Understanding climate change and resilience: assessing strengths and opportunities for adaptation in the Global South

Marta Berbés-Blázquez (), Carrie L. Mitchell, Sarah L. Burch and Johanna Wandel
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Marta Berbés-Blázquez: University of Waterloo
Carrie L. Mitchell: University of Waterloo
Sarah L. Burch: University of Waterloo
Johanna Wandel: University of Waterloo

Climatic Change, 2017, vol. 141, issue 2, No 7, 227-241

Abstract: Abstract Better integration of resilience and climate change adaptation can help building climate-resilient development. Yet, resilience and adaptation to climate change have evolved largely along parallel paths with little cross-fertilization. Conceptual vagueness around resilience makes it challenging to ascertain what elements of resilience thinking have the greatest potential to enhance climate change adaptation and contribute to broader sustainable development goals. This article distills nine principles from the resilience literature to build a framework to assess 224 climate change adaptation strategies proposed by researchers and practitioners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our analysis concludes that adaptation strategies in this data set emphasize initiatives that increase social and ecological diversity, strengthen learning processes, build functional redundancy, enhance connectivity between social and ecological elements, pay attention to the management of slow variables, and provide mechanisms for increasing participation and polycentric governance. At the same time, the adaptation options examined generally lacked a system’s perspective, suggesting that there is still important work ahead to move toward a climate-resilient development model.

Keywords: Adaptation Strategy; Climate Change Adaptation; Slow Variable; Adaptation Option; Climatic Risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-1897-0

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