Paper short abstract

This presentation offers critical reflection from a practitioner perspective on the challenges and opportunities of assessing differential adaptive capacity to respond to natural hazards and climate change. It discusses the potentials of thinking with, rather than controlling, unruly dynamics.

Paper long abstract

Planners are increasingly concerned with mitigating multi-hazard risks, including cascading and compounding climate risks. Simultaneously, development scholars have critiqued market-based logics of transition and clarified the necessity of assessment frameworks capable of comprehending transformative action within and despite uncertainty. In this presentation I attempt to report back into conversation the practical considerations of taking these advancements seriously and offer the Oregon natural hazard risk assessment as case study for analysis and critique. The science, and scholarship, is clear: mitigation and adaptation alone are insufficient amidst new ecological extremes, warranting research capable of staying in conversation with the highly uncertain, even unruly, dynamics of climate and social transformation. However, the enduring demarcation between planning spheres and lineage of prediction and control within planning practice spotlights the urgency of risk assessment methodologies capable of partnering with unruliness rather than attempting to isolate and control it. The case study risk assessment tool is a bold, hands-on attempt to bridge theory and practice amidst and despite uncertain regulatory landscapes. The risk assessment identifies and ranks choice areas for mitigation investment, based on a preference ranking model that evaluates community capacity to adapt and and respond to vulnerabilities. In this presentation, I explore unruly dynamics within the practice of planning towards transformation, report back into conversation the challenges and opportunities of doing so, and engage unruliness within climate transformations literature towards a reimagination and reclamation of possible futures.

Paper short abstract

Flooding demands interdisciplinary & intercultural solutions. Our Semangat Tasik (Lakehood) framework examines Orang Asli flood resilience in Malaysia’s Tasik Chini. It integrates hydrology, spirituality, culture, and politics, revealing Indigenous worldviews and adaptation strategies despite risks.

Paper long abstract

We develop the Semangat Tasik or Lakehood framework to foreground the constellation of traditional ecological knowledge, more-than-human relationships, Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews and practices, and socionatural entities informing flood risk management in Pahang, Malaysia. Anchored on a political ecology approach and inspired by the Riverhood Framework (Boelens et al., 2023), we propose a multi-dimensional framework to understand how Orang Asli (Jakun tribe) communities conceptualise and live with flooding in Tasik Chini (Chini Lake), the second largest natural freshwater lake in Peninsular Malaysia. Semangat Tasik conceptualises flooding into four interrelated dimensions: flooding as hydrological-environmental, flooding as metaphysical-spiritual, flooding as material-cultural, and flooding as developmental-political. First, Semangat Tasik sees flooding as an environmental and seasonal phenomenon that naturally inundates the land, which could threaten lives and properties. Second, Semangat Tasik embraces flooding as the material manifestation of the Orang Asli’s worldly beliefs of the metaphysical and spiritual entities inhabiting and flowing through the lake. Third, Semangat Tasik welcomes flooding as a positive process of regular renewal that fertilises the soil, clears the sediments, and nourishes their natural environment, which are integral for Orang Asli’s forest- and lake-based cultural identity and livelihoods. Lastly, Semangat Tasik problematizes flooding as the continuous reminder of the injustices faced by Indigenous communities from politically motivated and socially unfair development projects that undermine their knowledge, well-being, and long-standing connections to the lake. Ultimately, the Semangat Tasik or Lakehood framework offers a heuristic to critically understand the more-than-human, place-based knowledge and practices they employ to adapt to floods.

Paper short abstract

Munroe Island, Kerala’s fastest sinking inhabited landscape, faces daily tidal submergence, mobility loss and displacement. Using ethnography and political ecology, this study examines lived climate precarity, uneven tourism benefits, and the slow violence eroding land, livelihoods and hope.

Paper long abstract

Munroe Island in Kerala—India’s fastest sinking inhabited landscape—offers a critical site to examine how climate change, development, and governance intersect to shape everyday life. Once home to nearly 15,000 people, the population has reduced by almost half due to accelerating ecological degradation. Since the 2005 tsunami, tidal rhythms have transformed from bi-monthly to bi-daily inundations, submerging roads, homes, and livelihoods for hours each day. As a fragile cluster of eight interlinked islands, Munroe resists singular policy interventions; impacts are uneven, governance fragmented, and solutions partial at best.

This paper proposes an ethnographic study of Munroe Island to foreground lived experiences of climate precarity—focusing on mobility loss, disrupted education, health emergencies, asset devaluation, and everyday negotiations with fear, water, and uncertainty. Through long-term participant observation, in-depth interviews with residents across age, gender, and occupation, and participatory mapping of disappearing infrastructures, the research captures how climate change is experienced not as an event, but as an ongoing condition.

The study is theoretically grounded in Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence, political ecology, and infrastructure studies, to analyse how environmental degradation, tourism-led development, and state inaction produce unequal vulnerabilities. While tourism has rebranded Munroe as a scenic destination, benefits remain concentrated among affluent resorts, intensifying local marginalisation.

By centring voices from a sinking archipelago, this research argues for climate justice approaches that recognise everyday suffering, spatial unevenness, and the limits of one-size-fits-all adaptation policies—before Munroe’s land, memory, and future are irreversibly submerged.

Paper short abstract

In South Sudan, Nile-driven floods are an education crisis: schools destroyed or turned into shelters, learning disrupted by displacement, and service delivery stretched system-wide to breaking point. Using interviews and flood case studies, we identify preparedness gaps and pro-equity responses.

Paper long abstract

The Nile River, flowing from Uganda in the south to Sudan in the north, bisects South Sudan and has indelibly shaped the country’s history and culture. When considering the advancing climate crisis, however, South Sudan’s most important natural resource is increasingly associated with ever worsening floods that disrupt lives and learning. While data is scarce, 2024 may have been the most devastating year of flooding yet, disrupting access to education by damaging or repurposing school infrastructure, displacing learners and teachers, and interrupting service delivery in already resource-constrained environments.

In South Sudan, these environmental shocks interact with structural drivers of fragility - weak governance, limited institutional capacity, and ongoing insecurity - producing a deepening polycrisis. The Ministry of General Education and Instruction (MoGEI) recently published the country’s first Education Emergency Preparedness Plan. However, despite efforts to construct flood-resilient infrastructure and establish temporary learning spaces, system-level responses remain fragmented and largely reactive, leaving education systems under environmental stress.

This study explores preparedness and reactiveness in South Sudan’s education sector through a series of mini case studies: seasonal floods in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, persistent flooding and displacement in Unity state, and flash flooding in Greater Pibor Administrative Area. We draw on semi-structured interviews conducted during August-September 2025 with local authorities, (I)NGOs, CSOs, community leaders, and adults and youth from affected communities. In doing so, we gather diverse perspectives on the impact of floods on education systems, and analyze what solutions can be applied that do not exacerbate existing inequalities and sensitivities.

Paper long abstract

Climate change is increasingly referenced in global education-policy debates. Yet, there remains limited conceptual clarity on what climate change means for education systems, and how education systems should respond to intensifying climate-related shocks. This paper addresses this gap by developing an empirically grounded conceptual framework for analyzing government responses to extreme climate events in Pakistan, with a focus on Punjab and Sindh and four climatic hazards: heatwaves, flooding, drought, and air pollution.

Our study has two aims: to propose a conceptual model that captures how governments work to protect children’s education from climate-induced disruptions; and to outline an empirical research design that can test and refine this model. Guided by the question of what a coherent conceptualization of state responsiveness to climate shocks might look like, we draw on multiple frameworks from education policy, governance, and the political economy of climate action. These include principal–agent approaches such as Pritchett’s accountability matrix and models that highlight the multisectoral and humanitarian dimensions of crisis response.

Methodologically, the paper proceeds in three parts. We begin with an exposure analysis using publicly available environmental and administrative data to map school-going adolescents’ vulnerability to extreme climate events. We then synthesize insights from existing conceptual models to propose a framework suited to Pakistan’s context. Finally, we outline a logical research design for empirically examining policy responses to climate shocks.

Overall, the paper contributes to clarifying the emerging field of climate-change research in education policy by offering both conceptual precision and a pathway for empirical inquiry.

