- Title
- Can perceptions of environmental and climate change in island communities assist in adaptation planning locally?
- Creator
- Aswani, Shankar, Vaccaro, Ismael, Abernethy, Kirsten Elizabeth, Albert, Simon, de Pablo, Javier Fernández-López
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123310
- Identifier
- vital:35426
- Identifier
- https://doi.10.1007/s00267-015-0572-3
- Description
- Local perceptions of environmental and climate change, as well as associated adaptations made by local populations, are fundamental for designing comprehensive and inclusive mitigation and adaptation plans both locally and nationally. In this paper, we analyze people’s perceptions of environmental and climate-related transformations in communities across the Western Solomon Islands through ethnographic and geospatial methods. Specifically, we documented people’s observed changes over the past decades across various environmental domains, and for each change, we asked respondents to identify the causes, timing, and people’s adaptive responses. We also incorporated this information into a geographical information system database to produce broad-scale base maps of local perceptions of environmental change. Results suggest that people detected changes that tended to be acute (e.g., water clarity, logging intensity, and agricultural diseases). We inferred from these results that most local observations of and adaptations to change were related to parts of environment/ecosystem that are most directly or indirectly related to harvesting strategies. On the other hand, people were less aware of slower insidious/chronic changes identified by scientific studies. For the Solomon Islands and similar contexts in the insular tropics, a broader anticipatory adaptation planning strategy to climate change should include a mix of local scientific studies and local observations of ongoing ecological changes.
- Format
- 15 pages, pdf
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Environmental management, Aswani, S., Vaccaro, I., Abernethy, K., Albert, S. and de Pablo, J.F.L., 2015. Can perceptions of environmental and climate change in island communities assist in adaptation planning locally?. Environmental management, 56(6), pp.1487-1501, Environmental management volume 56 number 6 1487 1501 2015 0364-152X
- Rights
- Environmental management
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the SpringerLink Terms and Conditions Statement (https://link.springer.com/termsandconditions)
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Aswani, Shankar (Prof)
SDG 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 13. Climate Action
RU Department of Anthropology
RU Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science
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