Adaptation and the community

T Grothmann, A Prutsch and I Schauser
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Environmental Protection Agency, Austria (UBA Vienna)

The EU target is to stabilize the global mean temperature to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. But even a global increase of 2 °C will result in impacts to which Europe will need to adapt. Climate change impacts affect most sectors (e.g. energy, forestry, water management), different actor groups (government, business, NGOs, civil society), all regions (urban, rural etc.) and all levels of decision-making (local, federal, national, international). To avoid conflicts and create synergies between adaptation activities of different sectors, actors, regions and levels of decision-making coordinated and integrated adaptation governance and management is necessary.

To support coordinated and integrated adaptation action an ongoing project funded by the European Environment Agency (project consortium: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Environmental Protection Agencies of Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, AEA Technology) develops a set of generic guiding principles for good practice in adaptation to climate change, which shall serve as a common basis for coordinated adaptation of different sectors, actors, regions and levels of decision-making.

In a first step, literature on adaptation to climate change (including general guidance documents and sectoral approaches) was identified, analyzed and integrated to develop a set of 12 guiding principles for adaptation. These principles consist of a title and a short paragraph explaining the principle in more detail. The current titles are: Cooperate with all relevant stakeholders; Ensure commitment and leadership; Build awareness and knowledge; Deal with uncertainties; Explore
and prioritize potential climate change impacts; Explore a wide spectrum of adaptation options; Prioritize adaptation options; Focus on win-win, low regret and urgent options; Avoid maladaptation; Mainstream adaptation within existing structures and processes; Realize adaptation at the most effective level; Monitor and evaluate systematically.

In a second step, the guiding principles were evaluated in an online survey by more than 250 adaptation experts from all European countries, from local to European decision making levels, from governmental institutes, non-governmental organizations, business organizations, and research institutes, and from 17 climate sensitive sectors such as civil protection, energy, forestry, health management, protection of biodiversity, tourism, water management.

The results of the survey confirm the generic nature and the wide applicability of the guiding principles. At all levels of decision making and in all sectors the experts agreed upon the usefulness of the principles for their fields of work. More than 80% of the experts agreed that the guiding principles integrate the most important aspects of useful adaptation action, give very useful orientation in realizing adaptation and that they could be used as a basis for cooperative adaptation activities of various actors and stakeholders in Europe.

Despite the high levels of agreements with the principles, many experts gave very useful comments how to further improve the guiding principles. These comments also revealed disagreements among the experts regarding various aspects of adaptation governance and management. For example, whereas some participants of the survey very much stress the importance of bottom-
up, participatory adaptation strategies others focus on top-down, regulatory and legislative measures. Based on the comments a final set of guiding principles for good practice in adaptation to climate change will be produced and made available in 2010.

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N Farmer
Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA), Australia

Issues:

• Australian beaches are well known across Australia and many parts of the world as being integral to Australia’s outdoor lifestyle
• The impacts of climate change are currently affecting Australian beaches and will continue to do so into the future, the extent to which is open for debate.
• Risk management, vulnerability mapping and response planning provide opportunities for understanding the actions that should be taken to protect the recreation and safety attributes of Australia’s beaches.
• Surf lifesavers and lifeguards have played an important role in beach safety for over 100 years, a role that will grow in need as the impacts on our coast become greater.
• In many countries of the world people have settled by the coast. For example in Australia more than 85% of the population live near the coast and our tourist beaches alone receive an estimated 100 million visitations every year. The 56,000km coastline of Australia, along which there are more than 11,900 beaches, while an attraction for living and visiting, has inherent and largely unpredictable risk.
• The coast and beaches of Australia are also favoured by locals and tourists alike for recreation whether for bathing, swimming, surfing, boating and a range of other activities. In a recent study by SLSA, it has been estimated that more than 100 million annual visitations are made to Australia’s beaches.
• The impacts of climate change that include sea level rise and increases in severity of storm events will impact access to and safety of affected beaches.
• In the past 103 years Surf Life Saving has saved over 550,000 lives at our beaches across Australia and continues to rescue more than 12,000 people every year. However, of the 11,942 beaches identified by the Australian Beach Safety and Management Program (ABSAMP), less than 400 (3.4%) have a lifesaving service.
• These services are largely provided by volunteers, but supported by paid lifeguards during periods when volunteers are not readily available. Over the past 103 years, surf lifesaving Clubhouses have been constructed during periods and at locations where regulatory processes and environmental focus were less developed than in 2010.
• What will the emerging future bring to beach access, recreational use and to the safety of the people who use them? Changes will be many and varied and will most likely include:
• Length and width of beaches will change due to sand movement Hazards that are currently well known and visible, may be hidden under sea Wave breaks and surf zones may shift Regular studies will be needed in future years in five to ten year terms to better understand leisure needs and allow modifications to beach-based recreation and safety services to ensure Australians and tourists continue to receive the social, economic and environmental benefits provided through the use of the beach.
• Will we see an increase in drowning mortality and morbidity due to impacts of climate change on our coast and with the increase in immigration of people from nations unfamiliar with open coastline, with limited swimming ability and lacking in knowledge of surf conditions?
• Not if SLSA, allied organizations and scientists collaborate and respond to the challenges ahead.

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Y van Kasteren and C Harris
Earth Science and Resource Engineering, CSIRO, Australia
Sustainable Ecosystems, CSIRO, Australia

Communities of place or localities evolve dynamically. Traditionally shaped by their geographic location and social, economic and political forces (both internal and external), communities today are now facing a new challenge, that of climate change. Rural communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change and in Australia, communities such as Mildura in Western Victoria are dependant on the land for their livelihoods and face unique challenges in adapting in the face of changing climate. In the words of the Mayor of Mildura “water issues are at the core of our community’s wellbeing”.

This paper analyses media coverage over the period 2000-2009 to track the impact of climate variability and climate change on the rural communities of Sunraysia. The Sunraysia region is based around Mildura in North Western Victoria, often referred to as a green oasis because of the intense horticulture the region is famous for. Sunraysia lies on the Murray River, encompassing the local government areas of Mildura and Wentworth on the Victoria/New South Wales border. The livelihood of many residents in Sunraysia has traditionally relied on intensive horticulture largely dependant on irrigation, in particular grapes, citrus, as well dryland farming, including grain. Among other things the Mildura/Sunraysia region produces 95% of Australia’s dried vine fruit, 69% of table grapes and 23% of wine grape crush.. Nearly 40% of Mildura businesses have an agricultural base and around one in five jobs in the Mildura region are involved in agriculture. The population of the region is approximately 60,000 and Mildura is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia.

The qualitative data analysis software NVIVO was used to conduct a longitudinal analysis of adaptation to climate change in the Sunraysia region over the period of a decade (2000-2009). The paper addresses how changes in climate and water availability have impacted Mildura and the communities of Sunraysia, and community response to the challenges bought on by climate change.

The text corpus for the analysis was drawn from the Factiva Dow Jones Media Database using a key word search of Mildura or Sunraysia in all media. No other search limitations were imposed so as not to over represent the relative importance of the issues around climate change to the community. In order to narrow the focus to articles which were specifically about Mildura or Sunraysia, rather than those which happened to include a mention of one of either of the keywords, articles were sorted by order of relevance and only the top 30% of full text articles for each year were selected for the analysis. NVIVO word searches were used to locate those articles which contained references to climate, water, water, the Murray, rain or rainfall, storm and temperature. These articles were then coded, focussing on cause and effect relationships associated with weather, water and climate.

Key issues for the region have been ongoing drought and subsequent low inflows into the Murray River. Uncertain rainfall and changing water allocations have had severe social and economic impacts on the community and the paper outlines key factors in the community response to climate change.

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F Crick and K Vincent
Urban Research Program, Griffith University, Australia
School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007 outlines evidence that climate change is already happening and that further climate change will occur irrespective of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. With many developing countries already struggling to cope with climate variability, they are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Despite considerable work on livelihood strategies and coping with climate variability and change in Africa over the past 30 years, there has yet been little examination of the actual processes through which adaptations occur, especially what leads to successful pathways of adaptation. This is important as the magnitude of climate change projected over the next century will exceed that of the past century, thus necessitating adaptation to ensure that development trajectories are not undermined.

This paper outlines the adaptation responses developed in communities that are faced with different climate risks, the barriers/constraints they face and the processes through which some households are able to ’successfully’ adapt (that is, introduce responses which reduce their vulnerability to future climate risks). Community-based adaptation studies are often criticised as being too context-specific, and often extrapolating lessons learned to transfer to other situations is difficult. This paper synthesises the findings of household adaptation responses and processes in three rural communities in Limpopo province, South Africa, that were studied separately for the authors’ doctoral research.

The research explored the different coping and adaptation strategies developed by rural households in response to weather extremes, from drought to flood. In particular we investigated the factors that govern the processes of adaptation, including the role that social capital plays, the features of social capital that may facilitate adaptation, the importance of key agents or leaders, and also the role of non-local and non-climatic factors. The paper finds both similarities and key differences in the way these communities adapt, especially with regards to the role of social capital in the process. The findings suggest that, at least within the same political economy country context, common lessons can be learned from individual community-based adaptation, and that these should be considered in the formulation of national level adaptation policies and strategies to ensure that autonomous and planned adaptation is complementary, rather than potentially in conflict.

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J Nanteza1 and P I Mukwaya
Department of Geography, Makerere University, Uganda

One of the challenges the world is facing today is global climate change and its associated impacts. Uganda is a climate sensitive country with over 90% of the population dependent on climate sensitive sectors. Gradual and sudden variations in climatic parameters therefore render the livelihoods of Ugandans very vulnerable. A number of approaches to enhance
the resilience of communities to climate change and variability in Uganda exist. This paper attempts to review and assess the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms and governance arrangements that are/have been put in place to enhance the adaptive capacity of pastoral communities in the face of increasing occurrence of climate disasters. Special attention is given to the pastoral communities in the Karamoja cluster / cattle corridor of Uganda, which holds over 90% of the national livestock. Evidence from the cluster indicates that livestock mobility is the major adaptation method to floods and droughts among pastoral groups. Other measures include reliance on remittances and social networks for support. Several adaptation challenges among the pastoral groups include: increasing frequency of droughts and water shortages, cattle rustling, land tenure systems and gradual collapse of informal institutional/cultural systems that held communities together in times of crises. Formal multi-level governance structures and institutional mechanisms have been put in place such as: the National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA), National Development Plan [NDP], Karamoja Development Programme, Northern Uganda Development Programme and the restructuring of the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, to take care of abrupt events and further enhance the livelihoods of affected communities. Worse still there is a general lack of awareness about appropriate adaptation measures. This paper argues that community adaptation capacities have not been fully understood in Uganda and need to be framed appropriately within the national development agenda.

