ABSTRACT
Climate change requires that societies rethink their prevailing approaches to water management. One impulse for this is that they are increasingly confronted with changing rainfall patterns. This results not only in difficulties with flooding (excessive rainfall over a short period of time), but also with drought (not enough rainfall over a long period of time). The latter of the two types of water issues relates to water scarcity problems that have long been experienced in the more arid Mediterranean countries within Europe. Natural conditions of the water basin play an important role in determining the frequency and amount of precipitation and storage in an area as well as the changing climate and rainfall patterns. As such, a number of issues related to water scarcity are also becoming important to many Northern European countries. This chapter discusses the contextual conditions that are of importance in the development of adaptive policy responses to these water scarcity issues.
