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Healthy ecosystems such as forests and wetlands have a great potential to support adaptation to climate change and are the foundation of sustainable livelihoods. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) can help to protect and maintain healthy ecosystems providing resilience against the impacts of climate change. This paper explores the role of EbA in reconciling socio-economic development with the conservation and restoration of nature in Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya, East Africa. Using selected ecosystems in the Lake region, the paper identifies key EbA approaches and explores trade-offs and synergies at spatial and temporal scales and between different stakeholders. The research methods used for this study include site visits, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, participatory workshops and literature reviews. An analytical framework is applied to advance the understanding of EbA approaches and how they lead to synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services provision at spatial and temporal scales and multiple stakeholders. Our results show that EbA approaches such as ecosystem restoration have the potential to generate multiple adaptation benefits as well as synergies and trade-offs occurring at different temporal and spatial scales and affecting various stakeholder groups. Our paper underscores the need to identify EbA trade-offs and synergies and to explore the ways in which they are distributed in space and time and between different stakeholders to design better environmental and development programmes.

Amidst increasing interest in multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) in climate discourse, this paper identifies four rationales for why MSPs may be particularly suited to supporting adaptation from existing literatures. With a focus on MSPs that seek to support adaptation among micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya, we then investigate the extent to which this potential is being realised in practice, through interviews with partners engaged in the design and implementation of MSPs. This allows us to examine some of the opportunities, challenges and distributional risks that may result from employing MSPs to support adaptation. We find that through action and investment from donors and the public sector in areas such as research, data access, relationship building, training and capacity building, access to finance and business incubation, MSPs can enable a wide range of private sector actors to deliver adaptation resources to SMEs. Beneficiaries include small-scale SMEs in agricultural value chains in remote regions, that could otherwise fall outside of market inclusion. As such, respondents in this research typically considered MSPs to present an exciting opportunity to plug gaps in adaptation and development finance. Further analysis, however, suggests that dependence on market mechanisms for delivering adaptation resources means that MSPs risk excluding the poorest groups, exposing businesses to new risks and reproducing existing inequalities. Additionally, MSPs often remain heavily dependent on donor-led organisations for both resources and momentum. In Kenya, opportunities to develop more integrated responses to supporting the adaptive capacity of SMEs are being missed through a disconnect between the practice of MSPs and national public sector development frameworks and institutions.

The world is characterised bya mosaic of borders. They demarcate differences in space and enable governments to make sense of that space and organise human behaviour and movement (Popescu 2013). Yet, they also create political, economic, social and cultural divisions. It is critical to overcome these divisions to deal with some of the major challenges, such as climate change, we are faced with this centurary. There is growing recognition of the need for collaboration and co-operation across borders to overcome the divisions they create.

Post-disaster social recovery remains the least understood of the disaster phases despite increased risks of extreme events leading to disasters due to climate change. This paper contributes to advance this knowledge by focusing on the disaster recovery process of the Australian coastal town of Cardwell which was affected by category 4/5 Tropical Cyclone Yasi in 2011. Drawing on empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews with Cardwell residents post-Yasi, it examines issues related to social recovery in the first year of the disaster and 2 years later. Key findings discuss the role played by community members, volunteers and state actors in Cardwell’s post-disaster social recovery, especially with respect to how current disaster risk management trends based on self-reliance and shared responsibility unfolded in the recovery phase. Lessons learnt concerning disaster recovery governance are then extracted to inform policy implementation for disaster risk management to support social recovery and enhance disaster resilience in the light of climate change.

Studies of climate change at specific intervals of future warming have primarily been addressed through top-down approaches using climate projections and modelled impacts. In contrast, bottom-up approaches focus on the recent past and present vulnerability. Here, we examine climate signals at different increments of warming and consider the need to reconcile top-down and bottom-up approaches. We synthesise insights from recent studies in three climate-sensitive systems where change is a defining feature of the human-environment system. Whilst top-down and bottom-up approaches generate complementary insights into who and what is at risk, integrating their results is a much-needed step towards developing relevant information to address the needs of immediate adaptation decisions.

Even though there is an increasing recognition of the importance of supporting local level adaptation to disasters associated to climate change, it is still not fully understood how communities cope with them. In particular, a key dimension that is less well understood is the importance of social capital and the role it plays in enabling communities to respond. This research aims to address this gap through a case study with two semi-coastal communities in Mexico that have being hit by hurricanes recently. Structured and semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect data, which was analyzed through an interpretive approach. Network analysis was also carried out to explain the role of the different actors in the response to disturbances as hurricanes and the possible relationship with social capital. Results showed that social capital is relevant for coping with hurricanes; although bonding relationships were acknowledged as the most relevant for supporting when these events occur; linking relationships were also recognized as fundamental, particularly for responses on the long term (productive diversification, improvements in infrastructure). These findings are useful for designing better-fitted schemes towards adaptation, as one of the communities showed more vulnerability due to an absence of links with external actors. Also, it demonstrates that climate change research with different approaches, such as network analysis, is fundamental to get more in-depth data to design context specific strategies to cope with disasters associated to this phenomenon.

This chapter contributes to the literature on private sector adaptation by empirically exploring how female-led micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSMEs) in Kenya’s semiarid lands (SALs) experience and respond to climate risk. The chapter argues that strong sociocultural orientations around gender roles and resource use and access not only confine female-led MSMEs to sectors that experience higher exposure to climate risk – most notably agriculture – but also trigger more pronounced barriers to building resilience within their businesses, including reduced access to land, capital, markets, new technology, and educational opportunities. Faced by these barriers, female entrepreneurs may pursue unsustainable forms of coping, as part of which business activity is scaled back through reduced profits, loss of business, and the sale of valuable business assets. Such strategies may help enterprises to cope in the short term but may undermine longer-term MSME adaptive capacity. Social networks, such as women’s groups and table banking initiatives, appear to be crucial adaptation tools. Additionally, a strong dependency exists between household resilience and business resilience, implying that building resilience at the household level could support adaptive capacity among female-led MSMEs. Supporting the adaptive capacity of women in business should be a policy priority.

The private sector is increasingly recognised as having important potential to help society adapt and become more resilient to climate change. Yet there is limited research examining how to promote and facilitate private sector adaptation in developing countries and in particular how governments can create an enabling environment to stimulate and incentivise domestic private sector adaptation. In this paper, we address this gap through a review of the key factors required to provide an enabling environment for the private sector denoted by existing adaptation literatures. We do this with a focus on adaptation by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To advance this review, we draw insights from a much larger, yet generally independent, literature on enabling environments for private sector development. This literature disaggregates the private sector and highlights key constraints to the development and growth of SMEs in SSA, including deficient infrastructure and evidence of an African gap in access to and use of finance. Both areas of scholarship are then combined in a framework identifying key ‘building blocks’ constituting enabling conditions for private sector adaptation. The framework could be applied in many ways including to focus strategies to enhance private sector adaptation and to identify trade-offs and interactions between policies or initiatives surrounding private sector development. By combining these literatures, we call for a more holistic approach to developing enabling environments for SME adaptation and climate resilient development, that addresses the broader structural deficits that condition vulnerability and barriers that limit adaptive capacity.

Multisectoral partnerships are increasingly cited as a mechanism to deliver and improve disaster risk management. Yet, partnerships are not a panacea and more research is required to understand the role that they can play in disaster risk management and particularly disaster risk reduction. This paper investigates how partnerships can incentivise flood risk reduction by focusing on the UK public-private partnership on flood insurance. Developing the right flood insurance arrangements to incentivise flood risk reduction and adaptation to climate change is a key challenge. In the face of rising flood risks due to climate change and socio-economic development insurance partnerships can no longer afford to focus only on the risk transfer function. However, while expectations of the insurance industry have traditionally been high when it comes to flood risk management, the insurance industry alone will not provide the solution to the challenge of rising risks. The case of flood insurance in the UK illustrates this: even national government and industry together cannot fully address these risks and other actors need to be involved to create strong incentives for risk reduction. Using an agent-based model focused on surface water flood risk in London we analyse how other partners could strengthen the insurance partnership by reducing flood risk and thus helping to maintain affordable insurance premiums. Our findings are relevant for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes to incentivise flood risk management and climate adaptation in the UK and also internationally.

