Resilience and Vulnerability Assessment as the Basis for Adaptation Dialogue in Information-Poor Environments: A Cambodian Example

Abstract

Community preparedness for the impacts of climate change on livelihoods in the Asia-Pacific region is largely unknown. Scientific impact projections and quality data (at a scale relevant to local adaptation decision-making) are rare in countries such as Cambodia, particularly in rural areas. Adaption (including mitigation, adaptation, transformation and maladaptation) therefore predominantly occurs in an information-poor environment. In this chapter, we present some findings of a collaboration between two projects: first, the UN FAO Life and Nature watershed management project—a project incorporating vulnerability assessments, improved land use practices, and climate-smart agricultural adaptation, with a gender focus; and second, The Community Resilience and Climate Adaptation project—a small research project that developed a rapid assessment of community resilience to inform adaptation planning. Our common aim has been to address the absence of quality climate information for adaptation planning through the use of vulnerability and resilience assessment and policy dialogue. We demonstrate the importance of adaptation dialogue processes as mechanisms for introducing climate change information into decision-making. We argue that such processes are paramount to communicating quality information when and if it does become available, given that communities already recognize the impacts of climate change upon them, and in addition, they create a sociocultural context conducive to adaptation and transformation, exposing the limitations of existing mitigation strategies.