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Sea defence policy in England has proven contentious in the early twenty-first century, with government willing to defend the coast only where it is considered cost effective and not minded to compensate people for any resulting abandonment of homes. Additional focus is brought to this position by the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which reflect a growing emphasis on climate change effects and other environmental hazards, and the wellbeing of the current generation and those to come. This requires policy makers to seek to balance economic, social and environmental dimensions, and to tackle inequalities; with a central commitment of the goals to "leave no one behind". Subsequent to publication of the SDGs, England was promised a revolution in the government's approach to Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM). This paper seeks to understand the nature of this revolution with particular regard to extant issues around just governance. It finds that policy fails to deal with issues over the local acceptability of proposals for change and the bearing of risk, and instead lies principally in the elevation of the problematic concept of resilience and an accompanying ambivalence towards ideas of sustainability and sustainable development. International agreement that compensation should be paid to those countries suffering the worst effects of climate change, including sea level rise, suggests that adoption of a similar approach to vulnerable homeowners might be the more appropriate revolution and bring policy more into line with the aspirations of the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Perth region is one of the 56 designated Natural Resources Management (NRM) regions in Australia. A community-led body – Perth Region NRM (PRNRM) – is in charge of overseeing NRM initiatives in the region. PRNRM heavily relies on Environmental Care Organisations (ECOs) that are involved in a wide variety of activities ranging from managing nature reserves to restoring ecosystems on a voluntary basis. While ECOs have become an integral component of PRNRM, they are often vulnerable because of the uncertain availability of financial and human resources. The way these organisations can overcome resource scarcities and become resilient is therefore significant for the effective delivery of regional NRM arrangements. However, what makes some ECOs in the Perth region more resilient than others is not well understood. This paper responds to this gap and explores the state of ECOs in the Perth region. The paper begins by reviewing the notion of resilience using a social capital lens. Drawing on a survey of ECOs and interviews, the method used for data collection and data analysis is presented next. Finally, the paper makes a case for fostering social capital as a way of enhancing the resilience of ECOs in the Perth region and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Solomon Islands is vulnerable to negative impacts from climate change, where people’s livelihoods and their well-being are threatened, especially the viability of isolated communities. Realising the increasing risks from climate change on communities, government, in partnership with aid-donor partners, has invested millions of dollars in climate change projects, through mitigation and adaptation strategies. As a form of adaptation, the government invests in programmes aimed at increasing the adaptive capacity of the vulnerable communities through landscape and seascape projects across the rural communities. Focusing on the “transformation concept” as a long-term adaptation strategy and enlargement of climate engineering and ecological resilience concepts, the paper discusses why building resilience from transformation of rural communities, as well as from landscape and seascape projects, would benefit communities and relevant authorities. This paper describes the findings of a study on two rural villages, Keigold and Mondo, from Ranogha Islands, Western Province, in Solomon Islands, where 80% of households decided to relocate from their old village “Mondo” to their new home “Keigold” after an earthquake in 2007, as part of a self-initiative. The reallocation process can be seen as a case of pro-active community transformation that provides valuable lessons to other rural communities that may be forced to move due to impacts from natural catastrophes, including those explained by climate change risks. Lessons from this experience suggest that policy-makers and non-government organisations should consider and empower local transformation initiatives as a way to building long-term adaptation to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The feedback relationships between resource-dependent human communities and their local ecosystem services may result in an undesirable SES dynamic where community wellbeing continually deteriorates. Yet, very little is known about the mechanisms that can facilitate reordering people's relationship with ecosystem for sustained wellbeing. We argue that innovative approaches built upon local strengths are more likely to succeed in such an endeavour, and multi-level implementation can help sustainability and community wellbeing. The objective of this paper is to give an account of local people's wellbeing in relation to ecosystem services and their changes, the drivers that change the ecosystem services and impact wellbeing, and the role of innovation in enhancing adaptability and SES resilience to changes and disturbances. We conducted our field research during 2014–2015 in a wetland region of northeastern Bangladesh, utilising Case study and participatory research methods. Our empirical investigation in selected wetland communities has revealed that: (i) community wellbeing and wetland SES resilience are subject to erosion due to multiple drivers of change operating at different temporal and spatial scales; (ii) the feedback relationships among these multiple drivers often adversely affect community wellbeing; and (iii) innovative strategies built on local strengths can help reorder people's relationships with local ecosystems, restore community wellbeing, and enhance local sustainability. The key determinants of such reordering include entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, learning, and networking abilities of the locals. Intervention strategies should therefore pay more attention to the locals' ability to innovate and adapt to ecological changes, especially through new or shifted livelihood initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing evidence of threats to Indigenous food systems, many Indigenous communities are innovating to enhance their resilience while conserving and promoting their traditional food systems, offering important lessons for rural development policy. This community-based case study explores one such Indigenous initiative: Sanjeevini, in Andhra Pradesh, India. Sanjeevini has been effective in designing and implementing creative strategies for seed sovereignty and biocultural conservation. Interviews with key persons associated with Sanjeevini (n = 8) and participatory field-research in the Araku Valley region, including interviews with small scale farmers (n = 30), revealed community development strategies emphasising a link between biological and cultural heritage in Indigenous food systems. These include hosting cultural seed festivals, establishing and maintaining community-based seed banks, and facilitating inter-community seed exchanges. Importantly, these strategies take place against a backdrop of community-organising that counteracts the dominant neo-liberal development agenda while resisting deforestation that threatens Indigenous livelihoods. Sanjeevini's success demonstrates that through the adaptive assertion of self-determination, rural social change is possible. This paper highlights alternative, community-driven articulations of seed sovereignty while underscoring the significance of this community's own vision in guiding rural innovation and offering promising working models for cultivating rural resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation planning at the community level takes on various forms. It generally involves a process of defining climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and actions that can build community resilience. Typically, these processes rely on climate experts and policy-makers to define what is at risk, and therefore what is worthy of investment and protection. Emerging approaches to community-based adaptation-planning advocate for stronger community control over these processes. Drawing on a place-based approach to adaptation, this paper examines place meaning as a co-constructed process. It explores how this process shapes opportunities for community-based climate action in Churchill, Canada. Results indicate that community members acknowledge many competing threats to their sense of place, and suggest that this competition may reduce the perceived need to prioritise climate action to protect connections to place. Results also reveal a concern among community members that local place identity has been appropriated for economic gain, which may further reduce the drive to act in protection of an already exploited sense of place. Overall, findings support calls to adopt place-based perspectives to enhance the capacity of adaptation planning to understand local needs, values, and levers for action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a special issue ofLocal Environmentthat has arisen through collaboration between academic researchers and the Urban Planning and Design Branch of UN-Habitat, focused on how we can understand and respond to the challenges of urban vulnerability, adaptation and resilience in the context of climate change. The paper establishes the existing state of the art in the field, and considers critical challenges that are emerging in the research-based literature. In this context, it introduces UN-Habitat's Cities and Climate Change Initiative and reflects on the lessons learnt and challenges ahead, drawing on insights from across the papers in the special issue. In conclusion, it identifies the role of international/transnational co-operation, the relation between adaptation and mitigation, issues of multi-level governance and the ways in which change in urban socio-technical systems might be achieved as critical issues across the science/policy interface where increased dialogue and the co-production of knowledge needs to focus in order to advance this agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Socially desirable outcomes such as community cohesion, diversity and social mixing are key features of the sustainable communities discourse. However, this aspect of the sustainable communities policy agenda remains under-researched. This paper uses the case of a community food initiative (Stroudco, located in Stroud, UK) to review some of the challenges faced in incorporating these social goals into wider (community led) sustainability initiatives. In particular, we explore the tensions that arise between the three core facets of sustainability – the social, the environmental and the economic – when they are brought together at a community level. Although Stroudco was established with the aim of bridging diverse communities and broadening the cross-section of people consuming local food, to date this remains a significant challenge. The case of Stroudco provides an insight into some of the difficulties encountered by local initiatives that attempt to operate across a range of social groupings while also overcoming cultural differences about the value of local food. It also raises important questions about the social geographies of resilience which community sustainability initiatives are able to support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this paper is to discuss the limitations of risk management as a strategy for Australian local government climate change adaptation and explore the advantages of complementary approaches, including a social-ecological resilience framework, adaptive and transition management, and vulnerability assessment. Some federal and local government initiatives addressing the limitations of risk-based approaches are introduced. We argue that conventional risk-based approaches to adaptation, largely focused on hazard identification and quantitative modelling, will be inadequate on their own for dealing with the challenges of climate change. We suggest that responses to climate change adaptation should move beyond conventional risk-based strategies to more realistically account for complex and dynamically evolving social-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lesotho, climate change adaptation funding is being managed and distributed by the same mechanisms which have traditionally operationalised humanitarian aid and international development assistance in the country. Lessons from the HIV/AIDS disaster, along with insights into the value of participatory approaches foregrounding the expertise of indigenous communities, must be heeded in order to ensure that those most affected by climate change have a say in how adaptation is carried out. This paper proposes that indigenous people have developed and actively maintained resilience strategies, encoded in social practices and farming techniques, designed out of long experience with climatic variability. Through case studies, indigenous resilience strategies are explored, with emphasis on the anarchistic, improvisational nature of traditional ecological knowledge. Future directions for policy-makers and practitioners dealing with climate change adaptation are suggested, namely the need to foreground indigenous knowledge and the experiences of frontlines experts in key policy arenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is ample – though partially contradictory – evidence regarding the effects climate change will have on various regions of the world, there is only very limited work dedicated to the analysis of different governance structures, and how these structures are likely to influence the resilience of alpine tourism systems in the face of climate change. We present an analytical framework based on network theory, and apply this to the Swiss case study destination of Engelberg, in order to deduct a number of insights for the future assessment of resilience based on the cooperation of local actors. The main aim of the paper is to come up with comparable resilience metrics based on social network analysis in order to assess the structural strengths and weaknesses of a geographically delimited tourism system in the face of climate change. Together with the action potential of the individual actors these structural properties influence the adaptive capacity of both individual actors, and the tourism system as a whole. In line with comparable studies, we identify structural strengths and weaknesses around the core-periphery distribution (centrality), subgroups (modularity) and information flows (path length). We find that the Engelberg network follows an almost ideal-typical scale-free structure and the overall cooperation rate (density) is comparable to other tourism networks. The main weaknesses of the network with regard to climate change resilience are the lacking integration of public sector actors and the relatively high number of actors in the periphery of the network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dooling [2009. Ecological gentrification: a research agenda exploring justice in the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33 (3), 621–639] and Quastel [2009. Political ecologies of gentrification. Urban Geography, 30 (7), 694–725] reveal several ways in which urban sustainability efforts can produce gentrification, resulting in displacement and financial burden for the most vulnerable urban denizens. In the absence of adequate procedural justice measures, their studies suggest that long-time and vulnerable residents are negatively affected by urban sustainability efforts. However, some residents are able to remain in their neighbourhoods, and this study employs a resilience framework to explore what enables residents to resist displacement in three gentrifying neighbourhoods in New York City. Analysis of 42 interviews with residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn uncovers the multiple strategies residents use to adapt to an increasingly expensive urban environment. The case studies detailed in this paper highlight the multidimensional and context-specific nature of resilience, as well as the multiple scales at which resilience manifests. Gentrification, while reducing resilience at some scales, has not reduced resilience at all scales. Individual-level coping strategies emerge as an important characteristic of resilience during this period of gentrification. This study highlights the connections between scale and resilience and indicates how a better understanding of resilience can further contest the disruptive and socially unjust process of gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Community-based watershed management (CBWM) is today a major policy directive on water resources for most countries. In Latin America, since the 1970s, international aid development agencies have been encouraging decentralisation in water governance through watershed management interventions centred on social participation. This paper discusses whether CBWM projects financed by Canada in some Latin American communities contribute to achieve environmental justice (EJ) in order to shape adaptive capacity to global climate change. It reports the results of a comparative case study between Brazil, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Honduras in terms of justice and equity. The central finding is that EJ framework can serve as a methodological tool to better inform on watershed governance and management towards adaptive capacity to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban heat is a growing problem, especially for vulnerable populations who are disproportionately exposed to higher temperatures. Adaptive capacity and, especially, social capital increases recovery from disasters and enhances adaptation. Social capital is declining nationwide and the Sunbelt States, with highest national temperatures, have the lowest levels of social capital. Social capital is situational and reflects a position within the formal and informal aspects of any issue, and frameworks developed for some purposes may not be relevant for others. Few have fully explored social capital's relation to heat vulnerability. There is a need to understand social capital in the context of urban heat to determine if it is present, used, enhanced or is a latent capacity. This research explores indicators and related questions for effective social capital for urban heat. This research was conducted in one of the hottest United States cities, metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona and, while the geographic and cultural context may be different, the findings have applicability to other warming urban centres. Using social capital as a lens to explore heat vulnerability and better metrics for urban heat social capital can inform policies that deepen networks and increase trust, minimise poor public health outcomes, and facilitate more effective community engagement. Effective social capital for extreme heat can provide a roadmap for decision-makers in working towards climate adaptation at the community scale by increasing their understanding of when and how to assist communities in building their capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, multiple media sources claimed the event was an "equal opportunity" storm. These claims challenge existing social vulnerability research that finds marginalised groups have both unequal risk exposure and subsequent differential impacts from disasters (Cutter, Boruff, and Shirley 2003, "Assessing Current and Future Freshwater Flood Risk from North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones via Insurance Claims." Scientific Reports 7 (February): 41609; Faber 2015, "Superstorm Sandy and the Demographics of Flood Risk in New York City." Human Ecology 43 (3): 363–378. ; Thomas et al. 2013, Social Vulnerability to Disasters. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press). To understand the accuracy of this "equal opportunity" assertion, we use ordinary least squares, simultaneous autoregressive, and geographically weighted regression techniques to investigate the relationships between indicators of social vulnerability and FEMA-approved housing damages from Hurricane Harvey across five cities in the Houston area. Findings suggest Harvey had disproportionate impacts on housing damages for Black, Latinx, and mobile home residents. These results serve as a foundational analysis for the broader purpose of informing policy decisions regarding recovery efforts and future approaches to improving flooding resilience in the Houston area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As converging crises increasingly cause disruption to social-ecological systems, individuals and communities will need to become more resilient and proactive in ensuring their access to and use of natural resources is sustainable. Ten months after an unprecedented drinking water contamination event and public health emergency in the New Zealand town of Havelock North, interviews were conducted with the owners of twenty local small and medium businesses. We applied a transformative learning framework to explore whether the disruption increased business owners' awareness of their dependence on and connection to natural systems, prompted them to change their water management practices, and/or led them to contemplate or initiate alternative water supply relationships, thereby reshaping the prevailing provider-user "hydrosocial contract". We found that business owners did become more conscious of natural systems and the criticality of water to their businesses, and made temporary adjustments to their practices to allow them to survive financially until their water supply returned to normal. However, because they saw no reason to challenge the existing provider-user water supply model, their primary focus was to bounce back to their previous state as quickly as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs a place-based resilience approach to support a procedural shift from a focus on specific, tangible outcomes towards a focus on processes that support wellbeing. We draw upon resident experiences of a bushfire event and a security event, later termed a terror event, and use a place-aware analysis to identify intangible yet significant patterns of disruption. A reoriented resilience approach requires innovative community initiatives that foster place-based wellbeing, which may compliment existing "emergency" response approaches without necessarily fitting within the traditional resilience policy purview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many authors have suggested that Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, yet there remains a paucity of fine-grained geographic data on the particular impacts of climate change on specific places and on local communities, especially Australian Indigenous communities. While there are some recent studies being undertaken with Australia's Torres Strait Island people, our research takes up the issues of vulnerability and resilience with two Indigenous communities from different environments on the mainland in North Queensland. They are the Aboriginal peoples of the rainforest and reef environments of the Wet Tropics and the Aboriginal people of the discontiguous rainforest, grasslands, dry forests and marine environments of Cape York. The results demonstrate variability in their understandings of climate change and in their capacities to anticipate and manage its impacts, while at the same time illustrating some common held themes about environmental and cultural values, observed environmental change, attributions of cause and effect, and of climate in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, “resilience” has gained increasing recognition as a theoretical framework for understanding and managing change in complex social–ecological systems. Resilience assessments are increasingly used to inform sustainability initiatives, strategies, and policies. The Lewes Pound represents a new complementary currency model in the UK, aiming to build community resilience. However, there have been no empirical studies to date assessing the socio-economic impacts of this model. This article addresses the need to understand how such currencies function by measuring whether the Lewes Pound is capable of building resilience. This is done by developing a novel framework for estimating economic, social, and environmental outcomes, which uses a mixed-methods approach. Findings suggest that complementary currencies can enhance social-ecological resilience through awareness-raising and changes in consumption. Although economic localisation – a key indicator – is lacking, there is evidence that the Lewes Pound has developed social interactions and changed consumption patterns of its users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of resilience and people-centred risk reduction of disease have led to growing interest in local coping strategies in disease management. These ideas resonate strongly with the concept of self-care which has been identified as a primary public health resource and a predominant response to ill health in disease endemic environments such as Bangladesh. A series of qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to examine the adoption of self-care in rural Bangladesh to understand how human coping and resilience is achieved. Findings identify how self-care is implemented as part of resilience to disease through the utilisation of finite natural resources and seeking cost-effective healthcare solutions. It is advocated that self-care acts as an effective disease management strategy enabling households to cope with endemic disease. Although it does not represent a panacea for health equity, self-care could provide a mechanism for achieving better equity and social justice in health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to critically review the concept of resilience and to assess how it might be used both to understand and to evaluate local government responses to climate change. The relevance of the resilience agenda is located in the growing sense of uncertainty in the face of external economic and environmental 'shocks'. In the UK, in particular, the challenges of tackling climate change, responding to economic recession and introducing major cuts in public expenditure provide an appropriate context within which the utility of the resilience agenda can be examined. In emphasising the transformational view of resilience as 'bouncing forward' - as opposed to that of recovery or 'bouncing back' - the article highlights a number of features that could characterise a resilient local government approach to both mitigating and adapting to climate change. In acknowledging the emergence of a number of features of local resilience, the article concludes by considering how such an agenda can be further developed by local government. A key question that remains is the extent to which the local creativity, innovation and risk-taking needed for resilience can be developed given the economic and political constraints confronting local government in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]