Applying a Multi-pronged Approach to Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 77

to one approach in comparison to another. The second issue relates to identifying
whether or not adaptive capacity has actually been created. While it is possible to
compare impacts between different places and times, it is not possible to compare the
same event in the same place with a different set of variables.

5.4.1 Proxy Events

A number of studies have highlighted that there are significant challenges in
assessing adaptive capacity (Engle and Lemos 2010 ; Smit et al. 2000 ) since 'adap-
tive capacity is latent in nature… it can only be actually measured after it has been
realized or mobilized' (Engle and Lemos 2010 , p 5). However, the empirical study
of adaptation to climatic events, can to a certain degree overcome the pre-impact
intangibility of adaptive capacity (Adger et al. 2007 ). In this case, the study of
past extreme stresses (such as drought or flooding) can serve as a proxy for climate
change impacts that are likely to manifest in a future, warmer, more uncertain
world. Smit et al. ( 2000 ) show that by studying system responses to past climate
variability (which tends to be experienced through the nature and frequencies of
extremes) it is possible to identify attributes of the system which were key to
either successful or failed responses. Likewise, the IPCC (Adger et al. 2007 ) also
recognised that 'empirical knowledge from past experience in dealing with climate-
related natural disasters such as droughts and floods… as well as longer term
trends in mean conditions, can be particularly helpful in understanding the coping
strategies and adaptive capacity' (p 138). Such studies of adaptation to extreme
events have further highlighted the importance of institutions and governance
mechanisms for the capacity or inability to deal with change (Brooks et al. 2005 ;
Engle and Lemos 2010 ; Hurlbert 2009 ) .
Given the challenges in investigating adaptive capacity, and in order to evaluate
the validity of the assumptions in recent literature, it is therefore important to build
and test more nuanced indicators in the context of recent past events (Adger et al.
2007 ). To achieve this, suitable proxies and indicators needed to be identified, and
thus the case studies presented in this topic have relied more heavily on empirical
assessment of extreme stresses in order to test assumptions and build more nuanced
indicators in the context of recent past events. This approach allows research not
just to characterise adaptive capacity based on theorised and normatively driven
determinants of adaptive capacity, but to attempt to understand it systematically
through the presence or absence of adaptive behaviour (Engle 2011 ), as well as the
form of adaptive behaviour.
Yohe and Tol ( 2002 , p 26) determine that systems 'typically respond to variabil-
ity and extreme events before they respond to gradual changes in the mean'.
Therefore, this study used recent extreme events (drought and flooding) to serve as
the primary context through which to explore the governance system's interaction
with hydro-climatic events, eliciting information on planning and preparation for