**1. Introduction**

Adaptation to climate change hazard is attracting growing international attention as confidence in forecasts for climate change is rising [1]. Developing countries have unique adaptation needs because of high vulnerabilities and the tendencies to bear a significant share of global climate change costs [2]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report noted that public recognition and concern about the global environmental issue of human-induced climate change has reached unprecedented heights. Research into the drivers, both natural and anthropogenic, the character and magnitude, their impact on human living conditions and ecosystems, and possible approaches to adaptation and

mitigation, as well-as understanding of the complex relationships with ecosystems interacting with them, has also increased in recent years [3].

While anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which aggravates climate change are mainly from rich industrialized countries, the consequences of which are projected to be relatively acute and more serious in developing countries particularly in semi-arid region of Africa, where, for instance, rise in temperature and reduction in precipitation are likely to result in high evaporation, with serious health related consequences [4, 5]. South Africa like many developing countries' national economies and employment heavily rely on climate-fed activities [6], coupled with high poverty levels, limited technological and weak institutional ability to adapt to climate change qualifies for classical case in which urban populations (children, elderly, persons with disabilities and women) are more susceptible to climate change adversities [7].

Nonetheless, climate change adaptation strategies and projects on one hand, still focus mainly on sustainable rural adaptation, without much attention on urban areas, especially small and medium towns, where there is increasing household vulnerability and climate change pressures [8]. Current literature on adaptation to climate change in urban areas are largely coastal and big city biased [9–11]. On the other hand the early years of international climate change studies' attention on adaptation as a strategy was compromised by mitigation and impacts [12]. In recent years, several models incorporate mitigation, as an anthropogenic intervention to the changing climate [3] and has rapidly escalated, while models that incorporate adaptation are still in their various stages of development, advancement and yet to reach maturity [13].

Inherently, it has become urgent to focus on approaches and instruments that assist with the reduction and reversal of the prevailing and unescapable climate change hazards, coupled with the need to maximize the immediate manifestation of the net benefits of adaptation [14]. As an essential policy response, local level and individual (including private) households' adaptation strategies to climate change needs to be apportioned the desired priority in climate change policy agendas at all levels and scales of governance.

This chapter aims through a holistic approach, to provide the highlights of the South African governments at several levels and scales of governance to advance adaption and mitigation urban household practices and interventions. This analysis and discussion is conducted within the global context of existing adaptation framework that incorporate the local level and individual households' (private) adaptive practices, efforts and initiatives. Furthermore, the chapter also identifies some of the key issues hindering the success of urban adaptation policies and interventions in the region.

In brief, the chapter places in perspective, the basic steps necessary for a more participatory urban management for sustainable households' adaptation to climaterelated hazards in the semi-arid region of Mopani, South Africa.
