Wildfire preparedness,community cohesion and social–ecological systems

The consequences of wildfires are felt in susceptible communities around the globe on an annual basis. Climate change predictions in places like the south-east of Australia and western United States suggest that wildfires may become more frequent and more intense with global climate change. Compounding this issue is progressive urban development at the peri-urban fringe (wildland–urban interface), where continued infrastructure development and demographic changes are likely to expose more people and property to this potentially disastrous natural hazard. Preparing well in advance of the wildfire season is seen as a fundamental behaviour that can both reduce community wildfire vulnerability and increase hazard resilience – it is an important element of adaptive capacity that allows people to coexist with the hazardous environment in which they live. We use household interviews and surveys to build and test a substantive model that illustrates how social cohesion influences the decision to prepare for wildfire. We demonstrate that social cohesion, particularly community characteristics like ‘sense of community’ and ‘collective problem solving’, are community-based resources that support both the adoption of mechanical preparations, and the development of cognitive abilities and capacities that reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience to wildfire. We use the results of this work to highlight opportunities to transfer techniques and approaches from natural hazards research to climate change adaptation research to explore how the impacts attributed to the social components of social–ecological systems can be mitigated more effectively.     

Migration as an Adaptation to Climate Change

This article presents a conceptual model to investigate population migration as a possible adaptive response to risks associated with climate change. The model reflects established theories of human migration behaviour, and is based upon the concepts of vulnerability, exposure to risk and adaptive capacity, as developed in the climate change research community. The application of the model is illustrated using the case of 1930s migration patterns in rural Eastern Oklahoma, which took place during a period of repeated crop failures due to drought and flooding.     

Linking development to climate adaptation: Leveraging generic and specific capacities to reduce vulnerability to drought in NE Brazil

To respond to climate impact, poor agricultural households in less developed regions rely on different types of assets that define their overall adaptive capacity (AC). However not all assets build capacity equally. In this study we argue that building AC requires a combination of interventions that address not only climate-related risks (specific capacity) but also the structural deficits (e.g., lack of income, education, health, political power) (generic capacity) that shape vulnerability. Focusing on rainfed agriculture in NE Brazil, we investigate how households leverage and combine generic and specific capacities to reduce vulnerability. Particularly we explore: 1) the relative importance of different kinds of capacity in shaping vulnerability on these households and 2) how the level of generic capacities (particularly as a result of Brazil’s anti-poverty program Bolsa Família) influences the adoption of specific ones. We find that both kinds of capacity matter, as relatively higher levels of generic capacity (in terms of income in general, and climate-neutral income specifically) are associated with higher levels of specific capacity (irrigation). In addition we find that while Bolsa Família has been positive in increasing income, it has not been sufficient to manage the risk of food insecurity during drought events, suggesting a 'poverty trap' in which families are constantly coping with drought but failing to overcome the conditions that make them vulnerable. Our findings indicate that in order to decrease climate vulnerability of poor agricultural households, development interventions, such as anti-poverty programs, have to go beyond cash transfer and should incorporate risk management policies that enhance synergies between generic and specific capacities.     

Materialising energy and water resources in everyday practices: Insights for securing supply systems

Policies to secure energy and water supplies from the impacts of climate change are currently being developed or are in place in many developed nations. Little is known about how these policies of security, and the systems of resource provision they prioritise, affect householders’ capacity to adapt to climate change. To better understand the connections between resource provision and consumption, this paper explores the notion that different ‘energies’ and ‘waters’ can be conceptualised as material elements of social practices, which shape the way practices are performed. We draw on a study of Australian migrants and their experiences with different resource provision systems in multiple countries, time periods and contexts across three generations. We discuss the differing characteristics of energy and water provision across three broad resource ‘eras’, and the way resources enable or reduce resourcefulness, adaptive capacity and resilience. We find that policy makers may inadvertently reduce householders’ capacity to respond and adapt to climate change impacts by prioritising the resource characteristics of immateriality, abundance and homogeneity. We conclude that policy which prioritises the resource characteristics of materiality, diversity and scarcity is an important, underutilised and currently unacknowledged source of adaptive capacity.     

