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It is commonly accepted that water insecurity, accelerated by climate change, is experienced by women in gender specific ways. Using a rapid review methodology this paper evaluates existing literature (2014–2021) on climate change adaptation in relation to water (SDG6) and gender (SDG5) in urban and peri-urban contexts. By analyzing water, gender, and adaptation literature a thematic mapping of SDG5 was done on the resulting 34 documents. Despite methodological limitations – time constraints, exclusion of gender-sustainable development literature, and narrow inclusion criteria – this paper finds a paucity of research in this space during the time period under study. Most literature focuses on low- and middle-income countries, primarily Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, to the exclusion of South America. Notably, evidence demonstrating interlinkages between SDG5 and climate change adaptations in the WaSH sector and gender sensitive dissemination of disaster warnings is lacking. Adaptation strategies resulting in negative impacts on women undermine SDG5 and maladaptive behaviours related to management of domestic water supply and disaster-risks are particularly concerning in this context. Subsequently, this paper establishes the need for practical research assessing the gendered dimensions of all adaptations, including research demonstrating interlinkages between adaptations, women-specific benefits, and strengthened legislation to promote gender equality and empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallholder agricultural commercialization is a central objective across Africa, one linked to poverty reduction, sectoral transformation and increasingly, climate resilience and adaptation. There is much attention given to the extent to which agricultural commercialization serves to reduce poverty, but less to the commercialization pathways that lead towards or away from that outcome. There are, likewise, many studies that project hugely adverse future impacts of climate change on commercial agricultural production, but surprisingly little empirical work on how climate impacts are affecting current agricultural commercialization prospects and pathways for smallholder farmers. This paper, therefore, offers an analysis of levels of climate vulnerability and resilience within existing commercialization pathways in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. It embeds the account within an analysis of the underlying causes of uneven distributions of vulnerability and resilience. We find that while being able to practise commercially viable agriculture can contribute to resilience, it does not do so for the people who most need commercialization to reduce poverty. It is more common for farmers to face what we term an adaptation trap. We conclude by considering what these cases add to our understanding of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change adaptation programmes are being actively planned and implemented around the world, but particularly in places where climate change is threatening liveability. Critical adaptation scholars warn that adaptation practice largely utilizes techno-managerial and market-based approaches which can effectively disempower local communities or re-distribute vulnerabilities to the most marginalized. To foreground alternatives to mainstream conceptions of 'best practice' in climate change adaptation, this paper draws upon postdevelopment perspectives. We present a theoretical framework to articulate the diverse, locally based, everyday adaptation response of local communities to climate change. Drawing on a small island in the Philippines as a case study, we discuss how community members respond to climate change through collective action, reciprocity, and advocacy to shape their own adaptation. A range of qualitative methods including focus groups, semi-structured interviews and participant observation reveal how community members devise their own strategies to exploit openings in politics, economy, and knowledge to advance their needs and agendas. Rather than relying on business-as-usual adaptation trajectories, this paper highlights the importance of diverse, spontaneous, and locally driven initiatives in imagining new visions for how to respond to climate change in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based adaptation (CBA) has gained traction in the management of climate risks within developing societies, due to its capacity to include local knowledge and build the adaptive capacities of vulnerable groups and communities. Yet little is known about what happens when such projects are implemented on the ground. This paper presents the results of a research project that sought to understand local perceptions and responses to planned CBA interventions in rural coastal communities in Bangladesh. Based on a qualitative approach, this paper presents the dominant narratives within local communities about the NGO-initiated CBA project. Findings highlight there is a deep disconnection between the objectives of CBA interventions and the perceptions of local communities about the project. Such a difference in perceptions meant that project participants prioritized personal gains over the creation of collective capacities to adapt to climate change. The paper concludes that in order to resolve such tensions, the gap between 'community-based' adaptation theory and practice needs to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature, the power of material deprivation in fostering the vulnerability of marginal urban areas is well documented. However, other forms of power that drive and underlie the exercise of material deprivation are rarely examined. The recent call for a more politicized view of adaptation reiterates the need to highlight and pay attention to the influence of other sources of power that drives vulnerability and underlie material deprivation. In response, this paper, through a discourse analysis of statements from urban actors at different levels and from documents/literature, examines the power of discursive constructions in fostering adaptation deficits and entrenching the vulnerability of residents of informal spaces. Through the lens of Lagos, the paper draws attention to how the imbued power relations emanating from dominant discourses fosters 'misrecognition' and facilitates 'adaptation deficit'. It highlights the discursive constructions on residents of urban informal areas as underlying and exacerbating the people's vulnerability to climate change impacts like flooding. The paper suggests that addressing this subtle but potent power through recognition and 'un-naming' will facilitate viable development and adaptation policies that promote the inclusion objectives of the sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the constraints on the adaptive capacity of crop farmers in two districts in different agroecological zones – Atwima Mponua (Semi-Deciduous Forest Zone) and Ejura-Sekyeredumase (Transition Zone) of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. A comparative-case mixed-methods research design was adopted using household survey questionnaires, focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews with key informants. The study involved 150 farming households from each district. The study found that farmers' adaptive capacity to either plan or implement adaptive strategies has not always been successful due to lack of resources among other things. Constraints mentioned by farmers include lack of infrastructure, and secured land rights while the local institutions mentioned inadequate financial resources and poor technological capacity. Robust policy formulation and implementation aimed at equipping farmers with resources and strengthening institutional capacities is necessary to enhance the adaptive capacity of crop farmers to climate variability and change impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation has become an unavoidable priority. Failures of historically dominant top-down approaches have prompted a shift towards bottom-up approaches such as community-based adaptation, despite the scholarly lacuna around its effectiveness. This paper has endeavoured to respond to this gap through evaluating how an adaptation project on Aniwa, Vanuatu reduces people's vulnerability. Drawing from interviews and focus groups conducted across three communities on Aniwa, this study explored local perspectives around the appropriateness, effectiveness, equity and sustainability of the project, as well as impacts on livelihoods assets. Specific nuances and differences in perspectives between women and men were also explored. This study found that there were negative outlooks on sustainability, a lack of improvement in natural assets, as well as issues with exclusion based on religion and timings of activities with the daily schedules of women. Factors that support vulnerability reduction, however, included equal participation and benefit among those of Christian faith, appropriateness of the activities to aspects of the socio-cultural context, as well as improvements in several