Managing freshwater resources sustainably under future climatic and hydrological uncertainty poses novel challenges. Rehabilitation of ageing infrastructure and construction of new dams are widely viewed as solutions to diminish climate risk, but attaining the broad goal of freshwater sustainability will require expansion of the prevailing water resources management paradigm beyond narrow economic criteria to include socially valued ecosystem functions and services.

The Decision Tree Framework described in this book provides resource-limited project planners and program managers with a cost-effective and effort-efficient, scientifically defensible, repeatable, and clear method for demonstrating the robustness of a project to climate change.