This working paper explores the intersection between water management, climate change, and adaptation in the Ganges River system, a basin vital to the security, economy, and environment of South Asia. Recognizing that an understanding of both the science and the policy of water management, climate change, and adaptation is rapidly evolving, it is not our intention to encompass all the issues related to these broad fields, but rather to provide a starting framework from which to further develop research questions and priorities for work in water and adaptation. As such, the aim of the paper is to advance the understanding of key issues in this critical basin and to identify strategies for improving water management and adaptation.