Adaptive Strategies Building Resilience to Climate Variability in Argentina, Canada and Colombia

MUSSETTA PAULA; SANDRA TURBAY; AMBER FLETCHER

Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience and Hazards

SPRINGER

Año: 2016; p. 225 - 240

This work addresses farmers? adaptations to climate variability in three regions ofArgentina, Canada and Colombia. The purpose is to inform institutions and communitiesin planning a sustainable adaptation agenda. In drought- or flood-proneregions, adaptation to these natural phenomena is not a new issue. However,changing environmental conditions engender new challenges, not only to socialactors inhabiting the territories but also to institutions that manage naturalresources. Climate variability (understood as climate fluctuations above or belowa long-term average value) involves problems of water quantity and quality to meethuman, productive and ecological demands in arid and semi-arid ecosystems, aswell as increasing flood probability for many regions. The occurrence of climateextremes, such as drought and flooding, are expected to increase as anthropogenicchange affects natural climatic variability . Climate extremes thatseriously affect crops undermine the conditions and possibilities in which producerscan become more resilient to weather contingencies and to varying adversities. Adaptation is not a linear process where social systems simply adjust to naturalstimuli. It is a struggle for access and control of material and social goods, andparticipation in political processes that determine the management, access, use, anddistribution of natural goods. In other words, adaptation has also a sociopoliticaldimension. Therefore, the possibility of developing adaptations thatfoster resilience should address the transformation of the root causes that makesocial systems vulnerable. Many of these are not even directly associated withclimatic or environmental issues. From this framework, the aim of this paper is toassess farmers? adaptations and strategies for coping with climate events as well aswith other relevant non-climatic stressors in three case studies.