Our scientific view on climate change adaptation (CCA) is unsatisfying in many ways: It is often dominated by a modernistic perspective of planned pro-active adaptation, with a selective focus on measures directly responding to climate change impacts and thus it is far from real-life conditions of those who are actually affected by climate change. Farmers have to simultaneously adapt to multiple changes. Therefore, also empirical climate change adaptation research needs a more integrative perspective on real-life climate change adaptations. This also has to consider “hidden” adaptations, which are not explicitly and directly motivated by CCA but actually contribute to the sector’s adaptability to climate change. The aim of the present study is to develop and test an analytic framework that contributes to a broader understanding of CCA and to bridge the gap between scientific expertise and practical action. The framework distinguishes three types of CCA according to their climate related motivations: explicit adaptations, multi-purpose adaptations, and hidden adaptations. Although agriculture is among the sectors that are most affected by climate change, results from the case study of Tyrolean mountain agriculture show that climate change is ranked behind other more pressing “real-life-challenges” such as changing agricultural policies or market conditions. We identified numerous hidden adaptations which make a valuable contribution when dealing with climate change impacts. We conclude that these hidden adaptations have not only to be considered to get an integrative und more realistic view on CCA; they also provide a great opportunity for linking adaptation strategies to farmers’ realities.

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Improving market access and opportunities for value addition for small-scale food producers and family farms and properly functioning food commodity markets are among the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals. Market structure and market concentration are important aspects that could make this goal attainable. In a case study, we explore the current conditions of pork and beef farmers in Austrian meat markets by combining a quantitative approach with qualitative inquiries. The quantitative analysis shows that the concentration of meat markets has been increasing in recent years. The rates of change differ in various segments of the value chain and across the types of markets. These results are the starting point for a qualitative analysis of the competitive situation in the observed markets. One finding is that in each market prices are set in idiosyncratic ways. Another one is that producer organizations are an appropriate means for small-scale and family-run farms to strengthen their position in the value chain. We conclude that policy initiatives to improve market access and value addition for farmers need to be complemented by targeted dissemination activities and that competition analyses should apply multi-method approaches similar to the one used in this analysis.

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The paradigmatic shift from traditional flood defense toward integrated flood risk management has widened the sectors and policies affected and has spurred a growing interest of scholars to understand cross-sectoral flood policy integration. In this paper we argue that the cross-sectoral goal relationship—ranging from complementary to conflictual policy goals—is a useful conceptual framework to understand (1) the policy integration challenge at hands and (2) in particular the unfolding policy integration from a processual perspective. For our empirical analysis we identify three policy subsystems that are highly important for sectoral interplay in flood risk management: agriculture, hydropower generation, and spatial planning. Using Austria as a case study we illustrate the goal relationships and sectoral policy integration challenges in each of these fields of interaction. Based on 45 expert interviews in the selected policy sectors we provide useful insights into the current processes of flood policy integration. The empirical findings from our case studies show that sectoral goal relationships and the nature of the policy integration challenge drive flood policy integration. More pronounced land use conflicts are more strongly reflected in different actor interests, policy frames, policy goals, and the choice of policy instruments. Sectoral goal relationships are an important factor to explain the unfolding policy integration process. Complementary policy goals result in rather informal, harmonious integrative negotiations on strengthening synergies by using soft policy instruments. On the contrary, conflictual policy goals lead to more formal negotiations among the affected sectors relying on hard, regulative instruments.