Institutional analysis in climate change adaptation research : A systematic literature review

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Appropriate institutions are essential for climate change adaptation. Yet diverse approaches to institutional analysis are available, encompassing different ontological and epistemological assumptions, and thus yielding insights on very different aspects of institutions in adaptation. Therefore, efforts to expand knowledge in this domain can be usefully informed by an assessment of approaches to institutional analysis in the adaptation literature, which is to date lacking. We address this gap by conducting a systematic review of the adaptation literature addressing institutions. Our review characterises approaches to institutional analysis by identifying methodological choices and the philosophy of science underpinning them. We then analyze the distribution of approaches to institutional analysis across different adaptation situations, contextualizing our results within methodological debates in adaptation research regarding the appropriateness of positivist, interpretative, or post-normal approaches. We find that institutional analysis of adaptation is now engaging with 'how' and 'why' questions, beyond descriptive questions that characterise the adaptation 'barriers' literature, that diverse philosophies of science drive methodological choice, and that post-normal approaches, e.g. co-design approaches, hardly address institutions. We conclude that support for interpretative approaches, and for institutional analysis in post-normal approaches is needed. The latter is important for adaptation planning processes in developing countries under the UNFCCC

Übergreifende Abstimmung in der Klimaanpassung

Was nützt eine Feuerwehrzentrale, die bei Hochwasser geflutet wird? Wer sich vorstellt, dass Feuer wehrzentralen nie in Überflutungsgebieten eingerichtet werden, sollte bedenken, dass integrierte, sektorübergreifende Berücksichtigung des Klimawandels nicht selbstverständlich ist

From a Challenge to an Opportunity: Sustainability and the “Dark Side” of Social Capital in Paros, Greece

The role of social capital for socio-ecological systems is undisputed. While fostering cooperation in some communities, however, social capital can also lead to tight social control and distrust towards outsiders and new practices, contributing to the persistence of undesirable, unsustainable practices. This paper explores the challenges emerging from the “dark side” of social capital for sustainability efforts in socio-ecological systems, raising the question how they can be addressed and overcome. It focuses on the case of Paros, Greece, where decades of mass tourism and conventional agriculture have put a heavy burden on the socio-ecological system. In the aftermath of the 2008-2011 crisis, returnees and newcomers leaving mainland Greece brought new ideas on how to reconcile the island’s economy, ecology, and society with one another. Interviews reveal how the specifics of social capital in Paros posed structural, cognitive, and relational challenges to their projects. Surprisingly, though, those challenges could be turned into opportunities to embed new projects on the island. Promoting sustainability in socioecological systems may thus be less a matter of creating more social capital, but one of tailoring interventions to the specific type of social capital available

Institutions in the climate adaptation literature : a systematic literature review through the lens of the Institutional Analysis and Development framework

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Analyses of climate adaptation seldom rely on the conceptual toolbox of institutional economics. Yet articles addressing institutions make up a large portion of the climate adaptation literature. With a wealth of institutionally relevant knowledge in the adaptation literature, organizing such knowledge in institutionally meaningful ways can advance the present understanding of the link between institutions and adaptation. Knowing which aspects of this link are well researched, and where in contrast research gaps lie, can provide guidance to institutional economists interested in adaptation. We contribute to this through a systematic review of the adaptation literature, assessing the consideration adaptation scholars give to different elements of the Institutional Analysis and Development framework. Results show a strong focus on collective choice and on adaptation by public actors, with an emphasis on rules in use, social interactions and, to a lesser extent, attributes of the community. Research gaps rather encompass operational and constitutional choice, private adaptation, physical interactions and biophysical conditions

Design and quality criteria for archetype analysis

A key challenge in addressing the global degradation of natural resources and the environment is to effectively transfer successful strategies across heterogeneous contexts. Archetype analysis is a particularly salient approach in this regard that helps researchers to understand and compare patterns of (un)sustainability in heterogeneous cases. Archetype analysis avoids traps of overgeneralization and ideography by identifying reappearing but nonuniversal patterns that hold for well-defined subsets of cases. It can be applied by researchers working in inter- or transdisciplinary settings to study sustainability issues from a broad range of theoretical and methodological standpoints. However, there is still an urgent need for quality standards to guide the design of theoretically rigorous and practically useful archetype analyses. To this end, we propose four quality criteria and corresponding research strategies to address them: (1) specify the domain of validity for each archetype, (2) ensure that archetypes can be combined to characterize single cases, (3) explicitly navigate levels of abstraction, and (4) obtain a fit between attribute configurations, theories, and empirical domains of validity. These criteria are based on a stocktaking of current methodological challenges in archetypes research, including: to demonstrate the validity of the analysis, delineate boundaries of archetypes, and select appropriate attributes to define them. We thus contribute to a better common understanding of the approach and to the improvement of the research design of future archetype analyses