Recent extreme weather events worldwide have highlighted the vulnerability of many urban settlements to future climatic change. These events are expected to increase in frequency and intensity under climate change scenarios. Although the climatic change may be unavoidable, effective planning and response can reduce its impacts. Drawing on empirical data from a 3-year multi-sectoral study of climate change adaptation for human settlements in the South East Queensland region, Australia, this paper draws on multi-sectoral perspectives to propose enablers for maximising synergies between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to achieve improved planning outcomes. Multi-sectoral perspectives are discussed under four groups of identified enablers: spatial planning; cross-sectoral planning; social/community planning; and strategic/long term planning. Based on the findings, a framework is proposed to guide planning systems to maximise synergies between the fields of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to minimise the vulnerability of communities to extreme weather events in highly urbanised areas.

The threat of climate change demands that human settlements adapt to unavoidable impacts. Climate change is a complex problem that requires traditional disciplines to work together to facilitate an integrated and coordinated response to its impacts. Transdisciplinary research approaches have been recognised for being well placed to aid responses to complex problems such as climate change. This paper draws on the experience of the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQCARI), Australia, to reflect upon the challenges involved in undertaking transdisciplinary research aimed at developing and improving a range of adaptation options for specific sectors as well as across sectors. Challenges and learning's are discussed based on the three phases of transdisciplinary research processes: problem framing and team building, co-creation of solution-oriented transferable knowledge, and (re)integration and application of created knowledge. Four key insights are then discussed to advance transdisciplinary research approaches for climate change adaptation: adoption of a dynamic learning approach such as learning-by-doing/doing-by-learning to provide sufficient flexibility and scope to navigate potential barriers and conflicts; selection of social sciences to drive integration; choice of one sector as a platform for integration; and acknowledgement of existing barriers and limitations associated with the political context in which the research takes place.

Climate change and increasing urbanization are projected to result in an increase in surface water flooding and consequential damages in the future. In this paper, we present insights from a novel Agent Based Model (ABM), applied to a London case study of surface water flood risk, designed to assess the interplay between different adaptation options; how risk reduction could be achieved by homeowners and government; and the role of flood insurance and the new flood insurance pool, Flood Re, in the context of climate change. The analysis highlights that while combined investment in property-level flood protection and sustainable urban drainage systems reduce surface water flood risk, the benefits can be outweighed by continued development in high risk areas and the effects of climate change. In our simulations, Flood Re is beneficial in its function to provide affordable insurance, even under climate change. However, the scheme does face increasing financial pressure due to rising surface water flood damages. If the intended transition to risk-based pricing is to take place then a determined and coordinated strategy will be needed to manage flood risk, which utilises insurance incentives, limits new development, and supports resilience measures. Our modelling approach and findings are highly relevant for the ongoing regulatory and political approval process for Flood Re as well as for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes to incentivise flood risk management and climate adaptation in the UK and internationally.

Climate change impacts challenge artificially imposed administrative boundaries and expose the need for improved collaboration across borders. However, jurisdictional boundaries represent one of the major obstacles to an integrated response to climate change impacts. Overcoming this barrier is particularly challenging in cases requiring collaboration between institutions operating under different jurisdictions. This paper focuses on the challenges to cross-border institutional arrangements and the subsequent implications for climate change adaptation in the planning sector. Drawing on empirical insights, the paper identifies the key challenges for cross-border arrangements at both local and state levels. It then uses the example provided by the Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project operative in the Gold Coast (Queensland) and Tweed (New South Wales) border region to discuss the complexity of planning for climate change adaptation across borders.

This paper focuses on learning from existing cross-border governance arrangements with a view to strengthening and improving climate change adaptation within the Australian context. Using an institutional learning framework, the research offers a critical analysis of two Australian cross-border cases: (1) the Murray-Darling Basin, and (2) the Australian Alps. The research findings focus on the issues of geographic (place), administrative (space) and political (territory) fragmentation as key concepts that underpin integrated environmental planning and management in practice. There are significant implications for climate change adaptation in evolving cross-border regions at scale that this paper highlights.