social and human assets. Two overarching recommendations emerged: (1) ensuring in-depth understandings of underlying contexts, and (2) mainstreaming gender considerations. This paper concludes by encouraging further studies that evaluate adaptation in the longer-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In debates of climate action, low carbon development has been widely advocated as an opportunity arising from climate change. This paper problematizes low carbon development, arguing that there are undesirable, unintended or perverse effects that give rise to distinct and serious security concerns. The literature on climate security has addressed the effects of climate threats on conflict but there is a notable paucity of research analysing the security implications of responses to climate change in the form of low carbon development. The paper presents critical analysis of the ways low carbon development yields new security concerns as well as entrenching existing ones. Five dimensions of security are examined: spatially uneven effects of low carbon development; violent imaginaries of the global south and the production of 'ungoverned spaces'; non-violent yet harmful instances of conflict; marginalization and dispossession; depoliticized, techno-managerial effects of resilience. The paper shows that climate (in)security manifests in variegated ways between different populations and spatial scales. Consequently, how, when for whom low carbon development becomes a threat or opportunity is socially constructed and deeply political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The call for deliberate transformational adaptation (TA) has increased over the last decade. However, a challenge many planners face is the lack of clarity on the norms and principles for designing and implementing such adaptation and the ethical value systems for assessing their significance. This paper contributes to the debate on planning principles, strategies and values underpinning TA. Drawing on consequentialist and deontological value theories and a review of 147 journal articles, we explore the embedded ethics and the defining traits of TA. We found that utilitarian ethics informed both discourse and practice and the majority of papers published on TA focussed on scale of outcome, pathways and speed of change. Yet, this does little to address issues of justice, equity and sustainability which are compelling reasons for transforming current adaptation patterns. To address this problem, we propose a refined deontological framework that goes beyond the focus on the scale of change in material outcomes to changes in values and organizing principles that govern society. We offer eight guiding principles to aid planners in implementing this new framework but argue that ultimately, desired transformation occurs through collective design, intentionality and political negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do governments turn to adaptive governance systems? This paper explores a success case of adaptive governance in a non-western country and tries to understand what factors lead to the adoption of this type of governance. Adaptive governance is considered most efficient to address the many challenges of climate change and natural disasters because it embraces uncertainty by focusing on collaboration, flexibility and learning. Yet, the concept remains underdeveloped and the conditions under which governments decide to embrace adaptive governance are not clear. The paper argues that two main factors are crucial for governments to turn to adaptive governance. First, a traumatic shock is likely to stimulate a reconsideration of the manner in which governance is thought and applied. The shock by involving considerable economic and human cost creates a momentum for governance rethinking. Second, a committed political leadership is essential to make use of that momentum to reform previous governance practices to create a more resilient system. These arguments are explored in the case of Odisha, an Indian state that was able to adopt adaptive governance and that became a successful example of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport remains one of the essential infrastructures, crucial for socio-economic development. However, climate change threatens the transport infrastructure development gains already achieved globally. The incorporation of climate change and adaptation capabilities into environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes has been extensively discussed and linked to enhanced project climate resilience. However, a considerable research gap remains unexplored, and that is assessing whether and how EIA has been used to climate-proof development proposals in Africa. This study examined how climate change impacts and adaptation capabilities featured in the EIA of a major transport infrastructure project in Tanzania. It draws on reviewing the project's environmental impact statement (EIS) using review criteria derived from the literature. The findings revealed that all EIA stages addressed climate change in one way or another, with some of the criteria more comprehensively treated than others. A closer examination unveiled several good practices, which evidence appreciation for climate science and considerable strength in climate change preparedness. The results highlight EIA's potential to steer climate efforts among vulnerable communities systematically. This paper will contribute to the international discussion on this issue and offer a basis for further research towards deeper engagement between the actors within EIA, transport planning and climate networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of transformation in relation to climate and other global change is increasingly receiving attention. The concept provides important opportunities to help examine how rapid and fundamental change to address contemporary global challenges can be facilitated. This paper contributes to discussions about transformation by providing a social science, arts and humanities perspective to open up discussion and set out a research agenda about what it means to transform and the dimensions, limitations and possibilities for transformation. Key focal areas include: (1) change theories; (2) knowing whether transformation has occurred or is occurring; (3) knowledge production and use; (4) governance; (5) how dimensions of social justice inform transformation; (6) the limits of human nature; (7) the role of the utopian impulse; (8) working with the present to create new futures; and (9) human consciousness. In addition to presenting a set of research questions around these themes the paper highlights that much deeper engagement with complex social processes is required; that there are vast opportunities for social science, humanities and the arts to engage more directly with the climate challenge; that there is a need for a massive upscaling of efforts to understand and shape desired forms of change; and that, in addition to helping answer important questions about how to facilitate change, a key role of the social sciences, humanities and the arts in addressing climate change is to critique current societal patterns and to open up new thinking. Through such critique and by being more explicit about what is meant by transformation, greater opportunities will be provided for opening up a dialogue about change, possible futures and about what it means to re-shape the way in which people live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since entering the global agenda in the mid-1990s, adaptation to climate change has moved from being considered a largely technical and environmental issue to one rooted in more social and economic circumstances of vulnerable populations. However, research into adaptation has been scarce in terms of analysing power and the politics that in conjunction with socio-economic factors often determine how people in local communities in the Global South respond to climate change. In light of these considerations, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the wider effort to politicize adaptation to climate change research and, as a result, democratize adaptation policy and practice. It is argued that any kind of social vulnerability to climate change is, in essence, political. Once understood as a political process, adaptation should be studied critically by interrogating the local power structures and the resulting political inequalities that determine people’s ability to benefit from programmes and projects that aim to facilitate local adaptation. This is necessary if such interventions are to avoid benefitting some while leaving others, and particularly the poor and marginalized, behind. Democratization is seen as a process that must occur (1) between communities and interventions, and (2) within local communities, themselves. The paper concludes with reflections on how democratizing adaptation could function in theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The impact of climate change is increasingly affecting the daily lives of poor farmer households. An understanding of the social