Community‐based adaptation (CBA) has emerged over the last decade as an approach to empowering communities to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. While such approaches have been widely advocated, few have critically examined the tensions and challenges that CBA brings. Responding to this gap, this article critically examines the use of CBA approaches with Inuit communities in Canada. We suggest that CBA holds significant promise to make adaptation research more democratic and responsive to local needs, providing a basis for developing locally appropriate adaptations based on local/indigenous and Western knowledge. Yet, we argue that CBA is not a panacea, and its common portrayal as such obscures its limitations, nuances, and challenges. Indeed, if uncritically adopted, CBA can potentially lead to maladaptation, may be inappropriate in some instances, can legitimize outside intervention and control, and may further marginalize communities. We identify responsibilities for researchers engaging in CBA work to manage these challenges, emphasizing the centrality of how knowledge is generated, the need for project flexibility and openness to change, and the importance of ensuring partnerships between researchers and communities are transparent. Researchers also need to be realistic about what CBA can achieve, and should not assume that research has a positive role to play in community adaptation just because it utilizes participatory approaches. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:175–191. doi: 10.1002/wcc.376For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
We used an acoustic Doppler profiler to investigate the hydrodynamics of a nearshore site in western Lake Erie, and we incorporated the measured parameters in numerical simulations of phytoplankton consumption by benthic zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) to examine the link between pelagic production and benthic filter feeders. Daily-averaged eddy diffusivities varied from 105 to 104 m2·s1 at our site. Our simulations demonstrate that diffusivities of this order decrease near-bed algal biomass, while algal biomass in the pelagic remains relatively unaffected. Between 8% and 67% of the algal biomass in the water column could be consumed daily, depending on the shape and magnitude of the diffusivity profile. Correspondingly, in situ vertical biomass profiles showed a near-bed zone of algal depletion, but no impact was observed near the surface. The impact of the zebra mussel in nearshore regions is expected to be stronger than in deeper open water. The flow of algal biomass into the benthos was tightly coupled with turbulent mixing, suggesting that open water algal consumption by zebra mussels is small compared with previously published estimates that ignored vertical turbulent mixing processes.
One of the functions of higher educational systems everywhere has been the recruitment of an elite; for until the mass-education experiments of the twentieth century, highly educated members of major historical societies have been the chosen few. Similarly, the content of higher education has formed a culture the monopoly of which has served to set the highly educated apart from the common man. Hence the system of higher education in most societies forms a well-recognized institutional avenue of approach, not only to a society's high literary culture, but to prestige and power as well. These important properties of higher educational systems suggest that the content of higher education may have a social utility for the educated elite quite apart from its informational value. In this paper we examine the relationship between the college curriculum and the social reform activities of the educated elite of one Indian province, Bombay, in the late nineteenth century.
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