Catching sea cucumber fever in coastal communities: Conceptualizing the impacts of shocks versus trends on social-ecological systems

Research on vulnerability and adaptation in social-ecological systems (SES) has largely centered on climate change and associated biophysical stressors. Key implications of this are twofold. First, there has been limited engagement with the impacts of social drivers of change on communities and linked SES. Second, the focus on climate effects often assumes slower drivers of change and fails to differentiate the implications of change occurring at different timescales. This has resulted in a body of SES scholarship that is under-theorized in terms of how communities experience and respond to fast versus slow change. Yet, social and economic processes at global scales increasingly emerge as ‘shocks’ for local systems, driving rapid and often surprising forms of change distinct from and yet interacting with the impacts of slow, ongoing ‘trends’. This research seeks to understand the nature and impacts of social shocks as opposed to or in concert with trends through the lens of a qualitative case study of a coastal community in Mexico, where demand from international seafood markets has spurred rapid development of a sea cucumber fishery. Specifically, we examined what different social-ecological changes are being experienced by the community, how the impacts of the sea cucumber fishery are distinct from and interacting with slower ongoing trends and how these processes are affecting system vulnerability, adaptations and adaptive capacity. We begin by proposing a novel framework for conceptualizing impacts on social systems, as comprised of structures, functions, and feedbacks. Our results illustrate how the rapid-onset of this fishery has driven dramatic changes in the community. New challenges such as the ‘gold-rush-style’ arrival of new actors, money, and livelihoods, the rapid over-exploitation of fish stocks, and increases in poaching and armed violence have emerged, exacerbating pressures from ongoing trends in immigration, overfishing and tourism development. We argue that there is a need to better understand and differentiate the social and ecological implications of shocks, which present novel challenges for the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of communities and the sustainability of marine ecosystems.     

Bottom-up climate risk assessment of infrastructure investment in the Niger River Basin

The Niger River is the third largest river in the African continent. Nine riparian countries share its basin, which rank all among the world’s thirty poorest. Existing challenges in West Africa, including endemic poverty, inadequate infrastructure and weak adaptive capacity to climate variability, make the region vulnerable to climate change. In this study, a risk-based methodology is introduced and demonstrated for the analysis of climate change impacts on planned infrastructure investments in water resources systems in the Upper and Middle Niger River Basin. The methodology focuses on identifying the vulnerability of the Basin’s socio-economic system to climate change, and subsequently assessing the likelihood of climate risks by using climate information from a multi-run, multi-GCM ensemble of climate projections. System vulnerabilities are analyzed in terms of performance metrics of hydroelectricity production, navigation, dry and rainy season irrigated agriculture, flooding in the Inner Delta of the Niger and the sustenance of environmental flows. The study reveals low to moderate risks in terms of stakeholder-defined threshold levels for most metrics in the 21st Century. The highest risk levels were observed for environmental flow targets. The findings indicate that the range of projected changes in an ensemble of CMIP3 GCM projections imply only relatively low risks of unacceptable climate change impacts on the present large-scale infrastructure investment plan for the Basin.     

Divergent adaptation to climate variability: A case study of pastoral and agricultural societies in Niger

Adaptation is a complex, dynamic, and sometimes unequal process. Stemming from social ecological systems theories of climate change adaptation and adaptive capacity, this case study introduces the concept of ‘divergent’ adaptation. Adaptation is divergent when one user or group's adaptation causes a subsequent reduction in another user or group's adaptive capacity in the same ecosystem. Using the example of pastoral and agricultural groups in northern and southern rainfall zones of Niger, this study illustrates the concept of divergent adaptation by identifying changes to the adaptive capacity of users who are currently engaged in conflicts over access to natural resources. Similar to other studies, we find that expansion of farmland and the consequent loss of pastoral space are restricting pastoral adaptation. Divergent adaptations favoring agricultural livelihoods include cultivating near or around pastoral wells or within pastoral corridors, both of which limit the mobility and entitlements of pastoralists. Institutions rarely secure pastoral routes and access to water points, a problem that is compounded by conflicting modes of governance, low accountability, and corruption. The case study illustrates the need to enhance the adaptive capacity of multiple user groups to reduce conflict, enhance human security, and promote overall resilience.     

