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This chapter highlights ecosystem-based adaptation in coastal Bangladesh aimed at securing climate and disaster-resilient environment for safer life and livelihood for vulnerable communities in the face of changing climate. Development intervention based on the opportunities offered by the nature and adaptation management plan from the perspective of vulnerability analysis can make a substantive difference in enhancing resilience. Engagement of broad-based stakeholders at vertical and horizontal levels in building adaptive capacity can be linked through both at the policy and institutional levels as well as at ecosystem levels for effective results. Innovation in convergence of disaster risk reduction and adaptation through fish, fruit, and forest as a part of livelihood integrated into the coastal afforestation ensure better livelihood in a safer coastal habitats. Such forest-based adaptive livelihood and carbon sequestration help land development that is promising to offset the sea level rise due to higher rate of siltation. Climate resilient habitat is another innovative initiative that protects the households, and their livelihood is protected by eco-engineering structures and green defense to make it safer from cyclone and tidal surge.

Private household insurance has been relatively uncommon among households in Samoa to date. Meanwhile, numerous other adaptation interventions are also being implemented, including community-based adaptation (CBA) projects which draw on the skills of the community to address the climate change-related hazards that are expected to affect local communities. Through semi-structured interviews with community members from the urban/peri-urban area around Apia (with and without insurance) and an insurance company representative, this research explores private household natural perils insurance uptake in Samoa and the effect that the uptake of this insurance has on household engagement in other climate change adaptation (CCA) strategies such as CBA projects. Findings suggest that individuals whose homes are already insured with natural perils insurance are more likely to express more individualistic values or beliefs than those without natural perils insurance. Insured homeowners commonly framed adaptation as a technical challenge, with insurance being part of the technical and expert-led approach to prepare for, manage and recover from extreme events. In contrast, householders without insurance perceived CCA as less of a technical task and more of a social process. Those individuals with private household natural perils insurance coverage (in keeping with their more individualistic values) reported that they were less engaged in CBA projects compared to participants without insurance (who held more communalistic values). Given the importance of household participation in CBA projects, an increased uptake of insurance may have problematic outcomes for the adaptive capacity of the broader community.

How water is managed is emerging as one of the core challenges of sustainable development and earth system governance (Pahl-Wostl, Gupta, & Petry, 2008a; Biermann et al., 2009). Floods and droughts already have a huge impact on human development and well-being. Adaptation to existing climate variability to reduce water insecurities is already a pressing need (Pielke, Prins, Rayner, & Sarewitz, 2007). Securing access to safe drinking water, allocating sufficient water to grow food, protecting life and property from floods, as well as maintaining river and floodplain ecosystems as countries develop economically, however, is a complex set of interlocking and dynamic challenges.

This chapter focusses on food systems' vulnerability. In a rapidly and unpredictably changing world, vulnerability of farming and food systems becomes a key issue. The conceptual bases for food vulnerability analysis and food vulnerability assessment are discussed in a systemic perspective with an eye to the transition approach (Geels, 2004) as a perspective capable to analyze how novelties can develop and influence the system capability to fulfil societal functions, and food and nutrition security in particular. A framework for assessing people's food vulnerability is presented together with a simple vulnerability model based on the three dimensions of exposure (the degree to which a system is likely to experience environmental or sociopolitical stress), sensitivity (the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations) and adaptive capacity (the ability to evolve in order to accommodate environmental hazards or change) (Adger, 2006). Then, other sections are dedicated to discuss the general questions that should be answered by a vulnerability assessment exercise, and the specific challenges emerging when the assessment concerns a food system. These elements are then used in the Annex to this chapter as a base for the development of a detailed method based on seven distinct steps for conducting participatory assessments of the vulnerability of food systems.

The Pacific Island countries are culturally diverse, politically challenging, extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural disaster impacts, and financially heavily dependent on aid flows. This chapter examines barriers and opportunities for Green growth (GG) to flourish in a country with a practically non-existent real economy and which is currently under the threat of disappearance under water. It draws on a visiting experience and lessons from the literature and tries to investigate the role of innovation and entrepreneurship as poles of re-birth and local creativity. More particularly, I here discuss why a least developed country such as Kiribati might be the perfect location for dynamics of GG to get born and how, Kiribati, a country under threat and fear, can be transformed into a lighthouse of entrepreneurship which can give boost to the implementation of one of the most advanced energy technologies in the world. I also discuss how, ultimately, a “least developed economy” can secure scientific lessons, which are highly significant for the international knowledge society.

