Abstract
Absorptive capacity–the ability to learn and apply external knowledge and information to acquire material resources–is an essential but overlooked driver in community adaptation to new and unprecedented disasters. We analyzed data from a representative random sample of 603 individuals from 25 coastal communities in Louisiana affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We used simultaneous equation models to assess the relationship between absorptive capacity and resource acquisition for affected individuals after the disaster. Results show that the diversity of individuals’ prior knowledge coupled with the community’s external orientation and internal cohesion facilitate resource use. They go beyond simply providing resources and demonstrate individual and community features necessary for absorbing information and knowledge and help devise adaptation strategies to address the dynamics of changing economic, social, and political environment after the disaster.
Highlights
An increase in environmental disasters worldwide compounded by an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme climatic events leads to a higher probability of their occurrence in different locations [1,2,3,4]
Our results showed that absorptive capacity, measured as the helpfulness of new information related to the oil spill, depended on individual and community factors
Every percent increase in their prior knowledge increased individuals’ perceived helpfulness of the new information provided by about 15 percent. This evidence is consistent with the idea that the greater the stock of prior knowledge, the more that individuals could learn and apply the new information in the wake of the oil spill, indicative of greater absorptive capacity
Summary
An increase in environmental disasters worldwide compounded by an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme climatic events leads to a higher probability of their occurrence in different locations [1,2,3,4]. Drought, fire, tornadoes, and floods ignore geographic boundaries and are increasingly occurring in areas previously immune to such disasters. More places experience strange extreme events in greater magnitude or intensity, posing severe challenges for people. Adaptation to a diversity of environmental disasters is, an increasingly important global environmental issue [6]. While there is an understanding that experience of a disaster can improve adaptation so that a repetition of the same type of disaster again has less impact, few studies have systematically examined how people and communities adapt to new or different disasters [7,8]
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