[MCN] Update on the role of relative poverty/wealth in climate adaptation at household scale

[Lance Olsen]

Environmental Research Letters  Published 2 July 2020
FEATURED ARTICLE <https://iopscience.iop.org/collections?collection_type=FEATURED_ARTICLES>
Between adaptive capacity and action: new insights into climate change adaptation at the household scale
Colette Mortreux, Saffron O'Neill and Jon Barnett

OPEN ACCESS pdf <<https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834/pdf <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834/pdf>>>
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Abstract

Research on social vulnerability and adaptation to climate change assumes that increasing amounts of adaptive capacity increase the likelihood of actions to adapt to climate change. We test this assumption as it applies at the scale of households, through a study of the relationship between adaptive capacity and household actions to adapt to wildfire risk in Mount Dandenong, Australia. Here we show a weak relationship exists between adaptive capacity and adaptation, such that high adaptive capacity does not clearly result in a correspondingly high level of adaptation. Three factors appear to mediate the relationship between household adaptive capacity and adaptation: their attitude to risk, their experience of risk, and their expectations of authorities. The findings suggest that to understand the adaptation practices of households, greater attention needs to be paid to socio-psychological factors that trigger people to apply their available capacities.

Introduction
A major challenge in climate adaptation is the difficulty in knowing if adaptation has happened, or is happening (Tompkins et al 2010 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib74>, Ford et al 2013 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib33>, Dilling et al 2019 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib20>). Assessing adaptation is difficult, for it is an evolving process to which there is no clear end point (Eriksen and Kelly 2007 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib29>). Adaptation is also socially and politically mediated, involving diverse human experiences, intentions and behaviours such that it is intrinsically complex and unpredictable (Adger et al 2013 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib2>, Dilling et al 2019 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib20>). By way of a proxy, much vulnerability and adaptation research assesses adaptive capacity (as opposed to actual adaptation behaviours) (Yohe and Tol 2002 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib81>, Alberini et al 2006 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib4>, Hinkel 2011 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib39>). Adaptive capacity is defined as 'the ability of systems, institutions, humans, and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences' (IPCC 2014 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib42>: 1758). 

Though there are many theories about what constitutes capacity, and these vary according to the nature and scale of the actor, most theories assume that that the conditions associated with wealthy liberal democracies such as high human capital, information, infrastructure, social networks, and wealth, confer greater adaptive capacity (Mortreux and Barnett 2017 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib61>, Siders 2018 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib71>).

However, it is unclear if adaptation action can be inferred from the capacity to act, at least as presently theorised (Engle 2011 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib26>, Malone and Engle 2011 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib54>, Juhola and Kruse 2015 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib44>, Siders 2018 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib71>). Indeed, the literature provides several examples that demonstrate that adaptive capacity does not necessarily lead to adaptation (Vickers 2018 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib76>). In industrialised countries such as Norway and the USA, where levels of wealth and health would suggest high adaptive capacity, political resistance and the division of responsibilities and funding across government have seriously undermined adaptation (O'Brien et al 2006 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib63>, Repetto 2008 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib69>, Hinkel 2011 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib39>). 

And, when adaptation does take place, it seems less to be a function of access to resources and more about experience of extreme events, place attachment, and trust in authorities (Amundsen et al 2010 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib6>, Koerth et al 2013 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib46>, Eakin et al 2016 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib24>, Elrick-Barr et al 2017 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib25>, Stoll et al 2017 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib73>, Torres et al 2018 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib75>). Conversely, adaptation is occurring in social systems with seemingly low adaptive capacity. A study of artisanal fisheries in South India demonstrates that the most vulnerable households were not those that were poorest and so are assumed to have the lowest capacity, but rather those who were less willing to adopt new practices (Coulthard 2008 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib18>). Similarly, a recent study that synthesised adaptive behaviours across fishing communities found that adaptive capacity is not merely about having resources, but more importantly about the willingness to deploy those resources (Cinner et al 2018 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib17>). Similar results have been shown in pastoral areas in Burkina Faso (Nielsen and Reenberg 2010 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib62>), and in informal settlements in Uganda (Waters and Adger 2017 <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834#erlab7834bib77>). So, if people with low adaptive capacity are adapting, and not all people with high adaptive capacity are adapting, it appears that adaptive capacity is limited in its ability to explain adaptation.

In this paper we report on empirical research that aimed to test the relationship between adaptive capacity and adaptation. We used a case study of household adaptation to wildfire in Mount Dandenong, Australia, which is a suburb characterised by both high wealth and high fire risk. As explained below, if adaptive capacity does explain adaptation, then there is arguably nowhere else where the relationship should be as obvious as in Mount Dandenong. If adaptation is not progressing well here, then knowledge about the reasons for this can help inform theories about adaptation, as well as policies and practices to help.

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“The changes experienced by the biosphere over the past century ... have raised concerns about the possibility of rapid shifts from green to desert states.” (Sole. Scaling laws in the drier. Nature 13 September 2007)

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