Abstract
Although previous studies have examined adaptive capacity using a range of self-assessment procedures, no objective self-report approaches have been used to identify the dimensions of adaptive capacity and their relative importance. We examine the content, structure, and relative importance of dimensions of adaptive capacity as perceived by rural landholders in an agricultural landscape in South-Eastern Australia. Our findings indicate that the most important dimensions influencing perceived landholder adaptive capacity are related to their management style, particularly their change orientation. Other important dimensions are individual financial capacity, labor availability, and the capacity of communities and local networks to support landholders' management practices. Trust and confidence in government with respect to native vegetation management was not found to be a significant dimension of perceived adaptive capacity. The scale items presented, particularly those with high factor loadings, provide a solid foundation for assessment of adaptive capacity in other study areas, as well as exploration of relationships between the individual dimensions of adaptive capacity and dependent variables such as perceived resilience. Further work is needed to refine the scale items and compare the findings from this case study with those from other contexts and population samples.
Highlights
Research into adaptive capacity has attempted to understand interactions between social and biophysical systems, with the goal of developing mechanisms to support responses to global environmental change (Folke et al 2002, Adger 2003a, Nelson et al 2010a), and to maximize the success of conservation actions with limited resources (Sexton et al 2010)
Previous studies have examined adaptive capacity using a range of self-assessment procedures, no objective self-report approaches have been used to identify the dimensions of adaptive capacity and their relative importance
Our findings indicate that the most important dimensions influencing perceived landholder adaptive capacity are related to their management style, their change orientation
Summary
Research into adaptive capacity has attempted to understand interactions between social and biophysical systems, with the goal of developing mechanisms to support responses to global environmental change (Folke et al 2002, Adger 2003a, Nelson et al 2010a), and to maximize the success of conservation actions with limited resources (Sexton et al 2010). High adaptive capacity imparts resilience to an individual, community, or social-ecological system so that they are more likely to be able to maintain a desired state, or negotiate a favorable transformation when the current state is untenable or undesirable (Folke 2006). Assessments of adaptive capacity have used a range of techniques including inductive theory driven approaches (Pelling et al 2008, Gupta et al 2010); assessment of secondary data sources (Adger and Vincent 2005, Brooks et al 2005, Adger 2006, Smit and Wandel 2006, Eriksen and Kelly 2007); self-assessment processes (Brown et al 2010, Raymond and Cleary 2013); and futures modelling (Bussey et al 2012)
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