Entry point II

Appraising and choosing adaptation options

Entering the adaptation learning cycle at the stage of appraising and choosing adaptation options requires that a decision has been identified. Once a decision has been identified, the adaptation situation is characterised by actor facing risks and opportunities who must decide between adaptation options (also called alternatives, strategies, actions). Actors, either public or private, are faced with current or future hazards that may be affected by climate change.

The next step will present the decision tree for selecting the general approach to decision making. In order for the analyst to decide which tasks are critical it is necessary to take on the perspective of the actor faced with the decision. For public actor decisions, it is further necessary that the analyst appraises decisions from the perspective of both the public actor and the private actors whose adaptation is meant to be influenced (see section 2.1.3).

While the decision trees and accompanying discussion below describes the many tasks to be addressed in the stage of appraising and choosing adaptation options, there considerations that cut across many or all of the tasks. As mentioned in Chapter 1, these are often called barriers to adaptation, and should be considered in selecting appropriate methods. For example, leadership, authority and skill to guide the processes of both brainstorming to identify options and selecting options in informal or consensus oriented settings can be critical. The presence of effective leadership may be essential to successfully applying methods of consensus building, in addition to generating options in a brainstorming process. On the other hand, a lack of sufficient authority, or jurisdiction, of an actor to implement a given adaptation option, may lead to difficulties in the implementation phase, but may also constrain the identification of options due to perceived difficulties at later stages. Finally, as mentioned earlier, actors must have sufficient knowledge, awareness, skill and financial resources to be able to carry out the methods associated with each task.

As mentioned in the introduction, these pragmatic criteria for identifying tasks and selecting methods are not comprehensively incorporated into the decision trees because they must be addressed in specific contexts according to need, and addressed through the design of methods applied.