Climate Adaptation and Resilience
Both general and GLAM-specific resources about adapting in anticipation of climate risks
Action for Climate Empowerment: A guide for galleries, libraries, archives and museums
Summary
In November 2021, the Glasgow Work Programme on Action for Climate Empowerment was formed following COP26. This guide provides GLAM organizations with background information about climate change initiatives, as well as recommendations for public education and awareness, mitigation, and adaptation to support climate empowerment. A deeper dive into climate mitigation and adaptation for museums is available in the Mobilising Museums for Climate Action toolbox.
Key Points
Climate empowerment refers to providing institutions and individuals with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to understand climate change and its impacts and respond through mitigation and adaptation actions.
Outlines actions that GLAMs can take for climate empowerment, including “education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information and international cooperation on climate change.” Provides focused recommendations in the areas of policy, cross-sector and regional collaboration, tools and support, and monitoring and evaluation. In all aspects, actions must be taken in a just and sustainable manner.
Empowerment and recommendations connected to numerous international agreements, including the Rio Declaration, UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, Paris Agreement, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and more.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Climate actions outlined can be adapted to and incorporated in digital preservation work areas.
Can support advocacy efforts by connecting local GLAM practices to international climate actions and efforts.
Source
Curating Tomorrow is a UK-based consultancy for the museum and heritage sector. The firm is led by Henry McGhie, who has experience in ecology, ornithology, and museums.
Full Citation
McGhie, H. (2022). Action for Climate Empowerment: A guide for galleries, libraries, archives and museums. Curating Tomorrow. http://www.curatingtomorrow.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/action-for-climate-empowerment_2022.pdf
American Archives and Climate Change: Risks and adaptation
Summary
Quantitative study of water-related climate change impacts to archives across the United States, as well as recommendations to prepare for them.
Key Points
The authors make a strong case for why archives need access to climate data to anticipate future preservation risks.
This article demonstrates a strong motivation for archives to create climate action plans: “Results indicate that approximately 98.8% of archives are likely to be affected by at least one climate risk factor, though on average, most archives are at low risk of exposure (90%) when risk factors are combined.”
Includes management-level recommendations for archives in areas with different risk levels (high, medium, low) as well as for the archives community more broadly.
Relevance to Digital Preservation
Although the focus of the article is on how water-related climate change risks (such as sea level rise) will impact tangible cultural heritage resources, the geographic analysis can easily be extrapolated to prepare for how digital resources are stored and replicated. It is also a useful resource in advocating for climate action plans with library leadership.
Source
Climate Risk Management is an open-access Elsevier scholarly journal on ScienceDirect
Full Citation
Mazurczyk, T., Piekielek, N., Tansey, E., & Goldman, B. (2018). American archives and climate change: Risks and adaptation. Climate Risk Management, 20, 111–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2018.03.005
Museums and Disaster Risk Reduction: Building Resilience in Museums, Society, and Nature
Summary
The Guide is created with the specific community of museums and museum workers. It identifies two main goals:
To help museums build their resilience, and reduce the impact of disasters on museums themselves.
To help museums contribute to resilience-building in the wider world, for the benefit of society and the natural environment.
Key Points
This Guide draws on two global Agendas:
Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to set the world on a path to a sustainable future by 2030.
Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals are explored in the accompanying guide ‘Museums and the Sustainable Development Goals’.
The resource contains sections on why museums should prioritize risk reduction and risk resilience work.
The resource has a section, “Case studies of Disaster Risk Reduction in practice” that comprises real-life cases of museums around the world partaking in risk reduction and resilience work.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Museums increasingly rely on digital infrastructure and digital preservation activities to safeguard their collections.
This guide does not specifically reference digital preservation but provides holistic recommendations for museums to prepare for and mitigate risk.
Source
This resource is produced by the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) based in Rome. The ICCROM is an “intergovernmental organization working in service to its Member States to promote the conservation of all forms of cultural heritage in every region of the world.” It is not clear from the website or resource if the resource was peer-reviewed.