Paper short abstract

This proposed study will examine how households affected by 2025 floods in Lahore responded differently to urban flooding. Using an adaptive capacity framework it will explore the vulnerability of households and their capacity to transform via mobilizing economic, social, and political capital.

Paper long abstract

Amid surging climate uncertainty, the 2025 floods in Pakistan present an important case to examine how affected households respond differently to large-scale devastating floods. Hence, this proposed research based on the adaptive capacity framework will aim to explore why some flood-affected households become increasingly vulnerable, while others are able to absorb impacts, adapt to new conditions, or pursue more transformative life trajectories. The research is grounded in the premise that households’ differential abilities to mobilize economic resources, social ties, and political networks, primarily shape their responses to such crisis.

The research will focus on urban flood-affected settings in Lahore district, Punjab, with particular attention to the rising challenge of urban flooding associated with rapid urbanization, inadequate drainage systems, and socio-spatial inequalities. By situating households along a continuum of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities, the research aims to examine how displacement, livelihood disruption, and access to institutional support influence resilience outcomes over time.

Methodologically, the study will generate insights into how social cohesion, informal networks, and local political engagement may enable adaptive and transformative responses, even under conditions of repeated climate stress. The research will contribute to the panel’s broader objective of critically reflecting on crisis responsiveness by moving beyond static notions of resilience.

Paper short abstract

Based on comparative research in Mexico and Puerto Rico, this paper examines how households use decentralised water and energy systems to add redundancy to failing infrastructures, shaping uneven capacities to absorb climate shocks and revealing the politics of everyday adaptation.

Paper long abstract

Current debates in development studies are often dominated by abstract accounts of the global polycrisis, paying limited attention to how climate disruption is materially experienced and managed in everyday life. This paper argues that the future of development must be examined from the ground up, through the ways households respond to climate-related shocks and recurrent infrastructure failure. Drawing on comparative research in Mexico and Puerto Rico, the paper examines the growing reliance on decentralised water and energy systems—such as rainwater harvesting and distributed solar power—as strategies through which households introduce redundancy into precarious urban service environments.

The paper shows how decentralised infrastructures function as household-level forms of material and socio-political capital, enabling differentiated capacities to absorb, adapt to, and sometimes reconfigure exposure to droughts, hurricanes, and other climate disruptions. By adding redundancy to unreliable centralised systems, these infrastructural constellations reshape everyday practices, redistribute responsibility for risk management, and alter relationships between households, communities, and the state. However, access to and control over such redundancy is uneven, reflecting broader social inequalities and differentiated abilities to mobilise financial resources, technical knowledge, and social networks.

By foregrounding lived experiences and place-specific dynamics, the paper connects global processes of climate change and structural inequality to household strategies of crisis responsiveness. It critically interrogates whether infrastructural redundancy enables transformative pathways toward more secure and inclusive urban futures, or whether it stabilises existing inequalities by shifting the burden of adaptation onto households themselves.

Paper short abstract

Kenya’s potato farmers face climate shocks yet stick to Shangi despite 50+ resilient varieties. Farmers want yield, market access, and taste, not just resilience. Policymakers and breeders must align breeding with farmer priorities and strengthen AKIS to secure food systems under climate stress

Paper long abstract

Potato farming in Kenya faces severe climate challenges including erratic rainfall, prolonged drought, rising temperatures and increasing pest and disease outbreak. These threats undermine food security and rural livelihood as potato is the country's second most important crop after maize. While over fifty climate resilient potato varieties have been released, adoption remain low. This study based on household survey and focused group discussions in Nakuru and Nyandarua regions, Kenya, unpacks the paradox. farmers widely perceive climate risks, yet their adaptation strategies focus on early maturing varieties, crop rotations and intensive chemical use rather than embracing new climate potato varieties. Shangi, a long serving variety though susceptible to diseases, dominates the farmers' choice. Farmers prioritize yield, market demand and stew quality over drought and heat tolerance. revealing disconnect between breeding and farmer choices. Econometric analysis shows that technical support from research institutes and NGOs boosts uptakes of new varieties while advice from buyers and Agricultural Training Centres correlate negatively, signalling systemic gaps in Kenya Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation system (AKIS). socio-economic factors such as marital status, income source, radio ownership, market distance further shape adoption decisions. The findings highlights that climate resilience alone do not drive adoption. Breading programs must integrate farmer preferred traits, leverage trusted informal networks and strengthen AKIS coordination. For development practitioners, these means aligning innovations with local priorities and market realities to secure food systems under climate stress

Paper short abstract

By showcasing how diverse social groups in two rural-urban sites in India respond to everyday precarity, the paper argues that existing approaches and discourses for building resilient communities must address how structural inequality impedes the ability of some communities to adapt and cope.