Introduction to the special issue on adapting institutions to climate change

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552This article introduces the special issue on climate adaptation and institutions. Economic accounts of climate adaptation have stressed its collective action nature and the limitations of standard economic approaches to the matter. Governance accounts, on their part, have shown that adaptation does not always happen when it is expected. Against this background, institutional economics has the potential to shed light on those societal processes and collective mechanisms leading to and shaping adaptation (or the absence of it). The selection of articles contributing to this special issue shows that climate adaptation can indeed be explored successfully through institutional economics, and that doing so fits well within the institutional economics agenda. Some recommendations for future research are provided at the end

Validity and validation in archetype analysis: practical assessment framework and guidelines

Archetype analysis is a promising approach in sustainability science to identify patterns and explain mechanisms shaping the sustainability of social-ecological systems. Although considerable efforts have been devoted to developing quality standards and methodological advances for archetype analysis, archetype validation remains a major challenge. Drawing on the insights from two international workshops on archetype analysis and on broader literature on validity, we propose a framework that identifies and describes six dimensions of validity: conceptual; construct; internal; external; empirical; and application validity. We first discuss the six dimensions in relation to different methodological approaches and purposes of archetype analysis. We then present an operational use of the framework for researchers to assess the validity of archetype analysis and to support sound archetype identification and policy-relevant applications. Finally, we apply our assessment to 18 published archetype analyses, which we use to describe the challenges and insights in validating the different dimensions and suggest ways to holistically improve the validity of identified archetypes. With this, we contribute to more rigorous archetype analyses, helping to develop the potential of the approach for guiding sustainability solutions.Peer Reviewe

Mind the Costs: Rescaling and Multi-Level Environmental Governance in Venice Lagoon

Competences over environmental matters are distributed across agencies at different scales on a national-to-local continuum. This article adopts a transaction costs economics perspective in order to explore the question whether, in the light of a particular problem, the scale at which a certain competence is attributed can be reconsidered. Specifically, it tests whether a presumption of least-cost operation concerning an agency at a given scale can hold. By doing so, it investigates whether the rescaling of certain tasks, aiming at solving a scale-related problem, is likely to produce an increase in costs for day-to-day agency operations as compared to the status quo. The article explores such a perspective for the case of Venice Lagoon. The negative aspects of the present arrangement concerning fishery management and morphological remediation are directly linked to the scale of the agencies involved. The analysis suggests that scales have been chosen correctly, at least from the point of view of the costs incurred to the agencies involved. Consequently, a rescaling of those agencies does not represent a viable option

Using biochar for environmental recovery and boosting the yield of valuable non-food crops: the case of hemp in a soil contaminated by potentially toxic elements (PTEs)

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is known to tolerate high concentrations of soil contaminants which however can limit its biomass yield. On the other hand, organic-based amendments such as biochar can immobilize soil contaminants and assist hemp growth in soils contaminated by potentially toxic elements (PTEs), allowing for environmental recovery and income generation, e.g. due to green energy production from plant biomass. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the suitability of a softwood-derived biochar to enhance hemp growth and promote the assisted phytoremediation of a PTE-contaminated soil (i.e., Sb 2175 mg kg-1; Zn 3149 mg kg-1; Pb 403 mg kg-1; and Cd 12 mg kg-1). Adding 3% (w/w) biochar to soil favoured the reduction of soluble and exchangeable PTEs, decreased soil dehydrogenase activity (by ~2.08-fold), and increased alkaline phosphomonoesterase and urease activities, basal respiration and soil microbial carbon (by ~1.18-, 1.22-, 1.22-, and 1.66-fold, respectively). Biochar increased the abundance of selected soil culturable microorganisms, while amplicon sequencing analysis showed a positive biochar impact on α-diversity and the induction of structural changes on soil bacterial community structure. Biochar did not affect root growth of hemp but significantly increased its aboveground biomass by ~1.67-fold for shoots, and by ~2-fold for both seed number and weight. Biochar increased the PTEs phytostabilisation potential of hemp with respect to Cd, Pb and Zn, and also stimulated hemp phytoextracting capacity with respect to Sb. Overall, the results showed that biochar can boost hemp yield and its phytoremediation effectiveness in soils contaminated by PTEs providing valuable biomass that can generate profit in economic, environmental and sustainability terms