Adaptive capacity for climate change in Canadian rural communities

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that promoting the long-term sustainability of rural areas requires an assessment of their capacity to handle stress from a host of external and internal factors such as resource depletion, global trading agreements, service reductions and changing demographics, to name but some. The sustainability literature includes a number of approaches for conducting capacity evaluations but is sparse regarding effective methods and empirical examples. This article provides one approach for assessing community capacity and gives results from its application to a specific Canadian rural community. The authors use general capacity variables and indicators to focus on a particular stress, namely impacts from climate change, and on one type of capacity, namely the capacity to adapt (to such climatic change). A basic framework and profiling tool (‘amoeba’) for describing the resources underlying community adaptive capacity are offered. The researchers provide a set of indicators reflecting social, human, institutional, natural and economic resources and relate them to climate change adaptation at the community level. Although the indicators cannot be replicated exactly for other rural communities, the essentials of the framework and the profiling tool can. In fact it is hoped that the ideas and example found in this article will encourage researchers to enhance and improve on the methods and results for work on community capacity.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support we have received from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). This includes a Major Collaborative Grant under their Strategic Research Program on Social Cohesion (829-1999-1016) and a Collaborative Research Grant within their Initiative on the New Economy (512-2002-1016). In addition we appreciate the information and resources provided through the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network (C-CIARN).

Notes

[1] The New Rural Economy Project Phase 2 (NRE2) is a research and education programme studying rural Canada since 1998. It is a collaborative undertaking bringing together rural people, researchers, policy analysts, the business community and government agencies at all levels to identify and address vital rural issues. It is conducted at the national level with historical and statistical data analysis, and at the local level with case studies involving community and household surveys. The NRE's mandate has been extended through 2006 with the help of a major grant from the Initiative on the New Economy Program (INE) of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For more information on the NRE, visit <http://nre.concordia.ca/nre2.htm>.

[2] The irregularity of the overall shape and the fact that it can change from year to year (if repeated assessments are completed) has led to calling this form of graphing an ‘amoeba’ approach (ten Brink, 1991).

[3] Data on the state of roads, bridges and electrical infrastructure were not readily attainable so could not be included in this assessment.