Living with wildfires in an era of climate change requires adaptation and weaving together many forms of knowledge. Empirical evidence of knowledge co-production in wildfire management is lacking in Mediterranean European areas. We explored how local ecological knowledge can be leveraged to reduce wildfire risk through an adaptation pathways process in the Montseny massif and wider Tordera River watershed of Catalonia, Spain: an area stewarded through forestry and agriculture, tourism, nature conservation, and fire management. We combined different methods (e.g., a timeline and Three Horizons framework) throughout three workshops with agents of change to co-create adaptation pathways to reduce wildfire risk, integrating a historical perspective of the landscape while envisioning desirable futures. Our results showed that local ecological knowledge and other soft adaptation strategies contribute to innovative sustainable development initiatives that can also mitigate wildfire risk. The adaptation pathways approach holds much potential to inform local policies and support wildfire-based community initiatives in diverse contexts.

Scientists increasingly cross their disciplinary boundaries and connect with local stakeholders to jointly solve complex problems. Working with stakeholders means higher legitimacy and supports practical impact of research. Games provide a tool to achieve such transdisciplinary collaboration. In this paper, we explore the use of a game in a participatory project where scientists and local stakeholders are seeking and defining a joint problem. The literature is clear that this step is essential but remains short on concrete methods. Here, we explore this potential in practice. We conducted parallel participatory processes in two alpine regions considered as socio-ecological system (SES) in Switzerland and France, both vulnerable to global change. Based on these two case studies, we co-constructed a game, integrating scientific concerns about key land use, climate change and socio-economic elements of a mountain SES (tourism, agriculture, housing and demography). With the game, we assessed the existence of joint problems connecting scientific and local interests. The game successfully engaged participants at both sites over 11 game sessions, showing potential of use in other transdisciplinary settings. By covering a wide array of issues, the game created a discussion space for listing problems and identifying where scientist and stakeholder interests overlap. In Switzerland, the game revealed no pressing joint problem to be addressed. In France, game sessions revealed, among other problems, an enduring and complex issue regarding the co-existence of inhabitants and powerful institutions. Having demonstrated the capacity of this game for joint-problem assessment, we believe other participatory research in similar SES could benefit from an early use of such an approach to frame the potential for collaboration.
UNASSIGNED: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-00983-2.

Resilience is widely seen as an important attribute of coastal systems and, as a concept, is increasingly prominent in policy documents. However, there are conflicting ideas on what constitutes resilience and its operationalisation as an overarching principle of coastal management remains limited. In this paper, we show how resilience to coastal flood and erosion hazard could be measured and applied within policy processes, using England as a case study. We define resilience pragmatically, integrating what is presently a disparate set of policy objectives for coastal areas. Our definition uses the concepts of resistance, recovery and adaptation, to consider how the economic, social and environmental dimensions of coastal systems respond to change. We develop a set of composite indicators for each dimension, grounded empirically with reference to national geospatial datasets. A prototype Coastal Resilience Model (CRM) has been developed, which combines the dimensions and generates a quantitative resilience index. We apply it to England\'s coastal hazard zone, capturing a range of different stakeholder perspectives using relative indicator weightings. The illustrative results demonstrate the practicality of formalising and quantifying resilience. To re-focus national policy around the stated desire of enhancing resilience to coastal flooding and erosion would require firm commitment from government to monitor progress towards resilience, requiring extension of the present risk-based approach, and a consensus methodology in which multiple (and sometimes conflicting) stakeholder values are explicitly considered. Such a transition may also challenge existing governance arrangements at national and local levels, requiring incentives for coastal managers to engage with and apply this new approach, more departmental integration and inter-agency cooperation. The proposed Coastal Resilience Model, with the tools to support planning and measure progress, has the potential to help enable this transition.

Firms today face rapidly changing and complex environments that managers and leaders must navigate carefully because confronting these changes is directly connected with success and failure in business. In particular, business leaders are adopting a new paradigm of planning, dynamic adaptive plans, which react adaptively to uncertainties by adjusting plans according to rapid changes in circumstances. However, these dynamic plans have been applied in larger-scale industries such as wastewater management in longer-range time frames. This paper follows the dynamic adaptive plan paradigm but transfers it to the technology management context with shorter-range action plans. Based on this new paradigm of risk management and technology planning, we propose a risk-adaptive technology roadmap (TRM) that can adapt to changing complex environments. First we identify risk by topic modeling based on futuristic data and then by sentiment analysis. Second, for the derived risks, we determine new and alternative plans by co-occurrence of risk-related keywords. Third, we convert an existing TRM to network topology with adaptive plans and construct a conditional probability table for the network. Finally, we estimate posterior probability and infer it by Bayesian network by adjusting plans depending on occurrence of risk events. Based on this posterior probability, we remap the paths in the previous TRM to new maps, and we apply our proposed approach to the field of artificial intelligence to validate its feasibility. Our research contributes to the possibility of using dynamic adaptive planning with technology as well as to increase the sustainability of technology roadmapping.

