Adapting to climate change

Some societies already investigated by the research team appear to possess inherent institutional resilience to climate variability and related NR base changes. Where there are 'institutional vacuums' the adaptiveness of institutions is driven by forms of social capital and social differentiation, often operating outside contemporary policy contexts. From this research our hypothesis is that although institutional and collective dimensions of adaptation and resilience are significant, so too are individuals' contributions within these frameworks (i.e. individual behaviour may or may not conform to social norms and regularised patterns. Such anomalies can be key 'triggers' that have the potential to radically transform local institutional resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity.

The first component of the project establishes and observes actual processes and patterns of response to recent historical drought and flooding. We are using regionalised models of climate data to identify specific natural resource-dependent communities across the east-west southern African climate gradient. Empirical field-based research will look at livelihood response and adaptation strategies to provide a place-based analysis.