Planning for Climate Change Adaptation in Natural Resources Management: Challenges to Policy-Making in the US Great Plains

An Examination of Local Climate Change Policies in the Great Plains

“…For this reason, we choose to use cumulative counts of adaptation and mitigation activities as dependent variables for the models and analyses that follow. Basing our efforts upon similar efforts by Krause, and our own previous research, we identify 14 widely accepted mitigation activities and 14 widely accepted adaptation activities in our survey instrument (Krause, ; Romsdahl et al., ). A significant strength of this approach is that hard counts of policies are used in place of estimates or proxies.…”

“…We distinguish between mitigation and adaptation for several reasons. First, among climate policy scholars, the number of policies adopted by a local government has been widely used as an indicator of commitment to climate protection (Krause, , ; Romsdahl, Wood, & Hultquist, ). Yet it is not immediately clear to us whether adaptation policies should be included in these measures.…”

Vulnerability of rangeland beef cattle production to climate‐induced NPP fluctuations in the US Great Plains

“…An extensive survey of climate risk planning and policy supporting natural resource management in the Great Plains found that climate change skepticism had delayed development and implementation (Romsdahl, Wood, & Hultquist, 2015). Insufficient recognition of the potential risk imposed by climate variability was identified as the primary cause of inaction.…”

Ten years after Copenhagen: Reimagining climate change governance in urban areas

“…In contrast, the wave of urban pragmatism has been marked by an interest in the quantitative evaluation of drivers for action for climate change governance, including large n‐studies, such as Reckien, Flacke, Olazabal, and Heidrich ( 2015 ). This body of research includes complex modeling exercises that attempt to explain why cities adopt climate to mitigation or adaptation plans or policies, or why they join climate networks (Cruz, 2018 ; Dolsak & Prakash, 2017 ; Homsy & Warner, 2015 ; Hughes, Runfola, & Cormier, 2018 ; Hultquist et al, 2017 ; Kalafatis, 2018a , 2018b ; Krause, 2011 ; Lee, 2012 ; Lee & Koski, 2012 ; Pablo‐Romero et al, 2015 ; Romsdahl et al, 2015 ; Sharp et al, 2010 ; Shi et al, 2015 ; Simon Rosenthal et al, 2015 ; Wang, 2012 ; Wood, Hultquist, & Romsdahl, 2014 ; Zahran et al, 2008 ) (or why they abandon them, Krause, Yi, & Feiock, 2016 ). The field assumes that mitigation and adaptation outcomes depend on a combination of exogenous and endogenous variables, including economic factors, city demographics, political leadership, institutional structures, issue proximity, presence of civil society and environmental activism, and severity of environmental deterioration and risk.…”

“…A focus on climate change policies (what should be done) and the political drivers of climate action (why something should be done), turned attention away from the everyday realities of climate action. At the same time, calls for aggregated analyses of the impacts of climate action have fostered regional or global assessments that tend to miss the detail of actions on the ground (Dolsak & Prakash, 2017 ; Homsy & Warner, 2015 ; Hultquist, Wood, & Romsdahl, 2017 ; Pablo‐Romero, Sánchez‐Braza, & Manuel González‐Limón, 2015 ; Romsdahl, Wood, & Hultquist, 2015 ; Sharp, Daley, & Lynch, 2010 ; Shi, Chu, & Debats, 2015 ; Simon Rosenthal, Rosenthal, Moore, & Smith, 2015 ; Zahran, Grover, Brody, & Vedlitz, 2008 ).…”