Decision-makers are faced with the task to translate the science of future climate change impacts to set policy goals and plans based on their capacities and contexts. However, there is a lack in support tools that translate the preferences and constraints of stakeholders to assess the viability of goals and strategies for adaptation planning. In this study, we introduce a decision-support model that simulates adaptation pathways using a multi-objective optimization algorithm. The model has been applied to find optimal adaptation pathways for reducing heat related morbidity in Seoul, South Korea under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5. We analyzed the effects of six hard and soft adaptation strategies from 2020 to 2100. Decision-maker preference scenarios based on three budget levels, two goal setting approaches and two investment delay plans were evaluated. The results show that after 2065, current adaptation strategies cannot reduce the impacts of heat mortality even with high budgets. A low budget limits adaptation for both ambitious and conservative goal settings while a higher budget did lead to greater adaptation but was not necessary for the conservative goal setting suggesting that efficient pairing of budget level based on the adaptation goal can be beneficial. Further, the longer the delay in investment toward adaptation results in irrecoverable reduction in adaptation. These results imply that different planning approaches are necessary for the desired adaptation effect and level of cost efficiency. This study is significant in that the methodology can be expanded to include other sectors and applied to various locations of different scales to help stakeholders develop more effective long-term adaptation plans based on their needs and constraints.

Emerging threats such as climate change and urbanisation pose an unprecedented challenge to the integrated management of urban wastewater systems, which are expected to function in a reliable, resilient and sustainable manner regardless of future conditions. Traditional long term planning is rather limited in developing no-regret strategies that avoid maladaptive lock-ins in the near term and allow for flexibility in the long term. In this study, a novel adaptation pathways approach for urban wastewater management is developed in order to explore the compliance and adaptability potential of intervention strategies in a long term operational period, accounting for different future scenarios and multiple performance objectives in terms of reliability, resilience and sustainability. This multi-criteria multi-scenario approach implements a regret-based method to assess the relative performance of two types of adaptation strategies: (I) standalone strategies (i.e. green or grey strategies only); and (II) hybrid strategies (i.e. combined green and grey strategies). A number of adaptation thresholds (i.e. the points at which the current strategy can no longer meet defined objectives) are defined to identify compliant domains (i.e. periods of time in a future scenario when the performance of a strategy can meet the targets). The results obtained from a case study illustrate the trade-off between adapting to short term pressures and addressing long term challenges. Green strategies show the highest performance in simultaneously meeting near and long term needs, while grey strategies are found less adaptable to changing circumstances. In contrast, hybrid strategies are effective in delivering both short term compliance and long term adaptability. It is also shown that the proposed adaption pathways method can contribute to the identification of adaptation strategies that are developed as future conditions unfold, allowing for more flexibility and avoiding long term commitment to strategies that may cause maladaptation. This provides insights into the near term and long term planning of ensuring the reliability, resilience and sustainability of integrated urban drainage systems.

A range of solutions to future flood risk are available ranging from blue-green infrastructure (BGI) as commonly incorporated in sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) to traditional grey infrastructure (e.g. pipe networks, storage tanks, flood walls). Each offers a different profile with respect to costs, flexibility of implementation and the ability to deliver a range of wider benefits beyond their flood protection function. An important question that must be addressed when considering these approaches is what is the most suitable mix of grey and blue-green solutions to urban flooding at any location and at any future time? This paper uses an adaptation pathways approach to compare a range of alternative options to deal with current and expected future flood risk in part of a London borough. Solutions considered separately and in combination include grey pipe expansion, bioretention cells, permeable pavements and storage ponds. A methodological framework combines a range of existing tools to develop, assess and characterize each pathway, including a storm water management model (SWMM), a SuDs opportunity selection tool, an adaptation pathway generator and the CIRIA B£ST tool for monetizing multiple benefits. Climate change is represented by the UK Water Industry Research method for establishing future rainfall intensities for sewer and BGI design. The results showed that by extending the way in which adaptation pathways are compared and evaluated through the wider consideration of multiple benefits there is a trade-off between deferring interventions until they are needed for flood risk mitigation and delivering the multiple benefits associated with interventions so that performance thresholds do not need to be met before introducing new options. The relative contribution of each option\'s capital and operation and maintenance costs has implications on when the option is implemented as well as the rate of implementation. The monetization of the multiple benefits associated with each pathway shows that their economic co-evaluation alongside infrastructure costs can change the preference for one pathway over another. This article is part of the theme issue \'Urban flood resilience\'.

