Emma Tompkins

University of Southampton · Department of Geography and Environment

The management of coastal flood risk is adapting to meet the challenges and increased risks posed by population change as well as by climate change, especially sea level rise. Protection is being targeted to areas where the benefits are highest, while elsewhere there is a shift towards more localized “living with floods” and “resilience” approaches...

The merits of polycentric climate governance have attracted considerable discussion. On the one hand, polycentric governance offers an alternative to top-down state-centric forms that have so far proven elusive. On the other, highly networked systems increase coordination challenges. Less attention has been paid to the varying capacities required t...

Political ecology has been widely applied to analyse processes of agricultural development, most notably where there are complex relationships between ecological, political and economic factors. Political ecology explores how the impacts of environmental change are felt unequally by economies and societies. Small island developing states, which oft...

Resilience is widely seen as an important attribute of coastal systems and, as a concept, is increasingly prominent in policy documents. However, there are conflicting ideas on what constitutes resilience and its operationalisation as an overarching principle of coastal management remains limited. In this paper, we show how resilience to coastal fl...

In the UK, coastal flooding and erosion are two of the primary climate-related hazards to communities, businesses, and infrastructure. To better address the ramifications of those hazards, now and into the future, the UK needs to transform its scattered, fragmented coastal data resources into a systematic, integrated, quality-controlled, openly acc...

Climate-related hazards accounted for over 90% of disasters over the past two decades and cause massive losses every year worldwide. In the face of the climate crisis, we are confronted with unprecedented challenges that require transformational change. The Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Ris...

Can a nation prevent a hazard-related disaster by investing in socioeconomic and political policy tools? Drawing on 8 global datasets (1960-2016) and using a fixed effects logit model, we examine the importance of socioeconomic and political factors in changing the likelihood of disasters in 224 countries. We find that socioeconomic factors are of...

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, our climate continues to change, and people continue to adapt to new environments [1]. The world now faces unprecedented threats from increased climate variability and change, the impact of which is compounded by chronic poverty, inequality, and rapid urbanization [2]. This combination of climatic and soci...

The flood risk management (FRM) doctrine that drives coastal flood preparedness in England acknowledges that not all floods can be prevented. Subsequently, beyond flood prevention other measures such as control, acceptance, adaptation, and redistribution constitute part of both national management policy and local policy implementation. The aim of...

What are the possible trajectories of delta development over the coming decades? Trajectories will be determined by the interactions of biophysical trends such as changing sediment supplies, subsidence due to compaction of sediment and climate change, along with key socio-economic trends of migration and urbanisation, agricultural intensification,...

This chapter examines the societal response to diverse environmental and social dynamics within deltas during the Anthropocene era and the challenges for future adaptation. It illustrates these dynamics through unique data on the diversity and success of the range of adaptive actions undertaken by contemporary populations as well as perceptions of...

The Paris Agreement requires measurement of the progress made on adaptation. Tracking the progress made by governments through analysis of policies provides insight into the goals and means to achieve adaptation targets. Here we show the current state of the art in public adaptation planning affecting 136 of the largest coastal port urban agglomera...

The widely accepted flood risk management (FRM) doctrine acknowledges that measures such as control, accommodation and adaptation should constitute part of flood preparedness. We do not know the process and extent to which FRM through insurance, planning and engineering collectively manages coastal flood risk at a sub-national level in England. The...

People have been adapting to climate variability and change, with varying degrees of success, for millennia. Yet many individuals and communities struggle to adapt to present day climate variability and extremes. If, as climate projections suggest, we are heading towards a possible 4 °C increase in temperature by 2100, the adaptation deficit could...

Disasters affect significant numbers of people in the poorest parts of the world. The main impediment to progress in reducing the extent of disaster outcomes appears to come from inabilities to address macro-economic drivers of vulnerability. This study examines the association between three key drivers of vulnerability, i.e. wealth/poverty, income...

Even if climate change mitigation is successful, sea levels will keep rising. With subsidence, relative sea-level rise represents a long-term threat to low-lying deltas. A large part of coastal Bangladesh was analysed using the Delta Dynamic Integrated Emulator Model to determine changes in flood depth, area and population affected given sea-level...

Article 7, paragraph 14 of the Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change commits Parties to create a five yearly assessment of observed adaptation to track progress and enable appropriate future commitments through the Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans. No large‐scale study exists t...

To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, integrated information about the future is required, including: climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation policy scenarios. This working paper describes the overall scenario framework, methods and processes adopted for the development of scenarios in the DECCMA project acro...

To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, diverse information about the future is required, including climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation. To address this need, a global RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways), SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathways), and SPA (Shared climate Policy Assumptions) (RCP-SSP-SPA)...

To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, diverse information about the future is required, including climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation. To address this need, a global RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways), SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathways), and SPA (Shared climate Policy Assumptions) (RCP–SSP–SPA)...

Deltas are precarious environments experiencing significant biophysical, and socio-economic changes with the ebb and flow of seasons (including with floods and drought), with infrastructural developments (such as dikes and polders), with the movement of people, and as a result of climate and environmental variability and change. Decisions are being...

