Resource Management and Geography - Theses
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ItemUnderstanding adaptation: households and bushfire risk in Mount Dandenong( 2014)Despite growing evidence of the need for climate change adaptation, it is not well understood. Adaptation is a complex social phenomenon in which climate risk is negotiated and acted upon in social and environmental contexts. This complexity makes adaptation difficult to research and there are few empirical studies that investigate adaptation in practice. In lieu of evidence about adaptation practices, many researchers instead assess the capacity to adapt, despite little evidence to suggest that adaptive capacity explains the practice of adaptation. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge about adaptation to climate change by examining the extent to which households in Mt. Dandenong are adapting to bushfire risk, and the extent to which their adaptation practices are explained by their adaptive capacity. It studies household preparation for bushfires in Mount Dandenong as this is a good proxy for adaptation practices, and it compares this with an assessment of the their adaptive capacity (by examining their wealth, health, education, knowledge, and social capital). The research then examines alternative factors that might be explaining or influencing adaptation in the case study. The thesis finds that very few households are adapting well, despite a high level of adaptive capacity. There is a tenuous relationship between adaptive capacity and adaptation within the sample. There is a disparity between what people could do to adapt, and what they actually do. High adaptive capacity does not ensure that adaptation occurs. The findings suggest that to understand the adaptation practices of households, greater attention needs to be paid to the factors that trigger people to apply their available capacities.