4.2 Key Areas for Adaptation to Climate Change

4.2.1 Agriculture

- Continue to improve agricultural infrastructures. China will accelerate the construction of supporting facilities of large-scale, water-saving irrigation areas; maintain/promote field engineering quality; upgrade aging electromechanical equipment; improve irrigation and drainage systems. The government will continue to expand demonstration on water-saving irrigation, build pilot projects in the main grain production area, develop dryland water-saving agriculture and build demonstration projects on dryland farming in arid areas; conduct small-scale hydraulic engineering focused on field irrigation and drainage projects, small-scale irrigation areas and watershed projects in the non-irrigation area for fighting drought; strengthen the control and restoration of middle and low-yield fields subject to salinization and alkalinization in the main grain production areas; accelerate the construction of water collection and utilization engineering in mountain areas and other arid areas.

- Promote adjustment of agricultural structure and cropping systems. China will optimize regional arrangement of agriculture; promote the centralization of preponderant agro-products to preponderant production areas in order to form the industrial zones of preponderant agricultural products and increase agricultural productivity; extend the planting areas of economic and forage crops, and promote the shift of the structure of cropping systems from dual structure with food crop and cash crop to ternary structure with food crop, cash crop and forage crop; adjust cropping systems, develop multiple cropping and raise multiple cropping indexes.

- Breed stress-resistant varieties. The government will select and cultivate new well-bred animal and crop varieties with high yield potential and quality, superior integrative stress resistance and wide adaptability; improve crop and variety arrangement; select and cultivate stress-resistant varieties with specific abilities of resistance to drought, waterlogging, high temperature as well as diseases and pests.

- Prevent aggravation of grassland desertification. The government will prevent further development of desertification by building artificial grassland, controlling grazing intensity, recovering vegetation and increasing vegetation coverage of grassland; strengthen the development of animal husbandry in the farm belt to improve the productivity of animal husbandry.

- Strengthen research and development of new technologies. China will develop new technologies and strive to make greater progress in the areas of photosynthesis, biological nitrogen fixation, bio-technology, prevention of diseases and pests, stress resistance and precision agriculture; continue to implement "seed project" and "well-bred species project for animal and fishery;" promote the construction of well-bred species bases for main crops, livestock and poultry; enhance agricultural technology extension and increase agriculture's ability to adopt new technologies.

4.2.2 Forests and other natural ecosystems

- Formulate and implement laws and regulations relevant to climate change adaptation. The government will accelerate the amendment of the Forest Law of the People's Republic of China and the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Wildlife; draft the Law of Nature Reserve; draw up the Regulations on Wetland Protection of the People's Republic of China; add or strengthen articles relevant to climate change adaptation to provide a legal guarantee for improving the capacity of forests and other natural ecosystems to adapt to climate change.

- Strengthen the effective protection of existing forest resources and other natural ecosystems. Th government will strictly protect natural forests in logging ban areas to convert natural forest ecosystems from degradation to progressive succession; conduct wetland conservation by effectively reducing human disturbance and damage to stop the declining trend of wetland area; expand total area and improve the quality of nature reserves and develop bio-corridors among reserves; strengthen forest fire control by establishing perfect systems for forest fire forecasting, monitoring, suppressing, saving, fuelbreaking and hazard assessing; effectively integrate existing forestry monitoring systems into a comprehensive one for forest resources and other ecosystems; enhance forest insect and disease control by improving systems for forecasting, early-warning, monitoring, quarantining of forest insect and disease, enhancing comprehensive control and enlarging biological control.

- Strengthen technology development and extension. China will research and develop technologies for forest fire control and forest insect and disease control; select and breed tree species with high cold-resistance, drought-resistance and pest and disease-resistance to enhance the adaptation capacities of forest vegetations to climate change; develop technologies for biodiversity conservation and restoration, particularly those technologies related to management of forest and wildlife nature reserves, wetland conservation and restoration, and conservation of endangered wild animals and plants to alleviate the impact of climate change on biodiversity; promote technologies for monitoring forest resources and forest ecosystems, including those for forest environments, desertification, wild animals and plants, wetlands, forest fire as well as forest pest and disease; improve monitoring network and management system to enhance forecasting, early-warning and emergency responding capacities.