Paper long abstract

By documenting how diverse social groups respond to drastic forms of agrarian change and urban precarity, this paper showcases how structural inequality (landlessness and unequal land ownership and caste based hierarchies) and patriarchal gendered norms enables some dominant communities to adapt better often at the cost of impeding the adaptive capacity of marginalized communities such as landless Dalit agricultural labour, seasonal and daily wage labour. We show that while dominant caste communities are better able to adapt to agrarian pressures by maintaining, building, and forging caste, kinship, economic, and political based dominance and associations, social, environmental, and economic constraints (debt, caste status, informal and precarious wage work, fragile social networks) limits the ability of the marginalized and precariously laboring communities to respond to everyday economic precarity.

This paper draws from the fieldwork conducted by the author in two rural-urban areas in the Patiala district of Punjab in India as part of her doctoral work, sites which have been experiencing drastic changes owing to it's stagnating agrarian economy, migration, and urbanization. By showcasing how diverse social groups in two rural-urban sites in India respond to everyday precarity, the paper, thus, argues that existing approaches and discourses for building resilient communities must address how structural inequality impedes the ability of some communities to adapt and cope.

Paper short abstract

Using an RCT in drought-prone Malawi, we examine whether information and implementation support for conservation agriculture reduce farmers’ migration intentions. Results show that information alone is insufficient; credible external support is key to enabling adaptive responses to climate stress.

Paper long abstract

Drought threatens smallholder livelihoods in Malawi and drives migration as a coping strategy. Whether information-based climate adaptation alone can shift household responses without implementation support remains unclear. We examine whether providing information on conservation agriculture can reduce migration intentions among 771 smallholder farmers in a drought-prone region of Malawi. Using a randomized controlled trial, we assign participants to one of three groups: a control group; a first treatment group that receives video-based information on soil and water conservation techniques (Zai pits and mulching); and a second treatment group that receives the same information accompanied by a hypothetical scenario in which a non-governmental organisation provides implementation support. The three groups are balanced in size. We estimate treatment effects using ordinary least squares regression, focusing on migration intentions and farmers’ confidence in conservation practices to improve yields. We find that information alone does not significantly affect migration intentions. In contrast, when information is paired with credible external support, farmers report significantly lower intentions to migrate both to urban areas and abroad, alongside higher confidence in the productivity of conservation agriculture. These results suggest that adaptive responses to climate shocks depend not only on knowledge, but on households’ perceived capacity to implement change. By experimentally distinguishing between information and support, we provide micro-level evidence on the limits of resilience-based approaches and highlight the conditions under which households may move beyond short-term coping toward more stable adaptive trajectories in the face of climate uncertainty.

Paper short abstract

The paper presents a project being implemented in Sandbondtenga Province, Burkina Faso, which responds to the challenges of access to drinking and productive water, diversifying the income for vulnerable populations, and increasing the resilience of communities to risks and natural disasters.

Paper long abstract

This paper presents a multi-year initiative aimed at strengthening the resilience of vulnerable communities in Sandbondtenga Province, Burkina Faso. The project responds to vulnerabilities caused by erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and chronic water scarcity—conditions that undermine food security and livelihoods in one of the country’s most drought-prone regions.

The purpose of the project is to ensure sustainable access to drinking and productive water; and to build transformative capacities for disaster risk reduction. These objectives are pursued through integrated, participatory strategies that combine infrastructure development, capacity building, and social empowerment. Key interventions include the installation of solar-powered boreholes and drip irrigation systems, rehabilitation of degraded land for market gardening, and the establishment of women-led cooperatives to secure land tenure and diversify income sources. The project will impact approximately 2230 community members, of which 1509 are women.

The project aims to reduce dependence on unpredictable rainfall and restore soil fertility, mitigating the impacts of drought and land degradation. Water-saving technologies and organic farming practices contribute to sustainable resource management and scalable food production, while disaster preparedness planning sustainably addresses the growing frequency of climate-induced shocks by working through local authorities. Early results indicate significant progress, including a 79% improvement in livelihood outcomes and universal access to productive water among target groups.

This case underscores the importance of integrated, locally driven approaches to climate resilience that link environmental sustainability with economic empowerment, community livelihood and resilience. It offers practical insights for development actors seeking to operationalise climate adaptation in fragile, resource-constrained contexts.

Paper short abstract

Using expert elicitation and the Choquet integral, this study develops a Household Resilience Index. Experts differ in weighting criteria, yet asset ownership and adaptive capacity consistently emerge as the strongest determinants of household resilience.

Paper long abstract

Shocks such as floods and droughts disrupt both socioeconomic and ecological systems, with particularly severe impacts in sub-Saharan Africa, where heavy reliance on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture amplifies vulnerability (IPCC, 2022). Addressing these challenges requires a focus on resilience, a concept rooted in Holling’s ecological theory (Holling, 1973, 1996). In this study, resilience is defined as a household’s capacity to recover or return to a previous level of well-being, such as food security, following a shock (FAO, 2016). Household resilience can be measured using a composite index comprising multiple indicators (Ansah et al., 2019). The credibility, reliability, and public acceptance of such indices depend critically on transparent and robust methods for weighting indicators and aggregating them. However, limited transparency in these methodological choices often undermines confidence in composite resilience measures. To address these concerns, this study employs a seven-step expert elicitation process to derive indicator weights and applies the Choquet integral as a non-additive aggregation technique. This framework facilitates the construction of a Household Resilience Index (HRI) comprising four main criteria and eighteen sub-criteria. Data were collected from twelve experts selected based on their publication records through online interviews. In addition, ethnographic analysis was conducted to deepen understanding of the rationales underlying expert judgements. The findings reveal divergence among experts in prioritising the four main criteria, although asset ownership and adaptive capacity consistently receive higher weights. Ethnographic evidence further highlights a broad consensus on the importance of these criteria, alongside nuanced differences in the valuation of specific sub-criteria.

Paper short abstract

Can access to cash transfers enable the adoption of climate-resilient adaptation practices in agriculture? Our paper answers this question by exploiting a spatial regression discontinuity in the Terai region in South Asia(India and Nepal), showing a significant difference in adoption and yield.

Paper long abstract

An International border across Nepal and India splits an otherwise similar agroclimatic area. Nepal promotes climate-resilient practices similar to India. However, farmers in India are eligible to receive a cash transfer under a national policy aimed at purchasing agricultural inputs and promoting crop health. Both these regions, which have the same agro-climatic zones (Terrai region), are exposed to frequent climatic risks like floods, droughts, and unseasonal rainfall. In our sample of 1003 farmers, affected by floods, droughts, and unseasonal rainfall, these factors negatively affect their agricultural yield. Additionally, these farmers lack access to formal risk mitigation programs and mechanisms that can help them smooth their consumption and minimize the shock from climatic and non-climatic events that negatively impact their livelihoods and income. Our spatial RD estimates reveal a substantial difference in rice yields as well as a gendered pattern of adoption. We show that this is on account of investments in water efficiency practices that are capital-intensive. However, we find that women are less likely to receive the cash transfer, adopt water- efficiency practices, and have a lower relative yield, making them less likely to adopt as well as build more resilience towards adverse climatic events. The strong causal evidence suggests that cash transfers can facilitate the adoption of climate-resilient agricultural practices and improve the yields of crops. Women might need to be targeted as they do not avail of policy-delivered cash transfers as much, drawing light on the importance of women-centric policy design for better uptake of climate-resilient practices.

Paper short abstract

This study examines climate change impacts on previously non-flood prone communities in the Philippines. Aligned with the Sendai Framework, thematic analysis of interviews reveals economic, social, and environmental costs, underscoring resilience and planning needs.

