Environmental Engineering Reference
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climatic events and adaptation. The methodological approach followed aimed to
recognise and take into account these challenges by exploring adaptive capacity in
relation to specific extreme events and categorising the governance mechanisms
associated with those preparing for, managing and reacting to those hydrological
extremes according to a resilience and institutional learning based framework of
SES change before further characterisation and operationalisation of adaptive
capacity indicators.
Furthermore, the analytical definitions employed within the study recognised the
inability to exclusively link pressures relating to climate change from other eco-
nomic, environmental or developmental pressures. This process aimed to establish
clearer connections between such approaches and the mobilisation of adaptive
capacity before, during or after a climatic event, while recognising the complex
interactions between different pressures and the overarching challenges of causa-
tion, for which there is a need for longer and systematic monitoring and assessment
of strategies in preparation and mobilisation phases as climate events happen over
longer periods of time. However, the approach taken in this study has not only pre-
sented a method to assess how governance approaches can assist in the implementa-
tion of adaptive and integrative water governance approaches, but actually how
successful elements of those governance mechanisms are at dealing with uncer-
tainty through different kinds of hydro-climatic events as and when they come.
Some recent studies of adaptive capacity (Keskitalo et al. 2010 ) have still focussed
on the broad vulnerability based determinants 1 of adaptive capacity (Smit and Wandel
2006 ; Yohe and Tol 2002 ) to provide insights into adaptive capacity in developed
country contexts. However, while such aggregate determinants can still provide use-
ful insights at a more aggregate level, they lack the nuance that can affect the devel-
opment and mobilisation of adaptive capacity across the different scales addressed in
the research presented. For instance, public perception of climate change and its
impacts were found to be astute across stakeholders interviewed in both case areas,
but despite high awareness and acceptance of climate change impacts, a strong sense
of apathy was also prevalent in actors' edibility to adapt to large scale climate change,
which impacted planning and preparation for smaller scales of change.
Furthermore, this topic hopes to have provided valuable insights into new case
areas to the growing body of literature on adaptive capacity. It is equally important
to build the body of evidence on adaptive capacity as well as the mix of cases from
a range of developed, emerging and developing contexts to better under what drives
adaptive behaviour and enables different social systems to cope with and success-
fully adapt to climate related threats (Keskitalo et al. 2010 ). Just as Elinor Ostrom
and collaborators have compiled a strong body of evidence to challenge conven-
tional wisdom on the tragedy of the commons, collective action dilemmas and the
social trap discourse (Ostrom 2010 ), a similar concerted effort to compiling case
1 The range of technological options, structure of institutions, stock of human and social capital,
access to risk-spreading procedures, ability of decision makers to manage information, public
perception of causes of change and likely impacts (Adger et al. 2007 ) .
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