Abstract

Adaptation pathways is an approach to identify, assess, and sequence climate change adaptation options over time, linking decisions to critical signals and triggers derived from scenarios of future conditions. However, conceptual differences in their development can hinder methodological advance and create a disconnect between those applying pathways approaches and the wider community of practitioners undertaking vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation assessments. Here, we contribute to close these gaps, advancing principles, and processes that may be used to guide the trajectory for adaptation pathways, without having to rely on data-rich or resource-intensive methods. To achieve this, concepts and practices from the broad pathways literature is combined with our own experience in developing adaptation pathways for primary industries facing the combined impacts of climate change and other, nonclimatic stressors. Each stage is guided by a goal and tools to facilitate discussions and produce feasible pathways. We illustrate the process with a case study from Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, involving multiple data sources and methods in two catchments. Resulting guidelines and empirical examples are consistent with principles of adaptive management and planning and can provide a template for developing local-, regional- or issue-specific pathways elsewhere and enrich the diversity of vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation assessment practice.

Highlights

  • Primary economic activities such as pastoral farming, arable cropping, horticulture, and viticulture are exposed and sensitive to changes in climate, variability, and extremes (Meinke et al, 2009; Cradock-Henry, 2017; Marshall et al, 2018)

  • Principles and process for participatory adaptation pathways we present our synthesis of the extensive literature on adaptation pathway planning and existing practical guidelines to elaborate a set of principles and practical tools that can be adapted to local circumstances

  • What are the likely changes in local environmental variables under various climate change scenarios? How will the change in local climate affect the biophysical conditions and what will that mean for production systems, including those that might replace existing ones?

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Summary

Introduction

Primary economic activities such as pastoral farming, arable cropping, horticulture, and viticulture are exposed and sensitive to changes in climate, variability, and extremes (Meinke et al, 2009; Cradock-Henry, 2017; Marshall et al, 2018). Adaptation requires adjusting practices, processes, capital, and infrastructure in response to actual or anticipated climate change impacts (Nelson et al, 2010; Kiem and Austin, 2013; Cradock-Henry, 2017) For primary industries, this involves a range of strategies at different scales, from within the farm to local- and regional-scales, and within and across specific land uses or sectors to minimize risk and reduce exposure. Adaptation pathways require integrated socioeconomic, policy, and climate change scenarios to engage stakeholders in thinking about multiple futures and making decisions despite uncertainty (e.g., Milestad et al, 2014; Nilsson et al, 2017; Cradock-Henry and Frame, 2021b) This is an extensive topic within the literature on pathway planning which is potentially daunting for those seeking to develop adaptation pathways from a practical perspective. This can combine qualitative and quantitative methods to create an understanding of how context influences the success of an intervention and how best to tailor the intervention

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