Sea level rise and uncertainty in its projections pose a major challenge to flood risk management and adaptation investments in coastal mega cities. This study presents a comparative economic evaluation method for flood adaptation measures, which couples a cost-benefit analysis with the concept of adaptation pathways. Our approach accounts for uncertainty in sea level rise projections by allowing for flexibility of adaptation strategies over time. Our method is illustrated for Los Angeles County which is vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise. Results for different sea level rise scenarios show that applying adaptation pathways can result in higher economic efficiency (up to 10%) than individual adaptation strategies, despite the loss of efficiency at the initial strategy. However, we identified \'investment tipping points\', after which a transition could decrease the economic efficiencies of a pathway significantly. Overall, we recommend that studies evaluating adaptation strategies should integrate cost-benefit analysis frameworks with adaptation pathways since this allows for better informing decision makers about the robustness and economic desirability of their investment choices.

Worldwide, an increase in flood damage is observed. Governments are looking for effective ways to protect lives, buildings, and infrastructure. At the same time, a large investment gap seems to exist-a big difference between what should necessarily be done to curb the increase in damage and what is actually being done. Decision-makers involved in climate adaptation are facing fundamental (so-called deep) uncertainties. In the course of time, the scientific community has developed a wide range of different approaches for dealing with these uncertainties. One of these approaches, adaptation pathways, is gaining traction as a way of framing and informing climate adaptation. But research shows that \"very little work has been done to evaluate the current use of adaptation pathways and its utility to practitioners and decision makers\" (Lin et al. 2017, p. 387). With this paper, the authors, as action researchers and practitioners involved in two of the world\'s largest real-life applications of this approach in flood risk management, aim to contribute to filling in that gap. Analysis of the experience in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in long-term planning in flood risk management shows that the adaptation pathways approach is effective in keeping decision processes going forward, to the final approval of a long-term plan, and helps increase awareness about uncertainties. It contributes to political support for keeping long-term options open and motivates decision-makers to modify their plans to better accommodate future conditions. When it comes to implementing the plans, there are still some major challenges, yet to be addressed, amongst others: the timely detection of tipping points in situations with large natural variability, the inclusion of measures that prepare for a switch to transformational strategies, and the retention of commitment of regional and local authorities, non government organizations, and the private sector, to climate adaptation as national policies move from blueprint planning to adaptive plans. In delivering this feedback, the authors hope to motivate the scientific community to take on these challenges.

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU) approaches have been less utilized in developing countries than developed countries for water resources contexts. High climate vulnerability and rapid socioeconomic change often characterize developing country contexts, making DMUU approaches relevant. We develop an iterative multi-method DMUU approach, including scenario generation, coproduction with stakeholders and water resources modeling. We apply this approach to explore the robustness of adaptation options and pathways against future climate and socioeconomic uncertainties in the Cauvery River Basin in Karnataka, India. A water resources model is calibrated and validated satisfactorily using observed streamflow. Plausible future changes in Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) precipitation and water demand are used to drive simulations of water resources from 2021 to 2055. Two stakeholder-identified decision-critical metrics are examined: a basin-wide metric comprising legal instream flow requirements for the downstream state of Tamil Nadu, and a local metric comprising water supply reliability to Bangalore city. In model simulations, the ability to satisfy these performance metrics without adaptation is reduced under almost all scenarios. Implementing adaptation options can partially offset the negative impacts of change. Sequencing of options according to stakeholder priorities into Adaptation Pathways affects metric satisfaction. Early focus on agricultural demand management improves the robustness of pathways but trade-offs emerge between intrabasin and basin-wide water availability. We demonstrate that the fine balance between water availability and demand is vulnerable to future changes and uncertainty. Despite current and long-term planning challenges, stakeholders in developing countries may engage meaningfully in coproduction approaches for adaptation decision-making under deep uncertainty.