Adaptive Capacity

Adaptive capacity is an important concept to address when thinking about community vulnerability. Adaptive capacity is the “ability to design and implement effective adaptation strategies, or to react to evolving hazards and stresses so as to reduce the likelihood of the occurrence and/or the magnitude of harmful outcomes resulting from climate-related hazards” (Brooks, Adger et al. 2004). The most critical aspects are the ability to design strategies that will address the possible stresses facing a region and to implement plans based on these designs.

This double nature of adaptive capacity means that decision-makers need to think about what resources are needed to design and implement strategies that reduce vulnerability in their community and which resources are available. The types of resources that might be relevant are wide ranging. Institutional capacity, jurisdiction, financial resources, ecological resources, and flexibility of ecological systems, social networks, and available expertise are just some of the possible resources that may be used in assessing the ability of a community or region to adapt to climate change.

One of the ways to assess adaptive capacity is to analyse how hazards are currently dealt with. What are the barriers and obstacles the community has encountered when trying to prevent or address hazards, or deal with important changes? What resources were used in previous attempts to deal with these? Are there resources that would have been useful but were instead missing?

A challenge for assessing adaptive capacity is that some resources may be overlooked out of habit. Although using past methods of hazard control can help indicate strengths and weaknesses of the entire local system, there may also be novel solutions or strategies that can be overlooked by relying on past routines. In addition, while some climate impacts may be exacerbations of existing ones and can be addressed through similar means, the non-linear nature of impacts may also lead to entirely new situations.

This may be the case in areas that are on the edge of a bioclimatic region. A small change in climate may mean a dramatic change in the capacity of the area, which means that old methods of hazard aversion may not be appropriate for the challenge. For example, restocking fish in already threatened lakes and rivers is a common response to hazards. If climate shifts mean that particular species will not survive in their traditional regions, restocking may not be a useful strategy for addressing low fish populations. This problem stresses the importance of looking at vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity simultaneously.
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