4.2.3 Water resources

- Enhance water resources management. The government will adopt the principle of harmony between human and nature in water resource management and take more effort to convert farmland back into lake or river course, remove polder dikes for flood way, dredge river channel and lake, and rehabilitate and protect rivers with serious ecological problems while strengthening dike construction and key water control projects; enhance unified management of water resources through basin-wide integration of water resource planning, allocation and management; pay more attention to save, protect and optimize the allocation of water resources; change people's traditional way of considering water resource as inexhaustible; convert water resource allocation approach from demand-based supply to supply-based demand; establish national initial water right allocation and water right transfer systems; develop investment and financing system and management system for key water conservancy projects consistent with the socialist market economy.

- Strengthen infrastructure planning and construction. China will speed up building of the Project of South-to-North Water Diversion, and gradually generate the new pattern of optimized water resources allocation by three water diversion lines linking the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Huaihe River and the Haihe River, characterized by "four horizontal and three vertical lines;" enhance the construction and improvement of key water control projects (reservoirs, etc.) and infrastructures in irrigation areas; continue the construction of regional water storage and water diversion projects.

- Promote the development and extension of technologies for water allocation, water saving and sea water utilization; focus the researches on the mechanisms of water exchange among atmosphere water, surface water, soil water and groundwater, and technologies for optimizing water resource configuration, wastewater and rainfall utilization and artificial rainfall enhancement; exploit technologies for industrial water recycling, water-saving irrigation, dryland farming and biological water saving, especially technologies and equipments for precise irrigation and intelligent management for water use in agriculture; develop and extend technologies of domestic water saving and sea water utilization.

4.2.4 Coastal zones and coastal regions

- Establish and improve relevant laws and regulations. China will formulate regional management regulations and detailed rules in accordance with the Marine Environment Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, Law of the People's Republic of China on Administration of Sea Areas, etc., and considering characteristics of the specific localities in the coastal areas; establish integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) system, the comprehensive decision-making mechanism and effective coordination mechanism; handle timely various issues occurred in the development and protection of coastal zones; establish demonstration sites of integrated management.

- Promote technology development and extension. The government will strengthen research and development of technologies for protection and restoration of the marine ecosystems, with emphasis on cultivation, transplanting and recovery of coastal mangroves, protection and restoration of coral reefs and coastal wetlands to reduce the vulnerability of ecosystems in coastal zones; accelerate the construction of the designated marine natural reserves, such as coral reef reserves, mangrove reserves, etc.; improve capability of protection of marine biodiversity.

- Improve the capability in marine environmental monitoring and early-warning. China will set up more observation sites and networks in coastal areas and on islands; construct hi-tech observation systems; improve the capability of aerial remote sensing and telemetering of marine environments, especially capability of monitoring sea level change; build early-warning and response system for tidal disasters in coastal areas; promote comprehensive supporting capability of early-warning, strengthen service capability of early-warning systems and capability of production and distribution of early-warning products to increase the capability for early-warning against marine disasters.

- Strength adaptation strategies to address sea level rise. The government will adopt measures of combining slope protection with shore protection and combining engineering measures with biological measures; raise design standards of sea dike height, and heighten and consolidate existing sea dike engineering works to enhance the capacity of dealing with sea level rise; prevent excessive exploitation of groundwater and land subsidence in coastal areas by taking measures of artificial groundwater recharge in the areas where groundwater funnel and land subsidence occurred; take countermeasures such as using fresh water from rivers or reservoirs to dilute and restrain brackish water against sea water intrusion in the estuaries; raise protection standard for coastal cities and major projects, raise standard for designed height of port docks, and adjust outlet depth; make efforts to construct coastal shelterbelt systems with multi-species, multi-layer and multi-function of forests.