Gregor Vulturius

Linking disaster risk reduction, climate change and development

Purpose n n n n nThe purpose of this paper is to advance the dialogue between the disaster risk reduction (DRR) and adaptation community by investigating their differences, similarities and potential synergies. The paper examines how DRR and adaptation can inform development to tackle the underlying drivers of disaster risk. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nBased on a risk-based approach to the management of climate variability and change, the paper draws from a critical review of the literature on DRR and adaptation. The study finds that known and emerging risk from disasters continues to increase dramatically in many parts of the world, and that climate change is a key driver behind it. The authors also find that underlying causes of social vulnerability are still not adequately addressed in policy or practice. Linking DRR and adaptation is also complicated by different purposes and perspectives, fragmented knowledge, institutions and policy and poor stakeholder coordination. n n n n nFindings n n n n nThe author’s analysis suggests that future work in DRR and adaptation should put a much greater emphasis on reducing vulnerability to environmental hazards, if there is truly a desire to tackle the underlying drivers of disaster and climate risks. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThis will require coherent political action on DRR and adaptation aimed at addressing faulty development processes that are the main causes of growing vulnerability. The study concludes with a first look on the new Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and how it aims to connect with adaptation and development.

Overcoming social barriers to learning and engagement with climate change adaptation: experiences with Swedish forestry stakeholders

Climate change is expected to significantly affect forestry in the coming decades. Thus, it is important to raise awareness of climate-related risks – and opportunities – among forest stakeholders, and engage them in adaptation. However, many social barriers have been shown to hinder adaptation, including perceptions of climate change as irrelevant or not urgent, underestimates of adaptive capacity and lack of trust in climate science. This study looks into how science-based learning experiences can help overcome social barriers to adaptation, and how learning in itself may be hindered by those barriers. The study examines the role of learning in engagement with climate change adaptation with the help of the theory of transformative learning. Our analysis is based on follow-up interviews conducted with 24 Swedish forestry stakeholders who had participated in a series of focus group discussions about climate change impacts and adaptation measures. We find that many stakeholders struggled to form an opinion based on what they perceived as uncertain and contested scientific knowledge. The study concludes that engagement with climate change adaptation can be increased if the scientific knowledge addresses the needs, objectives and aspirations of stakeholders and relates to their previous experiences with climate change and extreme weather events.

The importance of socio-ecological system dynamics in understanding adaptation to global change in the forestry sector

Adaptation is necessary to cope with or take advantage of the effects of climate change on socio-ecological systems. This is especially important in the forestry sector, which is sensitive to the ecological and economic impacts of climate change, and where the adaptive decisions of owners play out over long periods of time. Relatively little is known about how successful these decisions are likely to be in meeting demands for ecosystem services in an uncertain future. We explore adaptation to global change in the forestry sector using CRAFTY-Sweden; an agent-based model that represents large-scale land-use dynamics, based on the demand and supply of ecosystem services. Future impacts and adaptation within the Swedish forestry sector were simulated for scenarios of socio-economic change (Shared Socio-economic Pathways) and climatic change (Representative Concentration Pathways, for three climate models), between 2010 and 2100. Substantial differences were found in the competitiveness and coping ability of land owners implementing different management strategies through time. Generally, multi-objective management was found to provide the best basis for adaptation. Across large regions, however, a combination of management strategies was better at meeting ecosystem service demands. Results also show that adaptive capacity evolves through time in response to external (global) drivers and interactions between individual actors. This suggests that process-based models are more appropriate for the study of autonomous adaptation and future adaptive and coping capacities than models based on indicators, discrete time snapshots or exogenous proxies. Nevertheless, a combination of planned and autonomous adaptation by institutions and forest owners is likely to be more successful than either group acting alone.

Analysis of Swedish Forest Owners' Information and Knowledge-Sharing Networks for Decision-Making : Insights for Climate Change Communication and Adaptation

To further the understanding of climate change adaptation processes, more attention needs to be paid to the various contextual factors that shape whether and how climate-related knowledge and information is received and acted upon by actors involved. This study sets out to examine the characteristics of forest owners’ in Sweden, the information and knowledge-sharing networks they draw upon for decision-making, and their perceptions of climate risks, their forests’ resilience, the need for adaptation, and perceived adaptive capacity. By applying the concept of ego-network analysis, the empirical data was generated by a quantitative survey distributed to 3000 private forest owners’ in Sweden in 2014 with a response rate of 31%. The results show that there is a positive correlation, even though it is generally weak, between forest owner climate perceptions and (i) network features, i.e. network size and heterogeneity, and (ii) presence of certain alter groups (i.e. network members or actors). Results indicate that forest owners’ social networks currently serve only a minimal function of sharing knowledge of climate change and adaptation. Moreover, considering the fairly infrequent contact between respondents and alter groups, the timing of knowledge sharing is important. In conclusion we suggest those actors that forest owners’ most frequently communicate with, especially forestry experts providing advisory services (e.g. forest owner associations, companies, and authorities) have a clear role to communicate both the risks of climate change and opportunities for adaptation. Peers are valuable in connecting information about climate risks and adaptation to the actual forest property.

Correction to: the relative importance of subjective and structural factors for individual adaptation to climate change by forest owners in Sweden

The published online version contains mistake. Anna Maria Jönsson was inadvertently omitted in the author group section. Correct author group section is shown above.