How Is Australia Adapting to Climate Change Based on a Systematic Review?
1
Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, 90 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs, QLD 4556, Australia
2
Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
3
Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2018, 10(9), 3280; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093280
Received: 10 August 2018 / Revised: 31 August 2018 / Accepted: 11 September 2018 / Published: 14 September 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policy)
We develop and apply a systematic literature review methodology to identify and characterize the ways in which the peer-reviewed literature depicts how climate change adaptation is occurring in Australia. We reviewed the peer-reviewed, English-language literature between January 2005 and January 2018 for examples of documented human adaptation initiatives in Australia. Our results challenge previous assumptions that adaptation actions are not happening in Australia and describes adaptation processes that are underway. For the most part, actions can be described as preliminary or groundwork, with a particular focus on documenting stakeholder perspectives on climate change and attitudes towards adaptation, and modelling or scenario planning in the coastal zone, agriculture, and health sectors. Where concrete adaptations are reported, they are usually in the agricultural sector and are most common in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia’s food basket. The findings of the review advance our understanding of adaptation to climate change as a process and the need to consider different stages in the process when tracking adaptation.
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Keywords:
adaptation; adaptive capacity; adaptation tracking; Australia; climate change; concrete action; developed nation; groundwork action; vulnerability
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MDPI and ACS Style
Pearce, T.D.; Rodríguez, E.H.; Fawcett, D.; Ford, J.D. How Is Australia Adapting to Climate Change Based on a Systematic Review? Sustainability 2018, 10, 3280. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093280
AMA Style
Pearce TD, Rodríguez EH, Fawcett D, Ford JD. How Is Australia Adapting to Climate Change Based on a Systematic Review? Sustainability. 2018; 10(9):3280. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093280
Chicago/Turabian StylePearce, Tristan D., Evelyn H. Rodríguez, David Fawcett, and James D. Ford 2018. "How Is Australia Adapting to Climate Change Based on a Systematic Review?" Sustainability 10, no. 9: 3280. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093280
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