dimension profoundly shapes the way in which policy-makers develop adaptation policies. This paper investigates the influence of components of social capital on the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies using data from rural households in Ethiopia. First, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the dataset of components of social capital to construct composite indicators for measuring farmers' social capital. Second, the logit model was employed to investigate the influence of components of social capital on adopting climate change adaptation strategies. The results suggest that institutional trust positively influences climate change adaptation decisions. On the contrary, bonding social capital negatively affects the adoption decision. The following implications are worthy of consideration for improving farmers' adoption of adaptation strategies: improving the institutions' communication and sharing of information with farmers and investing in programmes that build links across groups in communities and up to those in authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity to anticipate and respond to climate change can critically shape vulnerability, influencing whether a country experiences harm from exposure to stresses or is able to cope, adapt and realize sustainable outcomes. This paper presents the results of a study that evaluates capacity in relation to the health and water sectors in Vietnam. The study presents informants’ views on the adequacy of financial resources, understanding of vulnerability and adaptation, training needs, information requirements and levels of cooperation as well as their priorities to address adaptation. The perceptions of respondents on challenges and obstacles faced in developing adaptation strategies are also examined. Training on vulnerability and increasing funds for adaptation were reported as the top priorities, indicating that the inadequacy of human and financial resources is the most significant challenge to effective adaptation in the study context. Difficult and weak cooperation was also widely considered to be a barrier. The paper concludes that there are significant interconnected constraints on adaptive capacity in Vietnam that are further exacerbated by governance issues, such as inadequate cooperation and transparency in sharing information and data. This paper identifies priorities for action to address the challenge of climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Indonesia is one of the countries that is most vulnerable to climate change. As a small Indonesian island, Bali is likely to also be affected by climate change impacts, including rising sea levels, drought, and flooding, which will also impact on its paddy production. This paper shows how the focus area of vulnerability assessments in Bali has been identified, based on multiple assessments including literature reviews, statistical assessment, stakeholder and policy assessment, and interviews with farmers. A project team applied a six-step process to identify issues linked to climate change, the purpose and system of vulnerability assessment, potential risk/harm in context, and potential variables for a further assessment. The team identified paddy production as a significant issue, and the purpose and system was the Presidential Decree No.5 on paddy production. Significant concerns linked to paddy production included droughts, land use change, and potential variables for vulnerability assessment such as water level and the price of rice. This paper suggests how adaptive measures should be implemented to handle paddy production in a changing climate. The results of this paper were used by a vulnerability assessment on rice paddy and climate change [Takama, T., Setyani, P., & Aldrian, E. (2014). Climate change vulnerability to rice paddy production in Bali, Indonesia. In W. Leal Filho (Ed.),Handbook of climate change adaptation(pp. 1–23). Berlin: Springer]. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on smallholders' perceptions of environmental variability and its impacts, their responses, and the role of Water Users' Associations (WUA) in governing the irrigation system in response to observed environmental changes. Our research recognizes that farmers' adaptations emerge from placed-based experience, yet adaptation policy and programmes may not recognize the heterogeneity of place-based experience. Fifteen farmer-managed irrigation systems from five districts of Nepal were selected as research sites, representing different ecological regions. Data were collected from household surveys and key informant interviews; the quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Our study reveals that the perception of environmental change differs across the ecological gradients and irrigators' physical position along the irrigation canals. Labour scarcity, investment in technology, access to non-farm income, information on environmental variability, and sociodemographic factors also influence irrigators' perceptions. Irrigators responded by adjusting irrigation amounts, improving irrigation infrastructure and altering irrigation rules, and using local knowledge and technology. WUA assist irrigators by mobilizing labour for canal maintenance, managing water distribution, monitoring irrigation systems, and collecting service fees. Our finding supports policy initiatives that recognize the importance of WUA, the differential and situated experience of climate risk, and the need for place-specific adaptation options for Nepalese farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines farmers' cognitive perceptions of risk and the behavioural intentions to implement specific drought risk reduction measures using the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) model. We follow an innovative route by extending a PMT model with a drought experience variable, which, we hypothesize, will influence risk perceptions and the take-up of adaptation measures. In order to do so, we investigated detailed historical drought patterns by looking at the spatial and temporal aspects of drought conditions during crop growing season at the village level. In our extended PMT model, drought experience, as represented by a long-term Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), plays a significant role in predicting farmers' intention to take up adaptation measures. The result reveals that drier conditions significantly increase farmers' behavioural intention to implement adaptation measures against drought risk, which is the key finding of the study. Moreover, our findings show that perceived vulnerability and severity, self-efficacy, and response efficacy are positively and significantly associated with the number of drought risk reduction measures implemented. The findings of our empirical analysis contribute to the effect of cognitive perceptions through a new lens of farmer's personal experience with drought shocks, represented by the state of vegetation or physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformational adaptation is increasingly viewed as necessary to prevent the worst offsets in development gains due to severe climate impacts. However, clarity regarding how to produce transformational adaptation in practice is lacking, creating problems for project design and implementation. This paper examines (1) how transformational adaptation has been defined by major funders of adaptation; (2) how the concept has influenced funding priorities and the financing of projects. The study is based on a comparative analysis of the investment criteria, board meeting minutes, documents, and reports of the primary financial mechanisms under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: the Least Developed Country Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund. Our study demonstrates an increasing emphasis on transformational adaptation across funds over time, particularly in the Green Climate Fund. Transformative potential does guide funding decisions, but a clear understanding of whether transformational change is achievable, feasible, and desirable under all conditions has not yet emerged, an issue acknowledged by the funds and regularly discussed. Our analysis suggests that acknowledging tensions which arise with transformation in adaptation finance is critical because investment criteria and definitions of transformation impact the approaches to adaptation countries take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation pathways are increasingly being used as a foresight tool to help guide the implementation of climate change adaptation and deliberate transformation. This paper applies a pathways lens as a hindsight tool to provide new understanding about past change and adaptation relevant for improving future adaptation pathways approaches. Four case studies of past adaptations to change are examined: Solomon Islands Communities, Canadian forest-dependent communities, a Transylvanian village, and responses to climate adaptation policies in Australia. The results highlight that responses to change in these diverse case studies involve complex transitions that gradually create