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Part II
Adapting to Climate Change
The second workshop, held on April 8-9, 2010, convened researchers,
practitioners, and federal officials to bring available knowledge and experi-
ence to bear on a set of questions that are likely to be critical in shaping a na-
tional strategy for adaptation to climate change (see Box II-1). The questions
were developed by the organizing panel on the basis of input from practitio-
ners responsible for developing adaptation plans. They were distributed to all
participants in advance of the workshop. Presenters were asked to consider
the questions in making their presentations, but they were not required to
address each of them explicitly. Participants were advised to think about key
concepts and knowledge relevant to climate change adaptation, focusing the
knowledge on such practical questions as those on the list.
Much of the knowledge on adaptation to climate change derives from
case studies in particular places or focused on managing particular types of
resources that may be affected by climate change. This knowledge is not yet
organized around a generally accepted theory or a unifying set of concepts.
However, there are concepts and bodies of knowledge from other fields that
might help add coherence in this field. In order to contribute to an increased
coherence of knowledge, the panel began the workshop with presentations
and discussion about the state of the science, including the state of theory
and concepts, and it asked selected panel members to offer, at the end of
the workshop, their syntheses of the possible answers to the practitioners’
questions that energed from the presentations and discussions. Chapter 10
presents these panel members’ syntheses.
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4 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
BOX II-1
Key Questions About Climate Change Adaptation
Initiating adaptation efforts:
1. What are the main barriers to initiating adaptation efforts, and what has
been effective at overcoming them?
2. How and under what conditions have climate change considerations been
successfully integrated into the normal activities of regional or sectoral risk
management organizations?
Coordinating adaptation efforts:
3. What strategies or methods have been effective for coordinating adaptation
efforts across scales (e.g., national, regional, local, individual)?
4. What strategies or methods have been effective for coordinating adaptation
efforts across sectors (e.g., government, private, nonprofit, community)?
5. How should stakeholders and the public be engaged in adaptation efforts?
Informing adaptation efforts:
6. What methods have been successful in providing needed information to
risk managers who must cope with climate change?
7. How should efforts to inform climate adaptation characterize risk and un-
certainty about future climate and other processes affecting climate risk?
Science needs for adaptation efforts:
8. What new social science knowledge is needed to develop a national adap-
tation strategy?
9. What metrics and indicators are needed to support adaptation decisions
(e.g., indicators of vulnerability, resilience, adaptive potential, effectiveness
of adaptation efforts)?
10. What are the key needs for databases, scenario development, and
modeling?
Managing adaptation efforts:
11. How should a national climate adaptation effort set priorities across haz-
ards, sectors, regions, and time? What criteria, and what processes, should
be used?
12. What mechanisms can help make adaptation efforts more adaptive? How
can a system enable decision makers to learn efficiently from experience?
13. What additional capacity do federal agencies need to support adaptation
and resilience?
