The Assessment of Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 63

Table 4.1 Initial operationalisation of tentative determinants to explore adaptive capacity across
the case areas
Governance determinants of adaptive capacity
Tentative Indicators Sub-criteria

Knowledge Right to Information; Communication/Public Perception;

Spatial Planning; Access to scientific/environmental
information; Exchange of data & information; Integration
of scientific expertise; Quality of Scientific Information;
Use of traditional & local knowledge

Networks Access to participation; Selection of non-state actors; Level

of influence; Type of participation; Stage in the political
process; Social Networks; Professions Networks;
Willingness to Cooperate

Levels of decision making Ecological based units of decision making; Institutional

arrangements

Integration Geographical integration; Sectoral/Uses integration; Political

integration

Flexibility-predictability Consistency in rule of the law; Rigidity of legal provisions;

Iterative elements of law/institutions

Resources Financial resources; Quantity/quality of human resources;

Organisation of resources; Independence/impartiality of
experts

Experience Training & development; Years of experience

Leadership Political Commitment; Facilitating role; Initiation of

partnerships; Support mobilisation; Linking of actors;
Trust amongst stakeholders

were replaced by more open determinants to better complement the iterative
development of indicators within this research.
These governance and institutional related determinants are the platform from
which adaptive capacity may be explored across the case areas. These determinants
have been discussed as being important to the nature of adaptive capacity and to
affecting the outcome of adaptive actions. While climate change risks have been
well addressed in the academic literature, adaptation to climate change is often ini-
tially experienced through adjustments to variability and extremes (Tompkins and
Adger 2004 ), but adaptation rarely takes place purely in relation to climate change
alone (Parry et al. 2007 ). The potential inconsistency between using past extreme
events as a proxy, when simultaneously enforcing the notion that the past may no
longer be a prologue for the future, is fully recognised.
However, the focus on extremes specifically pinpoints situations that while
currently recognised as an outlier event, may in the future become situated
within the normal frame of management reference (e.g. 100-year floods recur-
ring three times within the space of a decade). In this case past adaptations to
climatic or hydrological stresses are likely to provide some useful insight into
incremental step changes in the future hydro-climatic reality that are to be
expected over the next 10-20 years. If in the coming decades (20-50 years)
massive shocks do occur, where certain tipping points are crossed in the