Applying a Multi-pronged Approach to Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 79

to climate impacts on water resources, to document climate impacts on the water
systems and to analyse the development of extreme events, using return period
analysis according to different climate scenarios. Extreme events were identified
through a mixture of expert interview, literature review and the analysis of
meteorological data available (i.e. in the Swiss meteorological data from
MétéoSuisse, while in Chile identification of the case events relied more heavily
on expert interview though lack of data availability). In Switzerland, the devel-
opment of the extremes of winter and summer temperatures, drought periods
and heavy precipitation events have already been seen in incidents such as the
2003 European heat wave, warm winter spells of the mid 1990s (Beniston 2005 ;
OcCC 2008 ) and the major flooding events such as 2005 in northern Switzerland
and 2000 in the Valais.
In Chile, drought events are likely to be more dominant (Parry et al. 2007 ) , exac-
erbated by the dwindling run-off from glacial melt and snow pack (Parry et al.
2007 ). However, while there is a strong influence of ENSO events on precipitation
in central Chile, the potential development of ENSO events are still poorly modelled
by GCMs, leaving a high level of uncertainty concerning the development of
droughts and floods in central Chile (Garreaud et al. 2009 ; Kim and An 2011 ) .
During the period of study, the Aconcagua Basin in Chile was in the midst of one of
their worst droughts for decades, which meant stakeholders were reviewing not only
past actions but also relaying current events. In summary, in Switzerland the case
events utilised as a focal point for exploration were the 2003 summer heat wave and
the flooding events of 1993 and 2000. In Chile, the drought periods of 1996/1997
and 2010/2011 were used as the focal point for interview.
In addition to identifying these past extreme events, it is important to characterise
the potential future frequency of such events, in order to judge what may or may not
be a significant development in the intensity or frequency of the extreme events
explored. To this end, the study also drew on return period analysis to understand
the current development of such events (trend analysis) and to project the likelihood
of such events happening under climate change scenarios (return period analysis).
MétéoSuisse (CLIMAP) data was used in conjunction with results from the FP6
ENSEMBLES and FP7 ACQWA projects, in order to assess the current frequency
and projected future frequency and intensity of the events.

5.4.2 Data Collection

Literature review (presented in Chaps. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ), in combination with initial results
from the Swiss governance assessment enabled a preliminary set of adaptive capacity
determinants to be developed (as presented in Chaps. 3 and 4 ) . These determinants
provide the framework for exploring adaptive capacity through a series of interviews
and archival data analysis. With the initial list of determinants, semi-structured