Accession Number:

ADA616366

Title:

CSIR Contribution to Defining Adaptive Capacity in the Context of Environmental Change

Descriptive Note:

Interm rept. no. 3

Corporate Author:

COUNCIL FOR SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH PRETORIA (SOUTH AFRICA)

Personal Author(s):

• Nortje, Karen
• Claassen, Marius

Report Date:

2014-09-30

Pagination or Media Count:

11.0

Abstract:

The research is focused on understanding and identifying vulnerabilities in developing regions that inherently have fewer institutional capabilities to handle large-scale changes. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of adaptive capacity compares areas in the Mississippi and Nile Basin. The Mississippi case area serves as a more controlled case study with the Nile Basin representing a context with more limited historical data. Environmental change and human behavior over the hundred year time scale 1910-2010 are being used for the analysis. The comparison of environmental change eg. precipitation and temperature trends and the corresponding human behavioural responses eg food access and migration patterns will provide an input to metric creation, contingent on evidence that changes in local stability are related to environmental change. These metrics will be used to measure areas of vulnerability within both study regions.

Descriptors:

• *CLIMATE CHANGE
• *ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
• *SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
• ADAPTATION
• BEHAVIOR
• CASE STUDIES
• COMMUNITY RELATIONS
• CORRELATION
• DATA FUSION
• DEVELOPING NATIONS
• DREDGING
• MISSISSIPPI
• QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
• SOCIAL WELFARE
• SOCIOMETRICS
• VULNERABILITY
• WATERSHEDS

Subject Categories:

• Ecology
• Civil Engineering
• Environmental Health and Safety

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE