The Climate Adaptation Frontier

Benjamin L. Preston, Kirstin Dow and Frans Berkhout
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Benjamin L. Preston: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Environmental Sciences Division and Climate Change Science Institute, PO Box 2008, MS-6301, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
Kirstin Dow: Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Callcott Building, 709 Bull Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
Frans Berkhout: Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, Amsterdam, 1081HV, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2013, vol. 5, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: Climate adaptation has emerged as a mainstream risk management strategy for assisting in maintaining socio-ecological systems within the boundaries of a safe operating space. Yet, there are limits to the ability of systems to adapt. Here, we introduce the concept of an “adaptation frontier”, which is defined as a socio-ecological system’s transitional adaptive operating space between safe and unsafe domains. A number of driving forces are responsible for determining the sustainability of systems on the frontier. These include path dependence, adaptation/development deficits, values conflicts and discounting of future loss and damage. The cumulative implications of these driving forces are highly uncertain. Nevertheless, the fact that a broad range of systems already persist at the edge of their frontiers suggests a high likelihood that some limits will eventually be exceeded. The resulting system transformation is likely to manifest as anticipatory modification of management objectives or loss and damage. These outcomes vary significantly with respect to their ethical implications. Successful navigation of the adaptation frontier will necessitate new paradigms of risk governance to elicit knowledge that encourages reflexive reevaluation of societal values that enable or constrain sustainability.

Keywords: climate change; adaptation; limits; sustainability; adaptive capacity; resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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