Adapting to Environmental Change
Funding body: University of Leeds SIF Fellowship
Duration: 2007-2010
Contact: Emma L. Tompkins
Summary
The SIF fellowship will be used to further research on how societies can and should adapt to environmental change. There will be four foci within this project.
1) Adapting to climate change
This component will involve monitoring and evaluating current adaptations with a view to providing guidance on how to make better adaptation decisions. The following questions will be explored in different institutional and geographic contexts: i) what are the limits of adaptation to extreme events? Are these the boundary conditions which should determine our future emissions? ii) what is best practice governance for climate change adaptation? iii) what is a successful adaptation to climate change and how can we evaluate the quality of adaptations? iv) how and to what extent should anticipatory adaptation be funded? v) what are the benefits to local communities of joint adaptation and mitigation action on climate change, and vi) what motivates individuals to adapt to climate change?
2) Development, vulnerability and resilience: interactions and limitations
These three bodies of literature are increasingly used to develop policy to drive societies towards more sustainable futures. This component will delve into the synergies and conflicts between the approaches by deconstructing and comparing the literature.
3) Hazard management
Underpinning this component is the question: "Is good preparedness for natural hazards adequate preparation for climate change?" This component will consider the role of hybrid forms of governance for slow and rapid-onset weather hazards as well as the relative influences of social and economic vulnerability on the economic losses associated with weather hazards.
4) Decision support
At the heart of most issues relating to the governance of environmental change is the issue of trade-offs between risk to individuals, cost to individuals and participation in decision making. These trade-offs will be evaluated explicitly in relation to a variety of hazards and in different social contexts. The limits to participatory decision making for disaster risk management will also be explored in this component.