Adopting the framework of river basin planning for climate change adaptation in Spain

Adaptation was, until recently, neglected in climate change research, with the focus centred instead on the global collective action problem of mitigating emissions (Cerdá and Labandeira, 2010; Cerdá, 2011). In Spain, this is highly relevant because it is expected to be one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change due to its location in the Mediterranean area. The Mediterranean region, given its natural climate variability, has had a long history of coping and adapting to extreme events such as floods and droughts. However, the main differentiating factors arising from climate change are related to the uncertainty, range and magnitude of potential impacts (Grove and Lopez-Gunn, 2010).