Frontiers in Climate Change Adaptation Science: Advancing Guidelines to Design Adaptation Pathways

Abstract

Purpose of the review -This paper discusses three scientific frontiers that need to be advanced in order to support decision-makers and practitioners in charge of operational decisions and action on the design and implementation of concrete adaptation policies and actions. These frontiers refer to going beyond the (1) incremental vs. transformational and (2) maladaptation vs. adaptation dichotomies, and to advancing knowledge on (3) adaptation measures' effectiveness and roles in designing context-specific adaptation pathways. Recent findings -Dealing with adaptation to climate change on the ground often means answering three obvious but critical questions: what to do, where and when? These questions challenge the scientific community's capacity to link conceptual advances (e.g. on transformative adaptation) and ground-rooted needs across sectors and regions (on solutions, governance arrangements, etc.). Summary -We argue that the three above-mentioned frontiers represent the most burning challenges to the Adaptation Science community to help addressing climate-related societal needs. We also demonstrate that they are intertwined as moving one frontier forward will facilitate moving the others forward.

The Politics of Maladaptation

“…Maladaptation is, therefore, at the tail-end of cascading and multiplying definitional differences [5]. This extends beyond the definitional to include the methodological, with many contrasting approaches, and also includes differing concepts and frameworks.…”

“…In this article, we understand maladaptation as adaptation actions, plans, policies and processes intended to avoid or mitigate vulnerability to climate change that has, or is predicted to have, negative impacts on individuals, communities and/or systems (cf., [3,4]). Additionally, we argue that the maladaptation is not necessarily black or white as there are a number of differences in assessment criteria, framings, nuances, subtleties, valuings and other factors suggesting that maladaptation is a complex, contested and difficult phenomenon and concept [3,5]. This means that maladaptation cannot be assumed and conceptualised as completely failed adaptation but may need to be understood as laying somewhere along a continuum from success to failure and acknowledging that some aspects of a specific adaptation can be successful while other aspects can fail [2].…”

“…This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the politics of maladaptation. It does this through the following aims: (1) to give a brief outline of the background of the adaptation and maladaptation concepts and discourse (see Section 2); (2) to describe the key political issues in maladaptation (see Section 3); (3) to identify the meaning, understanding and application of politics in the maladaptation discourse through an examination of major themes (see Section 4); (4) to identify the major political perspectives in maladaptation scholarship through political perspectives utilized in studies of environmental politics (see Section 5) and (5) to draw conclusions on the state of the maladaptation discourse by addressing three broad research questions (see Section 6):…”

Interrogating ‘effectiveness’ in climate change adaptation: 11 guiding principles for adaptation research and practice

“…Recent reviews (e.g. Berrang-Ford, 2019;Christiansen et al, 2018;Eriksen et al, 2021;Magnan et al, 2020;Milkoreit & Haapala, 2019;Möhner, 2018;Owen, 2020) highlight a complex mix of theory and practice, where effectiveness is interpreted differently at different scales and in different contexts (Dilling et al, 2019;Ford et al, 2013;Preston et al, 2013). These complexities lead to tensions: some call for the need for a distinct, generalizable set of metrics that can help prioritize and allocate resources for adaptation, and assess the impact of these allocations; others argue that such top-down generalization will narrow the remit of what is considered to be adaptation, as well as exclude those who do not have sufficient access to data or resources to assess progress using externally-imposed metrics (Leiter, 2019).…”

“…Given the highly contextual nature of adaptation, a universal definition of what effective adaptation is particularly challenging (Morgan et al, 2019;Ngwadla & El-Bakri, 2016). Finally, setting the boundaries of effectiveness is difficult since what is effective today might not be tomorrow and adaptation interventions may have trade-offs across spatial scales (Dilling et al, 2019;Gajjar et al, 2019b;Magnan et al, 2020) that are not always apparent or measurable. Despite these challenges, tracking adaptation progress is critical to reducing vulnerability to climate change and informing adaptation funding and implementation priorities (Berrang-Ford, 2019;Morgan et al, 2019).…”