Maladaptation: An Introduction

Background

Adaptation is one of the mainstays of addressing climate change. Recently, however, there have been increased calls questioning the effectiveness of adaptation and the climate adaptation community’s approach. Several large-scale systematic literature reviews have analysed studies of climate change adaptation, and recognised that there is a glaring lack of engagement regarding the potential for adaptation measures to exacerbate and/or redistribute risk and vulnerability. Such instances, where adaptation interventions result in increased vulnerability, is known as ‘maladaptation.’ This introductory article provides a brief overview of the concept of maladaptation, potential frameworks for undertaking and assessing mal/adaptation actions, and questions that the practitioner should keep in mind.

The concept of maladaptation traces back to a paper by Scheraga and Grambsch in 1998 that referenced the idea of adverse outcomes resulting from adaptation measures. It was also mentioned in the IPCC Third Assessment although, at the time, it was specifically deemed as ‘inadvertent’ negative outcomes. There is now an established scholarship around maladaptation and various definitions of ‘maladaptation’ are provided in the literature, including:

• Maladaptation is an ‘action taken ostensibly to avoid or reduce vulnerability to climate change that impacts adversely on, or increases the vulnerability of other systems, sectors or social groups.’ Barnett & O’Neill, 2013, p. 88.

• Maladaptation is a ‘[r]esult of an intentional adaptation policy or measure directly increasing vulnerability for the targeted and/or external actor(s), and/or eroding preconditions for sustainable development by indirectly increasing society’s vulnerability.’ Juhola et al. 2016, p.139

• Maladaptation is a process that results in increased vulnerability to climate variability and change, directly or indirectly, and/or significantly undermines capacities or opportunities for present and future adaptation. Developed by sixteen experts during a three-day workshop in November 2012 and used by Magnan, 2014, p. 3 (see full text for details).

• Maladaptive actions (maladaptation) are ‘[a]ctions that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate-related outcomes, increased vulnerability to climate change, or diminished welfare, now or in the future.’ Noble et al./IPCC, 2014, p. 1769.

Although maladaptation as a concept has existed in the climate change sphere for about two decades, the challenges arise in that there is still no consensus on exactly what is meant by maladaptation. Indeed, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report acknowledges that ‘adaptation literature is replete with advice to avoid maladaptation, but it is less clear precisely what is included as ‘maladaptation’ (IPCC, 2014, p 857). This is partly because there is often difficulty in assessing what exactly is meant by adaptation, e.g. what does effective adaptation look like? By that same metric, what does unsuccessful adaptation look like? Is unsuccessful adaptation equivalent to maladaptation?

The short list of definitions provided, however, acknowledge a few clear aspects of maladaptation:

1. It results from intentional adaptation policy and decisions
2. There are explicitly negative consequences
3. It consists of a spatial element, known as spatial spillovers – maladaptation does not necessarily occur in the geographic space or within the targeted group; it can extend social and geographic boundaries
4. It consists of a temporal element – adaptation actions taken today can be maladaptive in the future.​

Causes of maladaptation

In their 2013 paper, Barnett & O’Neill develop a framework for maladaptation analysis. First, they identify five types of maladaptation: (1) Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, (2) disproportionately burdening the most vulnerable, (3) high opportunity costs, (4) reduce incentives to adapt, and, (3) path dependency.