Assessing institutional capacities to adapt to climate change: integrating psychological dimensions in the Adaptive Capacity Wheel

Abstract

Abstract. Several case studies show that social factors like institutions, perceptions and social capital strongly affect social capacities to adapt to climate change. Together with economic and technological development they are important for building social capacities.However, there are almost no methodologies for the systematic assessment of social factors. After reviewing existing methodologies we identify the Adaptive Capacity Wheel (ACW) by Gupta et al. (2010), developed for assessing the adaptive capacity of institutions, as the most comprehensive and operationalised framework to assess social factors. The ACW differentiates 22 criteria to assess 6 dimensions: variety, learning capacity, room for autonomous change, leadership, availability of resources, fair governance.To include important psychological factors we extended the ACW by two dimensions: "adaptation motivation" refers to actors' motivation to realise, support and/or promote adaptation to climate; "adaptation belief" refers to actors' perceptions of realisability and effectiveness of adaptation measures.We applied the extended ACW to assess adaptive capacities of four sectors -water management, flood/coastal protection, civil protection and regional planning -in northwestern Germany. The assessments of adaptation motivation and belief provided a clear added value. The results also revealed some methodological problems in applying the ACW (e.g. overlap of dimensions), for which we propose methodological solutions.

The implications of rural perceptions of water scarcity on differential adaptation behaviour in Rajasthan, India

“…The implications of this gap in examining differential perceptions are critical to address since insights into risk perception can help identify entry points into incentivising adaptive behaviour. More recently, researchers have focussed on the implications of perceptions on adaptive action (Eakin et al 2016;Grothmann et al 2013) and demonstrated how socio-cultural factors, and policy and institutional environments mediate the translation of risk perceptions into response behaviour (Burnham et al 2016;Eakin et al 2016;Nguyen et al 2016). We argue that revisiting frameworks that seek to understand how and why perceptions of water risk differ and translate into differential behaviour is important to manage or respond to future risk.…”

“…Other frameworks highlight how adaptive behaviour is driven by socio-cultural context (Adger et al 2013;Arunrat et al 2017;Feng et al 2017;Feola et al 2015;Nguyen et al 2016), actors external to the decision makers themselves (Feola et al 2015), the institutional environment (Eriksen et al 2015;Nguyen et al 2016), individual cognitive influences (Grothmann et al 2013;Eakin et al 2015;Singh et al 2016), and notions of identity and place (Marshall et al 2012;Singh 2014). Social memory also plays a role in community resilience through individuals (personal life histories) and stakeholder groups (collective memory) (Olick and Robbins 1998).…”

Access and allocation in climate change adaptation

“…A large strand of adaptation research has focused on assessing vulnerability as a precondition for understanding adaptation needs (Grothmann et al 2013;de Sherbinin et al 2019;Woroniecki et al 2019). In the terminology of the ESG framework, this research has been interested in how climate change affects basic needs, as well as how adaptation can minimize adverse effects of climate change and safeguard access to basic needs.…”

Preface: Building social capacities for natural hazards: an emerging field for research and practice in Europe

“…This might be a useful approach for understanding the local contexts as well as for developing capacities more effectively. Grothmann et al (2013) follow a similar line of argument and focus on how to integrate psychological components in the assessment of adaptive capacities of institutions. In their contribution they extend the adaptive capacity wheel by including "adaptation motivation" as well as "adaptation belief" of actors working in such different fields as water management, flood/coastal protection, civil protection and regional planning in their analysis.…”