Pertinence of reactive, active, and robust adaptation strategies in forest management under climate change

Mafongoya

Journal of Asian and African Studies

2020

Drought is a major challenge threatening agricultural productivity in uMsinga. The occurrence of drought is expected to increase in coming decades, intensifying in severity, duration and the way people are affected by drought. The objective of this study is to understand small-scale farmers’ and rural communities’ perceptions of drought, its environmental and socio-economic impacts, adaptive and mitigation measures at household level and their satisfaction with the government’s role in drought management in the community. The study utilized a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, in the form of questionnaires, focus groups and key informant interviews. The sample size for the research study was 180 respondents for the questionnaire component and a total of 30 respondents for the focus groups and key informant interviews. The results show that increased levels of poverty, food insecurity and increased migration were the main socio-economic impacts perceived by respondents. Water scarcity, crop failure, forest degradation and an increase in average temperatures were perceived by respondents as the main environmental impacts caused by drought in uMsinga. Respondents perceived drought as a serious threat to agricultural production and adopted various indigenous adaptive strategies. A majority of respondents adopted a reactive approach to drought management, and therefore did not adopt many mitigation measures.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impacts of Drought and the Adaptive Strategies of Small-Scale Farmers in uMsinga, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Mafongoya

Journal of Asian and African Studies

2020

“…Complementary to more theoretical or large-scale approaches (e.g., [13,21,57,61,62]) which clarify tendencies and draw general conclusions, our regional-scale approach reveals specific management options for the next generation of forests based on given forest stands on defined sites in a region under climate change. Furthermore, we promote a method for decision support which builds on easily and ubiquitously available data, i.e., site water budget under climate change.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Thus, although one cannot assign probabilities to climate change scenarios for theoretical reasons [15], the decision-maker ultimately needs to select one scenario as the most probable in his personal assessment, converting belief into subjective probability (cf. [21]). Yousefpour et al [100] take decision-making in the context of adaptive forest management one step further as they show how forest managers' beliefs about the effects of climate change are altered by new insights and how this additional knowledge influences their decisions.…”

Section: Climate Uncertainty In the Context Of Forest Conversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tree Species Selection in the Face of Drought Risk—Uncertainty in Forest Planning

Albert

Nagel

Nuske

et al. 2017

Forests

Rapid climate change leads to significant shifts in the site-productivity relationship of tree species and alters abiotic and biotic risks well beyond classical rotation ages on many forest sites worldwide. Forest conversion may be an adequate measure to counter possible negative effects of climate change. Unfortunately, climate-driven changes in abiotic and biotic risks bear a significant source of intrinsic uncertainty inherent in climate projections. It is our goal to appraise uncertainty in species selection under drought stress, one of the most important risk factors for many forests. We derive a method to assess drought restrictions and demonstrate the uncertainty in the process of species selection by applying three climate scenarios. Furthermore, we interpret the consequences of climate uncertainty in the light of different management goals, i.e., a business-as-usual silviculture, a climate protection strategy favoring CO 2 sequestration and a biodiversity strategy increasing diversity. The methods are applied to two representative regions in the North German Plain. The results clearly show the strong need for adaptive planning when drought restrictions are considered. However, different silvicultural management objectives may alter the extent of adaptive planning. The uncertainty in the planning process arising from different underlying climate projections strongly depends on the regional site characteristics and on forest management strategy. In conclusion, it is most important in forest planning to clearly state the management goals and to carefully explore if the goals can be met under climate change and if the uncertainty due to climate projections significantly affects the results of species selection.

“…We also consider whether those actions are anticipatory or reactive to climate change and/or intentional or incidental. We argue this distinction is important when evaluating adaptation, because it distinguishes between incremental adaptation designed to help systems resist or be resilient to ongoing threats, versus transformational adaptations in the form of new practices designed to prepare systems for future threats that are outside the historic range of variability , Yousefpour et al 2017. Second, we identify existing structural and subjective barriers to those adaptive actions, and compare our findings to those from other studies of private forest owners to understand which are most important for specific intentional or incidental adaptation actions.…”

Section: Study Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, most studies identifying barriers to climate adaptation identify barriers that are not climate change-specific, but rather represent existing challenges in natural resources management (Biesbroek et al 2013) Climate change adaptation within the context of forest management can include intentional and anticipatory climate change-specific responses such as planting tree species that will be better adapted to a future climate (Yousefpour et al 2017), or managing forest density and composition outside of the historic range of variation (Keenan 2015, Nagel et al 2017. Responses can also be reactive "wait-and-see" approaches to cope with nascent threats, such as cutting trees that appear water-stressed (Beck 1992, Yousefpour et al 2017. Some responses can be both anticipatory and reactive, such as thinning stands to improve water capture, storage, and flow (Grant et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change beliefs and forest management in eastern Oregon: implications for individual adaptive capacity

Boag¹,

Hartter²,

Hamilton³

et al. 2018

E&S

2018. Climate change beliefs and forest management in eastern Oregon: implications for individual adaptive capacity. Ecology and Society 23(4):1. https:// ABSTRACT. The management decisions of private landowners affect forest structure and composition, and may impact the resilience of forested regions. In this case study we assessed barriers to both intentional and incidental climate-adaptive forest management among nonindustrial private forest owners in eastern Oregon, USA. In this context, incidental adaptations result from synergies between climate-adaptive forest management and actions motivated by goals such as wildfire mitigation, which landowners may prioritize regardless of concerns about climate change. Through semistructured interviews we used qualitative analyses to identify barriers to adaptation, including subjective (cognitive and experiential) and structural barriers (social, political, and economic) by comparing individual cases. Overall, we found that intentional climate change adaptation had low salience among participants, though a large majority of forest owners were active managers motivated by other goals, contributing to widespread incidental adaptation. We found that nonindustrial private forest owners who engaged in or considered intentional climate adaptation actions generally believed that anthropogenic climate change is occurring. Many respondents perceived local environmental change, notably reduced snowpack, but this was not associated with adaptive actions or intentions. The few participants who considered or implemented intentional climate adaptation actions generally had written forest management plans containing both forest inventories and specific management goals. Improving access to resources for forest management planning may enhance fire-and climate-smart forest management by facilitating scenario visioning and formalizing intentions. Although climate change beliefs were subjective barriers to intentional climate adaptation, many of the same structural barriers limited intentional and incidental adaptation. Place-based education, reliable funding mechanisms, and cooperative approaches among landowners may enhance adaptive capacity and promote the resilience of these nonindustrial private forestlands.