Planning and Engineering Strategies to Mitigate Effects of Climate Change

Extreme weather events seem to have become more frequent with climate change. These anomalies throughout the world may generally be categorized as drought, heavy rain storms, landslides, heavy snow storms, sea level rise, ice melts from the polar regions, tornadoes and hurricanes. The environmental and real property damage caused may be minimized if proper planning and best practices are engineered into place before the catastrophic events occur. The management of vulnerable areas should definitely include such plans and strategies. The purpose of the current work is to point to the best practices already being carried out in some areas, and to draw attention to some of the knowledge embodied in the indigenous populations in particular regions, which have come by this knowledge via generations of survival through adverse climate/environmental changes. The integration of this indigenous knowledge where applicable, with modern engineering tools and techniques will help the world better to face the climatic challenges ahead.