Climate change adaptation in coastal east Arctic ecosystems: Complexity and challenges of monitoring and evaluation

Abstract

The fifth IPCC assessment confirms the fast rate of climate change in the Polar Regions and indicates that Arctic communities are facing great challenges in adapting. Several initiatives have recently been introduced to stimulate the implementation of adaptation measures, but most documented experiments exclude formal monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities. Our paper focuses on two questions: How does the lack of robust monitoring and evaluation influence adaptation limits in the region? What are the current insights emerging about this topic and what do these limits mean for local communities? Our paper is based on a scoping review of relevant official documentation and data gathered in the field through interviews during the summer of 2015. Our data are also derived from recently published statistical data, reports and articles. Our findings suggest that Arctic communities and institutions are not able to produce sufficient rigorous and regularly updated monitoring data, mainly because of the lack of resources required for systematic and rigorous data collection and analysis. Individual incentives, weak institutions and a complicated policy context also limit M&E activities. This lack of resources is associated with other different limitations mainly related to the complexity of measuring climate change adaptation progress in these vulnerable social and ethnological ecosystems. Indeed, in addition to attribution and counterfactual challenges, opposing approaches in the conceptualization of indicators and dissonances in the perception of risks and vulnerabilities complicate assessing climate change adaptation impacts.