ABSTRACT
Many regions across the globe are highly vulnerable to climate change and associated water-related disasters (Hare, Cramer, Schaeffer, Battaglini, & Jaeger, 2011). Most vulnerable regions, however, are not unique in that consequent policy and planning interventions need to focus on supporting regional-scale social adaptation in order to avoid or to mitigate key community and natural resource impacts (Gooch & Rigano, 2010). Past approaches to planning in regions (including climate adaptation) across the globe have tended to predominantly focus on interventions dominated by biophysical and engineering knowledge (Dale, Taylor, & Lane, 2001; Stanley, 2010). Community adaptation in the face of climate change, however, needs to respond to many emerging social and economic factors such as:
● Demographic change within communities, including new arrivals with limited experience of extreme events;
● Vulnerabilities due to low income, high unemployment and under-employment, boom-bust cycles and related issues of housing access and affordability;
● Strained emergency response systems, particularly outside major urban areas, including infrastructure (roads, hospitals and shelters) vulnerable to major events;
● Specific vulnerabilities of core economic industries (e.g., tourism and agriculture); and
*Corresponding author. Email: allan.dale@jcu.edu.au
of Vol. 7, No. 1, 93-104, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19390459.2014.963371
Allan Dalea*, Karen J. Vellab and Alison Cottrellc
aCairns Insti ute, James Co k University, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia; bGriffith Scho l of Environment, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD 42 , Australia; cCentre for Disaster Studies, Scho l of Earth & Environmental Sciences, James Co k University, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia
(Received 1 February 2014; ac epted 10 May 2014)
Social resil ence concepts are gaining momentum in environmental plan ing through an emerging understanding of the socio-ecological nature of biophysical systems. There is a discon ect, however, betwe n these concepts and the sociological and psychological literature related to social resil ence. Further still, both scho ls of thought are not well con ected to the concepts of social assessment (SA) and social impact assessment (SIA) that are the more standard to ls sup orting plan ing and decis on-making. This raises questions as to how emerging social resil ence concepts can translate into improved SA/SIA practices to inform regional-scale adaptation. Through a review of the literature, this paper sug est that more cross-disciplinary integration is ne ded if social resil ence concepts are to have a genuine impact in helping vulnerable regions tackle climate change.
