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De-veloped / veloping; Embracing the Rising Tide

Part 2 Dissertation 2022
Catherine Campbell
 University of Strathclyde | UK
Sea-levels are rising, fundamentally challenging human survival. Designing with the environment requires a fundamental shift towards an adaptive capacity that demonstrates increased resilience and decreased vulnerability. Current measurements of a country’s adaptive capacity are presented at national scale, focussing on all climate change impacts, but tending to overlook smaller scale competencies at a project scale. Although countries around the world face similar problems, their approaches to tackling sea-level rises, and the implementation of community mitigation measures, differ. This research recognises the need for adaptive capacity measures that focus on sea-level rise solutions while inclusively representing a variety of positive responses in both developed and developing countries.

This dissertation presents a framework for ‘Adaptive Capacity Enablers for Sea-Level Rise Solutions’ as a method of assessing and enabling adaptive capacity by analysing case studies, identifying key lessons, and integrating successful strategies from developed and developing countries. The work supports a call for reciprocal knowledge exchange, recognising variability in the ability and willingness of communities to adapt and in their access to high and low-tech solutions. The argument is that sharing information between developed and developing countries will improve future project-scale strategies, strengthen community resilience, reduce vulnerability, and enhance our collective adaptive capacity.
Catherine Campbell
Tutor(s)
David Grierson
Mr Duncan Scott
2022
An exploration into the adaptive capacities of developed versus developing countries in their response to global rising sea levels.
Common adaptive capacity enablers in both developed and developing countries that must be integrated into strategies at the core.
Enabler Measures system with three ‘yes / no’ measures per criterion to gauge implementation success of the adaptive capacity enablers.
Two developed countries strategies and two developing countries strategies are examined against the Enabler Measures.
The Netherlands is renowned for water management, including the Delta Works.
The Louisiana Flood Action Plan consists of natural and hard engineering solutions, forming a ‘Multiple Lines of Defence Strategy’.
Located between the Iraqi Tigris and Euphrates rivers, lies the Al’Tahla floating islands of the Ma’dan, the Marsh Arabs.
The African community of Ganvie have adapted to living on water for the past four centuries.
After examination, it is evident that there are key areas of strength and weakness in achieving resilience against SLR.
Attention must focus on a duality of information between high and low-tech solutions, supported by the communities’ willingness to adapt.
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