new conditions and trajectories; manifest as multiple but inter-related pathways of change and response at different social or spatial scales (e.g. different paths for different households or communities); have legacies and continuities across time that affect future pathways of change; are affected by power in complex ways; and can create further change and need for adaptation. Analyses also highlight that when working with prospective adaptation approaches as a response to climate change there is a need to consider: (1) underlying assumptions, values and principles associated with the future; (2) the existence of inter-connected multiple pathways and their implications for reinforcing existing social inequalities; and (3) how understanding past change provides inspiration for new and transformative futures. Overall, the paper concludes that shifts towards analyses for change rather than simply about change, such as adaptation pathways, will require more careful consideration of underlying ontological assumptions about the relationships between past, present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the perceptions of local communities to climate variability and change in relation to observed climatic data. A perception survey, historical timeline and analysis of sea level and meteorological data from the study area were used to achieve this objective. As perceptions regarding different types of climate stimuli are likely to trigger response actions, this study highlights the importance of integrating local perceptions into planning for adaptation. The study suggests that climate change is happening in Zanzibar and is set to intensify as it is directly linked to regional and global events such as ENSO. The perceptions of local communities regarding variability in rainfall, temperature and sea level are highly influenced by the relationship between these elements and their livelihood activities, namely fishing, farming and seaweed farming; their direct experience of shifts in weather patterns; and their recall of past climate. While variability and changes were recognized, the majority of respondents linked this to God's doing, and most had little exposure to the phenomenon of global climate change. Furthermore, while local people's perceptions of rainfall and temperature changes showed some relationship with observed data, their perceptions on sea level rise did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region comprises of areas which are highly vulnerable to flood risks. The region faces challenges from multiple non-climate stressors such as poverty, environmental and climate shocks, and inadequate infrastructure. Addressing these deprivations in ways that reduce vulnerability associated with a changing climate are critical for the communities that live here. This paper combines data on flood risks derived from a climate–hydrology model under two future scenarios of RCP 4.5 and 8.5, with socio-economic data from communities in the Gandak basin, to demonstrate how mainstreaming climate change impacts into decision-making for sanitation interventions can reduce socio-economic vulnerability to flooding. A Cost-effectiveness analysis of the alternative interventions for sanitation reveals that gains are substantially higher under an intervention that takes note of climatic events, both for the present and in the future. Substantial health costs and inconvenience losses that are particularly acute for women during floods can be averted by investing in climate-friendly options. Climate adaptation (SDG goal 13 on climate action) can be synergistic with the achievement of other SDGs (Goal 6 on sanitation, goal 3 on health and well-being, goal 5 on gender). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change have become a dominant theme in development and conservation research and work. Yet coastal communities are facing a wider array of different stressors that affect the sustainability of natural resources and the adaptive capacity of local residents. The ability of communities and households to adapt is influenced by the nature, number, and magnitude of the changes with which they have to contend. In this paper, we present the range of 36 socio-economic (i.e. economic, social, governance and conflict) and biophysical (i.e. climate change and other environmental) stressors that emerged from qualitative interviews in seven coastal communities on the Andaman coast of Thailand. These stressors were then integrated into a quantitative survey of 237 households wherein participants were asked to rate the level of impact of these stressors on household livelihoods. Ratings showed that economic and some climate change stressors – extreme weather events and changes in rainfall patterns and seasons – were scored higher than other stressors. The paper also examines the relationships between community and various individual and household characteristics–such as gender, age, livelihoods, levels of social capital, and socio-economic status – and the perceived level of impacts of various stressors on household livelihoods. Overall, community and livelihoods had the most differentiated impacts on perceptions of stressors but few other prominent patterns emerged. In conclusion, this paper discusses the implications of the results for current climate change vulnerability and adaptation policy and practice in Thailand and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cameroon, as in other countries of the Congo basin region, policy processes and activities related to climate change have been hitherto geared mostly towards mitigation and related questions, with limited concern about adaptation issues. However, the increasing vulnerability of Cameroon to climate variability and change makes adaptation significant to its national climate-change policy. Nonetheless, it remains a challenge to make both adaptation and mitigation occupy the same policy space in Cameroon. This paper builds partly on studies carried out in two community forest carbon initiatives in the southern rainforest of Cameroon. It also argues, supported by existing literature on adaptation and mitigation, that mitigation activities have the potential to produce adaptation outcomes; a situation which avoids duplication of efforts and waste of financial and technical resources, if synergetic options are anticipated and planned. However, whether such integrated approaches succeed and are subsequently reflected in national-level climate policy depends on how actors across different sectors and at different levels engage and carry out their roles. The paper discusses these roles and how they can support each other in pursuing integrated initiatives – a context which is vital for Cameroon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The close linkages between climate change adaptation and development have led to calls for addressing the two issues in an integrated way. ‘Mainstreaming' climate information, policies and measures into ongoing development planning and decision-making has been proposed as one solution, making a more sustainable, effective and efficient use of resources than designing and managing climate policies separately from ongoing activities. But what does mainstreaming look like in practice? This paper reviews the process of mainstreaming in Bangladesh, one of the countries that has made significant progress on adaptation planning and mainstreaming. The paper begins by making the case for mainstreaming, by exploring linkages and trade-offs between adaptation and development and reviewing the literature on mainstreaming. Second, it considers how to implement mainstreaming in practice, reviewing an existing four-step framework. Examining this framework against the plethora of mainstreaming experiences in Bangladesh, the paper considers how the framework can be used as a tool to review progress on mainstreaming in Bangladesh. The paper concludes that while the framework is useful for consideringsomeof the preconditions necessary for mainstreaming, experiences in Bangladesh reflect a much more complex patchwork of processes and stakeholders that need to be taken into consideration in further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally urbanization is accelerating, especially within developing countries. This often results in vulnerable urban conditions with limited adaptive capacity to respond to climate change-induced hazards. In response, employing innovative solutions that lever existing unused and underutilized interstitial spaces within the urban fabric for climate change adaptation and mitigation purposes are needed. Essential to this strategy is a better understanding of the quantity and type of potentially available interstitial space. Using a mixed-method approach, this paper analysed the spatial and material condition of unused and underutilized interstitial spaces within a Southern African city. This study organizes these interstitial spaces according to programme, zoning, access, spatial definition, microclimatic characteristics and material use. It undertakes a quantitative assessment identifying seven specific interstitial space types, found in the total study area. Underutilized parking spaces and rooftop spaces are identified as the most prevalent space types with significant climate change adaptation and mitigation potential if appropriately retrofitted. Retrofitting these spaces are relatively effortless, and can ultimately improve the climate change resilience of these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate extremes and slow onset events undermine the efforts of developing countries to eradicate poverty and promote social equity. Social protection presents an opportunity to develop inclusive comprehensive risk management strategies to address loss and damage from climate change. However, research and policy on climate change and social protection remain limited in scope. This paper aims to address this gap by presenting a number of conceptual arguments that can provide a basis for a wider discussion on what principles and considerations should be embedded in the design of national climate-responsive SP strategies and plans. It is argued that future efforts should be geared to develop climate-responsive social protection policies that consider a broad range of issues including urbanization and migration, impact of green policies on the poor, access to essential health care and risks to socially marginalized groups. The article concludes with a discussion on implications for policy and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and variability presents a challenge for rural communities in developing countries. Bridging organizations help align stakeholder and local perspectives and mediate communication that shapes adaptation responses. We argue that a first step for adaptation projects is to determine the nature of the climate norms and how climate is changing. This paper explores the degree to which development organizations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania used analysis of local historical climate information in project aims, planning and design. This included 67 participants, managing 102 community-level climate-related agricultural projects, and three NGO case studies. Most focused on low-regret options. The majority of projects enhanced awareness of climate change and variability, but only 7% had used historical climate information during planning. Instead, projects relied on general knowledge or farmers' perceptions, which sometimes differ from analyzed historical climate information, potentially leading reinforcement of perceptions. It is vital that bridging organizations and policy makers value analyzed historical climate information when determining climate norms (including variability) and identify what data shows regarding how climate is changing. This is essential for planning with stakeholders the suitability of alternative crops and cultivars and ensuring other relevant environmental factors influencing agricultural production are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities across the world have an increasingly significant role to play in the climate change arena. Despite the high vulnerability of African countries to climate change, less work has examined climate change governance within African cities. This paper investigates the constraints and enablers to climate governance in two cities located in least-developed African economies (Karonga, Malawi, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). It does so by analysing the personal engagement of key urban decision-makers with climate change issues, along cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions. Semi-structured interviews with a range of local government actors suggest that African cities in low-income economies are aware, concerned and motivated to act on climate change issues. The ability for large African cities to act seems to be reliant in large part on connections to international networks that provide various resources; smaller cities seem to collaborate more effectively at the 'within the city' scale to overcome constraints to climate change governance. The findings point to the potential for positive urban governance of climate change in developing country cities, including small cities, and pave the way for further emphasis to be placed on using the concept of engagement to deepen understanding of urban climate change governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cryosphere provides multiple services to society, but mountain cryosphere is shrinking at an alarming rate worldwide due to climate change, threatening natural and human systems. Adaptation to cryosphere change is essential to avoid irreversible damage and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Although documenting adaptation actions and challenges is vital for preparing and implementing adaptation strategies, efforts to document and understand current adaptation practices specifically in response to cryosphere change have been limited. This paper synthesizes adaptation actions currently practiced in the mountain ranges of the Andes, Alps, Pamir, Tien Shan and Himalaya in response to cryosphere change, discusses common constraints and suggests actions for creating an enabling environment for adaptation. It identifies various adaptation measures adopted by different actors. These range from changing current practices and behaviour at household level to collaborative monitoring at regional level. However, most adaptation measures are autonomous, narrowly focused and short term, without adequate planning and government support. The physical challenges of mountain terrain, low adaptive capacities, limited knowledge and high uncertainty about future risks constrain widespread adoption of adaptation measures. Further research is needed to better understand factors influencing adaptation actions, and the policy options and responses that can overcome existing barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on barriers to adaptation focuses predominantly on the broad, generic factors, such as financial, technological or institutional factors, as examples that might constrain adaptation. Not enough is known, however, about how barriers converge in localities, what drives them and how they interact to affect adaptation processes and outcomes. This paper considers the barriers to adaptation in Namibia through the lens of the 'adaptation activity space' – a framework that positions the adapting system in relation to its environment. In doing so, it questions not only what types of barriers are encountered, but what their underlying drivers are and how the relationships among them influence adaptation on the ground. Two intersecting 'avenues' within Namibia's adaptation activity space are explored, namely: (1) the policy-practice partition and (2) the adaptive capacity challenge. Each of these avenues tells a story about the complex nature of barriers and points to the need for greater integration between government spheres, across temporal scales and among actor groups. Such integration is necessary for addressing the barriers to adaptation and for paving the way to a more effective and sustainable adaptation activity space in Namibia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small and micro businesses bear the brunt of climate change impacts in the climate-challenged economy. Vulnerability is embedded into the socio-economic trajectories of their primary decision-makers. Multiple vulnerabilities may arise if the decision-makers' socio-economic conditions are associated with climate-sensitive business characteristics. Previous research has provided little evidence on such linkages, thus losing insights into how different facets of vulnerability interact and evolve over time. This paper explores the interactions between elements of small business vulnerability and the socio-economic characteristics of their primary decision-makers. It draws on the results of a survey involving 116 owner-managers of small and micro businesses and in-depth interviews with a sub-sample. Study areas are three remote coastal communities in Hong Kong exposed to high floods. Results show that such interactions exist in multiple, non-linear ways. Socio-economic disadvantages (i.e. low education attainment, old age, low income, and female) are related to some aspects of small business vulnerability, while playing a role in mitigating or avoiding other aspects of it. The findings call for building frameworks that account for the multiple spheres in which vulnerabilities are engendered and their interactions, while allowing for complexities and feedback mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to review empirical studies regarding factors influencing farmers' adaptation to climate change and document those factors in a systematic manner. Adaptation to climate change is an important research topic, especially in agriculture, a sector reliant on climate-sensitive resources. Several studies have examined the adaptation issues and identified factors that influence the adaptive responses of farmers in specific contexts or regions. However, little research effort has been paid to collecting and categorizing those factors. Whilst a number of demographic, socio-economic, technological, cultural