Adaptation and transformation

Pelling, Mark; O’Brien, Karen; Matyas, David

doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1303-0

Cited by 568 publications

(416 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

408

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, despite the recent surge in conceptual contributions to the debate around transformation, e.g., [1, [4][5][6][7], the literature remains still quite vague with respect to the question…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Jakarta’s New Flood Risk Reduction Strategy Transformational?

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

On a conceptual and normative level, the debate around transformation in the context of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation has been rising sharply over the recent years. Yet, whether and how transformation occurs in the messy realities of policy and action, and what separates it from other forms of risk reduction, is far from clear. Jakarta appears to be the perfect example to study these questions. It is amongst the cities with the highest flood risk in the world. Its flood hazard is driven by land subsidence, soil sealing, changes in river discharge, and-increasingly-sea level rise. As all of these trends are set to continue, Jakarta's flood hazard is expected to intensify in the future. Designing and implementing large-scale risk reduction and adaption measures therefore has been a priority of risk practitioners and policy-makers at city and national level. Against this background, the paper draws on a document analysis and original empirical household survey data to review and evaluate current adaptation measures and to analyze in how far they describe a path that is transformational from previous risk reduction approaches. The results show that the focus is clearly on engineering solutions, foremost in the Giant Sea Wall project. The project is likely to transform the city's flood hydrology. However, it cements rather than transforms the current risk management paradigm which gravitates around the goal of controlling flood symptoms, rather than addressing their largely anthropogenic root causes. The results also show that the planned measures are heavily contested due to concerns about ecological impacts, social costs, distributional justice, public participation, and long-term effectiveness. On the outlook, the results therefore suggest that the more the flood hazard intensifies in the future, the deeper a societal debate will be needed about the desired pathway in flood risk reduction and overall development planning-particularly with regards to the accepted levels of transformation, such as partial retreat from the most flood-affected areas.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Jakarta’s New Flood Risk Reduction Strategy Transformational?

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We note that the strategies remain incremental, rather than supporting transformational adaptation as widely advocated (e.g. Pelling et al 2015). This can partly be explained by the limited awareness of longer-term climate scenarios /projections to inform planning across all government departments in the study countries (e.g.…”

Section: Policy Coherence Across Sectors and With Ndps/climate Changementioning

confidence: 90%

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia's Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning.

show abstract

“…Recognising that climate change is fundamentally a development issue, any efforts aimed at adaptation should support a move towards more climate-resilient development pathways -meaning development trajectories that combine mitigation of emissions, equitable development and reduced vulnerability Pelling, O'Brien and Matyas 2015). 'Resilience' is here considered to be the ability of an individual, group or a system 'to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions' (UNISDR 2009: 24).…”

Section: Theory and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%