Framing the application of adaptation pathways for rural livelihoods and global change in eastern Indonesian islands

In developing countries adaptation responses to climate and global change should be integrated with human development to generate no regrets, co-benefit strategies for the rural poor, but there are few examples of how to achieve this. The adaptation pathways approach provides a potentially useful decision-making framework because it aims to steer societies towards sustainable futures by accounting for complex systems, uncertainty and contested multi-stakeholder arenas, and by maintaining adaptation options. Using Nusa Tenggara Barat Province, Indonesia, as an example we consider whether generic justifications for adaptation pathways are tenable in the local context of climate and global change, rural poverty and development. Interviews and focus groups held with a cross-section of provincial leaders showed that the causes of community vulnerability are indeed highly complex and dynamic, influenced by 20 interacting drivers, of which climate variability and change are only two. Climate change interacts with population growth and ecosystem degradation to reduce land, water and food availability. Although poverty is resilient due to corruption, traditional institutions and fatalism, there is also considerable system flux due to decentralisation, modernisation and erosion of traditional culture. Together with several thresholds in drivers, potential shocks and paradoxes, these characteristics result in unpredictable system trajectories. Decision-making is also contested due to tensions around formal and informal leadership, corruption, community participation in planning and female empowerment. Based on this context we propose an adaptation pathways approach which can address the proximate and systemic causes of vulnerability and contested decision-making. Appropriate participatory processes and governance structures are suggested, including integrated livelihoods and multi-scale systems analysis, scenario planning, adaptive co-management and ‘livelihood innovation niches’. We briefly discuss how this framing of adaptation pathways would differ from one in the developed context of neighbouring Australia, including the influence of the province's island geography on the heterogeneity of livelihoods and climate change, the pre-eminence and rapid change of social drivers, and the necessity to ‘leap-frog’ the Millennium Development Goals by mid-century to build adaptive capacity for imminent climate change impacts.     

The effect of vulnerability on climate change mitigation policies

Climate change is likely to adversely affect many countries throughout the world, but the responses of different countries to this threat vary widely. Attempts to explain the differences in countries’ mitigative policies have been largely deficient. This study seeks to assess the degree to which vulnerability may improve the level of explanation of adopted mitigation policies, studying over 90 countries between 1990 and 2011. Vulnerability is defined to be comprised of two basic factors: impacts (expected damages due to climate change) and adaptive capacity (the ability to adjust to these damages). As there may be a gap between declared and implemented policies, these components of mitigation policy are examined separately. In addition, other variables which mediate between these ‘extreme ends’ of mitigation policies are tested.The effect of vulnerability on climate change mitigation policies is examined by multiple regressions, incorporating a wide range of control variables. The results indicate that climate impacts do not affect mitigation policies. Adaptive capacity has a positive effect on the level of declared policy, but this effect becomes insignificant once implemented policy is examined. However, other tests suggest a possible transition from declarations to actions by high adaptive capacity countries. This finding suggests that high adaptive capacity countries do not view mitigation and adaptation as substitutes. Further analyses indicate that the insignificancy of impacts is caused by the uncertainty in their assessment.     

Climates of urbanization: local experiences of water security,conflict and cooperation in peri-urban South-Asia

