines being represented. United Nations (UN) agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and representatives from relevant stakeholder communities, including the private sector, have been involved in the preparation of this Technical Paper and the associated review process. IPCC guidelines require that Technical Papers are derived from: (a) the text of IPCC Assessment Reports and Special Reports and the portions of material in cited studies that were relied upon in these reports; (b) relevant models with their assumptions, and scenarios based on socio-economic assumptions, as they were used to provide information in those IPCC Reports. These guidelines are adhered to in this Technical Paper. Show less