Cyclones and skinny dolphins
Adaptation pathways for Pacific communities under rapid global change
Bibliographic Data
The Pacific region is experiencing accelerating global change with complex interactions amongst multiple drivers, yet the onus for urgent adaptation falls largely on communities. Proponents of adaptation must therefore ensure that communities are empowered and enabled to design and implement their own adaptation plans after project cycles have concluded, and that this capacity is scaled beyond the original focus. To address this challenge, we tested a new approach in the Solomon Islands for the iterative development, implementation and evaluation of community-led adaptation. Our theory of change was that by co-designing a decision-making process with a network of community facilitators, livelihood adaptation planning could be mainstreamed and scaled out across rural communities. We implemented a planning process based on systems thinking, social learning and co-production, which we assessed using a novel participatory monitoring, evaluation and learning framework. The process involved six steps: (1) identifying drivers of change; (2) developing shared visions for livelihoods; (3) scoping possible futures for livelihoods; (4) identifying existing community adaptive capacity; (5) determining priority ‘no-regrets’ strategies to achieve the community vision and (6) mapping adaptation pathways of implementation decisions. Community facilitators co-designed the process, and then ran it in their communities to develop place-based adaptation pathways suited to the local decision-making context, and scaling the process out to neighbouring villages through peer-to-peer learning. Results from a monitoring, evaluation and learning assessment showed the process had generated shifts in thinking among communities towards anticipatory adaptation and the development and implementation of livelihood adaptation pathways. The process had also empowered people to have ownership, responsibility and agency for their futures without major ongoing support from outside agencies
Climate change · Economic geography · Geography · Global change · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Marine animal studies overview · Neuroscience · Psychology · Geology · Oceanography
Can public-private partnerships drive transformational climate adaptation? Seafood sector pathways in Aotearoa New Zealand
Designing development programmes for climate change and uncertainty in Pacific Melanesia – the role for knowledge brokers
Changing the decision context to enable social learning for climate adaptation
Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change
Politicizing vulnerability and adaptation
Community-based climate change adaptation
Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries
Scenarios
An assessment of community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands
Evaluating the impact of adaptation interventions on vulnerability and livelihood resilience
Turbulent transformation
Best intentions and local realities
Engaging with uncertainty and ambiguity through participatory ‘Adaptive Pathways’ approaches
A critical review of impact of and adaptation to climate change in developed and developing economies
The Characteristics of Locally Led Development in the Pacific
Monitoring, evaluation and learning requirements for climate-resilient development pathways
Critical change agent characteristics and competencies for ensuring systemic climate adaptation interventions
Participatory evaluation for adaptive co-management of social–ecological systems
Advancing climate resilient development pathways since the IPCC’s fifth assessment report
Sea level rise, coastal development and planned retreat
The ebb and flow of adaptive co-management
Adapting transformation and transforming adaptation to climate change using a pathways approach
Livelihoods, leadership, linkages and locality
Reconceptualising adaptation to climate change as part of pathways of change and response
Framing the application of adaptation pathways for rural livelihoods and global change in eastern Indonesian islands
Maladaptive trajectories of change in Makira, Solomon Islands
Strategies to adapt to an uncertain climate change
Development geography II
Participatory Systemic Inquiry
Locally led adaptation
From community-based to locally led adaptation
Power and politics in climate change adaptation efforts
Land, Identity and Conflict on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |