Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation of Coastal Zones to Global Change - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 164

For countries in the developing regions the main obstacles are limited
knowledge and scientific research, the lack of qualified human
resources, institutional capacities, horizontal and vertical cooperation
between governmental bodies and the rarity of long-term finance.
Another approach that provides an alternative framework for
adaptation, and which has already been applied to the management of
coastal zones, is adaptive management (AM) [WAL 97]. This
methodology has been developed in the context of ecosystem
management to face the uncertainties resulting from the difficulties in
predicting the outcomes of management interventions. AM is an
iterative and systematic process for the improvement of management
practices based on lessons taken from earlier practices. It begins by
formulating a management hypothesis that is later tested by
implementing it, monitoring the outcomes and learning from these to
refine the initial hypothesis. There are strong constraints on the
application of AM for coastal adaptation that result from the potential
high cost and difficulties associated with experimentation in the
context of the impacts and vulnerabilities of coastal zones to climate
change.
Community Based Adaptation (CBA) is an adaptation strategy at a
local level whose objective is to respond to the impacts of climate
change and also to reinforce in an integrated perspective the adaptive
capacity of poor communities that are vulnerable to climate and non-
climate risks [REI 09]. The aim of CBA is to promote the active
participation of different players in the coastal communities of
developing countries in a learning process of good social, economic,
institutional and environmental practices for sustainable development.
This process primarily involves the questions regarding water
resources, food security and the adaptive capacity to the impacts of
climate change on coastal zones, particularly those associated with
extreme weather events and GMSL rise. The International Institute for
Sustainable Development (www.iisd.org) is one of the international
institutions particularly active on the CBA.
The success of the adaptation process of coastal zones to climate
change depends to a large extent on the efficiency of communicating
the results of scientific research to political decision-makers and