A framework for assessing adaptive capacity to multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors in small-scale fisheries
Introduction
Coastal communities, depending mainly on fisheries for livelihoods, are faced with several external and internal climatic, social, cultural and political stressors, making them vulnerable (Bunce et al., 2010; Chuenpagdee and Jentoft, 2009; Cinner et al., 2012; Perry et al., 2011; Zou and Wei, 2010). Enhancing coastal communities’ adaptive capacity to respond and adapt to a changing global environment is critical to reducing their vulnerability and building their resilience. In this regard, many useful concepts and frameworks have been advanced for both theoretical and practical assessment of adaptive capacity, aiming to guide policies, projects and studies for reducing vulnerability and building adaptive capacity to climatic and non-climatic stressors (Juhola and Kruse, 2015; Eisenack and Stecker, 2012; Adger 2006; Kelly and Adger 2000). Yet our current ability to consolidate them into a broad framework is limited, often hindering collective understanding among scholars, managers, policymakers and governments.
In a broad sense, adaptive capacity is how a social or ecological system can adjust to actual or expected impacts of climate change and develop concurrently (Smit and Wandel, 2006; Luers, 2005). The different frameworks for assessing adaptive capacity often emphasise one or several societal factors such as technology, infrastructure, institutions and knowledge as critical factors of adaptive capacity (Engle, 2011; Brooks and Adger 2005). However, evaluating the relative importance of the various constituents of adaptive capacity is context and time specific. In the context of institutions, adaptive capacity is the entrenched qualities of institutions that enable communities to adjust to short and long-term effects of climate change through planning or by allowing innovative responses based on projected or actual impacts (Gupta et al., 2010). Wagner et al. (2014), for example, argue that the success of sustained adaptation is determined by the use of four key elements of adaptive capacity: resources, institutions, knowledge, and innovation of technology. They stress that societies will be motivated to invest resources and new technologies into adaptations if knowledge is well mobilised, the importance of adaptation are well communicated to people, and responsibilities for adaptation are well defined. Importantly, Smit and Wandel (2006) noted that local adaptive capacity emanates from broader conditions beyond the local level. This suggests that conditions at local and higher levels relate in one or many forms to influence adaptive capacity at the local level.
However, such frameworks have limited focus on important aspects of a complex social-ecological system, particularly, links among stressors, and interactions among various kinds of capital that can influence adaptive capacity. Brooks and Adger (2005), identify governance, civil and political rights, and literacy as indicators of adaptive capacity. Similarly, Engle (2011) suggests that adaptive capacity is greatly influenced by management, governance, and institutions in operation. Juhola and Kruse (2015), propose that adaptive capacity can be assessed based on science-policy interactions, discussions and rationalisation of assessment objectives, and the methodology and the use of results. While the frameworks of Brooks and Adger (2005) and oneEngle (2011) focus on governance and institutions as the key determinants of adaptive capacity, that of Juhola and Kruse (2015) emphasises the importance of issues, such as inclusive and participatory decision-making (human capital), and the relationship between science and policy (social capital) as the major factors of adaptive capacity. Nonetheless, none of them acknowledges, for example, the importance of interactions among multiple stressors or explicitly refers to capitals as determinants of adaptive capacity. This is also true for other frameworks proposed for the assessment of adaptive capacity, such as those developed by Wagner et al. (2014), Eisenack and Stecker (2012), Dolan and Walker (2006), Brooks et al. (2005) and Armitage (2005).
Although a significant number of studies have explored how different forms of resource or pre-conditions may influence adaptive capacity, studies relating to how resources are mobilised to enhance adaptive capacity are scanty (Allen, 2006; Dumaru, 2010; Keys et al., 2014; Leonard et al., 2013). Similarly, research into how interconnections among different types of resource affect adaptive capacity is scarce. Such studies usually describe existing adaptive capacity or suggest what should constitute such capacity. For example, Allen (2006) used the case of disasters in the Philippines to explore how adaptive capacity can be enhanced in response to disasters in the context of a community-based disaster preparedness (CBDP) project. He emphasises technical training and information sharing, creating of climate change risk and vulnerability awareness, and ready access to resources and information as a conduit of enhancing adaptive capacity to global environmental change. These research gaps could be arising from the lack of a framework considering the importance of interacting multiple stressors and processes of mobilising adaptive capacity to climate change.
In this paper, we build on the capitals and the vulnerability frameworks to develop a new framework that shows how existing frameworks and concepts can be integrated for assessing adaptive capacity, how adaptive capacity can be mobilised and the need to assess adaptive capacity in the context of multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors. We test the framework with a case of small-scale coastal fisheries of Ghana. This case is widely representative across countries and sectors. Ghana is characterised as high risk under climate change, with poor infrastructure, week governance and poverty. Many countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and small island countries share similar issues. Ghana’s small-scale coastal fisheries serve as the main livelihood activity for coastal communities. Moreover, the sector experiences multiple stressors (increasing population; loss in fisheries; poor water supply and sanitation; coastal erosion, oil and gas exploitation, climate change). Many of such issues are common to small-scale fisheries sectors elsewhere and other sectors such as agriculture and forestry.
Section snippets
Conceptual framework for assessing adaptive capacity to multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors
Here, we discuss how the capitals (Bebbington, 1999; Emery and Flora, 2006) and vulnerability (Adger, 2006; Smit and Wandel, 2006) frameworks are extended to build a new framework, showing how existing frameworks and concepts can be subsumed within the capital framework for assessing adaptive capacity in small-scale fisheries. The new framework also discusses how adaptive capacity can be mobilised in the context of multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors, i.e., answering the question,
Applying the new framework in the context of Ghana’s small-scale coastal fisheries
To show the application of this new framework, this section succinctly explains a qualitative case study in which the framework was used to assess the processes of mobilising adaptive capacity to climatic and non-climatic stressors in the context of small-scale coastal fisheries (SSCF) of the Western Region of Ghana (for details see Freduah, 2016; Freduah et al., 2017; Freduah et al., 2018). As many studies show that climate change adds to existing stressors in small-scale fisheries, our case
Discussion and conclusion
In this paper, we present a novel conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity to multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors. We show the framework’s usefulness by first, showing its potential for unifying other existing adaptive capacity frameworks. Second, explicitly showing that adaptive capacity is better understood when assessed in the context of multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors because the impacts of climate change are bound to manifest in a complex coupled human and
Acknowledgements
The adaptive capacity framework discussed here was part of a PhD project at the University of the Sunshine Coast “Climate Change and Fisheries in Ghana: Strategies for Building Adaptive Capacity by Small-Scale Fishers”. We are grateful to the fishers of the western region of Ghana for sharing their time and knowledge and the support from Too Big To Ignore (TBTI, http://toobigtoignore.net/).
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