What is the Adaptive
Strategies Concept?
The adaptive strategies concept emphasizes the development of sustainable
livelihood and environmental systems by adapting to and building off of
opportunities inherent in hydrologic variability and processes of social,
economic and water resource system change. The goal is to identify points
of leverage for reducing the vulnerability of livelihood and environmental
systems by working with variability and change rather than attempting
to control or heavily regulate these processes.
While some of the above points of leverage will focus on the water system, many will be indirect – located within the larger economic context or within the coping strategies individuals already utilize to adapt to floods or water scarcity. In addition, rather than a fully planned management system, the adaptive approach is opportunistic and emphasizes development of the capacity to take advantage of such opportunities. Within the adaptive strategies concept droughts and floods can be viewed not just as disasters to be mitigated but as potential windows of opportunity for long-term systemic change. Droughts often force individuals whose livelihoods depend, for example, on unsustainable patterns of groundwater use, to seek alternative, less water dependent livelihoods. They are also often political windows of opportunity when society is open to considering basic water use changes that would face substantial opposition during times of lower stress. Finally, floods and droughts are periods when the technical or scientific viability of management interventions (whether they be embankments or water harvesting structures) becomes most evident and new innovative strategies can be tested.
The larger strategic context
Floods and drought are fundamental challenges throughout the region, and their impact is heavily influenced by larger water management issues. Current responses to both floods and drought are dominated by humanitarian relief, without concurrent development of long-term adaptive mechanisms with functioning institutional support.
In the current era of globalization and, of interest to us, of global climate change, global and regional searches for effective climate change response strategies are taking place.
Effective small-scale, innovative local coping strategies that are influenced by a range of economic, demographic and social factors do exist, and these need to be given attention, but up-scaling these to a higher level is difficult. The lack of information flow in both directions is a key problem. Despite an expanding network in this field, few have solid field level strategies and few local groups have links to regional and global debates.
The Adaptive Strategies Project is an initial attempt
to reconcile differences in perceptions of and responses to extreme weather
events in the context of climatic and social change.
What is the Adaptive Strategies Project?
The Adaptive Strategies Project is designed to document
and flesh out concepts and opportunities for more effective approaches
to water management and flood and drought mitigation through an integrated
set of studies in four field locations (two drought affected and two flood
affected) within South Asia.
Specific field locations are:
- The arid, drought prone regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat in India,
- The flood prone areas in the Ganga basin along the trans-boundary Rohini and Bagmati Rivers between Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in India and the Nepal Terai.
The project will document the following: 2. Existing coping strategies followed by communities in drought and flood affected areas; 3. Larger patterns of social and economic change in the study areas that influence the vulnerability of livelihoods to drought and flood conditions and the opportunities these patterns may contain for reducing flood/drought vulnerability or mitigating long-term water management problems; 4. Physical options for reducing flood and drought
impacts or meeting long-term sustainability objectives that are
adapted to the dynamics of hydrologic and social systems and that
do not require forms of knowledge or organization that are unlikely
to be available in current field contexts; |
Background on the Project
The initial concept for this project evolved from two sources:
1. Increasing recognition on the part of individuals involved in the development of water management policy concepts that conventional approaches have limited ability to deliver results in the South Asian context. In many cases, the institutional and structural reforms required for conventional approaches to aquifer and basin management are politically unrealistic in the rapidly changing social, economic and political environment of South Asia. As a result, attempts to implement conventional approaches have, for the most part, proved unable to respond effectively to major regional concerns such as groundwater overdraft, droughts and flooding. Furthermore, even many of the ‘newer’ approaches that move beyond the conventional (such as attempts to implement community-based ground and surface water management programs) are challenged by the rapid pace of change in social mobility and aspirations. An expanded response horizon is clearly required.
2. Growing frustration on the part of disaster relief entities regarding their ability to mitigate and reduce the impact of floods and droughts before disasters occur. In many cases, drought and flood relief serves only to reduce the immediate losses in a given event while doing little to reduce the vulnerability of populations to the well-known probability of future floods and droughts. In some cases, relief may even increase vulnerability because it enables populations to continue unsustainable or vulnerable livelihood systems. Clearly strategies that reduce vulnerability by responding to long-term problems, such as groundwater overdraft and flood dynamics, are needed.
The above two ‘points of frustration’
led ISET to explore the development of adaptive strategies that combine
effective responses to short-term flood or drought events while also responding
to longer-term water management needs.