Adapt or retreat?Conference will explore liveability in a changing world
With sea levels rising, wildfires raging and global temperatures continuing to soar, it’s widely believed that certain areas may become uninhabitable in the near future. But what does livability mean? Who will decide what happens to these threatened regions?
These questions and more will be the main focus of upcoming conferences Manage retreat sessionshosted by Columbia Climate School. The meeting will discuss a number of complex issues that fall under the general term managed retreat— Intentional relocation of homes, neighborhoods and planned developments away from danger zones — including Liveability and mobility, and their changing roles in addressing climate change.
Held from June 20 to June 23, the conference, now in its third year, will bring together representatives from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, as well as academics, scientists and community members from around the world to discuss this topic of increasing importance, while keeping issues of equity at the forefront.The full agenda can be found here.
What is liveability?
The concept of habitability is not new, say alex deschapinSenior Research Scientist, Associate Director International Earth Science Information Network Center Inside the Columbia Climate Institute. He explained that the term was related to the concept of “carrying capacity”—a now largely discredited concept in which ecologists talk about animal populations and how many livestock can be supported on a given land area—and then dismissed the idea onto humans. “These may be legitimate questions, but the idea of carrying capacity is too mechanistic, because humans interact in the environment much more complexly than other species,” he added.
Likewise, in the context of global climate change, efforts to “map areas of the world that will experience truly extreme heat, prolonged drought, rising sea levels, melting glaciers” have recently intensified, the list goes on. Descherbinen said.
What may be missing in this equation, however, is a social science perspective and a more nuanced local perspective – one that specifically takes into account local conditions, capabilities and environmental knowledge in order to begin to formulate the right solutions for these different scenarios, de Shebinen added. (He, along with other conference co-chairs and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory research professor, radley hortonin 2021 science article, “Assessing human habitability and mobility. ”) A major goal of the conference was to bring together researchers and practitioners from all sides of this complex dialogue in one place.
Alex de Sherbinin is a Senior Research Scientist and Deputy Director of the Center for International Geoscience Information Networking.
When it comes to liveability, he said, there are basically three approaches: retreat, adapt or build infrastructural solutions.
For example, in dryland agricultural systems worldwide, where groundwater is being depleted, fundamental decisions need to be made about whether to relocate or stay put, adjust agricultural practices or create new infrastructure, such as irrigated agriculture.
Another example is in very low elevation coastal areas that are often flooded and the question becomes: “Do you somehow develop adaptation mechanisms such as building houses on stilts or moving to small-scale shrimp farming or aquaculture instead of Is rice land now a saline world? Or do you build dikes and fortifications to develop hard infrastructure?” said Descherbinen.
Intervention can also be costly. With sufficient investment, these types of responses have the potential to make “inhospitable” areas habitable, but each place has its own stressors, he said. While some stressors are climate-related, they are often the result of a combination of factors, including social, political and economic issues.
A flooded farm in Arkansas.Photo: Jocelyn Augustino/FEMA via Wikimedia Commons
So, as liveability declines in some parts of the world, the key question becomes: “What can we as a society do to address these complexities and hopefully improve local liveability?” Descherbinen said . Which communities get help, what form that help takes and who makes the decisions are critical questions.
From this perspective, the notion of liveability is closely related to equity and climate justice, in fact, many of the countries with the greatest impact on liveability are the countries least responsible for global emissions. “We have to look at this in a very impartial way,” Descherbinen emphasized.
What questions will we hear at the conference?
At the Climate School’s upcoming conference, Descherbinen said he was looking forward to the opening panel he will moderate on June 20, which will discuss habitability, loss and destruction, climate justice and mobility And other issues. “We really wanted to bring these concepts to the conference and make some of our US participants aware that this topic goes beyond the high-income country technology package that is often discussed at the conference, which is also really critical. But just to raise The awareness in the U.S. that the rest of the world is having a bigger threat and a discussion about how to address liveability,” he said.
De Sherbinin said his own research has focused on modeling future scenarios of climate migration and flows in low- and middle-income countries, as well as field work and literature evaluations on these topics.So de Sherbinin was also eager to learn from colleagues who were talking about technology packages — such as buy Local communities participate in decision-making and political processes that lead to decisions around managed retreats.
Some of the other touchpoints related to liveability that de Sherbinin hopes to hear at the conference include: Should the National Flood Insurance Program be revised to address ongoing climate concerns? Like, once you get two or three buyouts or payouts, should it be over? Who benefits most from FEMA spending or buyouts, and what biases emerge? How can we best support local and low-income communities who want to stay where they are despite liveability issues?
“I think this conference will be a really fascinating one, bringing together people with international and domestic perspectives who will focus on some very difficult issues, but issues that are growing in importance in the United States and around the world ,” Descherbinen said.