ABSTRACT

This article explores changing water (in)securities in a context of urbanization and climate change in the peri-urban spaces of four South-Asian cities: Khulna (Bangladesh), Gurugram and Hyderabad (India), and Kathmandu (Nepal). As awareness of water challenges like intensifying use, deteriorating quality and climate change is growing, water security gets more scientific and policy attention. However, in peri-urban areas, the dynamic zones between the urban and the rural, it remains under-researched, despite the specific characteristics of these spaces: intensifying flows of goods, resources, people, and technologies; diversifying uses of, and growing pressures on land and water; and complex and often contradictory governance and jurisdictional institutions. This article analyses local experiences of water (in-)security, conflict and cooperation in relation to existing policies. It uses insights from the analysis of the case studies as a point of departure for a critical reflection on whether a ‘community resilience’ discourse contributes to better understanding these cases of water insecurity and conflict, and to better policy solutions. The authors argue that a community resilience focus risks neglecting important insights about how peri-urban water insecurity problems are experienced by peri-urban populations and produced or reproduced in specific socio-economic, political and policy contexts. Unless supported by in-depth hydro-social research, such a focus may depoliticize basically political questions of water (re) allocation, prioritization, and access for marginalized groups. Therefore, the authors plead for more critical awareness among researchers and policy-makers of the consequences of using a ‘community resilience’ discourse for making sense of peri-urban water (in-)security.

Key policy insights

• There is an urgent need for more (critical) policy and scientific attention to peri-urban water insecurity, conflict, and climate change.

• Although a changing climate will likely play a role, more attention is needed to how water insecurities and vulnerabilities in South Asia are socially produced.

• Researchers and policy-makers should avoid using depoliticized (community) resilience approaches for basically socio-political problems.

     

Operationalizing the Adaptation Fund: challenges in allocating funds to the vulnerable

The Adaptation Fund of the Kyoto Protocol marks a change in the international climate change financing architecture due to its independence from official development assistance, direct access and the majority of developing countries in governance. A major goal of the Adaptation Fund is to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The presented analysis considers the results of operationalization of the fund between 2008 and 2010, and the role vulnerability had in the allocation of funds. The definition of ‘vulnerability’ remains broad and currently does not allow for a prioritization in the allocation of funds. Criteria like ‘level of vulnerability’ or ‘adaptive capacity’ still need to be specified. The possibilities for the Adaptation Fund Board to implement a vulnerability-oriented funding approach are limited by the legal basis of the Kyoto Protocol and the principle of a country-driven approach. The effective support of vulnerable communities primarily depends on the institutional capacities and the institutional arrangement at the national level and the quality of analysis the adaptation projects and programmes are based on.     

Climate change in arid lands and Native American socioeconomic vulnerability: The case of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe

The case of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe exemplifies tribal vulnerabilities as a result of climate change. Preliminary socio-economic data and analysis reveal that the tribe’s vulnerability to climate change is related to cultural and economic dependence on Pyramid Lake, while external socio-economic vulnerability factors influence adaptive capacity and amplify potential impacts. Reduced water supplies as a consequence of climate change would result in a compounded reduction of inflows to Pyramid Lake, thus potentially impacting the spawning and sustenance of a cultural livelihood, the endangered cui-ui fish (Chasmistes cujus). Meanwhile, limited economic opportunities and dwindling federal support constrain tribal adaptive capacity. Factors that contribute to tribal adaptive capacity include: sustainability-based values, technical capacity for natural resource management, proactive initiatives for the control of invasive-species, strong external scientific networks, and remarkable tribal awareness of climate change.     

Maladaptive outcomes of climate insurance in agriculture

Agricultural insurance programs are currently being championed by international donors in many developing countries. They are acclaimed as promising instruments for coping with climate risk. However, research on their impacts has mainly focused on economic considerations. Studies on broader social and ecological consequences are sparse and have produced ambiguous and inconclusive results. We address this knowledge deficit by (a) advocating for a holistic view of social-ecological systems and vulnerability when considering insurance impacts; (b) offering a systematic overview highlighting the potential beneficial and adverse effects of ‘climate insurance’ in agriculture, particularly where programs target intensifying agricultural production; and (c) suggesting preliminary principles for avoiding maladaptive outcomes, including specific recommendations for designing appropriate impact studies and insurance programs. Our synopsis brings together scientific knowledge generated in both developing and developed countries, demonstrating that agricultural insurance programs shape land-use decisions and may generate serious economic, social, and ecological consequences. If insurance is to be an appropriate tool for mitigating the impacts of climate change, it needs to be carefully developed with specific local social-ecological contexts and existing risk coping strategies in mind. Otherwise, it is liable to create long-term maladaptive outcomes and undermine the ability of these systems to reduce vulnerability.     