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S Dovers
Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

Most research literature and policy discussion on adaptation to climate change and variability is strong on general aspirations and desired end states, but weak on the actual policy and institutional means of achieving these. This is especially the case with respect to mechanisms to implement climate policy integration or mainstreaming. While this is to be expected given the relatively recent focus on adaptation (compared to mitigation), this paper argues that it is also caused by a somewhat closed, self-referencing literature and policy discourse, and a failure to connect with highly relevant bodies of existing theory and practice in cognate sectors including disaster management, natural resource management, regional planning, sustainable development and environmental policy integration. Moreover, there has been insufficient reference made to generic bodies of knowledge in public policy, institutional theory and public administration. The paper will detail this situation, and survey existing bodies of knowledge and practice to identify actual and proposed policy and institutional structures and processes that may serve to achieve incorporation of adaptation imperatives across portfolios, jurisdictions and policy sectors. The papers contributions include both a general reorientation of focus in adaptation research and policy, and specific policy and institutional mechanisms with evident potential to be used to advance adaptation policy integration. The latter contribution uses known types of policy and institutional structures and processes, and extant, described examples from SE Asia and Australasia, including in areas such as administrative structures, strategic assessment regimes, sub-national institutional change, regional planning, and cross-scale governance mechanisms. These examples offer the prospect of progress with adaptation policy that is quicker, more efficient and more effective than appears possible on the arguments and evidence in most adaptation literature and policy debates. The paper extends the analyses and propositions in Dovers (2009) Normalizing adaptation, Glob Env Change, 19; and Dovers and Hezri (forthcoming) Policy and institutions: the means to the ends of adaptation, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change.

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A Magnan
Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations(IDDRI), France

Adaptive capacity (AC) is generally considered as only determined by economic and technological capacities. Yet, many other characteristics of a community can play a major role in the ability of a society or a territory to react to and anticipate climate changes (e.g. territorial identity or social relationships). What we argue here is that the current limited view of AC leans on a relative immaturity of the science of adaptation in understanding the real underlying processes and factors which explain why a society/territory is (un)able to cope with future climate threats. Indeed, few frameworks for studying AC with precision currently exist. This communication will consist in a proposal for a research framework which is based upon three main fields of investigation:
(i) The influential factors of AC – We will address the potential role of different factors (the ‘general living conditions’, the ‘political and administrative structure’, the ’societal cohesion’, the ‘economic diversification’) in influencing AC. The role of environmental features of the territory (’spatial configuration’, ‘environmental sensitivity’) in reinforcing or weakening AC will also be discussed. Some methodological consideration for field work will be presented;
(ii) The relevant spatial and temporal scales of AC – This point will concern the identification of the spatial and temporal dimensions of AC: is local scale more relevant than the national and international ones for implementing adaptation
to climate change? Is long term the main temporal scale adaptation must be designed for? We will show that the relevance of spatial and temporal dimensions of AC leans on the connections between spatial and temporal scales respectively. Furthermore, we will emphasize that the spatiotemporal combinations are also of major importance, calling for example the scheme ’short term/local scale vs. long term/national and international scales’ into question;
(iii) The links between AC, vulnerability and the level of development – If we consider that AC is not only dependant on economic and technological features, then the correlation between vulnerability and poverty cannot be sustained. Wealthy populations are also vulnerable to climate change, and their AC would not necessarily be sufficient to cope with future threats. Our main purpose here will be to show that poor and wealthy populations are differently vulnerable to climate change and that their AC are themselves very different. We will then emphasize the importance of the contextualisation of AC studies.
Finally, we will demonstrate how this research framework could feed a more general reflection on the adaptation pathways for dealing with climate change. Indeed, we argue that adaptation is a three-dimension concept: a process, a state and a strategy, referring to the mechanisms and steps of adaptation (theoretical point of view), the forms of adaptation (what adaptation is on the field?) and the policy dimension of adaptation, respectively. The previous fields of research should bring new knowledge on this three-dimension conception, and allow for the understanding and the identifying of “adaptation paths”. These paths are entry points to a broader reflection on sustainability and “development paths”.

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D K Bardsley and S M Sweeney
School of Social Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Australia
Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation, South Australia, Australia

Much decision-making that is undertaken for natural resource management (NRM) assumes a stable although variable climatic situation. Projections of future climate change, particularly in the regions experiencing a Mediterranean climate in Australia, suggest that the assumption of stability can no longer hold. The challenge is to inform governance and management of natural resources so that effective adaptation is possible, even in the case of changing climatic conditions. The paper describes a regional approach to adapt to climate change that focused on engaging the NRM community. Recognising that new levels of risk are apparent, which cannot be properly assessed by current management and planning tools, the South Australian Government and the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management (AMLR NRM) Board worked in partnership to implement a broad framework to assist decision-making within and across NRM sectors.

A decision-making framework provides a clear, logical progression for NRM managers to develop climate change adaptation strategies in their regions.

1. Awareness raising and ownership of climate change.
2. Vulnerability assessment of the region.
3. Development of adaptation responses.
4. Appropriate integration of adaptation responses into management and planning activities across different timeframes a. b. c. d. Incorporation of climate change into risk management approaches in the short-term. Application of adaptive management techniques that can be adjusted over time. Application of decisions based on the precautionary principle that allow for increased long-term risk. Rigorous analysis of alternative adaptation actions.
5. Ongoing revision, reassessment and alteration of those approaches.

An integrated vulnerability assessment for the region, showed that there is significant capacity for adaptation to potential climate change by 2030. In broad terms, the most vulnerable systems were initially assessed to be those that are under less human management and control such as biodiversity conservation, or those that have long management response timeframes, namely coastal and bushfire management, biodiversity conservation and perennial horticultural systems

A series of case studies of some of the more vulnerable systems such as soils, groundwater, biodiversity, perennial horticulture and coasts, and their interaction with climate change were developed. The case studies were designed to trial different approaches to developing adaptation responses and to avoid replicating other work underway in the region. These studies critically applied different approaches that could be used to support strategic planning for NRM systems in light of future climate change projections. The different case study approaches were: Scenario modelling; Applied participatory Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modelling; formal Environmental risk analysis; and Participatory action learning. They represented a spectrum of approaches, from those that rely strongly on empirical science-led analyses and scenario modelling through to stakeholder-led participatory research.

Scenario modelling successfully reinforced or improved the knowledge of climate change impacts and potential adaptation responses, particularly where resource use is currently close to the upper limit and is likely to become more so with projected climate change. However, scenario modelling outputs are limited by the range of factors included in the model, incomplete knowledge of current systems and their lack of immediate application.

The Applied and participatory GIS modelling confirmed that better integration between scientific researchers, planners and managers of natural resources expands knowledge of current and historic resource condition and enhances the legitimacy of planning conclusions. The lack of detailed base-line information in many NRM systems still limited this approach.

The environmental risk assessment process raised immediate and valid concerns, but the risk assessment framework struggled to guide a broader examination of industry needs and associated NRM issues over the longer term as many likelihoods and consequences of climate change on NRM systems are poorly understood.

The Participatory action learning approach supported stakeholders to analyse and use information, in combination with their own knowledge, to better understand the implications of climate change on their systems. The approach focused on the need to have multiple independent local adaptation responses to climate change running in parallel to planned regional activities. Although this approach lacked some credibility with the NRM board due to the lack of scientific input, by working closely with individuals who are involved in NRM activities, local responses can evolve to manage future risk.

The key initial step to undertaking planning for an uncertain future is the ownership by decision-makers of the emerging risk. By working closely with stakeholders through a process of knowledge development, decision- makers are empowered to build strategic responses to climate risk into their planning and policy. Peri-urban regions such as the AMLR are going to become increasingly contested as a result of climate change in association with the impacts of ongoing urbanisation upon vital natural resource regions. Governance of climate change within vulnerable peri-urban spaces will need to allow for the physical, systemic and conceptual “space” for social learning and the evolution of approaches for effective adaptation management and policy.

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J Prior
School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Australia

Communities themselves must actively participate in the assessment of likely climate change impacts (positive and negative), and in identifying potential adaptive strategies. Effective facilitation of community engagement requires a robust and functional conceptual framework for assessing impacts and identifying adaptive strategies that can be understood and utilised by participating communities.

This paper proposes that one such framework, increasingly used in community development initiatives over the last decade, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), with some modification, is well suited to developing community adaptation strategies involving participatory processes.

Climate change impact assessment and adaptation (CCIAA) is necessarily a holistic concept, encompassing biophysical, social, cultural, economic and political dimensions. The SLA is a useful holistic conceptual framework that can easily be adapted for CCIAA. Over the last decade, the SLA has gained increasing attention in community development interventions in developing countries.

According to the UK Department for International Development, the SLA incorporates: “the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base.”

The SLA holds that community development must be holistic in its approach, whether it is related to health, environmental or economic outcomes. The SLA attempts to link an understanding of the development problems confronting the family, group or community, with the resources it owns or can access. It provides a conceptual framework that recognises that any group or community has seven capital assets. These capital assets are: natural, financial, human, social, physical, political and spiritual.

The SLA recognises that adaptation investments targeted at one capital area are more likely to be effective if the other capital assets are strong. Alternatively, investments in a particular asset area may be ineffective if one or more of the other capital assets are poor. For example, investments in natural resource management extension are less likely to be effective where groups or individuals are economically unviable. Similarly, investments in human capital (e.g. farmer training to increase agricultural production) are less likely to be effective when the natural resource base is poor. Livelihoods objectives are necessarily holistic. Thus, when taking a sustainable livelihoods approach, integrated natural resource management (NRM) strategies must also be explicitly concerned with social, political and economic perspectives. The SLA also assesses the differential vulnerability (to shocks or change) context of individuals, households and communities, and recognises that threats to one asset may also impact on other assets.

If utilised by community groups and their facilitators, the SLA is best employed in conjunction with an appropriate Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation system in order to help groups to reflect upon, assess, and build their own capital assets. One strength of such an approach is that the natural resource and environmental assets are seen as integrated into the livelihoods necessary for survival and for enhanced human well-being. Thus an SLA perspective explicitly addresses the concern that environmental or NRM activities may be seen as external to productive activities. The value of this perspective for CCIAA is that community support is more likely to be generated for what may initially appear to be peripheral issues (e.g. biodiversity conservation) when they are considered alone, than when they are viewed as interrelated to other issues or survival strategies within a livelihoods perspective.

This paper describes how the SLA may be used by communities within a CCIAA process using the following generalised steps.

1. Community-led identification and assessment of their seven capital assets (with the support of community facilitators).
2. Identification of climate change impacts (positive and negative) on capital assets (with support from relevant state and local government agencies or non-government organisations).
3. Identification of potential strategies to mitigate negative impacts and enhance positive with a view to enhancing the capital base of each of the assets.
4. Accessing resources (both community and external) to implement priority strategies.
5. Initiation of participatory monitoring and evaluation processes for ongoing assessment of the success of the adaptation strategies and the health of the capital assets.

