Combining analytical frameworks to assess livelihood vulnerability to climate change and analyse adaptation options

Experts working on behalf of international development organisations need better tools to assist land managers in developing countriesmaintain their livelihoods, as climate change puts pressure on the ecosystemservices that they depend upon. However, current understanding of livelihood vulnerability to climate change is based on a fractured and disparate set of theories andmethods. This reviewtherefore combines theoretical insights from sustainable livelihoods analysis with other analytical frameworks (including the ecosystem services framework, diffusion theory, social learning, adaptive management and transitions management) to assess the vulnerability of rural livelihoods to climate change. This integrated analytical framework helps diagnose vulnerability to climate change,whilst identifying and comparing adaptation options that could reduce vulnerability, following four broad steps: i) determine likely level of exposure to climate change, and how climate change might interact with existing stresses and other future drivers of change; ii) determine the sensitivity of stocks of capital assets and flows of ecosystem services to climate change; iii) identify factors influencing decisions to develop and/or adopt different adaptation strategies, based on innovation or the use/substitution of existing assets; and iv) identify and evaluate potential trade-offs between adaptation options. The paper concludes by identifying interdisciplinary research needs for assessing the vulnerability of livelihoods to climate change.

Adaptation options under climate change for multifunctional agriculture: a simulation study for western Switzerland

Besides its primary role in producing food and fiber, agriculture also has relevant effects on several other functions, such as management of renewable natural resources. Climate change (CC) may lead to new trade-offs between agricultural functions or aggravate existing ones, but suitable agricultural management may maintain or even improve the ability of agroecosystems to supply these functions. Hence, it is necessary to identify relevant drivers (e.g., cropping practices, local conditions) and their interactions, and how they affect agricultural functions in a changing climate. The goal of this study was to use a modeling framework to analyze the sensitivity of indicators of three important agricultural functions, namely crop yield (food and fiber production function), soil erosion (soil conservation function), and nutrient leaching (clean water provision function), to a wide range of agricultural practices for current and future climate conditions. In a two-step approach, cropping practices that explain high proportions of variance of the different indicators were first identified by an analysis of variance-based sensitivity analysis. Then, most suitable combinations of practices to achieve best performance with respect to each indicator were extracted, and trade-offs were analyzed. The procedure was applied to a region in western Switzerland, considering two different soil types to test the importance of local environmental constraints. Results show that the sensitivity of crop yield and soil erosion due to management is high, while nutrient leaching mostly depends on soil type. We found that the influence of most agricultural practices does not change significantly with CC; only irrigation becomes more relevant as a consequence of decreasing summer rainfall. Trade-offs were identified when focusing on best performances of each indicator separately, and these were amplified under CC. For adaptation to CC in the selected study region, conservation soil management and the use of cropped grasslands appear to be the most suitable options to avoid trade-offs.

How are climate change adaptation strategies put into practice? A case study comparison of natural hazard prevention

Climate change affects increasingly the management of natural resources and has diverse impacts of environmental, social and economic nature. To take this complexity into account, climate change adaptation policies consider the principle of sustainable development. Sustainability is an integrative concept which should insure a long-term and multi-sectoral response to climate change. But the question appears if sustainable development is only retained at the conceptual level or effectively implemented in practice. This paper pursues this question by comparing three projects addressing natural hazard in Swiss mountains. The aim is to investigate how sustainable development is perceived by involved stakeholders and implemented in practice. Two dimensions are thus taken into account: the type of actors participating in these projects and their preferences and interests. The first dimension thus analyzes if diverse actors representing the environmental, economic and social arenas are integrated; the second dimension investigates if different interests and preferences in the sense of sustainability were incorporated in the design and implementation of climate change adaptation. Data were gathered through a standardized survey among all actors involved in the three projects. Preliminary results show that sustainability receives diverse weight and interest in the different cases.

Promoting Local Innovations: A tool for adaptation to climate change and sustainable development in Mountains

Throughout their history mountain communities have had to adapt to changing environmental and socio-economic conditions. They have developed strategies and specialized knowledge to sustain their livelihoods in a context of adverse climatic events and constant change. As negotiations and discussions on climate change emphasize the critical need for locally relevant and community owned adaptation strategies, there is a need for new tools to capitalize on this local knowledge and endogenous potential for innovation. The toolkit Promoting Local Innovation (PLI) was designed by the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern, Switzerland, to facilitate a participatory social learning process which identifies locally available innovations that can be implemented for community development. It is based on interactive pedagogy and joint learning among different stakeholders in the local context. The tried-and-tested tool was developed in the Andean region in 2004, and then used in International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) climate change adaptation projects in Thailand, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Chile. These experiences showed that PLI can be used to involve all relevant stakeholders in establishing strategies and actions needed for rural communities to adapt to climate change impacts, while building on local innovation potential and promoting local ownership