Method Development for Identifying and Analysing Stakeholders in Climate Change Adaptation Processes

Abstract

It is now widely recognized that stakeholder interaction and dialogue is essential to improve decisions about and awareness of climate change. The term ‘stakeholder’ is broad and researchers and practitioners may have interrelated and contrasting views on who is a stakeholder or who is (or should be) responsible for adaptation to climate change. To engage stakeholders in research or other projects on adaptation thus requires a careful mapping of the stakeholder landscape and identification of relevant actors at different levels. Through a case study approach, based on studies of two Swedish urban regions, Stockholm and Gothenburg, this paper proposes a systematic method to analyse and identify roles and responsibilities in the stakeholder landscape. The initial mapping exercise was complemented by participatory studies of local and regional stakeholders’ perceptions of who is, or should be, involved in adaptation and their significance for climate change adaptation in the respective regions. The results indicate the value of careful stakeholder analysis for sustainable, effective, planned adaptation that is flexible, but also systematic enough to fulfil practical and scientific requirements for the study and advancement of ongoing adaptation processes and implementation.

Keywords:

• stakeholder
• method
• identification
• adaptation
• climate change
• urban
• region
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to all stakeholders and research colleagues who participated in the study. The research is generously supported by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) through the Mistra-SWECIA programme (www.mistra-swecia.se), Formas the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (2006-4871-7662-55) and NordForsk's top-level research initiative through NORD-STAR: Nordic Strategic Adaptation Research (www.nord-star.info). We also acknowledge three anonymous reviewers for valuable and constructive comments on earlier versions of this article and Tom Gill, SEI for editorial support that helped us to sharpen our arguments.