Finally, the paper concludes by making recommendations as to how to replace conventional and limited community and government interactions with a more participatory, inclusive and holistic livelihoods approach.

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P Burton
Urban Research Program, Griffith University, Australia

Public participation remains an important principle in the development of all public policy and is widely held to offer a number of benefits. These include better policies, greater political legitimacy for policy making institutions and systems and a more engaged and active citizenry. These benefits have typically been taken for granted but there is a growing body of work that seeks to measure rather than simply accept the empirical extent and achievement of these benefits. There is also a small but growing body of work that seeks to compare these putative benefits with the possible costs associated with greater participation. These bodies of work are leading to productive reconceptualisations of the principles of participation and to more effective practice.

The broad field of public policy responses to climate change is similarly affected by this long-standing commitment to the principles of greater public participation along with a dearth of detailed and rigorous studies of the impact of participation on the practices of climate adaptation. But the principles and practice of effective participation in climate adaptation policy face a number of additional challenges arising from the global nature of the phenomenon and its local scale manifestations, from popular perceptions of the degree of uncertainty around the science of climate change and from the need to balance short and long term perspectives and priorities.

This paper explores the general case made for greater public participation in policy making and the case made in relation to climate adaptation policy in particular. It describes a number of pitfalls that stem from conceptual confusions and shows how these can present substantial difficulties when they underpin the development of local level policy and, even more significantly, its implementation and translation into local practice.

The paper draws also on early empirical work investigating the development of local scale adaptation plans in South East Queensland, Australia. It concludes by offering more general lessons for the development of more effective approaches to public participation in the development and implementation of local climate adaptation policy.

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N Rogers
School of Law and Justice, Southern Cross University, Australia

Climate change is a global problem which poses risks at the local level. In Australia, athough the Commonwealth government has recently conducted an inquiry into climate change and environmental impacts on coastal communities, there is a general dearth of Commonwealth legislation on climate change adaptation. In contrast, commentators have acknowledged the innovative approaches of many local Councils in pioneering strategies in climate change adaptation. However, local government planners must balance the ongoing pressure for coastal development with the urgent requirement for adaptation measures; there can be conflict between councils and property owners over the appropriate use of vulnerable coastal land. Furthermore, local government planners must work within the restrictive parameters of the current legislative framework.

In this paper, I discuss the research outcomes of a qualitative research project undertaken in November and December 2009 and January 2010. In the course of this project, I conducted interviews with senior planners at the thirteen New South Wales coastal councils responsible for the nineteen ‘hotspots’ identified by the New South Wales government. My intention was to investigate local government planners’ perceptions of the effectiveness (or otherwise) of existing NSW planning legislation, in the context of planning for climate change impacts along the NSW coastline.

In addition, I wanted to discover what local government planners thought about the expanding body of climate change litigation against councils, and to ascertain whether such litigation played a positive role in encouraging more effective climate change adaptation strategies on the part of local government. The inclusion of effective climate change adaptation measures in land use planning is not only a necessary response to reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities to climate impacts; it is also a necessary response to reduce future exposure to legal liability. I was interested not only in legislative reform but also in the impact of the so-called ‘adaptation cases’ on local governments, which increasingly find themselves targetted in such litigation.

Commentators tend to portray such litigation as a positive development because it serves to highlight the need for legislative reform but few have considered possible negative impacts of such litigation on local governments and their employees. At the ‘coalface’, in the planning departments of local Councils, it is unclear whether such litigation encourages effective planning strategies. For instance, ongoing costly litigation over the Byron Shire Council’s implementation of the policy of planned retreat at Belongil Beach, where apparently more than 25 properties are at risk of demolition, might well discourage other Councils from adopting a similar approach; this is despite the fact that the New South Wales Land and Environment Court has thus far supported the Council’s application of this policy.

In seeking the perspectives of those involved in the practical operaton and application of existing legislation and planning instruments, my intention was to ’study the law in action’.However, during the interviews the research project took on a broader focus, as planners discussed the many obstacles which inhibit effective planning for climate change impacts on the part of councils.

In my paper, I will set out my findings and discuss the nature of these obstacles and possible ways of overcoming them.
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S K Mack, PJ Fos, J W Day, A J Englande, R S Reimers and M Lichtvelde
Tierra Resources LLC, New Orleans, LA USA
University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX USA
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA USA
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical, New Orleans, LA, USA

The effects of Hurricane Katrina remain indicative of the vulnerabilities of people, infrastructure, and environments to global climate change. The 2005 hurricane season resulted in widespread devastation of water-related infrastructure. Following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the realization emerged that the sustainability of the coastal region of Louisiana is dependent on the condition of the natural environment and the need to address the multitude of other issues that contributed to the region’s vulnerability. As a result, a comprehensive systems analysis approach to water resource management has been developed to address the restoration of wastewater infrastructure through a wetland assimilation project, which also incorporates the societal needs of safety, economic development, environmental stewardship, and wetland restoration.

The New Orleans Regional Wetland Assimilation System will utilize natural wetlands to assimilate over 350,000 m3 a day of secondarily treated municipal effluent to restore approximately 12,000 hectares of critical cypress wetlands. On a global level, the wetland restoration project offers emission-avoidance and sequestration benefits. Locally, the project functions as an intervention to reduce the vulnerability to climate change and build adaptive capacity. Implementation of the system presents many challenges. Realization of the project will necessitate transparent decision-making, integration of institutional structures, stakeholder involvement, and increased institutional capacities. This will require a paradigm shift in the way local agencies and the public interrelate, particularly regarding climate change adaptation and the sustainability of the region.

The Wetland Assimilation Feasibility Planning Multi-Criteria Decision Model utilizes an analytic holistic approach to assess the feasibility and planning process of wetland assimilation for wetland restoration, tertiary treatment of wastewater, and climate change adaptation for the New Orleans region. Multi-criteria decision theory was used to integrate aspects of wetland assimilation ecological and engineering design with aspects of sustainable development, urban planning, and public health. Simple Multiattribute Rating Technique (SMART) was used to assess the value trade-offs made by stakeholders composed of governmental and policy decision makers, science and technical experts, industry representatives, environmental advocates, and citizens. The results of the decision model will enhance the analysis of wetland assimilation as an alternative, prioritize actions and resources, and facilitate the inclusion of aspects that are currently not included in water resource decision making. The tool can also be used to identify gaps in planning, understanding, and stakeholder consensus in addition to providing a method for public involvement. With these attributes, the model can be used in the development of innovative approaches to climate change adaptation using scientifically sound management decisions to guide policy formulation, and implementation.

The success or effectiveness of adaptation plans and policies directly correlate with community support and participation, political considerations, and available funding. This requires managers to make complex decisions involving trade- offs among the conflicting objectives of multiple stakeholders. As such, reasonable trade-offs need to be determined directly from stakeholders. Decision analysis can assist decision makers to structure complex problems so they can be understood as decisions-based upon acceptable trade-offs. Decision tools such as this model can facilitate the assessment of sustainable alternatives that balance the social, economic, environmental, and technical elements of an adaptation project to ensure successful civic-society engagement and support. Nowhere is the need for such an integrated assessment tool greater than in the city of New Orleans where the recovery of Hurricane Katrina is riddled with stakeholder conflict and distrust. This decision model has been designed to provide a systematic and logical approach to address climate change adaptation decision making by focusing on the New Orleans Regional Wetland Assimilation System.
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C Conde, A Monterroso, G Rosales and M Pérez
Grupo de Cambio Climático y Radiación. Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, UNAM. México.

The state of Veracruz borders the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The climate in the state is mainly warm, humid or subhumid. However, the altitudinal variations (from sea level almost to 3,000 m) produce high climatic variations. Its central region is considered a region with high biodiversity, which is threatened by land use change. Coffee plantations are imbedded in the rainforests, so they can be seen as a source for biodiversity conservation. Coffee production occupies more than 152,000 hectares in Veracruz, and in the central regions concentrates 90.2% of all the coffee producers in the state. This activity was the source of a major income until the 1990â€TMs, when agricultural policies changed and subsidies and technical support was extremely reduced and market prices dropped drastically. Organic coffee production was a response to lower prices, and new markets emerged for a small group of coffee producers. Also, coffee producers are currently struggling with pests, which are reaching higher altitudes with increasing temperatures. In the project: Integrated Assessment of environmental factors that determine the adaptive capacity of coffee producers in the central region of Veracruz, to climate variability and change”, the county of Coatepec (where coffee has been produced for the last decades) was chosen as a study site, considering the approval of the Consejo Regulador del Cafe de Coatepec, A.C. (Coffee Regulating Council) to developed focus groups and other participatory techniques with their members. In previous research, an econometric model showed that in the central region of Veracruz (where Coatepec is situated), that showed that the temperature and precipitation conditions are ideal to produce coffee (mainly Coffea arabica L). Nevertheless, drought, frosts, heavy rains and strong winds can affect the quantity and quality of coffee. Considering the climatic trends, farmers perceived that their coping capacity is being reduced, not only because of climate variability and change, but mainly because their socio-economic conditions have reduced their ability to cope with those climatic events. The increase of climatic extreme events have affected the agricultural production, but also, the drop of prices and the lack of adequate agricultural policies have expelled rural population to urban areas or, mainly, to the United States of America (USA). New studies are now centred in understanding the sources of vulnerability, and the practices, barriers and opportunities of adaptation. For that purposes, interdisciplinary research teams are assembled, stakeholders involvement takes place since the beginning of the projects and new tools are being tested to elucidate and communicate current and future climatic threats. From several focus groups, coffee producers described their coping strategies to fight the spread of pests, the decrease of coffee production, and the diversification of their incomes, particularly during strong ENSO events. To cope with climate variability and change, producers agreed that the increase of protected areas and more strict forests management regulations, are the key measures that could preserved the regional climate and preserve coffee production. In that context, the main objective of the stated project is to demonstrate that the payment of the environmental services can reduce the future vulnerability of coffee producers. Measures of the rates and amount of carbon dioxide sequestration by forests in the region have been made, but the results are still not conclusive. Also, thermometers have been place inside and outside of a coffee plantation; these data will be introduce in the econometric model, showing that with climate change that difference of temperature can give coffee producers a lag of time before the worst projected impacts occurred. The list of local fauna and flora can support further studies of regional biodiversity, and activities such as ecotourism.

Presentation (PDF)

R Cosio, N De Jesus and H Soriano, Jr
Department of Agricultural Business and Economics, Institute of Economics and Management, Pampanga Agricultural College, Philippines.
Department of Research and Development, Pampanga Agricultural College, Philippines.
Pampanga Agricultural College, Philippines.

