Successful Adaptation to Climate Change in the Coastal Context: Insights from Scientists and Practitioners
Presentation Abstract
Adaptation to climate change is a common concern on policy and management agendas of many federal, state, local and tribal governments; planning for a climate-altered future is becoming more widespread and some adaptive actions are being taken. In each of the three West Coast states ‒ Washington, Oregon and California ‒ state agencies, governors, and some local and tribal entities have acknowledged the need for adaptation and begun to develop relevant scientific assessments and policy and strategy documents to prepare for and manage the impacts of climate change. This has led many decision-makers, program managers, funders, and other stakeholders to ask what adaptation success would look like and how one would evaluate adaptation effectiveness over time. The academic community is increasingly asking similar questions and publishing on this topic in peer-reviewed journals and books. This paper reports on a 2-year, transdisciplinary project engaging academic experts from a range of relevant disciplines as well as practitioner experts from each of the West Coast states (focusing particularly on findings from Washington) to develop some practice-relevant answers on what processes, accomplishments and outcomes count as success, how to set governance processes up for ongoing adaptive processes of learning and adjusting, and how to measure progress in a desirable direction when environmental conditions and concurrent pressures are uncertain and pose unpleasant, if not unprecedented challenges to coastal communities.
Session Title
Session S-09G: Building Community Resilience: Moving Beyond Climate Adaptation Planning to Implementation
Conference Track
Shorelines
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2014 : Seattle, Wash.)
Document Type
Event
Start Date
2-5-2014 10:30 AM
End Date
2-5-2014 12:00 PM
Location
Room 6E
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)
Contributing Repository
Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Climatic changes--Planning--Washington (State)--Pacific Coast; Climatic changes--Planning--Oregon--Pacific Coast; Climatic changes--Planning--California--Pacific Coast
Geographic Coverage
Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Pacific Coast (Wash.); Pacific Coast (Or.); Pacific Coast (Calif.)
Rights
This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Successful Adaptation to Climate Change in the Coastal Context: Insights from Scientists and Practitioners
Room 6E
Adaptation to climate change is a common concern on policy and management agendas of many federal, state, local and tribal governments; planning for a climate-altered future is becoming more widespread and some adaptive actions are being taken. In each of the three West Coast states ‒ Washington, Oregon and California ‒ state agencies, governors, and some local and tribal entities have acknowledged the need for adaptation and begun to develop relevant scientific assessments and policy and strategy documents to prepare for and manage the impacts of climate change. This has led many decision-makers, program managers, funders, and other stakeholders to ask what adaptation success would look like and how one would evaluate adaptation effectiveness over time. The academic community is increasingly asking similar questions and publishing on this topic in peer-reviewed journals and books. This paper reports on a 2-year, transdisciplinary project engaging academic experts from a range of relevant disciplines as well as practitioner experts from each of the West Coast states (focusing particularly on findings from Washington) to develop some practice-relevant answers on what processes, accomplishments and outcomes count as success, how to set governance processes up for ongoing adaptive processes of learning and adjusting, and how to measure progress in a desirable direction when environmental conditions and concurrent pressures are uncertain and pose unpleasant, if not unprecedented challenges to coastal communities.