Adapting to climate change requires the engagement of all actors in society. Until recently, the predominant research focus has been on governments, communities, and the third sector as key actors in the adaptation process. Yet, there is a growing emphasis internationally on understanding the role of and the need to engage businesses in adaptation given their potential to finance projects, develop technologies and innovative solutions, and enhance the scale and cost-effectiveness of certain adaptation measures. Large national and multinational corporations are among the key actors in this respect. Already, many of these corporations are purportedly taking steps to adapt their operations to climate change. Some stated reasons for their engagement include minimizing potential impacts on value chains, improving resource efficiency, enhancing production of sustainable raw materials, and supporting customers’, suppliers’, and communities’ climate change adaptation efforts. However, there is a paucity of work analysing adaptation actions by these corporations, their motivations and contribution to broader adaptation and climate-resilient development efforts, as well as possible instances of maladaptation. We apply a three-tier framework on drivers, responses, and outcomes to examine the state of knowledge according to recent literature on private sector and corporate adaptation to climate change. Our review highlights that the literature on the impact and outcomes of corporate adaptation actions is sparse and we consider the implications for future research. Our analysis concludes with a reflection on the relevance of corporate-led adaptation—for the companies themselves, policymakers at all scales, as well as society at large.

Flooding is recognised as one of the most common and costliest natural disasters in England. Flooding in urban areas during heavy rainfall is known as ‘surface water flooding’, considered to be the most likely cause of flood events and one of the greatest short-term climate risks for London. In this paper we present results from a novel Agent-Based Model designed to assess the interplay between different adaptation options, different agents, and the role of flood insurance and the flood insurance pool, Flood Re, in the context of climate change. The model illustrates how investment in adaptation options could reduce London’s surface water flood risk, today and in the future. However, benefits can be outweighed by continued development in high risk areas and the effects of climate change. Flood Re is beneficial in its function to provide affordable insurance, even under climate change. However, it offers no additional benefits in terms of overall risk reduction, and will face increasing pressure due to rising surface water flood risk in the future. The modelling approach and findings are highly relevant for reviewing the proposed Flood Re scheme, as well as for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes, and broader multi-sectoral partnerships, to incentivise flood risk management in the UK and internationally.

An increasing proportion of Australians are living in the coastal zone, which is also becoming increasingly prone to sea-level rise, storm surge, and flooding. The likely severity of the potential impacts of climate change on Australia’s coastal communities has also been recognized by the Australian government through the recent national coastal inquiry. Similarly, some coastal local governments have become key advocates for progressive adaptation policies, although many continue to face significant capacity constraints in terms of resources, skills, and support from other tiers of government. South East Queensland has been identified as being particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; local governments experience adaptive capacity issues primarily relating to infrastructure provision, emergency response capacity, and the changing socioeconomic characteristics of the region. Biophysical, socioeconomic, and political drivers of change are also likely to influence the effectiveness of adaptation options in the region into the future.

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are a group of 49 of the world's poorest countries. They have contributed least to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) but they are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This is due to their location in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world and their low capacities to adapt to these changes. Adaptation to climate change has become an important policy priority in the international negotiations on climate change in recent years. However, it has yet to become a major policy issue within developing countries, especially the LDCs. This article focuses on two LDCs, namely Bangladesh and Mali, where progress has been made regarding identifying potential adaptation options. For example, Bangladesh already has effective disaster response systems, and strategies to deal with reduced freshwater availability, and Mali has a well-developed programme for providing agro-hydro-meteorological assistance to communities in times of drought. However, mu...

This chapter introduces three case studies of adaptation to climate variability and change presented at the 2010 Climate Adaptation Futures Conference held on the Gold Coast, Australia. The case studies are from different contexts: rural household adaptation to drought in South Africa; a vulnerability assessment of the absolute homeless in Canada; and community-based adaptation in the Pacific Islands. They were chosen with the intention of illuminating how similar barriers and opportunities exist despite different contexts, with the aim of providing insights into successful adaptation. Each case study focuses on the following three issues: (1) key findings for climate change adaptation; (2) barriers and/or challenges to adaptation; and (3) insights into successful adaptation. Based on these case studies, the chapter argues that successful adaptation to climate change is about adapting to multiple stressors and, in particular in these case studies, the management of a dominant stress, such as access to resources.

This chapter presents a ‘first cut’ regional vulnerability assessment that was undertaken for the South East Queensland (SEQ) region of Australia as part of a broader Climate Adaptation Research Initiative investigating adaptation of human settlements to climate change in SEQ. Despite the well-known shortcomings of vulnerability assessments, it is argued that regional vulnerability assessments of this type can be used as a starting point to enable the identification of vulnerability hotspots within a region and thus inform climate change adaptation planning and policy determination. Regional vulnerability assessments and the identification of vulnerability hotspots can provide insights and focus for policymakers across all sectors. They enable the identification of the circumstances that put people and places at risk as well as the factors that reduce people’s ability to respond to changes.