Climate change, deforestation and hydropower dams are contributing to environmental change in the Lower Mekong River region, the combined effects of which are felt by many rural Cambodians. How people perceive and manage the effects of environmental change will influence future adaptation strategies. The objective of this research was to investigate whether the use of a low-cost, explicitly spatial method (participatory mapping) can help identify locally relevant opportunities and challenges to climate change adaptation in small, flood-prone communities. Four villages along the banks of the Mekong River in Kratie Province, Cambodia, were the subject of this research. To identify perceived environmental hazards and adaptive responses, eight workshops were conducted using focus-group interviews and participatory mapping. The communities’ responses highlight the evolving nature of environmental hazards, as droughts increase in perceived importance while the patterns of wet season flooding were also perceived to be changing. The attribution of the drivers of these hazards was strongly skewed towards local factors such as deforestation and less towards regional or global drivers affecting the hydrology of the Mekong and climate patterns. Combining participatory mapping with focus-group interviews allowed a greater depth of understanding of the vulnerabilities and opportunities available to communities than reliance on a single qualitative method. The study highlights the potential for a bottom-up transfer of information to strengthen existing climate change policies and tailor adaptation plans to local conditions.

Due to rapid industrialization and urbanization in different parts of the world over the past several decades, there have been serious effects on climate. Available observational evidences indicate that regional changes in climate, particularly fluctuations in temperature and rainfall, have already affected a diverse set of physical and biological systems in many parts of the world. International communities have tried to respond to these changing phenomena by establishing high-level Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Numerous global treaties and protocols have been formulated on climate change in different countries. However, climate change impacts are found to be most severe in the grassroots-level community, in the form of natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and typhoons/cyclones, which affect the lives and livelihoods of people. Indirect impacts of climate change are observed in the form of increasing poverty and health issues in different ecosystems. Although communities are equipped with traditional knowledge and wisdom, new practices and policies are required to enable them to cope with the changing climate, thereby providing them with means to sustain their livelihoods.

Multi-risk environments pose challenges for rural and coastal communities in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with regard to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation strategies. While much research has been published on disaster response and recovery for specific climate-related hazards in the region, such as cyclones, floods and droughts, there is a growing need for insight into how communities respond, recover and adapt to the multiple, intersecting risks posed by environmental, societal and economic change. This chapter frames the body of new research presented in this book from the perspective of multi-risk environments, paying particular attention to concepts central to the disaster response and recovery cycle, and rejecting the notion of a distinct boundary between climate and society. Further, this introductory chapter foregrounds the importance of cultural values, power relations, Indigenous knowledge systems, local networks and community-based adaptive capacities when considering resilience, recovery and adaptation to climate-induced disasters at the community and household level. Overviews of the research presented in this book demonstrate a diverse range of responses and adaptive strategies at the local level in case studies from Solomon Islands, Fiji, Cambodia and Samoa, as well as implications for policy, planning and management.

Pakistan is one of the most climate change and natural disaster-affected countries in the globe, where the lives and livelihoods of people are repeatedly affected due to these natural disasters. Over the past few decades, the country has been impacted by numerous devastating floods, droughts, and storms. As a result, households face enormous complications, particularly those dwelling in disaster-prone areas. Therefore, this study intends to explore the status of household vulnerability and resilience practices of hazard-prone communities in Pakistan from existing literature. This study has identified the 17 most relevant documents. It argues that household vulnerability is increasing consistently with the increasing rate of disaster intensity. Frequent flooding, landslide, erosion, and crop loss are the leading causes of household vulnerability. This study reveals five types of household vulnerability components which look into several livelihood vulnerability indicators of Pakistani households. Moreover, the study unfolds that the main causes of disaster vulnerability are widespread crop loss, a lack of water, loss of soil fertility, and low socioeconomic situations. The major vulnerability components of dwellers are exposure (increasing summer duration, the rapid increase of population house build-up in the riparian areas, and increasing occurrence of hailstorms), sensitivity, low access to education facilities, human loss, diseases infestation, food insecurity, and social conflict), and less adaptive capacity (social networks, migration, poor emergency services, multiple income sources, and less access to the health facility). To address the household vulnerability, this study has also identified four key aspects of resilience, like social resilience, economic resilience, institutional resilience, and physical resilience. The findings will effectively help to understand the dynamics of household vulnerability and resilience and its measurement and management strategy from developed indicators.