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The Co-construction Approach as Approach to Developing Adaptation Strategies in the Face of Climate Change and Variability: A Conceptual Framework

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce the co-construction process as a productive approach to developing agricultural adaptation strategies to cope with climate change and variability in Québec, Canada. The methodology is based on a critical synthesis of existing literature both of peer-reviewed articles and the grey literature that contain analyses on agriculture, climate change and adaptation. Our focus is on the approach which was used in a research project in Québec dealing with agricultural adaptation and which was the result of almost 20 years of research by the co-author of this article into agricultural adaptation to climate change and variability in several regions in Québec. Based on our research teams’ experiences, the co-construction approach can lead to a planned adaptation by farmers and as well by government agencies involved in supporting farmers’ adaptation to climate change and variability. While co-construction processes started as a top-down approach in Europe, it is increasingly initiated as a bottom-up approach. We introduce the origin of the adaptation concept and then differentiate between adaptation responses of biological systems and human systems. Co-construction overlaps to a certain extent with collaborative research, but co-construction does not need to incorporate researchers. Co-construction can also be part of a research action process, but once more, formal researchers need not be involved and the research action leadership can be undertaken by actors other than researchers. Adaptation has many characteristics and different types including several forms of adaptation that involve both private agents such as farmers and government agencies as well as non-governmental organizations. We also point out the similarities between the bottom-up perspective of current co-construction and the grounded theory approach in terms of methodology (i.e. data collection and analysis). Finally, we discuss the implementation of the co-construction approach in the context of agricultural adaptation to climate change and variability. Continued involvement with farmers has helped them appropriate the reality of climate change and variability which constitutes the first prerequisite in order to develop adaptation strategies.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Natural Resources Canada for funding this study through project Grant number (A1332, CCIAP). And more directly, I would like to thank my supervisor Christopher Robin Bryant for supporting me financially in this project.

Authors’ contribution

C.A. acquired, cleaned and analysed the data; wrote and edited the manuscript. C.R.B. edited the manuscript and supervised the entire study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, EV1-107, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Cherine Akkari

  2. School of Environmental Design and Rural Planning, Landscape Architecture Bldg., University of Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Christopher Robin Bryant

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  1. Cherine Akkari
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Correspondence to Cherine Akkari.

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Akkari, C., Bryant, C.R. The Co-construction Approach as Approach to Developing Adaptation Strategies in the Face of Climate Change and Variability: A Conceptual Framework. Agric Res 5, 162–173 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40003-016-0208-8

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