and psychological factors, and resources have been reported, the use of social, cultural and psychological factors remains relatively limited. The review provides useful knowledge for future research on factors affecting farmers' adaptation to climate change. It highlights the importance of a series of factors, including both socio-economic and psychological considerations, in explaining farmers' adaptive responses. It is also a relevant reference for planning effective adaptation strategies in the agricultural sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop failure due to climate shocks increases the risk of hunger for small-scale farmers. This paper identifies the major climate shocks affecting maize-legume farmers in Kenya, and the factors associated with their decision to adapt including the specific adaptation strategies to employ. During 2000–2010 surveyed farm households reported drought, crop pests and excessive rainfall as the most frequent and severe climate shocks. Probit regression results show that previous experiences of drought reduce the likelihood of adaptation to drought and excessive rainfall. Female-headed households are more inclined than male-headed households to adapt to excessive rainfall. Next, multivariate probit regression results identify farm adjustment (e.g. use of improved varieties and replanting) to be a substitution strategy for selling assets and borrowing for drought adaptation, while reducing consumption seems to be a complementary strategy for borrowing. To adapt to crop pests, farm adjustment seems to be a substitution strategy for selling assets and reducing consumption; however, selling assets is a complementary strategy for borrowing. Policy to encourage adaptation should incorporate implication of multiple shocks and target assistance to poor, food-insecure and female-headed households as these are often disadvantaged in terms of asset endowment and access to the technology necessary for adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vietnam and Bangladesh are countries already impacted by weather-related extreme events. Scientific modelling projections indicate that climate change, and changes to climate variability, will increase risks for both countries in the future. Targeting this challenging contemporary agenda, this paper reflects on the lessons learned from a collaborative research project, funded by the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research, which was carried out jointly in the Vietnamese city of Huế and the Bangladeshi city of Satkhira. The focus on secondary cities was intentional as they face unique challenges – a combination of rapid growth and development, adverse climate-related impacts, and in many cases less institutional adaptive capacity than their primary city counterparts. Whilst numerous assessment tool kits already exist, these have typically been developed for rural or natural resource contexts. Therefore, the objective of this action research activity was to develop a flexible suite of participatory assessment tools and methodologies that were refined specifically for the urban context; as well as being easy to use by local practitioners at the city and neighbourhood scales. This paper summarizes the research and stakeholder engagement activity that was carried out before presenting the main findings from each of the case study cities (detailing both climate-related risks and potential adaptation options). This analysis is further extended to include a reflective critique of the assessment process, a comparative analysis of the activity carried out in the two case studies, and the ‘South–South’ learning process that occurred between project partners. Key findings are then distilled to put forward recommendations in support of climate change assessment activity in secondary cities across the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a process which is global in nature, but which has direct consequences at regional and local levels. Coastal areas as a whole, and small coastal river basins across the Baltic Sea in particular, are especially vulnerable since they directly suffer the influences of phenomena such as heavy precipitation and flash floods, the frequency of which has been increasing over the last few years, as well as rising sea levels. This paper describes the framework of the process of adaptation to climate change in small coastal river basins, based on a case study from the city of Klaipėda in Lithuania. In particular, the paper outlines the degree of vulnerability of coastal areas and describes some of the work undertaken and experiences gathered by the EU's BaltCICA project (Climate Change: Impacts, Costs and Adaptation in the Baltic Sea Region), which has been undertaken with a view to identify the problems and developing adaptation options in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is increasingly altering the pattern of climate-related risks. Developing countries and in particular least developed countries will be among the most severely impacted by climate change. These risks can seem remote in comparison with more immediate threats and needs, but if climate change is not considered upfront in existing planning and policymaking processes today, decision makers risk locking-in future impacts that may prove irreversible or much more costly and difficult to rectify than is necessary. The challenge for planners and policymakers, explored in this paper, is that future climate conditions are deeply uncertain. Decision methods are available to tackle these problems; however, these tend to be data- and resource-intensive and therefore, difficult to routinely apply. Further, a gap in currently available guidance is the explicit link to the adaptation needs of a developing country. We discuss the implications of this development context for the priorities for adaptation and the relative allocation of efforts in adaptation. This paper focuses on the identification of adaptation options and strategies that are robust to the deep uncertainties in future climate risk, culminating in a framework of six building blocks. It takes the perspective of exploring how decisions today might be adjusted to account for uncertain and changing long-term climate risks. We suggest a core principle is to focus on promoting climate-resilient development and increasing long-term adaptive capacity while, crucially, avoiding inflexible decisions that could lock-in future climate risk or foreclose adaptation options. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the challenges and opportunities for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to integrate climate change adaptation into development projects, focusing on the potential contribution of community-generated information. The research, undertaken with agricultural NGO FARM-Africa, centres upon subsistence farming communities in the Kenyan Districts of Mwingi and Kitui, where a succession of droughts has blighted agricultural production in recent years. Discussions with FARM-Africa staff highlight how recent climate variability and possibly climate change, is already affecting project-level operations. In particular, the interaction between the secondary impacts of climate hazards and livelihood responses presents a challenge to local staff as there is no obvious means of reflecting the complexity of local experiences and impacts within project planning processes. In response, drawing upon discussions with Farmer Groups, a matrix for each community was developed comprising environmental, social and agro-economic hazard (drought) consequence indicators and corresponding measures under ‘extreme’, ‘severe’ and ‘moderate’ scenarios. This paper concludes that a structured approach to gathering locally held knowledge on the consequences of climate hazards appears to present a potentially valuable means of exploring the complex web of interactions between climate, livelihoods and vulnerability. Such community-generated information can be used to inform future project planning and community decision making, increasing the likelihood of achieving locally appropriate adaptation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exponents of transformation in the context of climate change strongly articulate the challenges associated with switching from current, potentially maladaptive development trajectories, onto future pathways that are climate responsive. Although scholarship on maladaptation highlights the dangers of path dependency, the concept is under-applied for understanding the potential outcomes of development trajectories that result in what we call an adaptation-constrained space. By conducting case-study analysis based on secondary review, we trace implications of particular development trajectories, in urban and rural India. The first case examines how urbanization in Bangalore city has decreased the capacity to respond to concurrent risks of flooding and water scarcity while the second charts how agricultural policies in India have narrowed local capacity to deal with climatic and non-climatic uncertainties. Using a historical perspective, we identify triggers of