Resource lens for sustainable adaptation : Western Greenland

Verkefnið er lokað til 1.8.2014.Until recently, the impacts of climate variability and long term change in the Arctic have been largely viewed through a physical science lens. This has shaped and potentially limited resource management strategies and climate adaptation measures in the Arctic. It also has possibly increased the vulnerability of these resources and the systems that depend on them This thesis starts by taking a broader view of ‘resources’ to include physical, human, and social forms of capital, as well as natural resource wealth. Building on new research methodologies with a specific Arctic context, it then incorporates findings from two climate adaptation case studies in Western Greenland, and sets out to show that: 1. Climate change is experienced as a phenomenon that is principally changing resources and access to resources, 2. Coastal communities need to assess their adaptation options in terms of their potential to enhance, diminish, and reshape resources and access to those resources, 3. This assessment can be facilitated through a new adaptation tool in the form of a “Resource Lens for Adaptation”