A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate changeAssessing global progress on human adaptation to climate change is an urgent priority. Although the literature on adaptation to climate change is rapidly expanding, little is known about the actual extent of implementation. We systematically screened >48,000 articles using machine learning methods and a global network of 126 researchers. Our synthesis of the resulting 1,682 articles presents a systematic and comprehensive global stocktake of implemented human adaptation to climate change. Documented adaptations were largely fragmented, local and incremental, with limited evidence of transformational adaptation and negligible evidence of risk reduction outcomes. We identify eight priorities for global adaptation research: assess the effectiveness of adaptation responses, enhance the understanding of limits to adaptation, enable individuals and civil society to adapt, include missing places, scholars and scholarship, understand private sector responses, improve methods for synthesizing different forms of evidence, assess the adaptation at different temperature thresholds, and improve the inclusion of timescale and the dynamics of responses.

We present the first systematic, global stocktake of the academic literature on human adaptation. We screen 48,316 documents and identify 1,682 articles that present empirical research documenting human efforts to reduce risk from climate change and associated hazards. Coding and synthesizing this literature highlights that the overall extent of adaptation across global regions and sectors is low. Adaptations are largely local and incremental rather than transformative. Behavioural adjustments by individuals and households are more prevalent than any other type of response, largely motivated by drought and precipitation variability. Local governments and civil society are engaging in risk reduction across all sectors and regions, particularly in response to flooding. Urban technological and infrastructural adaptations to flood risk are prevalent in Europe, while shifts in farming practices dominate reporting from Africa and Asia. Despite increasing evidence of adaptation responses, evidence that these responses are reducing risks (observed and projected) remains limited.

Although concepts of “community” and “participation” have been heavily critiqued in the social sciences, they remain uncritically applied across disciplines, leading to problems that undermine both research and practice. Nevertheless, these approaches are advocated for, especially in Indigenous contexts. To assess the use of these concepts, we conducted a systematic literature review of community-based and participatory research in Alaska, USA, where social change has been rapid, having ramifications for social organization, and where participatory and community-based approaches are heavily advocated for by Alaska Native organizations. Conceptualizations of community and participation were extracted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The majority of articles showed a lack of critical consideration around both terms, although this was especially the case in reporting around community. While this lack of critical consideration could lead to issues of local elite co-opting research, an alternative interpretation is that Western sociological literature surrounding community is not transferable to Indigenous contexts.

Amid the surge in research on mobility and migration in the context of environmental change, little research has focused on the experiences of people for whom travel is cyclical and a part of daily, weekly, or seasonal life. For Inuit in Arctic North America, the land is the heart of cultural and community life. Disruption to time spent on the land is reported to impact the emotional health and well-being of individuals and communities. There is concern that environmental change is creating barriers to safe travel, constituting a creeping disaster. We systematically review and evaluate the literature for discussion of barriers to travel for Inuit in Arctic North America, using an approach from the field of disaster anthropology to identify root causes of constraints to mobility. We identify root causes of risk and barriers to time spent on the land. These emerge from historic and contemporary colonial policy and inequality, as opposed to environmental hazards per se, impacting people’s mobility in profound ways and enacting a form of slow violence. These results suggest a need to understand the underlying processes and institutions that put people at risk.

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