Knowledge and adaptive capacity

Abstract

Climate change adaptation has, over the last decade, become an increasingly important topic in international policy discussions. In the research community, considerable work has been devoted to adaptation, and especially to understanding the factors that determine an individual, community, organization or nation’s ability to adapt to the effects of climate variability and change. This research has produced important insights into the nature of adaptive capacity, and yet the concept remains difficult to bound and measure. Here we suggest that knowledge, broadly defined, represents both an important determinant and indicator of adaptive capacity. In addition to making this case, we propose some strategies for measuring and assessing knowledge in this context.