Paper long abstract

This phenomenological study examines the effects of the changing climate in previously non-flood-prone communities in the Philippines. This study aligns with one of the main priorities of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030): enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. This study positions local experience within global conversations on disaster preparedness, climate adaptation, and sustainable development. The study employed thematic analysis and purposive–snowball sampling. Emerging themes included economic and social costs, community resilience, and environmental impact. Semi-structured interviews using open-ended questions and bracketing techniques allowed participants to share narratives with minimal researcher bias. The findings suggest that while resilience is critical in disaster risk management, there is an urgent need for a more comprehensive strategy that focuses on long-term development, like urban planning, to address the deep-rooted issues of environmental degradation in developing communities. This research contributes to the broader discussion on the trade-offs between climate change and economic growth and development, highlighting the importance of integrating community experiences into policy-making to mitigate the effects of climate change and natural disasters.

Paper short abstract

Which disaster-risk reforms should Southeast Asian governments do first? Using a 1991–2021 dataset for 11 countries, we rank DRR practices by difficulty and payoff, turning vague guidance into concrete, sequenced priorities.

Paper long abstract

Policymakers in Southeast Asia face a problem: with limited time and resources, which DRR practices should come first, and which later? The region suits sequencing: In this setting, frequent hazards, shared arrangements (ASEAN/AHA Centre), and institutional change enable cross-country, over-time comparison. We assemble a 1991–2021 country–year dataset for eleven countries and place countries and practices on one scale. For each practice—early-warning reach, evacuation drills, incident command, building-code enforcement, timely advisories, local DRR budgeting—we estimate difficulty (capability threshold for likely adoption) and discrimination (how sharply it separates stronger from weaker systems). The core gap is sequencing: under tight budgets and uneven capacity, governments must choose first steps. Guidance says what to do, not in what order, at what capability thresholds adoption is feasible, or where each step yields the most decision-relevant information. Our single scale co-locates practices and countries, surfaces trade-offs, and recasts prioritisation as explicit capability-matching.

Accordingly, sequencing matters: misordered reforms waste capacity, slow risk reduction, and impede regional interoperability. We limit gaps by focusing on widely reported practices and repeat analyses in more- and less-open information environments to test reporting sensitivity. We validate by asking: (1) Do higher-scoring countries look stronger on external indicators of administration and public information not used to build it? (2) When scores rise, do deaths, people affected, and EM-DAT losses fall the next year—controlling for hazard exposure, development, common shocks, and persistence? The result is a sequencing tool that specifies what to prioritise, offering comparably scaled, decision-oriented guidance for governments, ASEAN bodies, and partners.

Paper short abstract

In this paper, I critique Eurocentric debates on democratic resilience in the backdrop of the Anthropocene. Developing democratic practices in everyday life is only possible through decolonisation, since liberal democracies' golden age was possible because of colonisation.

Paper long abstract

Contemporary debates in the global North, in the backdrop of the Anthropocene and polycrisis, and the crisis of the social contract are framed through the growing scepticism towards democracy and its crisis itself. Many scholars of democratic resilience focus on preserving or restoring liberal democracy by so-called "bouncing back" to a presumed golden age/pre-crisis state. However, such thinking overlooks that this golden age of liberal democracy was only possible through the production of crisis beyond the borders of the global North through colonialism, slavery, extractive political economies and epistemic violence. In many ways, it also led to the ecological crisis of the Anthropocene as well.

Hence, this paper asks, if democracy is to be preserved, what exactly is worth preserving? Current responses to the climate crisis rely on global North-centric and technocratic solutions, and this is also the case when it comes to other crises. Often, such solutions overstep and disregard democratic practices. To reimagine and make democratic practices a part of everyday life to solve and address the contemporary problems, I argue that decolonisation of democratic spaces is required. Such spaces are not merely deliberative forums; rather, they question colonial presumptions, promote participation from the margins, and enable dialogue and conversations. This approach contributes to what Benno Fladvad describes as the revitalisation of democratic interactions as a response to both climate change and the crisis of democracy. Hence, it goes beyond Eurocentricism on democratic resilience and rethinks democracy in the context of the Anthropocene through a call to decolonisation.