Climate change and disaster vulnerability : community-based socio-ecological resilience research and planning in Hawaiʻi

Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2013.Includes bibliographical references.Much of the ecological degradation, high urban density and hazard vulnerability in the world are found in coastal regions and islands, including the State of Hawaiʻi and Pacific Islands. Many of these areas are vulnerable to hazard events and climate change impacts, for which engineering solutions and infrastructure measures are not always feasible and may cause further damage to the environment. Issues of poverty and wealth inequalities, poor natural resource management, and human rights abuses further exacerbate physical, social and ecological vulnerabilities to disasters. Moving away from the antiquated reactionary relief model, a movement is underway to engage in disaster resilience, an interdisciplinary approach of proactive prevention, preparation, risk reduction and adaptation. Due to extreme geographic remoteness and high risk to multiple hazards, emergency managers, communities and resource managers in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific must develop long-term resilience-building strategies that increase environmental stewardship, social well-being, and food and water security, particularly in the face of potential impacts from climate change. The dissertation employed a community-based participatory research and learning approach to address these issues, collaborating with community and multi-sector stakeholders to build capacity for development of place-based, ecologically sound and socially appropriate integrated disaster resilience plans. The research addressed critical theoretical and practical gaps by utilizing mixed quantitative and qualitative approaches and diverse tools. Adaptable community-based socio-ecological resilience frameworks promoted better linkages between socio-ecological systems, disaster preparedness, relief, recovery and sustainable development, and facilitated social learning and institutionalized resilience planning mechanisms to generate innovative solutions to the complex issues of climate change, socio-ecological vulnerability reduction and sustainable development

Stories of climate-induced mobility Responses, challenges and the need for an institutional framework to guide these transitions

This chapter seeks to explore the urgent call for immediate and effective climate mobility action by proposing an institutional policy framework to address these research and policy lacuna. It provides to enable improved institutional responses to climate mobility, through the development of a framework for adoption by governments, while building the evidence base and academic dialogue for effective strategies. The chapter focuses on the three climate-related human mobility pathways slow-onset climatic stressors, extreme weather events, and their interaction as applied within three distinct case studies, wherein conflict and war are not present factors. Each of the case studies demonstrates complex issues with which governments need to contend when responding to the impacts of climate change on human mobility and community development. Migration and displacement are primarily referred to in relation to disasters, and not climate-induced environmental change such as sea level rise, despite recognising the role that climate plays in exacerbating disasters and impeding development

Re-framing island nations as champions of resilience in the face of climate change and disaster risk

As a home to important flora and fauna, with rich cultural roots and heritage, island communities are often characterized by their deep social ties with the natural environment. However, due to environmental degradation, impacts from climate change including slow (e.g. sea level rise) and sudden (e.g. hurricanes) onset events and the associated changes to livelihood structures and opportunities, islands throughout the world face increasing threats. In order to understand and appropriately address livelihood risks in these communities and to identify opportunities for resilience-building, there is an urgent need to shed light on the historical and cultural context of island societies and ecosystems. These approaches should build upon local and traditional knowledge and be grounded in established practices developed by island communities over centuries which continue to be heavily impacted by current political and economic trends. This article presents several multi-scale case studies from islands around the world to offer a historically informed review of the cultural, environmental, political and economic systems and influences on island resilience. The discussion then shifts to the current state of vulnerable island populations, ecosystems and livelihoods, and opportunities for restoring and enhancing resilience through traditional and local knowledge and institutionalizing a longterm agenda to rebuild social and environmental justice. In doing so, this article demonstrates how small island communities can become inspiring champions of livelihood resilience to global environmental change. Our conclusions highlight best practices at the local, national and regional scales for addressing these challenges through education, women’s empowerment, health, intergenerational knowledge sharing, food security and innovative livelihood strategies such as varied mobility tactics. These practices ultimately serve as catalysts to reduce livelihood vulnerabilities and contribute to national and community level adaptive capacity to climate change, by helping forge a stronger sense of global community between small islands and non-small islands across the world

A review of solutions and challenges to addressing human population growth and global climate change

The world\u27s population recently surpassed 7 billion and is predicted to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. Continued population growth will result in increased resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing the effects of climate change. Synergisms between population growth and climate change will therefore have substantial negative impacts on the environment. However, solutions to population growth are often absent within the context of climate change. To address this absence, we conducted a review of the primary scientific literature published between 1980 and 2011 using ISI Web of Knowledge to determine the major topics that have been discussed, the geographic scale at which these topics were addressed, what types of solutions were proposed, and whether or not these solutions were tractable. In particular, we quantified the portion of the literature that addressed population growth and climate change as synergistic issues. Of 1,438 papers addressing population growth and climate change, only 139 (∼10%) included solutions. Among these 139 papers, the most frequent topics and solutions addressed the societal aspects of population growth and climate change. Land use/land cover change and greenhouse gas emissions were also frequently discussed, while changes in policy, economics, and science and technology were the most frequently offered solutions to population growth and climate change. Education, energy, and health, were the least discussed topics and the least mentioned as solutions. In addition, while topics were discussed on a global scale, actionable solutions were often regionally dependent and tailored to address either population growth or climate change as separate, unrelated topics. Importantly, the number of papers offering solutions increased significantly over time, with 46% published since 2008. These results suggest that while solutions to human population growth have seldom been discussed in the context of climate change, they are beginning to be considered in the literature, perhaps indicating an increased awareness of the interrelatedness of these issues