Discussion and Applicability

The review and case studies provide a number of practical lessons on the application of social network analysis to adaptation. They provide useful information on the range of adaptation problem types where SNA might be appropriate, as well as data needs, resource requirements and good practice.

The application of the qualitative approach is very broad, and can be applied to most adaptation settings. The approach can be useful for adaptation planning, decision-framing, uncertainty analysis and the links to choices of tools. The quantitative approach provides  important additional context for progressing towards adaptation implementation, though there is a need for balanced representation (i.e. of participants) to avoid subjectivity influencing results. The quantitative approach can provide a more detailed analysis, providing correlations, but there is a need for high sample sizes, thus the added time and resources limit the approach to more specific applications (as in the case of the Finnish case study, aligning to an existing survey). Lessons from the application include:

1. Barriers to adaptation are part of socioinstitutional processes and may be revealed and negotiated through social network analysis.
2. Capacity to adapt is the competence, or readiness, to act in socio-institutional processes. Neither the status of individual actors or relationships among actors are adequate indications of adaptive capacity per se since there can be an imbalance of power which diminishes capacity.
3. The drivers or determinants of adaptive capacity are far more complex in a stakeholder regime than the availability of information and finance. As yet, metrics of adaptive capacity lack this understanding of networks as drivers of change.
4. Adaptive networks can be described formally and this can also help to identify what outcomes different network configurations may produce.
5. Descriptions of both actors and networks can  be related to qualitative metrics and used to benchmark progress towards outcomes. However, these are likely to be specific to the context of different networks and adaptation challenges.
6. Transformations in adaptive capacity are changes in actor-networks, including new institutional arrangements, new entities or new roles and responsibilities.

• Section overview
• Key Messages
• Introduction
• Description of the Method
• The Application to Adaptation
• Strengths and Weaknesses
• Case Studies
• Discussion and Applicability
• References

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