Abstract
Governments and institutions across the globe are conducting vulnerability assessments and developing adaptation plans to confront rapidly changing climatic conditions. Interrelated priorities, including the conservation of biodiversity, ecological restoration, sustainable development, and social justice often underlie these efforts. We collaborated with colleagues in an effort to help guide vulnerability assessment and adaptation (VAA) generally in Southeast Asia and specifically in the watershed of the Sirindhorn International Environmental Park (SIEP) in Phetchaburi Province, Thailand. Reflecting upon our experiences and a review of recent VAA literature, we examine a series of seven questions that help to frame the socio-ecological context for VAAs. We then propose a three-dimensional framework for understanding common orientations of VAAs and how they appear to be shifting and broadening over time, particularly in the USA. For example, key leaders in the SIEP project emphasized social development and community-based approaches over more ecology-centric approaches; this orientation was consistent with other examples from SE Asia. In contrast, many efforts for US national forests have evaluated vulnerability based on projected shifts in vegetation and have promoted adaptation options based upon ecological restoration. Illustrating a third, highly integrated approach, many VAAs prepared by indigenous tribes in the USA have emphasized restoring historical ecological conditions within a broader context of promoting cultural traditions, social justice, and adaptive capacity. We conclude with lessons learned and suggestions for advancing integrated approaches.
Highlights
Entities around the globe are increasingly engaged in assessing vulnerability and developing plans to adapt to climate change
We were invited to share the perspectives and ideas used by the US Forest Service (USFS) in developing vulnerability and adaptation assessment (VAA) with a team of government agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in central Thailand that was initiating one of the first watershed-scale VAA efforts in Southeast Asia
We present seven questions that emerged as points of tension during the project, and we reframe those issues in light of recent literature and published examples of VAAs from national forests and tribes in the USA
Summary
Entities around the globe are increasingly engaged in assessing vulnerability and developing plans to adapt to climate change. A recent trend among vulnerability assessments has been to expand considerations to include social, non-climatic determinants of vulnerability, such as adaptive capacity, and to shift from estimating expected damages to identifying opportunities to reduce damages [4]. Another thrust has been to recognize the concerns of local communities, underserved and highly vulnerable communities, including indigenous peoples [5]. Both COP21 and a related international agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity, have explicitly called for the consideration and integration of indigenous communities into their strategies [6]. Alongside these trends there has been a shift from qualitative descriptions of vulnerability to more quantified evaluations of risk, including the probability of occurrence of hazards, potential exposure to hazards, and the severity of potential impacts [7]
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