Limits to adaptation

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages305–307(2013)Cite this article

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An actor-centered, risk-based approach to defining limits to social adaptation provides a useful analytic framing for identifying and anticipating these limits and informing debates over society's responses to climate change.

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Figure 1: Acceptable, tolerable and intolerable risks in relation to adaptation limits.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mozaharul Alam, Habiba Gitay, Susanne Moser, James Thurlow, and Koko Warner for their constructive comments.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Callcott Building 709 Bull Street, Columbia, 29208, South Carolina, USA

    Kirstin Dow

  2. Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, Amsterdam, 1081HV, Netherlands

    Frans Berkhout

  3. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, One Bethel Valley Road, PO Box 2800, MS-6301, Oak Ridge, 37831-6301, Tennessee, USA

    Benjamin L. Preston

  4. Stockholm Environment Institute, Kräftriket 2B, Stockholm, 106 91, Sweden

    Richard J. T. Klein

  5. Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research and Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden

    Richard J. T. Klein

  6. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch, P/Bag x7, Claremont, Cape Town, 7735, South Africa

    Guy Midgley

  7. School of Agricultural, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, P/Bag x101, Scottsville, 3209, South Africa

    M. Rebecca Shaw

  8. Environmental Defense Fund, 123 Mission St, 28th Floor, San Francisco, 94105, California, USA

    M. Rebecca Shaw

Authors
  1. Kirstin Dow
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  2. Frans Berkhout
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  3. Benjamin L. Preston
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  4. Richard J. T. Klein
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  5. Guy Midgley
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  6. M. Rebecca Shaw
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kirstin Dow.

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Dow, K., Berkhout, F., Preston, B. et al. Limits to adaptation. Nature Clim Change 3, 305–307 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1847

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