Guagua is among the 21 towns and two (2) cities that comprise the province of Pampanga which is in the heart of Central Luzon, Philippines. Pampanga is the capital of the region composed of seven (7) provinces. It is considered the regionalseat of government in the northern part of the Philippines. Guagua is a flood-prone community due to its topography. Its area has been aggravated by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991 which makes it highly vulnerable to climate change.

The general objective of this study was to assess the vulnerability and adaptation capacity of affected communities in Guagua. It specifically aimed to identify the pattern of climate variability that affected the study site and assess its social and economic impacts, determine the adaptation strategies to the observed climate change related events employed by the municipal local government unit (LGU) and its constituents, improve awareness by municipal LGU officials and community residents on the climate change phenomenon and on the urgency to take action and plan accordingly,
and, propose measures to enhance the adaptive capacity of the affected sectors and stakeholders. The necessary data were collected through community consultations, key informant interviews and focus group discussion.

The climate change related events observed in the study area are typhoon, delay on the onset of rainy season, drought and continuous or prolonged rain which mostly affect the sectors of agriculture, fishery, business, students, local government unit (LGU), households (HHs) and transport service. Continuous rain is the most harmful or destructive climate change related event in Guagua as its adverse impact on all identified most vulnerable groups or sectors is considerably large. Agriculture is the most vulnerable followed by the group of students, HHs, LGU, transport service and fishery sector

The generally declining trend in the costs of damages on infrastructures and houses as well as in the expenditures of the municipal government related to typhoons or floods despite their observed increasing frequency and intensity indicates the increasing improvement and effectiveness of adaptation strategies being implemented by the LGU of Guagua. This implies the vital role of the municipal LGU, in terms of early warning system, that reduces risks to the different sectors.

It is implementing innovative adaptation strategies at the local level, such as the establishment, effective recording, and appropriate use of the rain gauge information to reduce adverse impacts of typhoons/heavy rains. Human resource capacity (such as the presence of very good Municipal Administrator and Municipal Planning and Development Officer) is, therefore, very important for promoting effective adaptation. The enhancement of adaptive capacity is a necessary condition for reducing vulnerability, particularly for the most vulnerable community and socioeconomic groups.

Among the recommendations of the study are: a) The LGUs should spearhead the formulation of mitigation and adaptation measures that would address vulnerabilities of sectors and areas where climate change will have the greatest impact; b) Capacity, both institutional and individual, at the provincial, municipal and barangay levels will need sustained strengthening; c) Agricultural and fishery technologies along the lines of developing drought- and flood-resistant crop seed varieties and climate change resistant fish species would have to be introduced; d) To encourage local HHs, the LGU should promote and even subsidize the implementation of certain efficient and effective farm level climate change adaptation measures; and, e) LGUs should ensure political and financial support for the implementation of adaptation strategies.

Y Li and D Conway
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, School of International Development

This empirical study addresses the role of climate variability in the livelihoods of agricultural communities in Ningxia, Northwest China. The study explores exposure and vulnerability to climate and other stresses and capacity to cope with and adapt to changing climate risks. Data include meteorological observations and official reports to describe recent climate variability and its impacts and questionnaires and focus group discussions to understand vulnerability. Sample villages were located in three different agro-ecosystems; irrigated, mixed irrigated/grazing, and rainfed.

Ningxia’s perennially dry climate is a significant limiting factor on agricultural production in the region and is exacerbated by drought. Climate observations show stable temperatures during 1950s through to the 1980s followed by a modest positive trend. Precipitation shows very minor trends with slight increase in June/July (3-5mm/decade) and slight decrease September to November (1mm/decade). A marked feature has been three very dry years from 2004-2006. Recent climate variability, particularly the drought, was perceived to have had a significant effecton livelihoods but it was not the only challenge respondents had faced. Susceptibility to drought was higher in the mixed irrigated and grazing and rainfed areas, due to farmers’ greater exposure to climatic hazards and because a greater proportion of their income originated from farming activities. Respondents had used a wide range of measures to retain and enhance soil moisture and to maintain agricultural production. When questioned on the constraints they faced, lack of money, water shortage and agricultural inputs were cited most often.

The discussion examines challenges in disentangling the role of climate within complex and dynamic livelihood systems. These include methodological issues in quantifying the significance of climate and non-climate factors, the rapidity of socio- economic change in China and reconciling local perceptions with meteorological observations. The paper emphasises how climate risks need to be incorporated within a wider framing of rural livelihoods and development planning processes and priorities and argues that for the short term, good potential exists to incorporate adaptation within mainstream development plans and poverty alleviation programmes without requiring major changes in current policies.

Presentation (PDF)

J Pittman
Projects and Partnerships, Saskatchewan Watershed Authority, Canada

This paper documents the process and discusses insights from an extreme events preparedness planning project undertaken in collaboration with three First Nations communities in Saskatchewan, Canada – the James Smith, Red Earth and Shoal Lake First Nation. This project builds upon previous research exploring vulnerability to climate change in these particular communities (Ermine et al., 2008; Ermine and Pittman, 2009; Pittman, 2009; 2010). It was found that droughts and floods have been problematic for the communities, which impact water supplies (both in terms of quality and quantity), homes and infrastructure. The communities rely on a suite of social, spiritual and technological coping strategies to deal with extremes, but considerable vulnerabilities still exist. As climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of droughts and floods in the study region, an extreme events preparedness project was proposed to facilitate climate change adaptation.

The project is being implemented in three phases: (1) bottom-up drought and flood vulnerability assessments; (2) Elders circles for guidance on values; and (3) planning session with local governments. The bottom-up vulnerability assessments engage community members through surveys designed to gather information on previous exposures and adaptive strategies related to droughts and floods and provide insights into future actions needed to reduce vulnerability to these extreme events. The Elders circles will be used to obtain direction on the principles and values that should guide adaptation to climatic extremes in each community. Finally, the planning session with local governments will be a forum to identify preparedness strategies and adaptation action items as the communities move forward.

Timelines for completion of the phases are as follows: first phase completed by February 28, 2010; second phase by March 31, 2010; and third phase by June 30, 2010. Initial results from the first phase highlight the importance of social support networks in coping with extremes and the necessity for preparedness and action plans at the community level.

Presentation (PDF)

P Ireland
Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, Australia

In the wake of almost two decades of climate negotiations that have failed to precipitate adequate mitigation and adaptation commitments, it is clear that vulnerable communities around the globe require assistance to adapt to current and future climate variability. However, as international development actors scramble to identify and commence ‘adaptation’ projects, we risk overlooking the multifarious nature of vulnerability and adaptive capacity and may subsequently employ methods that might be ineffective or lead to maladaptation in the long term. In this paper I use the lens of women’s collectives and community development committees in Nepalgunj, a town on the Himalayan plains in Nepal, to explore adaptive capacity and perceptions of environmental change at the community level. In this paper I assert that, in addition to a continued critical engagement with the adaptation discourse, which plays a key role in shaping implementation frameworks, grassroots capacity building should be one of the first steps we take towards building more adaptive societies.

Data for this paper was collected during two months of field research that included time in rural Nepal and with Nepali delegates at the Copenhagen climate conference. The research involved a range of actors including government officials, NGO employees and local community members in semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participant observation. The organisations that were engaged for this research did not specifically address climate change, however, they all address social vulnerability to environmental risks through a range of different empowerment methods. For example, a group of women’s collectives in Nepalganj empower women through savings and loans schemes, the lobbying of local government for better services, and strengthening social networks. Here, I also consider the perceptions of the communities around climate change in order to further understand their motivations for action and to explore how this may impact the long- term efficacy of projects related to environmental vulnerability. In almost all cases, community members were unfamiliar with the concept of climate change or it was disconnected from their realities. For example, a few participants discounted climate change as an issue of the elites. This paper inserts itself into the climate change adaptation debate by listening to the perspectives of local NGO staff and participants in rural Nepal and reflects this onto contemporary adaptation frameworks. Their voices challenge our assumptions, and speak in a unique way to our theoretical conceptualisations of their world.

I contend that amidst the plethora of challenges facing vulnerable communities there needs to be renewed consideration of local level capacity building, through actions such as the development of collectives and enhancement of social networks, as a key component of adaptation at the community level. Many of the activities explored in this paper provide a necessary foundation for the enhancement of adaptive capacity in a future that will likely be punctuated by uncertainty. This needs to be accompanied by continued critical engagement with the dominant adaptation discourse which often assumes adaptation will be relatively simple with the appropriate financing. The challenges posed by climate change and adaptation must be faced with vigilant listening to those who are most vulnerable.

A Yoachim, D Meffert, D Etheridge and J Tate
Institute on Water Resources and Law, Tulane University, United States of America
Meffert+Etheridge Environmental Projects,LLC, United States of America
Miscellaneous Tactics,LLC, United States of America

The climate change-related relative sea level rise of 3-10mm per year in the next 50 years only exacerbates the vulnerability of the New Orleans metropolitan area and the rest of coastal Louisiana in the United States. When one accounts for both subsidence endemic to Louisiana’s deltaic coast and global sea level rise, recent estimates of relative sea level rise project the Gulf of Mexico will be anywhere between 2-6 feet higher in the next century. Despite these recent and dire predictions, with the exception of populated areas in New Orleans that are below sea level, urban and rural populations of Louisiana’s coastal zone have long existed with the natural flooding propensity of the region – with many small towns in the deltaic plain, in particular, prioritizing residential land use along the limited levee areas of bayous and former distributaries of the Mississippi River.

The problem now is that many of the small rural towns in coastal Louisiana that have been able to sustain themselves near sea level for the past century will succumb to sea level rise during the next century, further exacerbating coastal erosion, and those that remain above sea level but on the ridges of the former Mississippi River distributaries will no longer have the wetland buffers that have historically protected them from diurnal fluctuations of sea level, intermittent storms, and less frequent but increasingly catastrophic hurricane/tropical storm surges.

One promising case study of community-based adaptation and mitigation to climate change in Louisiana is that of the United Houma Nation (UHN). The UHN constituents lie primarily outside levee protection systems. Prior to 2005, the 17,000 members of the United Houma Nation were faced with declining livelihoods and displacement due to continued coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion. Estimates suggest that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita directly affected over 7,000 tribal members with nearly half of these displaced. Hurricane Katrina left over 1,000 tribal members homeless in rural areas and the storm surge from Hurricane Rita inundated lower Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes devastating 4,000 homes of tribal citizens. In 2007, Hurricanes Gustav and Ike again inundated Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes.

Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the UHN mobilized to provide both immediate relief in the form of shelter, food, and necessities and long term rebuilding assistance to tribal citizens. These disaster preparedness and relief distribution systems were reactivated with Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. While the needs of individual citizens continue to be addressed, the tribe recognizes that the survival of historic UHN communities is at risk and to survive difficult decisions will be required.

