I’ve bookmarked this slidshare about SQL-Antipatterns, which discusses several alternatives: http://www.slideshare.net/billkarwin/sql-antipatterns-strike-back?src=embed
The recommendation from there is to use a Closure Table (it’s explained in the slides).
Here is the summary (slide 77):
| Query Child | Query Subtree | Modify Tree | Ref. Integrity
Adjacency List | Easy | Hard | Easy | Yes
Path Enumeration | Easy | Easy | Hard | No
Nested Sets | Hard | Easy | Hard | No
Closure Table | Easy | Easy | Easy | Yes