South East Queensland, one of the fastest growing regions in Australia, is highly exposed to the impact of climate change, especially on the coast. This paper explores the vulnerability of the coastal system as part of a wider regional system. This is carried out using an integrated approach combining quantitative indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, spatially represented at the suburb level, and an analysis of the management system. The results include an assessment of the spatial vulnerability of the system and its implications to coastal management, to be used as a platform for discussion with stakeholders and decision makers at local and regional levels.

Empirical estimates of costs and benefits can serve as a key criterion for making decisions on adaptation. They can also be useful for establishing "price tags" for overall adaptation needs that would then need to be met through international, domestic, and private funding sources. There is a relatively large amount of information on adaptation costs at the sectoral level, although it is unevenly distributed. Studies for coastal zones show that while significant investment will be needed for coastal protection, total costs of protection represent a relatively small percentage of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, there are significant regional differences and the normalised protection costs might be significantly higher for certain regions. In the agricultural sector, a general finding from available studies is that relatively modest adaptation measures can significantly offset declines in projected yield as a result of climate change, although these benefits depend upon the crop, growing region, and level of climate change. For the other sectors there are only a few isolated estimates of adaptation costs and benefits. Aggregate, multi-sectoral studies on costs of adaptation are also becoming available at the global level and, in some cases, at the national level. While potentially relevant from a policy perspective, available global and national estimates of adaptation costs have significant limitations: scaling up to aggregate levels from a limited (and very local) evidence base; issues of both under counting as well as double-counting; and finally lack of clear articulation of the benefits of the adaptation measures that are costed.

The winter tourism industry provides a significant contribution to the economy of Alpine countries. This chapter analyses the snow-reliability of the Alpine areas of Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and also provides a comprehensive discussion of adaptation measures and their limits. Under a warmer climate, the number of naturally snow-reliable areas would drop significantly. Sensitivity to climate change varies markedly within the Alpine regions. The winter tourism industry has responded to the implications of observed climatic changes, and a range of technological and behavioural adaptation measures have been put into practice. Artificial snow-making remains the dominant adaptation strategy. However, if warming trends continue, snow-making and other technical measures may not suffice to prevent reductions in snow-reliability. In some regions a transition towards non-snow dependent economic activities might be needed. Governments can play a key role in the adaptation process by overseeing what is, to a large extent, autonomous adaptation driven by market forces, and also by facilitating transition for those at the "losing" end of the adaptation equation. This chapter covers developments in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

In coastal management under climatic pressures, the final aim of vulnerability assessments, system thinking or scenario planning exercises is to inform the identification of the most appropriate adaptation options for communities under risk of coastal hazards and climate change. In this paper we show how we combined these techniques for coastal settlements adaptation in South East Queensland, one of the most populated Australian regions, including: (i) the use of suburb-level mapping and numerical modelling to identify and assess vulnerability hotspots (ii) the development and testing of systems thinking and bayesian modelling techniques to explore adaptation pathways and the adaptive capacity of coastal communities and (iii) the use of scenario planning techniques to test adaptation options in an uncertain future. We show how these outcomes were used to develop a range of research-based adaptation policies, programs and actions and to inform the preparation of practical guidance for councils across Queensland.

Climate change impacts affecting coastal areas, such as sea-level rise and storm surge events, are expected to have significant social, economic and environmental consequences worldwide. Ongoing population growth and development in highly urbanised coastal areas will exacerbate the predicted impacts on coastal settlements. Improving the adaptation potential of highly vulnerable coastal communities will require greater levels of planning and policy integration across sectors and scales. However, to date, there is little evidence in the literature which demonstrates how climate policy integration is being achieved. This paper contributes to this gap in knowledge by drawing on the example provided by the process of developing cross-sectoral climate change adaptation policies and programmes generated for three coastal settlement types as part of the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQCARI), a 3-year multi-sectoral study of climate change adaptation options for human settlements in South East Queensland, Australia. In doing so, we first investigate the benefits and challenges to cross-sectoral adaptation to address climate change broadly and in coastal areas. We then describe how cross-sectoral adaptation policies and programmes were generated and appraised involving the sectors of urban planning and management, coastal management, emergency management, human health and physical infrastructure as part of SEQCARI. The paper concludes by discussing key considerations that can inform the development and assessment of cross-sectoral climate change adaptation policies and programmes in highly urbanised coastal areas.