ABSTRACT
Global climate change scenarios denote a long-term, slow-onset change (Hewitt, 1997). This will include regionalized and local responses to a series of episodic disasters. They also have implications for understanding the development and application of resilience concepts to adaptation and suggest that regions could be an important focal scale for adaptation activity. In particular, this means that more adaptive styles of regional decisionmaking are possible over longer time frames. Because the impacts of climate change are intergenerational, intensely social approaches are required if regional and local communities are to support the development and implementation of adaptation strategies. At the same time, there are intense and urgent demands to proactively deal with the potential social and community impacts of extreme episodic events and ecological thresholds surpassed as a result of climate change.