Developing country deltas are important food producing areas and are home to large numbers of subsistence farmers. In particular, rice farmers dominate the populous deltas of South and South-East Asia and face frequent climate hazards which have short- and long-term impacts on rice production and livelihoods. The aim of this study is to identify an...

This paper explains how the management of the full-dyke system in the deep flooded zones of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta affects rice cultivation, and outlines how alternative dyke management strategies could offer more sustainable adaptations in the face of future environmental threats. The current management of the ‘full-dyke’ network has been suc...

Theoretically we understand the dimensions of both generic and specific adaptive capacity, however, there are few studies which document actual observed adaptive capacity. This study aims to address this gap by documenting the adaptive capacity of Indian rice production systems, an agro-socio-ecological system. We explore how Indian rice production...

Natural hazards affect development and can cause significant and long-term suffering for those affected. Research has shown that sustained long-term disaster preparedness combined with appropriate response and recovery are needed to deliver effective risk reductions. However, as the newly agreed Sendai framework recognises, this knowledge has not b...

Tropical dry deciduous forests provide numerous ecosystem services yet their contribution to agricultural production remains underexplored. We address this research gap by quantifying the broader suite of ecosystem services that support small holder farmers and identifying farmers' knowledge of storm hazard reduction benefits provided by forest fra...

Deltas around the globe are facing a multitude of intensifying environmental change and development-linked pressures. One key concern is the reduction in the quantity of suspended sediment reaching and building floodplains. Sediment deposition provides multiple services to deltaic social-ecological systems, in particular, countering the subsidence...

Conservation organizations are increasingly applying adaptive capacity assessments in response to escalating climate change impacts. These assessments are essential to identify climate risks to ecosystems, prioritize management interventions, maximize the effectiveness of conservation actions, and ensure conservation resources are allocated appropr...

Climate change threatens tropical coastal communities and ecosystems. Governments, resource managers, and communities recognize the value of assessing the social and ecological impacts of climate change, but there is little consensus on the most effective framework to support vulnerability and adaptation assessments. The framework presented in this...

The UK Government’s first National Adaptation Programme seeks to create a ‘climate-ready society’ capable of making well-informed and far-sighted decisions to address risks and opportunities posed by a changing climate, where individual households are expected to adapt when it is in their interest to do so. How, and to what extent, households are a...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports reflect evolving attitudes in adapting to sea-level rise by taking a systems approach and recognizing that multiple responses exist to achieve a less hazardous coast.

The concept of climate compatible development (CCD) is increasingly employed by donors and policy makers seeking 'triple-wins' for development, adaptation and mitigation. While CCD rhetoric is becoming more widespread, analyses drawing on empirical cases that present triple-wins are sorely lacking. We address this knowledge gap. Drawing on examples...

Coastal ecosystems are valuable to people and economies across the Caribbean, but are threatened by human pressures. Ecosystem valuation can make the economic case for protection of coastal ecosystems, but in many cases valuation studies have had a limited impact on decision making regarding coastal resource use in the Caribbean. Drawing on the les...

In this paper, we examine how communities in Zanzibar cope with and adapt to multiple-stressors including climate change, and how these responses affect long-term adaptation, mitigation and development (AMD) goals. In particular, we identify the multiple-stressors that affect natural-resource dependent communities in Zanzibar. We then explore how c...

It has long been recognized that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from small islands are negligible in relation to global emissions, but that the threats of climate change and sea level rise (SLR) to small islands are very real. Indeed, it has been suggested that the very existence of some atoll nations is threatened by rising sea levels associated w...

Executive Summary Current and future climate-related drivers of risk for small islands during the 21st century include sea level rise (SLR), tropical and extratropical cyclones, increasing air and sea surface temperatures, and changing rainfall patterns (high confidence; robust evidence, high agreement). {WGI AR5 Chapter 14; Table 29-1} Current imp...

This paper provides empirical evidence of agricultural adaptation strategies being adopted in the Mid-Hills regions of Nepal in response to climate change. Farmers were interviewed across four districts and climate change observations were reported, most notably those of increased temperatures and unpredictable precipitation. Agricultural adaptatio...

Climate change is likely to have profound effects on developing countries both through the climate impacts experienced, but also through the policies, programmes and projects adopted to address climate change. Climate change mitigation (actions taken to reduce the extent of climate change), adaptation (actions taken to ameliorate the impacts), and...

Adaptation to climate change is already being delivered by public and private actors, yet there has been little analysis of the relationships between the providers and beneficiaries of adaptation. This paper reviews the type of actors that are supplying adaptation services and their motivations. We then focus on a specific, under-explored case of a...

This article examines whether some response strategies to climate variability and change have the potential to undermine long-term resilience of social–ecological systems. We define the parameters of a resilience approach, suggesting that resilience is characterized by the ability to absorb perturbations without changing overall system function, th...

