Similarities and Differences in Barriers and Opportunities Affecting Climate Change Adaptation Action in Four North American Landscapes

Abstract

Climate change presents a complex set of challenges for natural resource managers across North America. Despite recognition that climate change poses serious threats to species, ecosystems, and human communities, implementation of adaptation measures is not yet happening on a broad scale. Among different regions, a range of climate change trajectories, varying political contexts, and diverse social and ecological systems generate a myriad of factors that can affect progress on climate change adaptation implementation. In order to understand the general versus site-specific nature of barriers and opportunities influencing implementation, we surveyed and interviewed practitioners, decision-makers, and scientists involved in natural resource management in four different North American regions, northern Ontario (Canada), the Adirondack State Park (US), Arctic Alaska (US), and the Transboundary Rocky Mountains (US and Canada). Common barriers among regions related to a lack of political support and financial resources, as well as challenges related to translating complex and interacting effects of climate change into management actions. Opportunities shared among regions related to collaboration, funding, and the presence of strong leadership. These commonalities indicate the importance of crosssite learning about ways to leverage opportunities and address adaptation barriers; however, regional variations also suggest that adaptation efforts will need to be tailored to fit specific ecological, political, social and economic contexts. Comparative findings on the similarities and differences in barriers and opportunities, as well as rankings of barriers and opportunities by region, offers important contextual insights into how to further refine efforts to advance adaptation actions in those regions.

Towards future-oriented conservation: Managing protected areas in an era of climate change

“… From understanding climate adaptation as a scientific issue to understanding it as a governance issue Scientific knowledge and technical solutions are often assumed to be the best resources and strategies to support conservation (Godet 2006; Gabriel 2014; Rannow et al 2014), and many partners and participants in our study reflected this view. This is consistent with Archie et al’s empirical research where conservation decision-makers noted “lack of information” as a key barrier to adaptation (Archie et al 2012; see also Lonsdale et al 2017). While climate change projections are improving, the impacts on specific protected areas are typically uncertain, and implementation options implied by technical analysis can be infeasible (Lemieux and Scott 2011).…”

Archetypical opportunities for water governance adaptation to climate change

“…Within the adaptation literature, two fundamentally different concepts share the label of "opportunity" for adaptation: drivers forcing adaptation (see Shepherd et al 2006, Pelling andManuel-Navarrete 2011), and factors enabling adaptation (see Lonsdale et al 2017, Oberlack 2017. The distinction is subtle, but important.…”

Rural climate resilience through built-environment interventions: modified deliberation with analysis as a tool to address barriers to adaptive capacity

“…Of the contexts studied, most of the research on barriers has been conducted in developing countries. Of North American research on barriers and enablers, New England (Hamin et al, 2014;Lonsdale et al, 2017), the Rocky Mountains (Lonsdale et al, 2017), the Intermountain West (Dilling et al, 2017), the Great Plains (Wood et al, 2014), the ocean coast (Casey & Becker, 2019), and urban areas of Michigan (Nordgren et al, 2016) have all been studied, yet no research looks specifically at the unique location of the rural, coastal communities in the Great Lakes Region. This lack of focus on rural, coastal communities in the Great Lakes in the manner approached here is also present in other CRSCI-funded programmes.…”