IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Chapter 1Climate Change: New Dimensions in Disaster Risk, Exposure, Vulnerability, and Resilienceresilience to a wider range of future disaster risk (Yohe and Tol, 2002),as illustrated in Box 1-4 and discussed further in Section 1.4.2 (highconfidence).1.4.2. LearningRisk management decisions are made within social-ecological systems(a term referring to social systems intimately tied to and dependent onenvironmental resources and conditions). Some social-ecological systemsare more resilient than others. The most resilient are characterized bytheir capacity to learn and adjust, their ability to reorganize afterdisruption, and their retention of fundamental structure and function inthe face of system stress (Folke, 2006). The ability to cope with extremestress and resume normal function is thus an important component ofresilience, but learning, reorganizing, and changing over time are alsokey. As Chapter 8 highlights, transformational changes are required toachieve a future in which society’s most important social-ecologicalsystems are sustainable and resilient. Learning, along with adaptivemanagement, innovation, and leadership, is essential to this process.Learning related to social-ecological systems requires recognizingtheir complex dynamics, including delays, stock-and-flow dynamics,and feedback loops (Sterman, 2000), features that can complicatemanagement strategies by making it difficult to perceive how a systemoperates. Heuristic devices and mental models can sometimes inhibitlearning by obscuring a problem’s full complexity (Kahneman et al., 1982;Section 1.3.1.2) and complicating policy action among both experts andlay people (Cronin et al., 2009). For instance, common heuristics (seeSection 1.3.1.2) lead to misunderstanding of the relationship betweengreenhouse gas emission rates and their accumulation in atmosphericstocks, lending credence to a ‘wait and see’ approach to mitigation(Sterman, 2008). Through a variety of mechanisms, such factors can leadto paralysis and failure to engage in appropriate risk managementstrategies despite the availability of compelling evidence pointing toparticular risk management pathways (Sterman, 2006). The resultinglearning barriers thus deserve particular attention when exploring howto promote learning that will lead to effective adaptation.Given the complex dynamics of social-ecological systems and theirinteraction with a changing climate, the literature on adaptation to climatechange (usually referred to here, as above, simply as ‘adaptation’)emphasizes iterative learning and management plans that are explicitlydesigned to evolve as new information becomes available (Morgan etal., 2009: NRC, 2009). Unlike adaptation, the field of disaster riskmanagement has not historically focused as explicitly on the implicationsof climate change and the need for iterative learning. However, thefield provides several important examples of learning, including somepresented in Chapter 9, that could be instructive to adaptationpractitioners. Before introducing these case studies in Section 1.4.5, wewill outline relevant theory of institutional learning and ‘learning loops.’Extensive literature explores both the role of learning in adaptation(Armitage et al., 2008; Moser, 2010; Pettengell, 2010) and strategies forfacilitating institutional and social learning in ‘complex adaptive systems’(Pahl-Wostl, 2009). Some important strategies include the use ofknowledge co-production, wherein scientists, policymakers, and otheractors work together to exchange, generate, and apply knowledge(van Kerkhoff and Lebel, 2006), and action research, an iterative processin which teams of researchers develop hypotheses about real-worldCONTEXTFRAMESACTIONSOUTCOMES• Should dike height be increased by 10or 20 cm?Single-Loop LearningReacting• What strategies might facilitate moreeffective future transboundary floodmanagement?• How should vulnerability to otherclimate change impacts be included inflood management planning?Double-Loop LearningTriple-Loop LearningTransformingReframing• Should resources be allocated towardprotecting existing populations andinfrastructure at increasing risk in achanging climate, or should these assetsbe relocated or abandoned once certainrisk thresholds are crossed?Figure 1-3 | Learning loops: pathways, outcomes, and dynamics of single-, double-, and triple-loop learning and applications to flood management. Adapted from Argyris andSchön, 1978; Hargrove, 2002; Sterman et al., 2006; Folke et al., 2009; and Pahl-Wostl, 2009.53