The UHN has launched the Campaign for a Sustainable Houma Nation to galvanize support and resources for the work that lies ahead both within and outside the Houma community. In the near-term, the UHN has begun to develop an emergency response plan with the intent to be certified as a Community Emergency Response Team by the Department of Homeland Security, a Hazard Mitigation Plan which will provide the opportunity to compete for federal mitigation dollars pre and post disaster, and Memorandums of Understanding with neighboring tribes to support evacuation.

In terms of long-term adaptation to climate change, the tribal council is taking the first steps to provide an adaptation option to citizens. UHN is embarking on the development of a voluntary relocation strategy that is among the first for coastal communities in the United States to date. This option is built around the creation of new Houma communities, located far enough inland to reduce the risk from hurricanes and severe storms, and “hardened” community centers, located in the lower bayou communities to maintain regular ties to the people and places that constitute home. The UHN intend to identify new lands that maintain their connection to water while reducing their vulnerability to periodic and disaster-related flooding through non-structural and structural measures. Relocation timing, funding, level of participation, and mechanisms for land acquisition and assemblage are still being determined.

Presentation (PDF)

K Galloway-McLean1 and A Ramos Castillo
United Nations University, Traditional Knowledge Initiative, Darwin, Australia

The increasing uncertainties of global environmental change highlight the interdependencies between people and the natural environments. Diversities within and between human cultures are a critical resource in envisioning sustainable futures and in supporting the diverse human potentials necessary for successful adaptations. Indigenous Peoples have unique repositories of learning and knowledge on successfully coping with local-level climate change and effectively responding to environmental changes. Historically and currently, Indigenous Peoples play a fundamental role in the conservation of biological diversity, management of water, land and and other natural resources. This paper critically analyzes Indigenous adaptive response to climate change around the world focusing particularly in the areas of water resources and food security. It draws out common elements of success and suggests how Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge on climate change can substantively enrich scientific knowledge and suggest adaptive pathways for the future.

Presentation (PPS)

D Green and W Lui
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia
Councillor for Warraber Island, Torres Strait, Australia

Indigenous Australians living on their traditional lands bear little responsibility for current or future climate change. Despite this, they are likely to be one of the most vulnerable groups to direct and indirect climate impacts. This vulnerability is due to their close cultural connection to the natural world, and their reduced socio-cultural and economic resilience. This paper focuses on one frequently overlooked group of Indigenous Australians in relation to climate change and adaptation. Torres Strait Islanders, particularly those living on islands with extremely low elevations such as Warraber Island, are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Of the 18 inhabited islands in the Torres Strait, about one third are only a few metres above sea level. All islands have significant infrastructure built within metres of their rapidly eroding shorelines. Although shifting coastal zones are not new for Islanders, the observed increasing erosion rates are. Over recent decades, Islanders have reported increasingly rapid coastal erosion, higher sea levels and more variable weather. Islanders have also observed indirect impacts on the behaviour of land and sea flora and fauna. Since major inundation events caused by storm tides occurring between 2005 – 2010, Islanders have begun directly calling on the state and federal government to provide them adequate financial and human resources so they can design and implement short-term adaptation strategies to delay the erosion of their coastlines through revegetation activities, strengthening seawalls and protecting other basic service infrastructure already built on the islands. Recently, there have also been requests for assistance to make longer-term plans for relocation off the islands to be developed in parallel with on-island adaptation work so that the communities can be prepared for that eventuality. Despite a recent announcement for limited funds to support more scientific work in May 2010, so far no resources have been forthcoming for the adaptation plans suggested by the Islanders themselves. Therefore Islanders have had to use their own local knowledge to best defend their islands from inundation and coastal erosion. This paper, presented in collaboration with one Island leader explores what options might be available for short-term adaptation and longer term relocation strategies, as well as a direct request for action on this issue.

F Ondrus
Householders’ Options to Protect the Environment (HOPE), QLD Australia

Introduction to the environmental and sustainability education work of HOPE, a small, under –funded, but effective community capacity building NGO – set in the context of its Darling Downs regional and Australian national constituency.

A SWOT framework consideration of the real world issues that drive and constrain HOPE’s work in regard to community education and capacity building around climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Darling Downs /S.E. Regional Queensland context. And incorporating HOPE’s direct organisational experience relating to some core themes of this Conference strand namely: how effective communication of information for adaptation can be provided to the right people, at the right time, in the most effective way – and how can fragmentation of the knowledge base be reduced through effective use of information to inform adaptation responses.

Telling the story of HOPE’s work in 2010 to establish two projects that go to the heart of some of the communication and information themes relevant to this Conference strand. Firstly, the attempt to finance and produce a DVD video project entitled: “Right in my Backyard: local visions for climate change adaptation in the Darling Downs region.” A project that would contribute to a public environmental education process that encourages the local community to engage, pro-actively, with the ecological and economic implications of an anticipated low-carbon future. Secondly, and in recognition of the mid-point of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainability 2005 – 2014, an application for Churchill Fellowship or other funding in 2010 to assist with a planned, international, fact-finding tour aimed to provide a fresh and contemporary understanding of ‘what works best’ in educating communities to effect environmentally positive behaviour change. And particularly in the area of responses to human induced climate change.

In summary, we believe that Conference would be interested in hearing such a story. And of the work that goes on in an organisation that perhaps typifies the NGO sector of civil society as it struggles with limited resources to bring about much needed community behavioural adaptation in response to anthropogenic climate change. In that regard, we certainly have direct experience of the “Examination of barriers and challenges for the communication of information for adaptation” as phrased in another Conference theme.

In conclusion we represent one of the key sectors that will be charged with the task of educating and building community capacity in response to climate change and yet much of our work goes unrecognised at the level of official policy making and strategy planning. We believe a presentation based around the points above could stimulate a stimulating and productive debate at Conference and we hope that our Climate Change Educator may be offered a further subsidy to attend Conference as a result.

Presentation (PDF)

H Allison and G Albrecht
Murdoch University, Australia

The concept of resilience is now appearing in policy documents as a normative goal. Resilience as we refer to it means the capacity of a social-ecological system both to withstand perturbations from for instance climate or economic shocks and to rebuild and renew itself afterwards. Loss of resilience can cause loss of valuable ecosystem services, and may even lead to rapid transitions or shifts into qualitatively different situations and configurations, evident in, for instance people, ecosystems, knowledge systems, or whole cultures. It is, however, an emergent property, one that is not easily measured. Recent attention has increasingly focussed on the likelihood that environmental and social shocks will push some regional systems, but not others, beyond their historical bounds. We suggest that some regions are pre-adapted to absorbing these shocks and will continue to be resilient while others will succumb either to disasters or gradual deterioration. Australia is already experiencing the impacts of climate change with communities facing increasing frequency and severity of weather events (drought, dust storms, fires and flood). Our research addresses four areas of research priority for Australia, understanding risk, community and organisational resilience, adaptive strategies and regional implications.

We have developed a Resilient Regional Assessment Process (RRAP) to discover the common issues that foster or create resilience and alternatively those issues that create barriers and perverse resilience in a number of case studies across Australia. Using the RRAP we examine the existing levels of risk awareness and felt levels of resilience in the face of unfolding knowledge of the risks to infrastructure and human safety. The risks and threats include climate change, water security and land use change.

We demonstrate the usefulness of the RRAP by exploring the adaptive capacity of two regional inland towns facing different challenges relating to climate change and water supply on opposite sides of the Australian continent, Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Broken Hill in New South Wales. Each has a rich history based on mineral resources and a developing tourist industry. However, they face different resilience problems. Kalgoorlie is reliant on transported surface water through a 560km long pipeline from a dam situated in a coastal catchment near Perth. Kalgoorlie has no alternative water source other than a possible desalination plant and another pipeline from Esperance 350 km on the south coast of Western Australia. The Perth water catchment is under intense pressure with desalinisation already supplementing declining rainfall and aquifer extraction. On the other hand, Broken Hill has a much diminished mining industry but a strong social base and a new economy as an ‘outback’ tourism destination. With ongoing requirements for potable water Broken Hill is, however, totally reliant on limited local ground water supply or a possible desalinization plant 350 km away on the coast of South Australia. Without a full understanding of the likely impacts of climate change, extreme variability and the increased technical difficulties and economic costs of providing potable water in remote communities, the future resilience of Kalgoorlie and Broken

Hill is not secure. Regional resilience under severe economic, demographic and environmental pressures is a nationally important issue. As a consequence, the resilience of Australia’s largest inland cities is under threat. The RRAP is shown to be new way to assess resilience at a regional scale and a vital new methodological tool in planning and management.

J C Alurralde Tejada
Agua Sustentable, Bolivia

By 2008 supported by DANIDA, Agua Sustentable began developing a strategy to adapt to Climate Change from the needs of indigenous communities in the basin of Palca (municipality of La Paz city).

High exposure to climatic events and their limited adaptive capacity makes this population highly vulnerable to climate change and glacier retreat in particular. The glaciers Mururata and Illimani are the main source of water for the basin, so was the urgency of adaptation measures related to water use in the watershed to ensure continuity of production, being one of the most important activity due to the agricultural character identified with the communities under study.

Although the population has been developing measures to adapt to climate variability, lack of resources (economic, social and human) and access to them limited the adoption of new measures to adapt. Thus the project consisted of research of impacts of climate change in regions affected by the recession of the named glaciers; assess the vulnerability of the indigenous communities to the effects of climate change and develop a participatory local strategy for adaptation from the experience of communities.

The main objective was to develop strategies and establish mechanisms for dialogue, collaboration and consultation for the use and water management in regions affected by the retreat of glaciers in such a way as to ensure the provision of urban drinking water without adversely compromising surrounding rural production systems, reducing potential conflicts and promoting actions to adapt to climate change impacts.

Through the project, there are both locally and nationally incidence and as a precedent will be research on the impact of climate change in vulnerable regions of Bolivia and action proposals against this global phenomenon.

