This paper analyses the results from two surveys which were sent to all Norwegian municipalities in 2007 and gives an overview of adaptation measures undertaken by local governments. Our analyses show that municipalities have more often invested in measures related to extreme precipitation and flooding than in measures for securing buildings and infrastructure against climate change. One key factor explaining their efforts is whether they have experienced extreme events. Hence adaptation efforts are mainly reactive. With a changing climate comes a greater demand for proactive adaptation processes, as well as knowledge of how adaptation policies and measures could be implemented successfully. This paper emphasises the importance of enhancing institutional capacity in order to address the challenges of climate change adaptation at the municipal level; and asserts that a multilevel governance framework is a way of advancing proactive adaptation and overcoming the identified barriers to adaptation.

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ABSTRACT. This article contributes to our understanding of community resilience. Community resilience is the ability of a community to cope and adjust to stresses caused by social, political, and environmental change and to engage community resources to overcome adversity and take advantage of opportunities in response to change. Through an analysis of local responses to multiple challenges, six dimensions of community resilience were found in one village in northern Norway. These dimensions; community resources, community networks, institutions and services, people-place connections, active agents, and learning; are activated in processes and activities in the village to respond to current challenges. Although this corroborates findings from other community resilience research, this research suggests that community resilience is both complex and dynamic over time. Although communities may consider themselves resilient to today's challenges, the rate and magnitude of expected systemic global changes, especially climate change, means that future resilience cannot be taken for granted. This work concludes that there is a risk that community resilience may be an illusion, leading to complacency about the need for adaption to multiple factors of change. Hence, the ability of communities to actively engage in reflexive learning processes is of importance for both adaptation and future resilience.

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In this chapter we focus on how changing societal and climatic conditions have consequences for current and future vulnerability and adaptation in three municipalities in Northern Norway: Hammerfest and Lebesby, in Finnmark County, and Vestva˚gøy in the Lofoten Islands, Nordland County. Through local consultations and discussions, fisheries and municipal planning were identified as having particular relevance in the case communities. Climate change is not perceived to be a major challenge locally, nevertheless, when climate projections are considered alongside locally defined and relevant socio-economic and climatic concerns that are particular to local contexts, multiple and interrelated factors emerge that are likely to shape future vulnerability. Focussing on coastal fisheries and municipal planning as two major arenas for change, we find that adaptation takes place along a number of dimensions and at several societal levels. Adaptive strategies occur in response to changing socio-economic conditions, to variable weather and environmental conditions, or to a combination of both. There are three interlinked factors that our empirical findings show are currently of concern for coastal fisheries: changes in bio-physical conditions (ocean temperature and fish distribution and behaviour); fisheries management and regulations (vessel size, species, quotas) and societal conditions (outmigration, market factors and transfer of knowledge). The interlinkages between these changes, and community responses to them, have first and foremost been captured and understood through local involvement in our research.