ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a project that included a multi-disciplinary group of natural and social scientists and a diverse group of stakeholders in the San Juan Basin in southwestern Colorado. The intent of the project was to assist land managers to develop climate adaptation strategies to promote social and ecological resiliency and sustainability. Stakeholders acknowledged the necessity of planning for adaptation, many discussions revolved around the institutional and policy barriers to actually developing and implementing adaptation strategies. The project focused on developing a linked ecological-climate-social framework to depict the landscape inhabited by the stakeholders, which required ongoing conversations and discussion of findings as they were produced. This overview of the process and products aims to explain how the group arrived at the discussions about barriers to adaptation. Five broad categories of barriers to developing and implementing adaptation strategies are: uncertainty about climate change impacts; agency capacity; decision-making processes; knowledge barriers; and public skepticism about the need for climate adaptation.
