What Actually Confers Adaptive Capacity? Insights from Agro-Climatic Vulnerability of Australian Wheat

Abstract

Vulnerability assessments have often invoked sustainable livelihoods theory to support the quantification of adaptive capacity based on the availability of capital—social, human, physical, natural, and financial. However, the assumption that increased availability of these capitals confers greater adaptive capacity remains largely untested. We quantified the relationship between commonly used capital indicators and an empirical index of adaptive capacity (ACI) in the context of vulnerability of Australian wheat production to climate variability and change. We calculated ACI by comparing actual yields from farm survey data to climate-driven expected yields estimated by a crop model for 12 regions in Australia’s wheat-sheep zone from 1991–2010. We then compiled data for 24 typical indicators used in vulnerability analyses, spanning the five capitals. We analyzed the ACI and used regression techniques to identify related capital indicators. Between regions, mean ACI was not significantly different but variance over time was. ACI was higher in dry years and lower in wet years suggesting that farm adaptive strategies are geared towards mitigating losses rather than capitalizing on opportunity. Only six of the 24 capital indicators were significantly related to adaptive capacity in a way predicted by theory. Another four indicators were significantly related to adaptive capacity but of the opposite sign, countering our theory-driven expectation. We conclude that the deductive, theory-based use of capitals to define adaptive capacity and vulnerability should be more circumspect. Assessments need to be more evidence-based, first testing the relevance and influence of capital metrics on adaptive capacity for the specific system of interest. This will more effectively direct policy and targeting of investment to mitigate agro-climatic vulnerability.

Adaptive capacity to climate change: A synthesis of concepts, methods, and findings in a fragmented field

“…An index‐based approach to assess adaptive capacity: (a) identifies a set of determinants, based on author experience, expert judgment, literature review, or subject of interest (e.g., Brooks et al, ; Bryan et al, ; Notenbaert et al, ); (b) uses an indicator to measure each determinant numerically or qualitatively (e.g., number of doctors or quality of healthcare); and (c) aggregates the determinant scores into a measurement of the overall adaptive capacity of the system. This final measurement may be numeric (e.g., 0.77, Lam, Arenas, Brito, & Liu, ) or descriptive (e.g., yellow, Gupta et al, ; medium, Grecksch, ).…”

Drought vulnerability assessment of maize in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from physical and social perspectives

“…To partially account for it, we only took those observed yields, which were outside the 95% prediction uncertainty (95PPU) band of the simulated yields. The residual between Y obs and Y sim was also used in previous works as a criteria to distinguish regions that are resilient and sensitive to drought (Bryan et al, 2015).…”

A Quantitative Analysis of Socio-Economic Determinants Influencing Crop Drought Vulnerability in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Several studies have attempted to incorporate adaptive capacity in the vulnerability assessment using approaches such as aggregated quantitative indicators [8][9][10] or semi-structured interviews [11][12][13]. Indicators of adaptive capacity were also grounded in sustainable livelihood theory as a set of different forms of assets to which people have access, such as financial, human, resource, or physical assets [14].…”

“…This approach calculates a composite index for each constituent asset. During the last two decades, many studies also attempted to employ the sustainable livelihood concept in their analysis of vulnerability [13,15,16].…”