Farm-scale adaptation and vulnerability to environmental stresses: Insights from winegrowing in Northern California

The wine industry is increasingly recognized as especially vulnerable to climate change due to the climate sensitivity of both winegrape yields and quality, making it an important model system for the agricultural impacts of global changes. However, agricultural production is strongly influenced by the management decisions of growers, including their practices to modify the microclimate experienced by the growing crop; these adaptations have not been studied at the vineyard level, where managers on the ground are on the front lines of responding to global change.We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with winegrowers to examine farm-scale adaptive responses to environmental stresses, to understand the views and motivations of agricultural managers, and to explore adaptive capacity in practice. We found that growers tend to respond to stresses individually rather than collectively, except when facing severe, unfamiliar pests and diseases. Responses may be reactive or anticipatory; most anticipatory strategies have been short-term, in response to imminent threats. Growers tend to rely on their own experience to guide their management decisions, which may offer poor guidance under novel climate regimes. From using a Vulnerability Scoping Diagram, we find that changing exposure (vineyard location) and sensitivity (planting choices such as vine variety) have the biggest impact on reducing vulnerability, but that adaptations in growing or processing the crop in the vineyard and winery are easier to implement, much more commonly undertaken, and may also offer substantial adaptive capacity. Understanding the context of adaptations, as well as the decision-making processes motivating them, is important for understanding responses to global change.These findings highlight some innovations in adapting to global change, as well as some of the barriers, and point to the need for strategic investments to enhance agricultural resilience to climate change. In particular, strategies to enhance both effective and easy to implement farming adaptations, as well as broader-scale anticipatory, collective responses, could reduce vulnerability in the context of climate change.     

Incorporating stakeholders’ knowledge into assessing vulnerability to climatic hazards: application to the river basin management in Taiwan

There is a growing research interest on the transdisciplinary measurement of vulnerability to climatic hazards from the perspective of integrated river basin management. However, the incorporation of stakeholders’ participation, local knowledge and locally spatial characteristics into the process of such vulnerability assessment is one of the challenges faced by decision-makers, especially in developing countries. This article proposes a novel methodology for assessing and communicating vulnerability to policymaking at the river basin level through a case study of Tachia River basin in Taiwan. The authors used a multicriteria decision analysis to develop an integrated vulnerability index applied to a participatory geographic information system (GIS) to map vulnerability to climatic hazards. Using a GIS-based spatial statistics technique and multivariate analysis, we test the degree to which vulnerabilities are spatially autocorrelated throughout the river basin, explain why clustering of vulnerable areas occurs in specific locations, and why some regions are particularly vulnerable. Results demonstrate that vulnerable areas are spatially correlated across the river basin. Moreover, exposure, biophysical sensitivity, land uses and adaptive capacity are key factors contributing to the formation of localized ‘hot spots’ of similarly and particularly vulnerable areas. Finally, we discuss how the findings provide direction for more effective approaches to river basin planning and management.     

Enabling adaptation? Lessons from the new ‘Green Revolution’ in Malawi and Kenya

This article explores the extent to which efforts to improve productivity of smallholder agriculture through a new ‘Green Revolution’ in Sub Saharan Africa are likely to enhance the capacity of smallholder farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Drawing on empirical material from Malawi and Kenya, the paper finds more conflicts than synergies between the pursuit of higher productivity through the promotion of hybrid maize adoption and crop diversification as a strategy for climate change adaptation. This is despite an oft-assumed causal link between escape from the ‘low maize productivity trap’ and progression towards crop diversification as an adaptive strategy. In both countries, a convergence of interests between governments, donors and seed companies, combined with a historical preference for, and dependence on maize as the primary staple, has led to a narrowing of options for smallholder farmers, undermining the development of adaptive capacities in the longer term. This dynamic is linked to the conflation of market-based variety of agricultural technologies, as viewed ‘from the top down’, with diversity-in-context, as represented by site-specific and locally derived and adapted technologies and institutions that can only be developed ‘from the bottom up’.     

