Abstract
To deal with large uncertainties about future climate and socio-economic developments, planners in deltas are adopting an integrative and adaptive planning approach referred to as Adaptive Delta Management (ADM). Bangladesh has used the ADM approach for the development of its adaptive plan; Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP 2100). The success of policy strategies in an adaptive delta plan critically depends on a specific adaptation of livelihoods of local communities (Community Livelihood Adaptation; CLA), especially in an agriculture-oriented society like Bangladesh. For example, while triple rice cropping might be evaluated as a robust strategy in all futures considered, its success eventually depends on whether farmers’ will actually make that choice, which is deeply uncertain. In this paper, we use literature review, insights from interviews and field observations to examine how the uncertainty in CLA impacts (adaptive) delta management. We study two historical cases of livelihood adaptation of farmer communities confronted with salinization and waterlogging in the polders of southwest Bangladesh since the 1960s. We conclude that historically the uncertainty about CLA in polders has been ignored in the development of policy plans, leading to the failure of anticipated policy outcomes. We recommend planners in Bangladesh and other deltas worldwide to take account of CLA as uncertainty when developing long-term adaptive plans.
Highlights
Large uncertainties about the future arising from rapid socioeconomic developments and climate change have triggered planners in deltas to use an integrative and adaptive planning approach to pre pare and adapt depending on how the future unfolds
To examine ‘Community Livelihood Adaptation (CLA) as uncertainty’ for delta management we focus on whether and to what extent the CLA preferences manifested in livelihood choices and social responses are different from what is assumed or expected in the concurrent governing national policy plan
This study examines the impact of uncertainties in CLA on the suc cess of delta planning and management
Summary
Large uncertainties about the future arising from rapid socioeconomic developments and climate change have triggered planners in deltas to use an integrative and adaptive planning approach to pre pare and adapt depending on how the future unfolds. Each scenario narrative de fines a possible, plausible long-term development direction of key at tributes of the natural system and of socioeconomic conditions including land use changes (GED, 2015; Seijger et al, 2017). BDP 2100 scenarios are an instrument to stimulate thinking through possible futures and to develop ‘robust’ policy strategies (i.e. that perform reasonably well across a wide range of scenarios (Lempert, 2003) They should include the major uncertainties affecting policy outcomes. Despite that the livelihood adaptation of a local com munity may be a key to the success and the robustness of the policy strategy for an agriculture-oriented society like Bangladesh, it is not considered as an uncertainty in the current scenarios. We conclude by drawing lessons about the relevance of un certainties in CLA and by formulating recommendations for delta planners based on our findings in these two cases
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