M Azam, T Sarker, R Ghose and H Rahman
Institute of Forest and Environmental Policy, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany
Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith University, Australia
Alternative Livelihood Program in the Context of Climate Change (ALPCC) Project, Prodipan, Bangladesh
Network on Climate Change, Bangladesh (NCC,B), Dhaka, Bangladesh

The country of Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its geographical location, extreme poverty and high economic dependence on climate sensitive sectors like agriculture, food and fisheries. To make things worse, irregular weather patterns in recent years have also exacerbated the impacts of climate change, particularly in Bangladesh’s vulnerable south-western coastal region. These weather patterns include frequent cyclones (which often result in a tidal surge and subsequent flooding), extreme temperatures and lower precipitation. Further, this coastal zone is, on average, less than 10 metres above mean sea level, which places it at a higher risk of sea level rise (15% of land area is less than 1 metre above sea level, and 60% of the land area is less than 10 metres above sea level). These areas also suffer from river erosion. Finally, salinity is a major problem in the region, particularly impacting access to fresh drinking water and diminishing agricultural production. Between 1973 and 2000, there was a 22.5% increase in salinity ingression. Taken as a whole, all these factors have dramatically reduced the stability of the coastal environment in Bangladesh. This study investigates the impacts of climate change on the two most vulnerable coastal districts of Khulna and Bagerhat in Bangladesh between 2008 and 2009 by analysing both recent and predicted changes to the coastal environment and livelihood patterns. In particular, it examines the climate change adaptation strategies undertaken at the grass-roots level, in order to propose improved strategies for mainstreaming climate change adaptation and mitigation. Although some strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change have already been implemented, there seems to be a lack of adoption of these initiatives at the local level. Accordingly, this paper examines ways to more effectively implement strategies that will mitigate the impacts of climate change in the affected communities of the coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Our first principal finding is that the coastal region of Bangladesh currently experiences livelihood and food insecurity as a result of the impacts of climate change. In particular, large numbers of people are being displaced, either through a temporary move to find work during the lean seasons, or a permanent move to another place to avoid the unstable living conditions experienced in these vulnerable coastal districts. Our second finding is that the climate change adaptation initiatives currently implemented in the vulnerable coastal districts of Bangladesh are inadequate to support the huge number of people affected by the impacts of climate change in a way that will ensure the security of their livelihood. Accordingly, we conclude that less overlapping and more effective integrated actions between communities, civil society organisations, NGOs and various local government departments are needed in order to build a climate change resilient community at the grass-roots level.

J Balston, D Casement and O Brodhurst
Rural Solutions SA, Department of Primary Industries South Australia, Australia
Jacqueline Balston & Associates, Australia

Community adaptation to climate change requires an understanding of the vulnerability of various sectors to the likely impacts imposed by a range of climate stressors. An assessment of climate change vulnerability for three study areas on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia was undertaken to identify likely risks and recommend actions to increase adaptive capacity for each of the five capitals: human, social, financial, physical and natural. Climate change impacts for the years 2030, 2050 and 2070 under the IPCC A1B SRES scenario of temperature, rainfall, available moisture, extreme events (flooding, bushfire, heatwave), sea level rise, increased CO2 concentrations and the introduction of a carbon pollution reduction trading scheme, were assessed according to the ANZ ISO 4360 methodology and included a measure of the climate stressor and likely exposure.

The adaptive capacity of each of the five capitals was then evaluated in the face of likely exposure to each climate stressor for the year 2050 and was based on scientific evidence, surveys of residents in the region and ABS and other data. Vulnerability was determined as a product of impact and adaptive capacity. GIS mapping was used to illustrate the vulnerability of various natural capital variables including soil type, vegetation connectivity, threatened species, and marine environments.

Results identified a backdrop of pre-existing non-climate related stressors within the Eyre Peninsula community and biophysical systems that already reduce the region’s adaptive capacity and constrain resilience without the additional stressors of climate change.

The key findings included:
• Communities in the study region have a moderate to high range of potential climate change induced stress in the areas of health and the provision of adequate facilities;
• Some communities have a very high exposure to the effects of climate change, but this is offset by the relatively high resilience within the community;
• The high potential impact on the financial capital of the area was offset by the range of possible adaptation strategies in the agricultural, fisheries and other industry sectors;
• The vulnerability of existing infrastructure was relatively low as there is good capacity to include new technologies and improved engineering design. However, if communities are unable to implement adaptation options, then vulnerability is relatively high.
• Natural capital included terrestrial (soils, landscape modification, connectivity) and marine indicators into the vulnerability assessment. There was spatial variability in the vulnerability of soils as a result of projected changes in rainfall and the water holding capacity of soils. Landscape connectivity was determined to have a high exposure to future climate changes and have a low adaptive capacity. Marine vulnerability is moderate to high.

Recommendations for priority actions to improve adaptive capacity, reduce impact and improve knowledge gaps were identified and communicated to the target audience.

W-L Bartels
Southeast Climate Consortium & University of Florida

Within the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC) scientists are integrating regionally downscaled climate scenarios with crop models to generate a range of potential impacts in future agricultural production. It is assumed that the results of these models will support stakeholders as they make decisions within the context of a variable and changing climate. However, the way in which climate information is delivered and dialog facilitated among stakeholders affects how people process, understand, and incorporate new knowledge to manage risk. This poster demonstrates how participatory tools and processes can support social learning among farmers, extension professionals and scientists. Specifically, we review the establishment of a new climate working group for row crop agriculture that includes stakeholders from Florida, Alabama and Georgia. In April 2010, participants met to discuss the production of peanuts, cotton and corn within the context of a changing and variable climate in the southeastern USA. Rather than presenting the simulated model results of potential regional future climate scenarios, we initially emphasized a reflection on past climatic variability. Participatory tools such as fishbowls, timelines, and farmer-led storytelling were used to initiate discussions about past extreme events and risk management. This narrative format was complimented with scientific displays of historical data on climate cycles and references to web-based decision support tools. During breakout groups, stakeholders examined hypothetical climate situations (warmer, colder, drier, and wetter) over differing timescales to explore potential opportunities and constraints to adaptation. This poster presents perceived socio-economic factors at various scales that shape decisions in row crop production. These findings have implications for the degree to which climate-related information can support farmer-led adaptation. More broadly, this case study suggests how process facilitation and information delivery might condition interactions among stakeholders, thereby informing our understanding of how to design effective spaces for social learning.

S Chapman, P Waterman, S Galvin and S Brown
SEQ Catchments, Australia
University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Climate Proofing combines bottom–up and top-down approaches to climate change adaptation seeking to make assets more resistant and communities more resilient to changing climate. Since 2008, this approach facilitated by SEQ Catchments (SEQC) and University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), has been applied to Bribie and Coochiemudlo Islands in Moreton Bay, South East Queensland. These two distinctly different islands reflect a range of biophysical conditions, exposures to climate induced risks, levels of residential and recreational development, and community perceptions and responses to the climate change challenge.

The process builds on the inherent strengths of the community and the policy commitment of government. Three core principles are applied: identify biophysical and social issues that increase vulnerability with climate change; tailor responses to mobilise long term positive support and strengthen relationships; and focus on capacity and knowledge building.

Coochiemudlo Island is a discrete biophysical entity with sandy beaches, weathered basaltic shorelines, mangrove swamps and beaches fringed by coastal vegetation. The orientation of the island and exposure of shoreline segments to different wind and wave conditions makes the location an ideal ’shore-gauge’ to measure and monitor effects of changing climatic and hydrodynamic conditions. The small resident community of 500 is dependent on ferry access to the mainland. In contrast, Bribie Island is a low-lying sand island exhibiting the vulnerability of fragile dune systems and eroding shorelines. The residential and recreational haven is accessed by a two-lane bridge with 41% of residents over 66 years.

Key findings to date are threefold:
• Productive relations between the engaged community groups and local councils are of paramount importance in achieving an effective climate adaptation response. The strength of this link differed markedly between the two islands with concomitant effects. Climate change offers a new prism through which to view old issues. A fresh approach has been made possible with Bribie Island as the simple logic of adaptive action is traced and enacted with shared commitment. With Coochiemudlo Island the initially healthy relationship between the island community and Councilhas been strengthened by this process to address climate adaptation following initial catalysis by SEQC and USC. • With a significant proportion of the community continuing to deny human impact on climate change,
it is beneficial to promote positive actions that are both adaptational and mitigational. This maximizes community engagement and uptake of initiatives by appealing to self interest, whilst achieving both outcomes and minimized potential community divisiveness. Again, presenting the path to solutions in a simple logical fashion free of leaps in thinking and knowledge maintains objectivity.
• Many actions and networks required to build resilience and minimize vulnerability in communities already exist, often for reasons other than climate change. By identifying and acknowledging these initiatives as wise adaptational strategies and viewing them through the prism of climate change, fresh support and a new sense of collective purpose is afforded whilst validating and reinforcing the efforts of many.

Learnings of this on-going demonstration project are being disseminated through community-based workshops, conference presentations and public project documents.

M Foth and K Mallon
Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
NCCARF, Australia

Public and private sector organisations worldwide are putting strategies in place to manage the commercial and operational risks of climate change. However, community organisations are lagging behind in their understanding and preparedness, despite them being among the most exposed to the effects of climate change impacts and regulation. This poster presents a proposal for a multidisciplinary study that addresses this issue by developing, testing and applying a novel climate risk assessment methodology that is tailored to the needs of Australia’s community sector and its clients. Strategies to mitigate risks and build resilience and adaptive capacity will be identified including new opportunities afforded by urban informatics, social media, and technologies of scale making.

Many climate change impacts are now considered by the scientific community to be unavoidable and will require adaptation over the coming decades, even if efforts to control emissions avoid more serious effects in the later part of the century. Private and public sectors are now moving with increasing momentum to identify risks and implement adaptation strategies. However, the community sector is left behind even though many of the people who this sector supports will be amongst the first and most seriously affected. The process of climate change adaptation and resilience requires information and preparedness. We can often adapt effectively if we know what we are adapting to. Based on this premise,this cross-disciplinary study proposes to make a significant contribution towards exploring and better understanding the opportunities for enhancing and accelerating adaptation using tools, interfaces, methods and practices of social and mobile technology that have already proven effective in enabling participation and engagement in other areas.

S Coleman and S Hilly
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia

Australia’s climate is already changing and in coming decades Australian communities, businesses and individuals will increasingly need to take steps to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Adaptation is one of the three pillars of the Australian Government’s climate change strategy and is the principal way to deal with the effects of climate change that cannot be avoided by mitigation. A key component of adaptive capacity includes the ability to generate, access and interpret information about climate change and its likely impacts. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collects a wide range of data that can be used to help Australian society to assess the possible impacts of climate change, to develop adaptive responses and determine how communities, businesses and individuals are adapting to these changes. The impacts of climate change will affect the environment, society and the economy. The vulnerability of these systems will vary between regions and sectors depending on exposure to changes in the climate, sensitivity to those changes and capacity to adapt. Some of the areas considered most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change include water, agriculture, biodiversity, coastal settlements and human health. The ABS can provide accurate, high quality information related to these key vulnerable areas to help inform climate change adaptation thinking, including: Responses to changing water availability, including changes to water use and management by businesses and households via ABS industry and household surveys; Changing patterns of production and water use by the agricultural industry, perceptions of changes in climate and changing land management practices by farmers via ABS Agriculture surveys. For example two-thirds of agricultural businesses consider that the climate affecting their holding has changed and from 2005–06 to 2008-9 agricultural water use on Australian farms fell 38%; Changes in transport use, energy consumption and conservation activities, and water consumption and conservation behaviours via ABS household surveys; Analyses of interactions between various sectors of the economy and environment, which enhance our understanding of climate change impacts and society’s responses to climate change. These analyses allow comparisons of the effects of changes across time, across industries, across sectors and across regions (e.g. ABS water accounts enable the analysis of the interaction between changes in water use and the economy); Changes in population trends, including overseas migration, interstate movementsand regional growth patterns, (particularly regarding ‘at risk’ coastal areas or regions with projected lower rainfalls in the future), via a wealth of ABS demographic data; Human health measures relating to climate change including mortality, via ABS cause of death statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics data can also inform policy relating to people and communities considered at risk and vulnerable, such as people living in remote areas, people on lower incomes, the elderly, and those with poor housing.