Murky water: Analyzing risk perception and stakeholder vulnerability related to sewage impacts in mangroves of East Africa

Coastal cities in East Africa are growing rapidly and consequently there is a rapid increase in urban sewage production, putting added pressure on already strained treatment systems. As a result, peri-urban mangroves are receiving extensive amounts of sewage but very little is know as to the ecological and societal consequences of this. However, UNEP among others advocate the use of low-cost, natural sewage treatment technology whenever possible and mangroves have been suggested as useful second stage biofilters. Because of the high resource dependency in many peri-urban coastal communities in East Africa, it is imperative to investigate potential societal impacts on local communities using sewage impacted peri-urban mangroves. Consequently this paper aims to characterize stakeholder groups currently affected by sewage impacted mangroves and thus also map vulnerabilities across local users in relation to future initiatives to use mangroves as biofilters along the East African coast. As risk perception is an important part of vulnerability, and risk perception related to sewage and pollution in an African setting has been little studied, we also aim to contribute baseline data on risk perception related to pollution across peri-urban populations in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.     

Health and climatic hazards: Framing social research on vulnerability,response and adaptation

Floods, windstorms, drought and wildfires have major implications for human health. To date, conceptual advances in analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to climatic hazards from the environmental and social sciences have not been widely applied in terms of health, though key progress is being made particularly in relation to climate change. This paper seeks to take this conceptual grounding further, examining how key themes relate to health concerns, exploring connections with existing health literatures, and developing an organising framework to aid analysis of how vulnerability to health impacts varies within society and how actors make decisions and take action in relation to climatic hazards and health. Social science research on this theme is challenging in part because of the complex mechanisms that link hazard events to health outcomes, and the many-layered factors that shape differential vulnerability and response within changing societal and environmental contexts (including the dual effect of hazards on human health and health systems, and the combination of ‘external’, ‘personal’ and ‘internal’ elements of vulnerability). Tracing a ‘health impact pathway’ from hazard event through health risk effects to health outcomes can provide a research tool with which to map out where the different factors that contribute to vulnerability/coping capacity come into effect.     

Investigating the correlation between monthly average temperatures and tithe proxy data from the Low Countries

The likely intensification of extreme droughts from climate change in many regions across the United States has increased interest amongst researchers and water managers to understand not only the magnitude of drought impacts and their consequences on water resources, but also what they can do to prevent, respond to, and adapt to these impacts. Building and mobilizing ‘adaptive capacity’ can help in this pursuit. Researchers anticipate that drought preparedness measures will increase adaptive capacity, but there has been minimal testing of this and other assumptions about the governance and institutional determinants of adaptive capacity. This paper draws from recent extreme droughts in Arizona and Georgia to empirically assess adaptive capacity across spatial and temporal scales. It combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify a handful of heuristics for increasing adaptive capacity of water management to extreme droughts and climate change, and also highlights potential tradeoffs in building and mobilizing adaptive capacity across space and time.     

Unpacking governance: Building adaptive capacity to climate change of river basins in Brazil

Governance and institutions are critical determinants of adaptive capacity and resilience. Yet the make-up and relationships between governance components and mechanisms that may or may not contribute to adaptive capacity remain relatively unexplored empirically. This paper builds on previous research focusing on integrated water resources management in Brazil to ‘unpack’ water governance mechanisms that may shape the adaptive capacity of water systems to climatic change. We construct a river basin index to characterize governance approaches in 18 Brazilian river basins, apply a reliability test to assess the validity of these governance indicators, and use in-depth qualitative data collected in a subsample of the basins to explore the relationship between the governance indicators and adaptive capacity. The analysis suggests a positive relationship between integrated water governance mechanisms and adaptive capacity. In addition, we carry out a cluster analysis to group the basins into types of governance approaches and further unveil potential relationships between the governance variables and overall adaptive capacities. The cluster analysis indicates that tensions and tradeoffs may exist between some of the variables, especially with equality of decision making and knowledge availability; a finding that has implications for decision makers aiming to build adaptive capacity and resilience through governance and institutional means.