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    Rights statement: © 2016 Evans et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region

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Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region. / Evans, Louisa S.; Hicks, Christina; Adger, W. Neil et al.
In: PLoS ONE, Vol. 11, No. 3, 0150575, 09.03.2016.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Harvard

Evans, LS, Hicks, C, Adger, WN, Barnett, J, Perry, AJ, Fidelman, P & Tobin, R 2016, 'Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region', PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 3, 0150575. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150575

APA

Evans, L. S., Hicks, C., Adger, W. N., Barnett, J., Perry, A. J., Fidelman, P., & Tobin, R. (2016). Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region. PLoS ONE, 11(3), Article 0150575. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150575

Vancouver

Evans LS, Hicks C, Adger WN, Barnett J, Perry AJ, Fidelman P et al. Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region. PLoS ONE. 2016 Mar 9;11(3):0150575. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150575

Author

Evans, Louisa S. ; Hicks, Christina ; Adger, W. Neil et al. / Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region. In: PLoS ONE. 2016 ; Vol. 11, No. 3.

Bibtex

@article{b6542780ebda438580fde9e9316e2b55,
title = "Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region",
abstract = "Adaptation, as a strategy to respond to climate change, has limits: there are conditions under which adaptation strategies fail to alleviate impacts from climate change. Research has primarily focused on identifying absolute bio-physical limits. This paper contributes empirical insight to an emerging literature on the social limits to adaptation. Such limits arise from the ways in which societies perceive, experience and respond to climate change. Using qualitative data from multi-stakeholder workshops and key-informant interviews with representatives of the fisheries and tourism sectors of the Great Barrier Reef region, we identify psycho-social and structural limits associated with key adaptation strategies, and examine how these are perceived as more or less absolute across levels of organisation. We find that actors experience social limits to adaptation when: i) the effort of pursuing a strategy exceeds the benefits of desired adaptation outcomes; ii) the particular strategy does not address the actual source of vulnerability, and; iii) the benefits derived from adaptation are undermined by external factors. We also find that social limits are not necessarily more absolute at higher levels of organisation: respondents perceived considerable opportunities to address some psycho-social limits at the national-international interface, while they considered some social limits at the local and regional levels to be effectively absolute.",
author = "Evans, {Louisa S.} and Christina Hicks and Adger, {W. Neil} and Jon Barnett and Perry, {Allison J.} and Pedro Fidelman and Renae Tobin",
note = "{\textcopyright} 2016 Evans et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.",
year = "2016",
month = mar,
day = "9",
doi = "10.1371/journal.pone.0150575",
language = "English",
volume = "11",
journal = "PLoS ONE",
issn = "1932-6203",
publisher = "Public Library of Science",
number = "3",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Structural and psycho-social limits to climate change adaptation in the great barrier reef region

AU - Evans, Louisa S.

AU - Hicks, Christina

AU - Adger, W. Neil

AU - Barnett, Jon

AU - Perry, Allison J.

AU - Fidelman, Pedro

AU - Tobin, Renae

N1 - © 2016 Evans et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2016/3/9

Y1 - 2016/3/9

N2 - Adaptation, as a strategy to respond to climate change, has limits: there are conditions under which adaptation strategies fail to alleviate impacts from climate change. Research has primarily focused on identifying absolute bio-physical limits. This paper contributes empirical insight to an emerging literature on the social limits to adaptation. Such limits arise from the ways in which societies perceive, experience and respond to climate change. Using qualitative data from multi-stakeholder workshops and key-informant interviews with representatives of the fisheries and tourism sectors of the Great Barrier Reef region, we identify psycho-social and structural limits associated with key adaptation strategies, and examine how these are perceived as more or less absolute across levels of organisation. We find that actors experience social limits to adaptation when: i) the effort of pursuing a strategy exceeds the benefits of desired adaptation outcomes; ii) the particular strategy does not address the actual source of vulnerability, and; iii) the benefits derived from adaptation are undermined by external factors. We also find that social limits are not necessarily more absolute at higher levels of organisation: respondents perceived considerable opportunities to address some psycho-social limits at the national-international interface, while they considered some social limits at the local and regional levels to be effectively absolute.

AB - Adaptation, as a strategy to respond to climate change, has limits: there are conditions under which adaptation strategies fail to alleviate impacts from climate change. Research has primarily focused on identifying absolute bio-physical limits. This paper contributes empirical insight to an emerging literature on the social limits to adaptation. Such limits arise from the ways in which societies perceive, experience and respond to climate change. Using qualitative data from multi-stakeholder workshops and key-informant interviews with representatives of the fisheries and tourism sectors of the Great Barrier Reef region, we identify psycho-social and structural limits associated with key adaptation strategies, and examine how these are perceived as more or less absolute across levels of organisation. We find that actors experience social limits to adaptation when: i) the effort of pursuing a strategy exceeds the benefits of desired adaptation outcomes; ii) the particular strategy does not address the actual source of vulnerability, and; iii) the benefits derived from adaptation are undermined by external factors. We also find that social limits are not necessarily more absolute at higher levels of organisation: respondents perceived considerable opportunities to address some psycho-social limits at the national-international interface, while they considered some social limits at the local and regional levels to be effectively absolute.

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0150575

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0150575

M3 - Journal article

VL - 11

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 3

M1 - 0150575

ER -