change in local and regional development, which have led to an adaptation-constrained space. We find that both pathways display irreversible lock-ins and inherent trade-offs which entrench inequities (through differential capacity and agency to access resources and influence future development). We argue that such development pathways are potentially maladaptive. Whether they are expected to deal with climate impacts or to meet development goals, the fact that they constrain current and future adaptive capacity at multiple levels, is why we consider them maladaptive. As India undertakes large investments in development and climate change adaptation, this paper adds to the relatively low policy debate on how development trajectories, physically and socially, limit the possibilities for future adaptation. We propose that policy-makers and planners first acknowledge how development trajectories acquire dominance, and then begin empowering normative alternatives that open future adaptation options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amazonia is one of the world's most vulnerable regions to climate change but few studies pinpointing priority areas for local adaptation programmes exist. This paper aims to identify socio-climatic hotspots among the 515 municipalities that compose the Brazilian Amazon by using a three-step process. First, we identified the regional social hotspots, that is, municipalities that have currently low adaptive capacity, by calculating a composite infrastructure index based on the assessment of both current green and socioeconomic infrastructures. Second, we used a Regional Climate Change Index to identify the climate change hotspots, that is, those municipalities that have a high likelihood to experience future climate change risks. Third, we evaluated the geographic coincidence of social and climate change hotspots to identify the socio-climatic hotspots. We found that 117 municipalities are regional social hotspots and that 60 municipalities are regional climate change hotspots. Forty-six municipalities are considered as socio-climatic hotspots because they have very low to low composite infrastructure indices and very high climate risk indices. Local institutional capacity to integrate and execute national-level policies that enhance local adaptive capacity is a major constraint across the region. To face the challenges associated with climate change, municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon should embrace a more sustainable development model. Sustainable development, in the context of the Brazilian Amazon, implies conservation of the existing green infrastructure through the expansion of protected areas and indigenous lands, restoration of green infrastructure in areas of deficit, and substantial investments in urban socioeconomic infrastructures to foster a knowledge-based economy. Although local sustainable development and adaptation plans are essential across the entire region, the 46 municipalities identified in this study as regional socio-climatic hotspots could be prioritized for action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Available science on climate change has increased significantly in recent years, yet its effective transfer to planning practice, particularly cities in the global South, is still limited. This paper explores the climate science-to-planning practice disconnect in the context of climate change adaptation in Southeast Asian cities generally, and Manila, Philippines specifically. We pose two simple, but important, questions: (1) what information do planning practitioners currently use to develop adaptive urban responses to climate change; and, (2) what additional knowledge and resources do planning practitioners need to effectively plan for climate change in the future? Survey and interview data collected across the Philippines suggest that planning professionals perceive access to, and sharing of, information as critical issues. Moreover, planning professionals contend that challenges with financial, technical, and staff resources, which have been perennial challenges of environmental management in Southeast Asia, persist despite significant new funding specifically earmarked for climate change adaptation. The climate science-to-practice disconnect, however, should be viewed as more than just an information/allocation deficit. Incomplete decentralization, haphazard urbanization, and the privatization of planning thwart attempts to translate climate science to planning practice in globalizing cities. As such, we argue that planning for adaptation to climate change requires more than just more and better information. It requires tackling the fundamental contradictions of planning in complex, globalizing cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While adaptation to climate change has emerged as a key area of development research, little is known about the enablers and constraints to implementing adaptation-oriented frameworks for research and development programming. This paper documents lessons learned from the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) programme - a multi-stakeholder consortium comprised of four large international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a research organization. It revisits the development and implementation of the conceptual framework that guided ACCRA's work: the Local Adaptive Capacity (LAC) framework. Between 2009 and 2013, ACCRA's research used the LAC to understand the impact of development interventions on levels of adaptive capacity at community and household levels. This in turn informed targeting of NGO and government programming. Challenges such as definitional overlaps between resilience and adaptation, difficulties in articulating the intangible elements of LAC's five characteristics of adaptive capacity and differing interpretations of commonly used terms between academic and practitioner partners each had to be grappled with. Experiences from ACCRA's research highlight the LAC's utility as a unifying framework. However, they also point to the need to ensure that certain elements of the LAC are not under-represented (such as gender, power and politics). In addition, the need for improved guidance in describing how the conceptual elements of the LAC can be operationalized, and ensuring greater levels of collaboration between all stakeholders were identified. It is hoped that the lessons from ACCRA not only help to shape future applications of the LAC but the large number of other adaptation and resilience-oriented frameworks that guide development research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security is described as a condition in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (World Food Summit, 1996). Climate variability and climate change can affect all aspects of food security, but past impact assessments have focused primarily on agricultural production. Efficient responses require an understanding of the full spectrum of potential climate impacts on food utilization, access and availability, as well as on the underlying natural, built and governance systems. In this paper, we apply a broader systems approach to evaluating food systems resilience in the context of climate change (Bizikova, Tyler, Moench, Keller, & Echeverria, 2015) to 10 communities in Honduras. The results indicate that resilience building depends on a sound understanding of how communities access food and how climate impacts can cascade through different parts of the food system. Key support systems, such as natural resources, storage, transportation and energy have to be strengthened, and local governance has to be preserved and improved. These considerations should be integrated into the development and implementation of relevant policies and measures at different levels of decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based adaptation (CBA) is an approach to strengthening the adaptive capacity of local communities vulnerable to climate change. The CBA approach increasingly features in discussions among policy makers, planners, advocates, and researchers, and has been endorsed and adopted by numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations. However, to date the CBA approach has lacked conceptual clarity, and the term is interpreted and deployed in various and often contradictory ways. This paper seeks to address this deficit by explaining the rationale put forth for CBA by its proponents, outlining its guiding principles, and theorizing some of its key challenges, which often point to opportunities for the approach to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pursuit of adaptation to climate change, both theoretically and practically, has intensified considerably over the past decade in response to increasing awareness of the potential impacts of global climate change. Despite this momentum, the interaction of climate change adaptation with pre-existing strategies to reduce vulnerability and build resilience in the developing world has only recently received significant attention. Using the example of disaster risk reduction, this paper explores the developing interface