Mechanism-based explanations of impasses in the governance of ecosystem-based adaptation

Many climate change adaptation scholars recognise the complexities in the governance of adaptation. Most have used the concept of ‘barriers to adaptation’ in an attempt to describe why governance of adaptation is challenging. However, these studies have recently been critiqued for over simplifying complex governance processes by referring to the static concept of barriers, thereby ignoring dynamic complexity as a root explanatory cause. This paper builds the argument that how barriers are currently used in the literature is insufficient to explain why the governance of adaptation often proves difficult. We adopt a so-called mechanism-based approach to investigate how and why the governance of ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) reaches impasses in five cases in Thailand and the Netherlands. Our findings show six causal mechanisms that explain impasses in the five case studies: (1) frame polarisation, (2) timing synchronisation, (3) risk innovation, (4) rules of the game, (5) veto players and (6) lost in translation. Several of these causal mechanisms are recurring and emerge under specific contextual conditions or are activated by other mechanisms. Our findings provide valuable insights into the impasses in the governance of EbA and allow for critical reflections on the analytical value of the mechanism-based approach in explaining why the governance of adaptation proves difficult and how this can be overcome.     

Using a social learning configuration to increase Vietnamese smallholder farmers’ adaptive capacity to respond to climate change

Social learning is crucial for local smallholder farmers in developing countries to improve their adaptive capacity and to adapt to the current and projected impacts of climate change. While it is widely acknowledged that social learning is a necessary condition for adaptation, few studies have systematically investigated under which conditions particular forms of social learning are most successful in improving adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable groups. This study aims to design, implement and evaluate a social learning configuration in a coastal community in Vietnam. We make use of various methods during four workshop-based interventions with local smallholder farmers: interviews with key farmers and commune leaders, farmer-to-farmer learning, participatory observations and focus group discussions. The methods for evaluation of social learning configuration include in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and structured survey interviews. Our findings show that the social learning configuration used in this study leads to an increased problem ownership, an enhanced knowledge-base with regard to climate change impacts and production adaptation options, improved ability to see connections and interdependencies and finally, strengthened relationships and social cohesion. The results suggest that increased social learning in the community leads to increase in adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers and improves both their economic and environmental sustainability. We discuss the key lessons for designing learning configurations that can successfully enhance adaptive capacity and smallholder farmers’ agency and responsiveness to the challenges posed by climate change impacts.     

Managing flood risks in the Mekong Delta: How to address emerging challenges under climate change and socioeconomic developments

Climate change and accelerating socioeconomic developments increasingly challenge flood-risk management in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta—a typical large, economically dynamic and highly vulnerable delta. This study identifies and addresses the emerging challenges for flood-risk management. Furthermore, we identify and analyse response solutions, focusing on meaningful configurations of the individual solutions and how they can be tailored to specific challenges using expert surveys, content analysis techniques and statistical inferences. Our findings show that the challenges for flood-risk management are diverse, but critical challenges predominantly arise from the current governance and institutional settings. The top-three challenges include weak collaboration, conflicting management objectives and low responsiveness to new issues. We identified 114 reported solutions and developed six flood management strategies that are tailored to specific challenges. We conclude that the current technology-centric flood management approach is insufficient given the rapid socioecological changes. This approach therefore should be adapted towards a more balanced management configuration where technical and infrastructural measures are combined with institutional and governance resolutions. Insights from this study contribute to the emerging repertoire of contemporary flood management solutions, especially through their configurations and tailoring to specific challenges.     

Climate change adaptation planning for Global South megacities: the case of Dhaka

Megacities in low- and middle-income countries face unique threats from climate change as vulnerable populations and infrastructure are concentrated in high-risk areas. This paper develops a theoretical framework to characterize adaptation readiness in Global South cities and applies the framework to Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city with acute exposure and projected impacts from flooding and extreme heat. To gather case evidence from Dhaka we draw upon interviews with national and municipal government officials and a review of planning documents and peer-reviewed literature. We find: (1) national-level plans propose a number of adaptation strategies, but urban concerns compete with priorities such as protection of coastal assets and agricultural production; (2) municipal plans focus on identifying vulnerability and impacts rather than adaptation strategies; (3) interviewees suggest that lack of coordination among local government (LG) organizations and lack of transparency act as barriers for municipal adaptation planning, with national plans driving policy where LGs have limited human and financial resources; and (4) we found limited evidence that national urban adaptation directives trickle down to municipal government. The framework developed offers a systematic and standardized means to assess and monitor the status of adaptation planning in Global South cities, and identify adaptation constraints and opportunities.     

Barriers and enablers to climate change adaptation in hierarchical governance systems: the case of Vietnam

Governments fulfil important roles in increasing the adaptive capacity of local communities to respond to climate change impacts, particularly in developing countries. Existing studies on how governments enable and constrain the ways in which local level communities learn and build their adaptive capacity, however, generally adopt network or market-oriented types of governance. However, the most vulnerable regions to climate change impact in the world are generally governed through hierarchical policy systems. This research aims to understand how the hierarchical policy system in Vietnam creates enables and/or constrains the policy capacity of policy actors to contribute to effective climate change adaptation. We conducted interviews (n?=?26) with key actors at multiple levels of government. Our findings show the importance of clear legal institutions, available financing for implementing policies, and the training of governmental staff, particularly at district and commune levels where the policy capacities are generally too low to deal with climate change impacts. We conclude that any efforts to support local actors (i.e. smallholder farmers) should include investments in policy capacity to ensure uptake and upscaling of adaptation actions more broadly.     

Temperature sensitivity of the turnover times of soil organic matter in forests.

Soils represent the largest carbon pool in the terrestrial biosphere, and climate change might affect the main carbon fluxes associated with this pool. These fluxes are the production of aboveground litter and root litter, and decomposition of the soil organic matter (SOM) pool by soil microorganisms. Knowledge about the temperature sensitivity of the decomposition of different SOM fractions is crucial in order to understand how climate change might affect carbon storage in soils. In this study, the temperature sensitivity of the turnover times of three different SOM fractions (labile, intermediate, and stabilized) was investigated for 11 forest sites along a temperature gradient. Carbon-14 isotope analyses of the SOM fractions combined with a model provided estimates of their turnover times. The turnover times of the labile SOM fraction were not correlated with mean annual soil temperature. Therefore it was not possible to estimate temperature sensitivity for the labile SOM fraction. Given considerable evidence elsewhere for significant temperature sensitivities of labile SOM, lack of temperature sensitivity here most likely indicates limitations of the applied methodology for the labile SOM fraction. The turnover times of the intermediate and the stabilized SOM fractions were both correlated with mean annual soil temperatures. The temperature sensitivity of the stabilized SOM fraction was at least equal to that of the intermediate SOM fraction and possibly more than twice as high. A correction for confounding effects of soil acidity and clay content on the temperature sensitivities of the intermediate and stabilized SOM fractions was included in the analysis. The results as observed here for the three SOM fractions may have been influenced by (1) modeling assumptions for the estimation of SOM turnover times of leaf and needle longevities, constant annual carbon inputs, and steady-state SOM pools, (2) the occurrence of summer drought at some sites, (3) differences between sites in quality of the SOM fractions, or (4) the relatively small temperature range. Our results suggested that a 1 degree C increase in temperature could lead to decreases in turnover times of 4-11% and 8-16%, for the intermediate and stabilized SOM fractions, respectively.