V Joseph, B Lees, A Thornton and D Paull
School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW@ADFA, Australia

The bio-geophysical and social impacts of climate change have been deliberated upon at length in various scientific studies. One of the major geophysical impacts – is sea-level rise which will have social as well as ecological consequences. The aim of this study is to develop a systems understanding of differential vulnerabilities of selected occupational groups to sea level rise. The study area is the Demak regency of the Central Java province of Indonesia. This region is affected by hazards such as land subsidence, tidal floods and coastal erosion which make it particularly vulnerable to any rise in sea level.

The theoretical basis of the study is the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and so it follows a capital-based approach towards estimation of the vulnerability. Vulnerability indices for different livelihood capitals, or assets of groups such as fishermen, brackish pond farmers and mixed labour group (skilled and unskilled) were created as a quantitative estimate of vulnerability. Indexing is a well-established and efficient tool to derive such estimates. To expand this estimate, a detailed understanding of livelihoods using Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques such as historical time line analysis, resource mapping, brain storming exercises and focus group discussions was developed. In addition,community adaptation mechanisms which were already in place in response to coastal erosion and tidal floods were obtained and placed in the context of being indicative of their adaptive practices to the hazard-Sea level rise.

The Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques and other qualitative exercises aided in providing a richer, qualitative, background to the quantitative information collected on livelihood assets/capitals; especially on respective occupational systems. A mental model depicting the feedback loops between different component factors identified using these exercises was built. Components of this model include different livelihood capitals of the groups and individual occupational system factors depicted in multiple geographical scales of operation. This integration of the qualitative and quantitative approaches helps build an understanding of the livelihood systems, their background and their contribution to the vulnerability of respective occupational groups to the hazard in terms of a mental model depicted using Causal Loop Diagrams. As a key outcome, this study seeks to deliver policy planners with a holistic perspective of human vulnerability to a natural hazard like sea level rise.

L B Kamepalli and U B Mudugiri
Institute for Social and Economic Change, India
Kuvempu University, India

It is common that phenomenon of long delay in execution of large irrigation projects and this promotes either violation of cropping pattern or illegal irrigation. As a result, when the project is completed, head-reach farmers consuming more that water allocated to them at the cost of tail-enders allocation. Tail-enders by virtue of their limited voice both in policy making as well in decision making remains on receiving end. To come out of this vicious cycle, tail-enders has to adopt innovations at community level. Most of times, even if they find sustainable innovation, lack of assistance and marketing channels, often, fail them. Here is a case study about how tail enders are trying to find a solution for themselves. Tungabhadra Reservoir was constructed in 1950s but, distributary canal net work took two more decades to be completed. As a result head-reach farmers, though allowed only semi-arid crops, have shifted to rice and sugarcane cultivation and Tail- enders, from day one, were forced to scarcity of water and thus, low farm yields. Majority of tail-enders remained as mute recipients of things. But, one community, which was rehabilitated from those of Bangladesh implemented small scale innovation of construction of fish ponds in fields and moved away to vegetable cultivation thus ensuring higher household income. But construction of ponds requires financial resources and hence, only some can implement this innovation. This innovation has potential to improve household income levels, but factors such as a) lack of credits for construction of farm ponds and b) developing market for fish produce are remaining major bottlenecks. This kind of innovations in the face of resource hardship is common everywhere and given a opportunity, we would like to present our findings.

D Keogh, A Apan and S Mushtaq
Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba QLD 4350 Australia

Climate change is currently considered a major and urgent issue of global significance. In Australia its effects are already being experienced in the form of higher temperatures and more frequent extreme events. A warmer climate will increase the risk of floods, potentially leading to more severe damage to people, property, and the environment. In Australia flooding is the costliest form of natural disaster, with losses estimated at over $300 million a year.

Adaptation strategies need to be community and location-specific. A sound understanding is vital about the vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity of communities that are regularly flooded, in terms of how they prepare, respond to and cope with flood events, and the effectiveness of mitigation measures and plans enacted.

This study is an historical case study of the 2008 flood in Charleville, an inland rural town in Queensland, Australia. Charleville experiences frequent flooding and lies on an extremely vulnerable and extensive flood plain, with no significant elevated areas available for relocation.

Structured questionnaires were administered in personal interviews in February 2010 to householders, businesses and representatives from government, disaster committees and community service organisations (n=91). Household and business participants were restricted to those affected by the flood. Data were analysed using appropriate quantitative and qualitative techniques and SPSS statistical software.The main vulnerability found in households and businesses was the low level of flood insurance cover (only 32% of residents and 43% of businesses had cover), making them more vulnerable to economic losses. This was compounded by the fact that this cover is difficult to obtain and costly.

Residents displayed high levels of resilience and strong personal networks (evidenced by 77% evacuating to family or friends during the flood), high levels of sense of community and participation in community activities. They believe they have a personal responsibility for preparing for floods. Low formal volunteer rates were found, however this study suggests a high level of community spirit and the likelihood of strong informal volunteer networks.

Few participants would move to another town if affected by another flood. Residents heeded practical advice given on floods, eg., checking electrical appliances. Boiling tap water, however, is less of an issue as bore water quality is less affected in flood events. Many intend moving irreplaceable items above ground level in the future and almost 90% will continue to keep ditches and drains around their properties clear and free of debris. Residents rated the preparedness of State Government, utility providers and their Local Hospital highly (78%, 59% and 49%, respectively).

Better flood modelling and additional river height gauging stations are needed to enable more targeted evacuations. Bradley’s Gully requires further mitigation works. More affordable insurance products are necessary and regular information on how residents can prepare and the roles different organisations play, including in other languages. Further research on the psychological impacts of flood events is recommended.

A key highlight was the importance of residents taking personal responsibility for preparation and personal mitigation activities, and its sizeable contribution to the community’s ability to respond and cope with flood events.

A Kia, E van Beurden, D Hughes, K Howton, J Fuller, S Kavooru, U Dietrich
Health Promotion, North Coast Area Health Service, Australia
Office of Sustainability, Southern Cross University, Australia
Faculty of Health Sciences, Flinders University, Australia

There is increasing focus on climate change as the major preventable threat to the future health of humanity. Health Promotion teams generally have links with educational, social, administrative and business sectors of the community, and are therefore well placed to catalyse the formation of ’soft infrastructure’ for community resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The Health Promotion team of North Coast Area Health Service embraced this challenge with an initiative based on Complex Adaptive Systems Theory and Action Learning. It collaborated with key regional stakeholders concerned about climate change to develop broad agreements for strategies to increase active transport; improve food security; and to increase energy and resource sustainability.

The initiative was termed Resilience as this is central to human, social, ecological and global complex systems. Brian Walker has defined Resilience as ‘the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance, undergo change and still retain essentially the same function, structure, identify, and feedbacks’.

The project objectives were to:

Collaborate with other organisations to develop a Northern Rivers Climate Change Collaboration Agreement; Use the Agreement to accelerate community action for climate change mitigation, adaptation and transition strategies; Engage stakeholders in collaborative food and transport projects that synergistically address climate change and obesity.
A Northern Rivers Climate Change Collaboration Agreement was quickly developed. Disparate organisations signed on, and developed a way of working together. While a shared vision continued to grow, some differences emerged. At the same time, a paradox was navigated: most of the organisations were hierarchical bureaucracies, yet they were seeking a way of collaborating to facilitate rapid emergence of responses to climate change. Eventually, the Collaboration adopted a minimum set of governance guidelines to enable Sustain Northern Rivers, its action program.
This inter-organisational network achieved a number of outcomes. Transport initiatives included a novel approach to mapping regional commuter flows, modes and motivations by triangulating data from partner organisations, a model which could be used in other regions that lack transport data. Food initiatives included food value chain analysis, a Food Resilience Roundtable which scoped projects to increase local food production for local consumption; and the Eden at Home resource for growing backyard food.

A focus of the project was to maximise learning. A reflective Action Learning component was developed to understand how Complex Adaptive Systems theory could inform adaptive responses to climate change and creative action in organisations. These concepts were integrated with social network analysis to evaluate the way the Collaboration contributed to the development of soft infrastructure based on networks.

Social Network Analysis revealed the rapid development between 2006-2009 of a highly interconnected network of organisations addressing climate issues. The emergence of associated projects is also shown.

Health promotion can play a vital role in addressing the potential impact of climate change on rural communities. Social Network Analysis can add value to such efforts by providing a map of soft infrastructure development, a basis for advocacy, and a means for identifying new networking opportunities.

P Levira and S Fahey
School of Science and Education, Faculty of Science, Health and Education, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Community agriculture projects in Tanzania rely on seasonal rainfall as the sole source of water for crop production. Identification of the risks and impacts on community agriculture projects is a key step towards sustainable adaptation in a changing world. Adaptation is a process with multiple components, such as awareness raising, capacity building, stakeholder participation, mainstreaming, and impact assessments. As far as impact assessment on community agriculture projects is concerned, an emphasis on the appropriate combination of both bottom-up and top-down approaches are needed. This can serve to identify the location of specific impacts which require local adaptation strategies to benefit a rain-fed agricultural system.

A combination of bottom- up and top- down approaches using the Participatory Rural Appraisal and SimCLIM tool respectively were used to assess the impacts of climate variability and change on the community agriculture project (DASIP), in Shinyanga region, Tanzania. Findings showed that the top-down approach tends to generalize the findings, and most identified impacts do not represent the reality of the observable impacts to the local farms. However, this approach has contributed to a solution of allocating areas suitable for a rain-fed agricultural system through spatial modelling of mean rainfall. The impacts were identified by using Participatory Rural Appraisal to assess community seasonal activities, observable impacts, and coping strategies. The findings indicate that seasonal shifts, dry
spells, extreme events such as drought and flood, and rainfall distribution are the major impacts facing community agricultural systems. Farmers indicate that dry spells are the major impact on rain-fed agricultural systems. The modelling of the local extreme events and seasonal rain showed the greatest impacts on rain-fed agricultural area.

This study suggests that modelling the local climate impacts on the agricultural sector using the bottom-up approach is very important and should focus on the seasonal rains especially the duration (the length of the rainy season) and extreme events. This information informs the project manager and farmers on the likely changes to the lengths of the rainy seasons, the frequency and intensity of extreme events so that they can decide on which adaptation strategy to adopt regarding the seeds or type of crops to be planted in their local area. Also the top-down approach can provide valuable information to financial donors and the government to allocate community agricultural projects to the area which receives adequate precipitation. This study recommends that more research is needed on the modelling of dry spell which always occur during the crop seasons, so that information can be incorporated in a projects design to increase crop productivity in rain fed agricultural systems.

B Loechel, K Moffat, J Hodgkinson, A Littleboy and M Howden
Earth Sciences and Resource Engineering, CSIRO, Australia
Sustainable Ecosystems, CSIRO, Australia

Changes in climatic conditions are expected to impact the mining industry in diverse ways across Australia. How mining operations respond to these changes will have major implications for the communities associated with them, in addition to the direct effects of climate change on these communities. Likewise, community responses to dealing with climate change may have implications for nearby mining operations. This project investigates ways that mining communities and mining companies can work together to assess the likely effects of climate change and the adaption options open to them.

This project forms a component of a broader project within the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship investigating adaptation to climate change and climate extremes by the Australian mining industry. Climate modelling in support of this project indicates changes in rainfall and temperature patterns could significantly affect mining regions. Hotter and dryer conditions and more extreme weather events such as flooding, including changes in the frequency, intensity and geographic distribution of cyclones (hurricanes), are expected to have significant implications for mining operations in different parts of Australia. Recent exploratory work in the Earth Sciences and Resource Engineering division of CSIRO investigated the likely effects across the various stages of the mining operation, and identified the main concerns as those related to water, energy, geohazards, infrastructure, transport, and site rehabilitation. These included: water scarcity and excesses; increased energy requirements (e.g. for cooling workspaces, residences and machines and for pumping water) as well as disruptions to energy supply and increased transmission losses; changes to the stability of rock faces and other aspects that pose health and safety concerns; damage to transport routes from extreme rainfall and temperature events; the need for increased tolerances of mining machinery and other infrastructure, such as tailings dam susceptible to flooding; and, threats to mine site rehabilitation efforts through erosion, drought and fire.

The types of responses that mining operations undertake in relation to the above specific challenges will have implications for surrounding communities. These communities will also be facing the more direct effects of climate change (e.g. heat stress). While there are many studies of adaptation to climate change, there are few that consider explicitly the effects that might occur in mining communities, and whilst there is a large literature on the links between the minerals sector and local communities, the impact of climate change is rarely addressed specifically.In tandem with a more comprehensive survey of perceptions across the mining industry, this study will use a case-study approach to assess the likely effects of climate change on specific mining operations and communities. Participatory and action-oriented methods will be used to involve a range of different stakeholders to assess vulnerability to climate change and to develop consequent adaptation strategies. Relationships between local community adaptation and broader climate adaptation planning at different spatial scales and levels of government will also be investigated.

F McKenzie and E Waters
Department of Planning and Community Development, Victoria, Australia

The town of Lake Boga in northern Victoria experienced the loss of its lake in early 2008 due to ongoing drought conditions across south eastern Australia. A qualitative study of the town was undertaken by the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development in order to understand the experience and impact of this environmental event. By selecting a case study which has already experienced an environmental event that might be envisaged under climate change scenarios, the researchers were able to investigate, in more concrete terms, ways in which a community experiences, responds and adapts to such change. Findings from this research are relevant to climate change adaptation policy and debate.

The drying of Lake Boga is generally not seen by residents as being caused by climate change. In fact there is widespread scepticism about climate change theory and governments’ focus upon it. Because the lake was recently incorporated into an irrigation project, locals expect water to return to the lake. The hope of water returning is an important factor in sustaining the community’s morale. When attention was drawn to other lakes that have remained dry for up to 10 years, respondents appeared not to have considered such a scenario for Lake Boga. Nevertheless, uncertainty exists around timing of the water’s return and this has created stress for many residents, especially those who need to make decisions about whether to stay or leave.

Those with lakeside property and business owners have borne the economic brunt of the lake drying through declining property values and the loss of tourists. However, out-migration has been a relatively small part of the community response to the drying lake. Some are ‘trapped’ by loss of asset value and are waiting for water to return before selling their property.

Others regard the local area as ‘home’, with or without the lake, and are likely to stay irrespective of any long term environmental change. The proximity of a regional centre, Swan Hill, has played an important role in limiting the economic impacts of the dry lake as it continues to provide sources of employment, and hence income, for working age people. Swan Hill also continues to offer a range of goods and services which continue to be accessed by the residents of Lake Boga.

The use of mobility (travelling for work, shopping and recreation) as an adaptive response is not confined to environmental change – it has been occurring over many decades in the face of rural depopulation and service loss. The major question regarding such an adaptive response to climate change events is its sustainability should fuel prices rise. It is in this way that less wealthy residents of regional Australia may be most impacted by future change.

People respond to critical environmental change in different ways and within different timeframes – this has implications for how government interacts with communities that are going through change. It confirms the need for government to better understand community dynamics and customise responses accordingly.

R Richards, T Smith and T Lynam
Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Ausr
CSIRO – Sustainable Ecosystems

Enhancing adaptive capacity in the context of climate change and at multiple scales (individual, local, regional, national and international) and across multiple communities is a priority management challenge. Fundamental to this is identifying the barriers that restrict a ’system’, at whatever scale, from being better able to cope with the real or perceived threats and consequences of climate change. However, identifying these barriers is problematic given that there is great uncertainty and variability associated with the nature and impact of climate change even for perennial physical indicators such as sea-level rise and temperature. This problem is further amplified when viewed in the context of highly subjective relationships such as associated with more tacit variables (e.g. social dynamics and cultural capital).

Bayesian Network (BN) modelling is recognised as a well-suited methodology to representing the causal relationships of a system in the context of variability, uncertainty and subjectivity. They combine intuitive visual representation of cause-effect between variables, however subjective, underpinned by a robust mathematical framework. They have a demonstrated utility for combining subjective expert opinion with quantified data (measured and/ or modelled data) and can infer these causal relationships even when there is incomplete evidence (data). BNs, however, have not been widely-used to explicitly model social dynamics even though they have recognised utility in modelling these types of unstructured systems. Rather, BNs have typically incorporated only a few (often one) social variables as an endpoint and which is often set to a quantitative scale such as ‘willingness to pay’. The few examples of where BNs have been used to explicitly model social dynamics, however, have shown strong utility and practicality for enhancing adaptive management in the context of common-pool resource management.

We present here our work on using BNs to help identify and evaluate stakeholder perceptions to climate change adaptation as part of the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQ-CARI) project. Specifically, BNs are used to quantify causal relationships (and the uncertainty of these relationships) for a range of priority ‘issues’ as a means of identifying community-specific and generic barriers to enhancing adaptive capacity in the South East Queensland region. The BNs are developed through participatory modelling whereby key stakeholders fully participate in all development stages of these models including identifying model variables and model structure and helping to populate the model (parameterisation) through expert opinion. This participatory process facilitates a common understanding amongst the stakeholders regarding the causal relationships of each model as well as informing them of the underlying assumptions, limitations and application (of the model), thereby effectively de-centralising ownership of the model away from the modeller and to the stakeholders themselves.

A Roiko, R Mangoyana and J Oliver
University of the Sunshine Coast, Sustainability Research Centre, Australia

Past approaches to assessing adaptive capacity and vulnerability to climate change are usually isolated to one particular place and point in time. However, the effectiveness of climate change responses is influenced by the adaptive capacity of all sectors of society over various spatial and temporal scales. Socio-economic characteristics have often been used to help determine a community’s capacity to adapt to climate change related risks. However, other factors including cultural, institutional and technological characteristics interact to influence adaptive capacity. Moreover, these factors influence the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of various economic and social sectors differently. Much of the literature discusses adaptation through determinants in a particular space and time, with little reference to the temporal and spatial dynamics of adaptive capacity. Drawing examples from the socio-economic trends (current and projected to 2030 and 2070) of the South East Queensland (SEQ) region, this paper explores the dynamic relationships between socio- economic characteristics and potential vulnerability to climate change over time and space, and points to implications for those investigating sectoral impacts of climate change and adaptation responses . Gaps and limitations inherent within routinely available socio-economic data are also highlighted along with the challenges that these present.

Systems-based approaches to investigating the determinants of adaptive capacity within regional communities that utilize both pre-existing secondary data on socio-economic profiles and primary data collected through a variety of means are introduced. The paper will also examine the interplay of different socio-economic characteristics including population, age structure, education, employment, income, community disadvantaged groups, household structure and housing; and their implications to community vulnerability and the likely implications on adaptive capacity. The factors discussed are not meant to provide the whole range of determinants of adaptive capacity but examples relating to SEQ contextual influences to enhance a deeper conceptualization of the relationship between socio-economic characteristics. The paper will therefore not only highlight the important foundational aspects of adaptation research that account for the temporal and spatial dynamics of adaptive capacity and its relationship to climate change risk, but also advance the debate on climate change adaptation in general.

N Tindale, M Taylor and S Chapman
University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia
Noosa Biosphere, Australia
SEQ-Catchments NRM, Australia

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) , designated the former Noosa Shire boundary as a biosphere region in September of 2007. It was a first for Queensland and the Biosphere status was effectively an acknowledgement of work done by a wide range of organisations and individuals in the Noosa community over many years and provides a focus for Noosa’s aspirations for a sustainable future. The Noosa Biosphere Limited is a company owned by the SCRC and directed by a voluntary board, with directors drawn from the community and council. Six sector boards are an important component of the community based structure of the Noosa Biosphere. http://www.noosabiosphere.org.au/

Biosphere reserves are internationally recognized and serve in some ways as ‘living laboratories’ for testing out and demonstrating integrated management of land, water, and biodiversity, in order to achieve and demonstrate innovative approaches to conservation, enhanced livelihoods and the development of sustainable communities and regions.

The UNESCO MAB Program’s “Madrid Declaration and Action Plan”, formulated in 2008, mandates a focus on:
• accelerated climate change with consequences for societies and ecosystems
• accelerated loss of biological and cultural diversity with unexpected consequences that impact the ability of ecosystems to provide services critical for human well-being
• rapid urbanisation as a driver of environmental change.

Building on the community efforts to date, we are developing the “Climate Proofing the Biosphere” initiative that seeks to focus attention on, and prepare for, a major issue facing the Sunshine Coast region. ‘Climate proofing’ means making areas and assets more resistant and communities more resilient to climate variability and change.

A community-based, bottom-up, approach to climate change adaptation takes a grass-roots approach to improving community preparation and resilience to the impacts of Climate Change including extreme weather events and sea level rise. The “Climate Proofing the Biosphere” initiative will involve a wide range of partners including the University of the Sunshine Coast, SEQ-Catchments and the Sunshine Coast Regional Council. A number of community and business organisations have already expressed their support for the initiative and we are confident that many more will join the effort as it develops further.

The poster will highlight details of our effort to Climate Proof the Noosa Bisophere and our progress to date!