Understanding of how best to support those most vulnerable to climate stress is imperative given expected changes in climate variability. This paper investigates local adaptation strategies to climate variability, focusing on agricultural decision-making in a communal irrigation scheme in Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Research done through interviews, surveys and participator...

Predicting how species distributions might shift as global climate changes is fundamental to the successful adaptation of conservation policy. An increasing number of studies have responded to this challenge by using climate envelopes, modeling the association between climate variables and species distributions. However, it is difficult to quantify how well species actually match climate. Here,...

As climate change has emerged as the most pressing sustainability issue, there has been an increase in corporate responses to the problem. They often involve changes to organizational routines, behaviours, procedures and are based on the process of organizational learning. In this article, we try to connect process of climate change adaptation with organizational learning. We present climate ch...

Recent rapid changes in the Earth's climate have altered ecological systems around the globe. Global warming has been linked to changes in physiology, phenology, species distributions, interspecific interactions, and disturbance regimes. Projected future climate change will undoubtedly result in even more dramatic shifts in the states of many ecosystems. These shifts will provide one of the lar...

1 Introduction I strongly endorse the central theme of Mendelsohn's (2000) paper that 'adaptation (including its costs) must... be taken into account in order to design efficient climate change policies'. Mendelsohn makes several valuable observations that amplify this point. He stresses that there is an efficient amount of adaptation, and that one can have too much or too little adaptation. Us...

Current agroecosystem management practices in tropical latitudes may not be an economically feasible and an effective long-term adaptation strategy to climate change. As such, implementing, improving and refining sustainable land management practices may be a more effective adaptation strategy. This study determined the perception and knowledge of climate change by landowners in a remote Costa ...

The policy debate on climate change distinguishes two generic response options. The first (and more prominent) option is mitigation. Mitigation addresses the causes of climate change by reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases (GHGs). The second response is adaptation. Adaptation deals with the consequences of climate change and seeks to reduce the vulnerability of human and natural sy...

As the impacts of climate change become increasingly evident, resource managers and conservationists are being challenged to rethink long-held assumptions and strategies. Preparing for and coping with the effects of climate change—or climate adaptation—is becoming an overarching framework for conservation, and offers insight into the reconsideration of existing goals and strategies. This is an ...

The paper concludes with a cautionary note that adaptation is not a panacea. It should not be the only strategy considered for the reduction of risks posed by climate change. Adaptation comes at a cost and society has limited resources to devote to this activity. Also, there are uncertainties associated with the effectiveness of any adaptive response. Any portfolio of climate change policies sh...

The predicted manifestations of global climate change are diverse and extensive. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) offer great potential to enable and enhance climate change adaptation projects, programmes and activities. As yet these roles have received relatively little systematic consideration. In this paper we outline the nature of climate change adaptation contexts and pre...