Adaptive Capacity and Environmental Governance

✍ Scribed by Ryan Plummer, Derek Armitage (auth.), Derek Armitage, Ryan Plummer (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 309
• Series: Springer Series on Environmental Management
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Rapid environmental change calls for individuals and societies with an ability to transform our interactions with each other and the ecosystems upon which we depend. Adaptive capacity - the ability of a social-ecological system (or the components of that system) to be robust to disturbances and capable of responding to changes - is increasingly recognized as a critical attribute of multi-level environmental governance. This unique volume offers the first interdisciplinary and integrative perspective on an emerging area of applied scholarship, with contributions from internationally recognized researchers and practitioners. It demonstrates how adaptive capacity makes environmental governance possible in complex social-ecological systems. Cutting-edge theoretical developments are explored and empirical case studies offered from a wide range of geographic settings and natural resource contexts, such as water, climate, fisheries and forestry. • Of interest to researchers, policymakers and resource managers seeking to navigate and understand social-ecological change in diverse geographic settings and resource contexts.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-x
Front Matter....Pages 22-22
Integrating Perspectives on Adaptive Capacity and Environmental Governance....Pages 1-19
Front Matter....Pages 22-22
Adaptive Capacity in Theory and Reality: Implications for Governance in the Great Barrier Reef Region....Pages 23-41
Building Adaptive Capacity in Systems Beyond the Threshold: The Story of Macubeni, South Africa....Pages 43-68
Learning and Adaptation: The Role of Fisheries Comanagement in Building Resilient Social–Ecological Systems....Pages 69-88
Adaptive Capacity and Adaptation in Swedish Multi-Use Boreal Forests: Sites of Interaction Between Different Land Uses....Pages 89-106
From the Inside Out: A Multi-scale Analysis of Adaptive Capacity in a Northern Community and the Governance Implications....Pages 107-132
Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity in Arctic Communities....Pages 133-156
Climate Change, Adaptive Capacity, and Governance for Drinking Water in Canada....Pages 157-178
Institutional Fit and Interplay in a Dryland Agricultural Social–Ecological System in Alberta, Canada....Pages 179-195
Front Matter....Pages 198-198
The Learning Dimension of Adaptive Capacity: Untangling the Multi-level Connections....Pages 199-221
Adaptive Capacity as a Dynamic Institutional Process: Conceptual Perspectives and Their Application....Pages 223-242
Sociobiology and Adaptive Capacity: Evolving Adaptive Strategies to Build Environmental Governance....Pages 243-261
Building Transformative Capacity for Ecosystem Stewardship in Social–Ecological Systems....Pages 263-285
Adapting and Transforming: Governance for Navigating Change....Pages 287-302
Back Matter....Pages 303-307

✦ Subjects

Environmental Management; Climate Change; Geoecology/Natural Processes; Ecology; Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning; Human Geography