Adaptation

Our approach to climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction emphasizes the need for a balance between a planned process and an autonomous process. Because many of the impacts of climate change at local levels are difficult to accurately predict and the options for responding to such impacts depend heavily on a wide variety of location specific conditions, we believe autonomous processes are likely to dominate planned ones. Actions taken by governments, international organizations and other key actors involved in supporting disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change can, however, have a major impact on the pathways such autonomous adaptation processes take. In some cases this may be through support for specific “adaptation” focused programs or projects. In far more cases, however, it is likely to be through indirect measures that shape the behavioral incentives, knowledge and information driving autonomous forms of adaptation.

Autonomous forms of adaptation are emergent properties of specific contexts. They are, in effect, the courses of action decision-making entities (individuals, households, businesses and communities) take within economic and livelihood systems in response to the context-specific opportunities, constraints and risks they perceive. The adaptive capacity of such entities depends on a very wide array of factors some of which are directly related to climate or natural hazard specific risks and some of which are more generic in nature.

Our approach to identifying points of entry for governments and other entities to support adaptation and disaster risk reduction emphasizes both hazard specific and more generic factors. 

Hazard specific elements in our approach emphasize demonstration, education and structural points of entry. Where demonstration is concerned, pilot projects that develop techniques and strategies for risk reduction and hazard response that can then be implemented on a much wider level by local governments, businesses and other organizations are seen as key. Where education is concerned, changing educational programs in key sectors (such as water engineering, risk management and disaster response) is viewed as a central mechanism for generating future capacity to devise appropriate response strategies within local contexts. Where structural points of entry are concerned, we focus on points of entry, such as land-use zoning, construction codes, early warning systems and insurance mechanisms that directly influence behavior within local contexts to specific hazards over long periods of time.

Generic elements in our approach focus on the combination of factors that enable individuals, households, businesses and communities to flexibly respond to risk. Strategies here focus on the basic financial, communication, transport, skill and knowledge systems that enable entities to change livelihood or business strategies as conditions change. The ability to “shift strategies” is, we believe, central to adaptive capacity. In addition, our approach emphasizes strategies, such as economic and livelihood diversification, that are widely recognized as central to the resilience of economic and ecological systems in variable or changing environments.