Full Citation
International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property. (n.d.). Museums and Disaster Risk Reduction: Building resilience in museums, society and nature | ICCROM | Our Collections Matter. Our Collections Matter Toolkit. Retrieved November 4, 2024, from https://ocm.iccrom.org/documents/museums-and-disaster-risk-reduction-building-resilience-museums-society-and-nature
Disaster Preparedness in Sri Lankan University Libraries: Before COVID-19
Summary
This mixed-method study explores the need to create disaster risk reduction plans for academic libraries in Sri Lanka. Different types of disasters are discussed.
Key Points
Study conducted - polled 15 Sri Lankan academic libraries; results indicate that fire and failure of dams are two of the most likely natural and man-made disasters to impact library collections.
The study was conducted right before COVID-19 and the authors included mention of COVID as a marker of unpreparedness for a global health crisis.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
This article discusses natural disasters caused by climate change including wildfires. Fire can cause damages to digital collections, equipment, and people. The article is relevant to disaster planning in institutions with digital collections.
Source
The Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association is the flagship journal of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). It is a quarterly publication for information science researchers, information professionals, related disciplines and industries. All Research and Research-in-Practice articles in JALIA have undergone double-anonymized peer review.
Full Citation
Wijayasundara, N. D. (2021). Disaster Preparedness in Sri Lankan University Libraries: Before COVID-19. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, 70(3), 246–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/24750158.2021.1955319
Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios
Summary
In response to the scarcity of robust planning for likely catastrophic climate scenarios, the authors make a case for why understanding different levels of climate risks is critical and outline a research agenda for building adaptation plans.
Key Points
Understanding worst-case scenarios can compel societies, governments, and industries to scale back the driving forces of the scenarios, such as the nuclear disarmament efforts that were a response to the idea of “nuclear winter.”
Although projected climate scenarios and their risk cascades are uncertain, they should activate preparation, not complacency - because planning for them is more manageable during times of stability than when actively responding to catastrophic events.
Includes definitions of risks, including: latent risk, risk cascade, systemic risk, extreme climate change, extinction risk, extinction threat, societal fragility, societal collapse, global catastrophic risk, global catastrophic threat, global decimation threat, endgame territory, and worst-case warming.
Proposes a research agenda to explore:
Understanding long term impacts of anthropogenic climate change.
Deeper research into non-explored risks and missing aspects that address whether climate change could be triggered in a cascade, such as mass mortality.
Creating more comprehensive “integrated catastrophe assessments.”
Exploring missing aspects from current models, such as mass mortality.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Preservation planning requires an understanding of different types of risks and how they can compound, to adequately mitigate their possibility. This presents a clear case for how cascading risks could undermine society (and the human legacy we preserve) and why we should plan for deep uncertainty now, when we are in a reasonably stable state.
Source
This article was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary scientific journal of the National Academy of Sciences.
Full Citation
Kemp, L., Xu, C., Depledge, J., Ebi, K. L., Gibbins, G., Kohler, T. A., Rockström, J., Scheffer, M., Schellnhuber, H. J., Steffen, W., & Lenton, T. M. (2022). Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(34), e2108146119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
Ecosystem Stewardship: Sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet
Summary
In the context of resource management, this brings together discussions of socio-economic and environmental sustainability under a socio-ecological framework to argue for the importance of reframing/transforming planning, governance, policy, and management approaches to foreground social/societal adaptation and resilience given rapid, unprecedented changes in our ecological environment.
Key Points
Various points, definitions, and recommendations could be transferred to the digital preservation context, for example, policy and program development, change management, and resourcing.
Includes a helpful Glossary that helps define terminology related to climate change like adaptive capacity, resilience, and transformation.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Includes a call out (Box 3) titled, “Examples of stewardship strategies to prepare for, and shape, uncertain change” that can be applicable to any sector. Specific recommendations like “Develop transparent information systems and mapping tools that contribute to developing trust among decision-makers and stakeholders, and build support for action” can be exercised in the digital preservation context.