Climate change is accelerating and is already affecting the marine environment. Estimating the effects of climate change on the production of fish resources, and their dependent societies, is complex because of:difficulties of downscaling Global Climate Models (GCM) to scales of biological relevance;uncertainties over future net primary production...

Climate change is accelerating and is already affecting the marine environment. Estimating the effects of climate change on the production of fish resources, and their dependent societies, is complex because of: difficulties of downscaling Global Climate Models (GCM) to scales of biological relevance; uncertainties over future net primary productio...

Global environmental change is occurring at a rate faster than humans have ever experienced. Climate change and the loss of ecosystem services are the two main global environmental crises facing us today. As a result, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of networked ecosystems, cities, organisations and i...

This paper investigates whether and to what extent a wide range of actors in the UK are adapting to climate change, and whether this is evidence of a social transition. We document evidence of over 300 examples of early adopters of adaptation practice to climate change in the UK. These examples span a range of activities from small adjustments (or...

Climate change is the greatest single problem we face as a planet. This important introduction skilfully guides us through the complex mix of scientific, political, social, and environmental issues to examine the manifold threats it poses and explore the possible futures for our world. Focusing on the fact that the "point of no return" may in fact...

Knowledge about natural hazard management has increased significantly since Gilbert White's seminal research in 1945, yet people are still badly affected by natural hazards. A key question remains in natural hazards research: why, when all the conditions for effective disaster risk reduction are in place, do some people not take action to reduce th...

This paper develops definitions of adaptation and successful adaptation to climate change, with a view to evaluating adaptations. There is little consensus on the definition of adapting to climate change in existing debates or on the criteria by which adaptation actions can be deemed successful or sustainable. In this paper, a variant of the Delphi...

As policy-makers struggle to define the policy agenda to address the challenge of climate change, three distinct influential approaches to climate policy are emerging in the climate change literature: implementing climate change adaptation; reducing social vulnerability; and managing ecosystem resilience. Each of these approaches has been developed...

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

In this article, we explore some of the factors that have led to reductions in risk to climate-related hazards in two very distinct sites: the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean and the state of Cearé in NE Brazil. We find that a range of factors have been critical to reduce risk in both regions. These include: (a) flexible, responsive governance; (b)...

This paper explores the relationship between disaster risk reduction and long-term adaptive capacity building in two climate vulnerable areas—the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean and Ceará, in NE Brazil. Drawing on past applications of the disaster risk reduction framework, we identify four critical factors that have led to reductions in risk: flexi...

Climate change poses many challenges for ecosystem and resource management. In particular, coastal planners are struggling to find ways to prepare for the potential impacts of future climate change while dealing with immediate pressures. Decisions on how to respond to future risks are complicated by the long time horizons and the uncertainty associ...

There is a growing scientific consensus on climate change and the need for adaptation, yet an impasse on realizing development for the rural and urban poor. Emily Boyd et al. suggest that a resilience lens may assist development policy to consider pathways towards more successful livelihood transformations in the face of climate change. We recogniz...

This paper aims to characterise the ways in which the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is trickling down to affect national level action on climate change. State and non-state actors were interviewed at the 8th UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP8) during October and November 2002. The interviews revealed that, among int...

"Climate change is upon us. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly describes the evidence of a changing climate (IPCC 2007a,b). Although scientists disagree about the extent to which these changes will happen, they do agree that there have been and will be changes in average climatic conditions, there...

Money speaks louder than words. Putting a monetary value on environmental and social impacts usually increases the chance of these impacts being taken into account in decision making. This toolkit provides clear guidance on how the value of the environment in small islands can be estimated and incorporated into planning and development decisions. I...

The integration of climate change adaptation considerations into management of the coast poses major challenges for decision makers. This article reports on a case study undertaken in Christchurch Bay, UK, examining local capacity for strategic response to climate risks, with a particular focus on issues surrounding coastal defense. Drawing primari...

Abstract Internationally there is growing recognition of the central role of adaptation within climate policy. Most attention focuses on three areas: establishing financial mechanisms within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and,Kyoto Protocol to fund,adaptation; developing appropriate mechanisms to collect these fu...

Public participation is commonly advocated in policy responses to climate change. Here we discuss prospects for inclusive approaches to adaptation, drawing particularly on studies of long-term coastal management in the UK and elsewhere. We affirm that public participation is an important normative goal in formulating response to climate change risk...

The threat of so-called rapid or abrupt climate change has generated considerable public interest because of its potentially significant impacts. The collapse of the North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, for example, would have potentially catastrophic effects on temperatures and sea level, respectively. But how l...

"We investigate linkages between stakeholders in resource management that occur at different spatial and institutional levels and identify the winners and losers in such interactions. So-called crossscale interactions emerge because of the benefits to individual stakeholder groups in undertaking them or the high costs of not undertaking them. Hence...

Climate change adaptation and mitigation decisions made by governments are usually taken in different policy domains. At the individual level however, adaptation and mitigation activities are undertaken together as part of the management of risk and resources. We propose that a useful starting point to develop a national climate policy is to unders...