skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Understanding how justice is considered in climate adaptation approaches: a qualitative review of climate adaptation plans
Title: Understanding how justice is considered in climate adaptation approaches: a qualitative review of climate adaptation plans
Despite a growing focus on climate justice, prior research has revealed scant details about how marginalised groups have been engaged in local climate adaptation processes. This study aims to understand how justice is considered in these processes through a qualitative review of climate adaptation plans and related documents from US municipalities. We reviewed 101 plans published between 2010 and 2021 using the three-dimensional framework of recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice. Overall, our findings revealed a stronger focus on recognitional and distributional justice than procedural. Recognitional justice mainly focused on who is most vulnerable to climate change and how, with most plans adopting a similar understanding of vulnerability. Plans less frequently acknowledged how historical injustices contribute to vulnerability. Distributional justice was addressed through adaptation strategies across six areas (e.g. health and safety, buildings, green infrastructure, professional development, food, and transit), focusing greater attention on expanding existing programmes than new initiatives. Little attention was given to the potential negative impacts of proposed strategies. Procedural justice was mainly considered through one-off opportunities, rather than more extensive engagement in decision-making. Most plans lacked implementation considerations, for justice or otherwise, but when included, details mainly focused on who would be involved and not how strategies would be implemented. These findings provide an array of approaches to incorporate justice in adaptation planning and support several considerations for developing future plans.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1810851
PAR ID:
10538954
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Taylor & Francis
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Local Environment
ISSN:
1354-9839
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 20
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; (, Local Environment)
    Climate adaptation planning is increasingly approached locally through a social justice lens to ensure the needs of the most vulnerable are addressed. This study aims to identify trends in how recognitional, distributional, and procedural justice are considered within climate adaptation plans over time and across socio-demographic contexts. We coded these forms of justice in 101 climate adaptation plans and related documents published in the United States between 2010 and 2021 and conducted a series of regressions to understand patterns over time and across contexts. Newer plans more commonly addressed each type of justice, with a marked shift in plans published after 2017. More recent plans addressed new elements of recognitional justice (e.g. historical marginalisation, racial justice), a broader scope of distributional justice approaches (e.g. more strategies related to greenspaces, food, and green jobs), and more procedural justice-related initiatives to engage marginalised residents in adaptation. Plans from more Republican-leaning communities considered recognitional and distributional justice to a lesser degree than those from more Democratic-leaning areas. Plans by larger communities were more likely to address procedural justice and include strategies for monitoring the impacts to marginalised people. Plans from communities with a larger percentage of residents living in poverty addressed distributional justice more often and acknowledged more injustices faced by marginalised groups more often. We observed no trends in the treatment of procedural justice related to racial demographics or income. We discuss potential reasons for these trends and their implications. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; (, Engineering Project Organization Conference)
    Chinowsky, P; Taylor, J; Tech, G. (Ed.)
    The Arctic is experiencing intensified impacts from climate change, resulting in unprecedented rates of change, especially for Indigenous communities. Alaska Natives are experiencing transformations in housing, food security, economic stability, and cultural practices as a result of the biophysical changes such as thawing permafrost and coastal erosion. In response, communities are prioritizing adaptation. Although Indigenous communities have been adapting for hundreds of years, adaptation strategies, or actions that seek to moderate harm through the adjustment to actual or expected climate change effects, are not well documented. Housing adaptation strategies are especially understudied, which include any adaptation strategy that is in response to or in preparation for a biophysical change affecting housing. Housing adaptation strategies in response to climate change are primarily focused on physical dimensions (e.g., retrofitting homes, constructing sea wall). Nevertheless, adaptations to changes in biophysical systems are closely interlinked to sociocultural systems, which are often neglected in adaptation discourse. Analyzing existing strategies through the lens of community values captures the sociocultural aspects of adaptation and is critical for sustainable adaptation. This paper presents a research design that addresses these gaps in adaptation discourse by asking: How are community values represented in housing adaptation strategies in response to climate change? This research will employ interviews, focus groups, and observations in partnership with two Alaska Native communities in Oscarville, Alaska and Point Lay, Alaska using community based participatory research methods (CBPR). Understanding the role of community values in housing adaptation is essential for developing sustainable adaptation plans, engineering designs, and future research studies. Further, employing CBPR methodologies in the context of adaptation, grounds identified strategies and resulting plans in community experience. As a result, future findings will not only contribute to the intellectual understanding of adaptation processes and theory, but also facilitate actions in response to climate change. 
    more » « less
  3. (, Journal of Planning Education and Research)
    Planning theory scholars and practitioners have identified the need to include residents most affected by climate change in the development of climate adaptation planning, for reasons of justice and effectiveness. This article investigates whether Austin, Texas’ network of plans includes participation by residents and incorporation of local knowledge into climate adaptation. This research finds that these plans contain limited material about participation, engagement, equity, and local knowledge. In response to this gap, the article presents a case study of the Dove Springs Climate Navigators, a residents-nongovernmental organization-municipal-university collaboration working to co-create an online portal, training system, and process to incorporate local knowledge into adaptation planning. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Accountability in Research)
    Authorship of academic publications is central to scientists’ careers, but decisions about how to include and order authors on publications are often fraught with difficult ethical issues. To better understand scholars’ experiences with authorship, we developed a novel concept, authorship climate, which assesses perceptions of the procedural, informational, and distributive justice associated with authorship decisions. We conducted a representative survey of more than 3,000 doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and assistant professors from a stratified random sample of U.S. biology, economics, physics, and psychology departments. We found that individuals who tend to have more power on science teams perceived authorship climate to be more positive than those who tend to have less power. Alphabetical approaches for assigning authorship were associated with higher perceptions of procedural justice and informational justice but lower perceptions of distributive justice. Individuals with more marginalized identities also tended to perceive authorship climate more negatively than those with no marginalized identities. These results illustrate how the concept of authorship climate can facilitate enhanced understanding of early-career scholars’ authorship experiences, and they highlight potential steps that can be taken to promote more positive authorship experiences for scholars of all identities. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; (, Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures)
    Abstract To meet the challenges of hazards impacting coastal communities, demand is growing for more equitable coastal natural hazard adaptation and disaster mitigation approaches, supported by co-productive research partnerships. This review paper outlines contemporary advances in hazard adaptation and disaster mitigation with attention to how an equity and justice framework can address the uneven impacts of hazards on marginalized and underserved communities. Drawing upon the allied concepts of distributive, procedural, systemic, and recognitional equity and justice, we illustrate how these concepts form the basis for equitable coastal resilience. To demonstrate how equitable resilience can effectively advance contemporary adaptation and mitigation strategies, we present two vignettes where collaborative partnerships underscore how equitable coastal hazard planning and response practices complement these processes in coastal zones subject to large earthquakes and tsunamis. The first vignette focuses on disaster response and takes place in the Tohoku region of Japan, with diverse gender and sexual minority community members’ experiences of, and responses to, the 2011 Tohoku disasters. The second vignette centers on hazard planning and takes place on the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast along the Cascadia Subduction Zone to demonstrate how principles of distributive, procedural, systemic, and recognitional equity can inform the co-production of alternative coastal futures that prioritize equitable resilience. From this discussion, we suggest applying an equity lens to research processes, including alternative futures modeling frameworks, to ensure that the benefits of hazard adaptation and disaster mitigation strategies are equitably applied and shared. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email