The Possibility of Uniting Risk Management and Adaptive Co-Management – Envisioning Adaptive Collaborative Risk Management (ACRM) for Climate Change

Communities are increasingly confronted with the need to identify, characterize and respond to the global challenges of climate change. Risk management is a well established tool for climate change adaptation, but critical questions about past management techniques and the emergence of ‘alternative approaches’ raise possibilities for novel new directions. This paper conceptually explores the synergies from combining risk management as a tool for climate change adaptation with adaptive co-management as a governance strategy. The possibility of uniting the two approaches is envisioned using the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) current standard for effective risk management. An approach termed adaptive collaborative risk management (ACRM) is proposed as an outcome. ACRM offers considerable innovation because it addresses both technical and governance concerns associated with climate change adaptation in a single process.