Adaptation Strategies for Reducing
Vulnerability to Future Environmental
Change
Ioan Fazey
Gamarra, J., Fischer, J., Reed, M.S., Stringer, L.C., Christie, M.
ioan.fazey@st-andrews.ac.uk
Key message: Responses to environmental change often exacerbate
problems or create new ones, so we need to be careful in the way we
respond/adapt to change.
Outline
3 key prerequisites to prevent increases in vulnerability to
future change:
Responses need to:
1. Remove causes of impacts/change
2. Maintain and enhance response diversity
3. Nurture human capacities to take up response options
Fazey, I., Gamarra, J.G.P., Fischer, J., Reed, M.S., Stringer, L., Christie, M., In Press.
Adaptation strategies to reduce vulnerability to future environmental change. Frontiers
in Ecology and the Environment.
Prerequisite #1:
Responses need to remove causes of impacts
• Without removal, impacts can increase or be reinforced by
responses;
• Bio-physical and human behavioural causes
• E.g. Flooding
– Bio-physical: Flood
storage capacity
– Human behaviour:
Development on the
floodplain
Removal of
ultimate causes
COMPLETE
CHANGE
Mis-Alignment
Full
Alignment
Partial
Alignment
Change in
Behaviour
Partial Techno-Fix
Buffering
NO CHANGE/
REMOVAL
Full Techno-Fix
Reduction in BioPhysical Factor
FULL REMOVAL
Change
No reduction
Partial reduction
Full reduction
Mis-alignment
Partial alignment
Full alignment
Replacement of housing with
Houses have downstairs
Flexible land uses that respond
other development that still
areas that flood regularly,
to flooding are used, such as
reduces flood storage capacity but are then cleaned out
houses on stilts or intermittent
(e.g. irrigated agriculture)
livestock grazing
Buffering
No change
Behaviour Change
(development on floodplain)
Removal of biophysical cause (loss flood storage)
Partial techno-fix
Full techno-fix
Insurance taken out on houses Flood storage capacity is
Flood storage capacity is
to buffer against floods
created upstream to reduce
created upstream to fully
flooding risk in the affected
eliminate flooding risk in the
area
affected area
Key Points: Reducing causes of impacts
• But adaptation strategies
have different qualities;
• To reduce impacts,
buffering strategies usually
least desirable, aligning
strategies most desirable;
• Multiple causes, not easy
to identify.
Prerequisite #2
Maintain and enhance response diversity
• Responses can result in loss of response diversity;
• Why is response diversity
important?
– Resilience and
thresholds;
– Altering trajectories.
Key points: Maintaining response
diversity
• Response diversity
becomes more important
as rates of change
increase;
• Need to remove
conditions that constrain,
and design policies that
directly enhance,
response diversity;
T. Hartel and C. Moga
• Requires understanding of the relationships between social,
economic, ecological and local contexts.
Prerequisite #3
Nurture human capacities to take up response
options
Social capacities
• Conflict resolution, shared learning, flexible institutions;
• Such capacity can be eroded, for example, by adaptations that
promote individualism and top down policies.
Individual capacities:
– Adaptive expertise
- Exposure to change
L. Cliggett
Values
• Need values conducive to
environmental sustainability;
• These can be eroded by, e.g.
dissociation from environmental
change
- e.g. buffering responses (air
conditioning, flood defences)
Conclusions
• Implementing effective adaptation is much more complex
than is often perceived;
• Most strategies do not result in changes in human
behaviour;
• Very little consideration of the ‘lock-in’ effects of responses;
• Challenges in maintaining capacities for people to change;
• Complexity and uncertainty around adaptation highlights
importance of mitigation;
• Complexity provides opportunities as well as difficulties.