The OUCE incorporates the School of Geography and the Environmental Change Institute and has particular expertise in climate change science, global and regional climate modelling, as well as climate impacts, vulnerability, adaptation and policy, and ecological economics. 

OUCE is a core partner in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, hosts the UK Climate Impacts Program, and conducts research into ecosystem dynamics, human ecology, biodiversity and climate change, and conservation practice. They are also closely involved in climateprediction.net, the largest public-resource climate modelling project in the world.

Researching and Assessing the Adaptive Capacity of Coastal Zones and Practical Adaptation Options in the Least Developed Countries / Small Island Developing States (LDCs/SIDS) (in the 12 countries identified in 2007 as both LDCs/SIDS; Cape Verde, Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Maldives, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tuvalu and Vanuatu).
Action pledge (186 kB)

The research specifically aims to understand the natural adaptive capacity of coastal ecosystems, human systems, and the local contexts of adaptation in the LDCs/SIDS as they relate to communities’ livelihoods and key related sectors e.g. tourism, fisheries and agriculture; including underlying access to resources, processes of decision-making and impacts of adaptation measures.

Key activities

• Undertake and design research to understand local contexts of adaptation, including underlying access to resources, natural adaptive capacity of coastal ecosystems, adaptive capacity of human systems and livelihoods, and effects of adaptation measures
• Undertake and design research on policies, regulations, key sectors, perverse subsidies and other constraints to the development of adaptive capacity of coastal systems
• Undertake and design research aimed at identifying and assessing practical adaptation options, including their costs, benefits and possible trade-offs
• Develop a set of indicators and a conceptual framework for adaptation in coastal zones that would assist in identifying the range of available adaptation options while at the same time providing for flexibility and redesign of options as more clarity emerges regarding the level of change or impacts to which different coastal zones need to adapt
• Support the development of local scientific capability to understand local impacts and develop responses – capacity building, scientific centres, financial resources

Expected results

Development of a set of indicators and a replicable framework with which to evaluate and monitor levels of adaptive capacity and assess practical adaptation options for coastal zones in LDCs /SIDS.

Indicators of achievement

• Documentary evidence of indicators and replicable framework with which to evaluate and monitor levels of adaptive capacity and assess practical adaptation options for coastal zones in LDCs /SIDS
• Pilot documents containing assessment of adaptive capacity of coastal zones in selected LDCs/SIDS
• Pilot documents containing assessment of practical adaptation options for coastal zones in selected LDCs/SIDS