Toward a new conceptualization of household adaptive capacity to climate change: applying a risk governance lens

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Increasing evidence highlights the importance of context-specific understanding of the impacts of climate change and the need to move beyond generalized assumptions regarding the nature and utility of adaptive capacity in facilitating adaptation. The household level of impact and response is an under-researched context, despite influential decisions affecting local and system vulnerability being made at this scale. Assessments of household adaptive capacity currently assess the influences of adaptive capacity or the influences on adaptive capacity in isolation. We argue that comprehensive assessments need to examine these influences in combination to capture a dynamic and integrated view of households that better reflects their positioning and role(s) in broader socialpolitical contexts. To transition assessments away from examining households as discrete units to recognizing their role within a larger governance context, we outline four themes focused on: (1) analysis of governance contexts, (2) determination of adaptive capacity sources, (3) assessment of cross-scalar trade-offs, and (4) integrated goal setting to facilitate boundary critiques. By considering these themes, the relationships between capacities and actions are highlighted, and the simultaneous outcomes of adaptive choices at individual and broader system scales can be evaluated. We argue that such boundary critique has the potential to yield a more comprehensive assessment of adaptive capacity focused upon cross-scalar influences and impacts.

Re-thinking climate change adaptation and capacities at the household scale

“…Adaptation planning and scholarship have 'isolate [d] climate change impacts and adaptation from the "messiness" of other societal spheres in order to retain' the 'conceptual clarity and analytical purity' necessary for empirical modelling and policy-making (Eriksen et al 2015: 525). At the household scale, Elrick-Barr et al (2014) also noted gaps in assessments of adaptive capacity due to a focus on quantifiable assets, resources or capital, rather than underlying social, institutional or individual processes. Together, such critiques highlight growing dissatisfaction with dominant conceptualisations of adaptation, which pay insufficient attention to the complex, non-linear challenges facing everyday life.…”

Communities and change in the anthropocene: understanding social-ecological vulnerability and planning adaptations to multiple interacting exposures

“…Authors from various disciplines, including socialecological systems and resilience Turner et al 2003;Walker et al 2004), sustainable livelihoods (Ellis 2000;Scoones 2009), hazards research (Berkes 2007;Smith 2013), fisheries (Tuler et al 2008;Perry et al 2010;Kittinger et al 2013), agriculture (Eakin 2005;Paavola 2008) and climate change vulnerability and adaptation (Adger 2006;Marshall et al 2010;Eriksen et al 2011;Roiko et al 2012), have stressed the importance of considering multiple interacting exposures in research, policy and practice. Initially, this discussion remained largely at the conceptual realm (Turner et al 2003;Brklacich et al 2009).…”

Measuring the vulnerability of marine social-ecological systems: a prerequisite for the identification of climate change adaptations

“…The contribution of individual level SLA capitals to adaptive capacity has been illustrated through theoretical and empirical research findings (e.g., Marshall et al 2012), but the identification of trade-offs and substitution between the SLA capitals is highly context specific (e.g., Elrick-Barr et al 2014). For instance, at the individual level strong human capital, e.g., a high level of education, may not be a substitute for a lack of financial capital (to increase the height of a sea wall to protect against sea level rise).…”