Spatially Representing Vulnerability to Extreme Rain Events Using Midwestern Farmers’ Objective and Perceived Attributes of Adaptive Capacity

Abstract

Potential climate-change-related impacts to agriculture in the upper Midwest pose serious economic and ecological risks to the U.S. and the global economy. On a local level, farmers are at the forefront of responding to the impacts of climate change. Hence, it is important to understand how farmers and their farm operations may be more or less vulnerable to changes in the climate. A vulnerability index is a tool commonly used by researchers and practitioners to represent the geographical distribution of vulnerability in response to global change. Most vulnerability assessments measure objective adaptive capacity using secondary data collected by governmental agencies. However, other scholarship on human behavior has noted that sociocultural and cognitive factors, such as risk perceptions and perceived capacity, are consequential for modulating people's actual vulnerability. Thus, traditional assessments can potentially overlook people's subjective perceptions of changes in climate and extreme weather events and the extent to which people feel prepared to take necessary steps to cope with and respond to the negative effects of climate change. This article addresses this knowledge gap by: (1) incorporating perceived adaptive capacity into a vulnerability assessment; (2) using spatial smoothing to aggregate individual-level vulnerabilities to the county level; and (3) evaluating the relationships among different dimensions of adaptive capacity to examine whether perceived capacity should be integrated into vulnerability assessments. The result suggests that vulnerability assessments that rely only on objective measures might miss important sociocognitive dimensions of capacity. Vulnerability indices and maps presented in this article can inform engagement strategies for improving environmental sustainability in the region.

Techno-Optimism and Farmers’ Attitudes Toward Climate Change Adaptation

“…Furthermore, higher levels of techno-optimism can interact with high levels of perceived technical capacity, together dampening perceived risks and in turn reducing support for adaptation. Gardezi and Arbuckle (2017) found that farmers may systematically overestimate their own ability to adapt to weather and climatic impacts and underestimate these risks. The findings of this research support that conclusion, and suggest that high levels of techno-optimism may lead farmers to overestimate their risks and capacities in relation to climate change, causing a mismatch between farmers’ perceived and actual capacity.…”

“…Farmers are at the frontier of adapting or responding to the impacts of climate change on agriculture (Lal et al, 2011). These responses can be managerial and technological and often require changes in human behavior (Gardezi & Arbuckle, 2017). Understanding the social and behavioral drivers of farmers’ attitudes toward climate change adaptation is crucial for increasing agriculture’s resilience in the face of climate change.…”

“…Perceived capacity is synonymous with self-efficacy or people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce action that can affect their lives (Bandura, 1982). Both risk perception and perceived capacity can affect people’s decisions about the willingness to respond to risks (Gardezi & Arbuckle, 2017).…”

Global Warming Risk Perceptions in India

“…The positive association between low perceived resilience and global warming risk perceptions indicates that respondents assess future risks through the lens of their current abilities to recover from environmental shocks. Gardezi and Arbuckle (2019) found a weak correlation between subjective perceptions and objective attributes of adaptive capacity, indicating the need to integrate people's perceptions in vulnerability frameworks. Fostering positive subjective resilience is important for proactive and beneficial adaptation.…”

Advances in Spatial Risk Analysis

“…The article of Gardezi and Arbuckle (2019) in this special issue addresses a preliminary stage of spatial risk analysis by exploring whether specific model parameters, in this case, farmers' perceived capacity against extreme rain events, should be considered in the modeling stage. They develop a vulnerability index that incorporates both objective and perceived attributes of adaptive capacity and suggest that vulnerability assessments relying only on objective measures might miss important sociocognitive dimensions of capacity.…”