Includes a call out (Box 4) titled, “Strategies for transforming from traps to potentially more favorable trajectories” that can be applicable in the digital preservation context. Recommendations include guidance on preparing for transformation, navigating transition, and building resilience of the new regime.
Source
Access granted through institutional paywall through ScienceDirect.
Full Citation
Chapin, F. S., Carpenter, S. R., Kofinas, G. P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W. C., Olsson, P., Smith, D. M. S., Walker, B., Young, O. R., Berkes, F., Biggs, R., Grove, J. M., Naylor, R. L., Pinkerton, E., Steffen, W., & Swanson, F. J. (2010). Ecosystem stewardship: Sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 25(4), 241–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.008
Climate-resilient infrastructure
Summary
This is a policy paper based on the experiences of OECD and G20 countries. The paper encourages systems thinking (instead of focusing on singular or a subset of factors) and outlines adaptation measures for resiliency. It identifies public access to and clear communication of information, technical and institutional capacity building, financial investments, and collaborations as key.
Key Points
Looks at how transportation, energy, telecomms, and water infrastructure can be made resilient to climate change.
Most organizations/individuals don’t have control over all or most of their infrastructure, but resilience of vendors and partners can be considered/built into project considerations. Also addresses service providers.
Discusses two types of measures: structural adaptation and management (non-structural) adaptation.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Management is more applicable at the digital stewardship practitioner level: “changing the timing of maintenance to account for changing patterns of energy demand and supply, investment in early warning systems or purchasing insurance to address financial consequences of climate variability. These measures can also include enhanced monitoring of existing assets to reduce the risk of failure as climate conditions change. Adaptive management approaches also include provisions to include flexibility from the outset to monitor and adjust to changing circumstances over the assets lifetime.” (page 4)
Source
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries. It was founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum whose member countries describe themselves as “committed to democracy and the market economy.” The majority of OECD members are generally regarded as developed countries, with high-income economies.
Full Citation
OECD. (2018). Climate-resilient infrastructure. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/4fdf9eaf-en
Enhancing organizational resilience through emergency planning: Learnings from cross‐sectoral lessons
Summary
A thematic analysis of seven incident reports from High Reliability Organizations (HROs) to identify cross-sectoral themes and lessons in organizational resilience and emergency preparedness and planning.
HROs are organizations characterized by a “preoccupation with failure [rather than success], reluctance to simplify interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise,” such as those in the nuclear, aviation, and aerospace industries.
Key Points
Loss can occur in sudden accidents (“the result of flawed processes involving interactions among system components, including people, societal and organizational structures, engineering activities and physical system components”) and gradual shifts towards failure (“an organization not adapting effectively to the complexity of its structure and environment, while evidence of risks become invisible to people working hard to produce under pressure, such that safety margins gradually erode over time”).
Identifies 47 sector-agnostic lessons across five phases (Precursors, Initiation, Response, Recovery, and Termination; see Table 3) and eight categories: “emphasizing the process of emergency preparedness, underestimating the reference accidents, aligning the safety culture throughout emergency response systems, understanding the purpose of command and control, communicating with the public, attending to welfare long term, training responders in non-technical skills, assuring capability and availability of resources.”
Provides recommendations for establishing a system and culture for organizational learning to enable organizations to learn from past incidents, both within and outside of their sector.
Relevance to Digital Stewardship
Proactive, adaptive approach to risk management, disaster planning, and incident response, outlining key factors and lessons to incorporate into digital preservation practice and considerations around climate change.
Emphasis on both procedural and cultural change management for effective emergency response.
Source
The Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management publishes “all aspects of contingency planning, scenario analysis and crisis management in both corporate and public sectors.”
Full Citation
Crichton, M. T., Ramsay, C. G., & Kelly, T. (2009). Enhancing organizational resilience through emergency planning: Learnings from cross‐sectoral lessons. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 17(1), 24–37. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5973.2009.00556.x