TY - JOUR
T1 - Adapting across boundaries
T2 - Climate change, social learning, and resilience in the U.S.-Mexico border region
AU - Wilder, Margaret
AU - Scott, Christopher A.
AU - Pablos, Nicolás Pineda
AU - Varady, Robert G.
AU - Garfin, Gregg M.
AU - McEvoy, Jamie
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the major funding sources that supported this research, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sectoral Applications Research Program (Grant NA080AR4310704); the Climate Assessment for the Southwest Program (Grant NA16GP2578) at the University of Arizona, supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office; and the U.S.–Mexico Trans-boundary Aquifer Assessment Project, with funding from the U.S. Geological Survey. This research was also made possible in part under a grant from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) project SGP-HD #005, which is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-0642841). In addition, the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation has provided support since the mid-1990s for much of the environmental policy work underlying this article. At the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, we thank Robert Merideth for his editorial guidance.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - The spatial and human dimensions of climate change are brought into relief at international borderswhere climate change poses particular challenges. This article explores "double exposure" to climatic and globalization processes for the U.S.-Mexico border region, where rapid urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural intensification result in vulnerability to water scarcity as the primary climate change concern. For portions of the western border within the North American monsoon climate regime, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects temperature increases of 2 to 4°C by midcentury and up to 3 to 5°C by 2100, with possible decreases of 5 to 8 percent in precipitation. Like the climate and water drivers themselves, proposed societal responses can also be regionalized across borders. Nevertheless, binational responses are confronted by a complex institutional landscape. The coproduction of science and policy must be situated in the context of competing institutional jurisdictions and legitimacy claims. Adaptation to climate change is conventionally understood as more difficult at international borders, yet regionalizing adaptive responses could also potentially increase resilience. We assess three cases of transboundary collaboration in the Arizona-Sonora region based on specific indicators that contribute importantly to building adaptive capacity. We conclude that three key factors can increase resilience over the long term: shared social learning, the formation of binational "communities of practice" among water managers or disaster-relief planners, and the coproduction of climate knowledge.
AB - The spatial and human dimensions of climate change are brought into relief at international borderswhere climate change poses particular challenges. This article explores "double exposure" to climatic and globalization processes for the U.S.-Mexico border region, where rapid urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural intensification result in vulnerability to water scarcity as the primary climate change concern. For portions of the western border within the North American monsoon climate regime, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects temperature increases of 2 to 4°C by midcentury and up to 3 to 5°C by 2100, with possible decreases of 5 to 8 percent in precipitation. Like the climate and water drivers themselves, proposed societal responses can also be regionalized across borders. Nevertheless, binational responses are confronted by a complex institutional landscape. The coproduction of science and policy must be situated in the context of competing institutional jurisdictions and legitimacy claims. Adaptation to climate change is conventionally understood as more difficult at international borders, yet regionalizing adaptive responses could also potentially increase resilience. We assess three cases of transboundary collaboration in the Arizona-Sonora region based on specific indicators that contribute importantly to building adaptive capacity. We conclude that three key factors can increase resilience over the long term: shared social learning, the formation of binational "communities of practice" among water managers or disaster-relief planners, and the coproduction of climate knowledge.
KW - Adaptive capacity
KW - Climate change
KW - U.s.-mexico border
KW - Vulnerability
KW - Water
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U2 - 10.1080/00045608.2010.500235
DO - 10.1080/00045608.2010.500235
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77956789101
SN - 0004-5608
VL - 100
SP - 917
EP - 928
JO - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
JF - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
IS - 4
ER -