between climate change adaptation and existing development methodologies that have overlapping interests. While it has been established that there must be greater collaboration between these fields, many questions remain surrounding the scope of such interaction. This paper reviews the literature on the relationship between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and then explores some unanswered questions and developing conceptualizations. An examination of the theoretical points of convergence and divergence raises a range of questions surrounding how climate change adaptation is conceptualized in both the academic literature and the policy environment. There is a rich space to consider pre-existing development pathways within the adaptation narrative. Enhancing adaptive capacity requires robust frameworks that more holistically engage the embedded structures that perpetuate both socio-economic and environmental vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing risks from climate change is key for effective local adaptation planning. Integrated and participatory risk assessments are increasingly promoted as the most credible approach, ensuring community buy-in and overcoming data and resource restrictions in specific localities. Integrating the risk assessments of multiple actors can prove problematic, however, and demands attention to actors’ diverse values and politics. In this paper, I critically examine the potential for integrated risk assessments of climate change in Vanuatu, South Pacific. I focus on local communities’ risk assessments, and assessments by practitioners in civil society organizations (CSOs) that facilitate and fund local adaptation planning on climate change. I find a marked difference in how actors contextualized and prioritized risks. Villagers assessed current impacts and risks from climate change in relation to wider socio-economic changes, and prioritized maintaining their way of life. In contrast, CSO actors adopted a technocratic approach, drawing on climate science and focusing not only on the severity of risks but also on the potential need for external interventions. Explanations for climate-related changes, and notions of causality, also differed among villagers and CSO actors. These differences reveal key challenges concerning actors’ ways of knowing, conflicting values and worldviews, and the political interests influencing risk assessments. Effectively enabling integrated risk assessments will require open and inclusive dialogue among actors that creates space for alternative understandings of risk and potential adaptation strategies for climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries share many common challenges in addressing current and future climate risks. A key barrier to managing these risks is the limited availability of accessible, reliable and relevant weather and climate information. Despite continued investments in Earth System Modelling, and the growing provision of climate services across Africa and India, there often remains a mismatch between available information and what is needed to support on-the-ground decision-making. In this paper, we outline the range of currently available information and present examples from Africa and India to demonstrate the challenges in meeting information needs in different contexts. A review of literature supplemented by interviews with experts suggests that externally provided weather and climate information has an important role in building on local knowledge to shape understanding of climate risks and guide decision-making across scales. Moreover, case studies demonstrate that successful decision-making can be achieved with currently available information. However, these successful examples predominantly use daily, weekly and seasonal climate information for decision-making over short time horizons. Despite an increasing volume of global and regional climate model simulations, there are very few clear examples of long-term climate information being used to inform decisions at sub-national scales. We argue that this is largely because the information produced and disseminated is often ill-suited to inform decision-making at the local scale, particularly for farmers, pastoralists and sub-national governments. Even decision-makers involved in long-term planning, such as national government officials, find it difficult to plan using decadal and multi-decadal climate projections because of issues around uncertainty, risk averseness and constraints in justifying funding allocations on prospective risks. Drawing on lessons learnt from recent successes and failures, a framework is proposed to help increase the utility and uptake of both current and future climate information across Africa and India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme weather events such as flooding have been observed to deplete households’ assets and render households vulnerable to shocks and poverty. Few empirical studies have however examined households’ asset vulnerability and adaptation to such extreme events in Ghana. Based on qualitative research with two ecologically fragile communities in Ghana, this paper explores the asset vulnerability and adaptation strategies of households against periodic flooding. Findings suggested that households’ assets most vulnerable to flooding were farmlands, human health, housing and financial savings. However, flooding did not affect households’ assets equally; the effects were gendered and differentiated, often occasioned by inequalities in exposure, vulnerability, access to resources, capabilities and opportunities. Nonetheless, many households are actively adapting their assets by acquiring new knowledge about early warning systems, employing different farming practices and diversifying their assets. Understanding the differences in households’ asset vulnerability as well as in the priorities that men and women, as well as the young and old, place on different asset adaptation strategies could therefore be important in the effectiveness of climate change adaptation as well as the sustainability of communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The severity of climatic changes threatening urban coastal areas is introducing and intensifying environmental hazards that are endangering physical safety and livelihood security. This paper considers retreat, one of three broad adaptation options proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a possible climate change adaptation strategy for low-income communities in less developed nations. Resettlement as climate change adaptation is a developing concept, with minimal guidelines and academic literature on the topic. Thus, this review expands beyond climate change, considering three literature themes surrounding resettlement: (1) climate change, (2) hazard and natural disasters (i.e. floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes), and (3) economic development (i.e. dam construction and natural resource extraction). The review extracts successful resettlement planning and approaches, as well as the lessons learned, to identify five principles for resettlement in a climate change context: Proactivity, Communication and Participation, Permanence, Compensation, and Livelihood Protection. The results of the analysis suggest five principles that can be used as a guideline for implementing resettlement as climate change adaptation for low-income and informal communities in less developed nations. Ultimately, these recommendations can be used to assess the appropriateness and feasibility of employing resettlement as managed retreat in less developed nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing recognition of the role of climate change adaptation among smallholder farmers in rain-fed agriculture in Africa. Collective action among smallholder farmers has been suggested as influencing local adaptation processes hence the need to evaluate its impact in different contexts. This paper provides evidence of collective action in enhancing local adaptation to climate variability. It determines the importance of different forms of collective action for enhancing adaptation. Through simple random sampling, a survey of 240 households in Embu County in Kenya and 200 households from Kapchorwa district of Uganda was undertaken. Focus-group discussions involving farmer groups and local government representatives were performed to triangulate information collected through the surveys. The results show a positive relationship between membership in farmer groups and adaptation to climate variability in both sites. Four main components of collective action were identified in Embu and these included the development of internal group capacities, assets mobilization and management, collective marketing, and management of human and natural capital. In Kapchorwa, the development of internal group capacities, risk spreading, and financial resources were significant. We argue that local-level governance and institutional arrangements for collective action are critical for successful adaptation to climate variability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]