Working papers
This Working Paper is part of the GURC Working Paper series
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Implementing Participatory Urban Climate Change Adaptation Appraisals: A Methodological Guideline
Caroline Moser and Alfredo Stein
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Summary
This paper provides conceptual and methodological guidelines for researchers seeking to undertake an urban participatory climate change adaptation appraisal (PCCAA) that highlights the importance of hearing local people’s voices relating to slow, invidious, incremental and often unnoticed extreme weather associated with climate change. The conceptual framework distinguishes between the analysis of asset vulnerability, and the identification of asset-based operational strategies, and sets out a number of methodological principles and practices for undertaking a PCCAA – including selection of researchers, the fieldwork process and the selection of cities and communities. The paper then outlines the main research themes and associated techniques for implementing a PCCAA, identifying the perceptions of community groups, small-businesses and households concerning the impacts of extreme weather on their capital assets – physical, social, human and financial- as well as their perceptions of the role that local institutions play to assist them build long-term resilience, protect their assets during extreme weather and rebuild them after such events. The paper draws on the results of a recent PCCAA, undertaken in Mombasa, Kenya, and Estelí, Nicaragua, to address five main themes: community characteristics, extreme weather related to climate change, vulnerability to extreme weather, asset adaptation to extreme weather and institutions supporting local adaptation. For each of these it identifies potential tools for eliciting information, illustrated by examples from Mombasa, Kenya and Estelí, Nicaragua. The paper concludes with guidance on the challenging issue of the quantification of PCCAA focus group results.
- Download Working Paper 5 (PDF, 1011KB).